Adenauer

Critical Acclaim for ADENAUER

"A gripping narrative . . . brings to life an intriguing historical figure . . . an enthralling perspective on the processes that shaped the postwar world." --Daily Telegraph (London)

"Charts the ironies of Adenauer's complicated life. This is the story of a marathon man, but it is narrated at the pace of a sprinter and with the elegance of a hurdler."--The Times (London)

"Lucid and engaging. This is a well-researched and elegantly written volume which deserves a wider readership than the purely political."--The Herald (Glasgow)

"A highly readable, thoroughly reliable, intelligently critical life-and-times. . . . This portrait does justice to a man who is often invoked as a prophet of a United States of Europe, but who was in truth the greatest of German patriots."--Literary Review (London)

"Well-researched and admirably written . . . reveals Adenauer the man--with all his authority and strength, his persistence and endurance, and his streak of ruthlessness and political cunning."--The Independent (London)

THE LAST GREAT FRENCHMAN

"Knowledgeable, lucid . . . the best English biography of de Gaulle."--The New York Times Book Review

"Charles Williams has matched a great subject by something near to a great book."--Daily Telegraph (London)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS viii

PREFACE x

PART ONE: The Kaiser’s Germany

1 COLOGNE: 1876 3

2 ‘GAUDEAMUS IGITUR JUVENES DUM SUMUS’ 15

3 THE END OF YOUTH 31

4 THE LADDER OF AMBITION 45

5 A TIME OF TRAGEDY 60

6 THE MANAGEMENT OF DEFEAT 75

PART TWO: Weimar Germany

1 THE AFTERMATH OF WAR 95

2 LIFE HAS TO GO ON 111

3 THE REPARATIONS CR I S I S 126

4 1923 140

5 COLOGNE I S FREE! 157

6 THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC MAYOR 172

7 DUBIOUS MANOEUVRES 186

8 CONFRONTATION 203

PART THREE: Hitler’s Germany

1 DESCENT INTO DARKNESS 215

2 THEY START TO CLOSE IN 229

3 HE NO LONGER MATTERS 241

4 KEEPING OUT OF TROUBLE 253

5 A QUIET WAR 266

6 ‘THE WAR I S OVER! ’ 276

PART FOUR: Adenauer’s Germany

1 SACKED BY THE BRITISH 293

2 ANOTHER POLITICAL BIRTH – ANOTHER PERSONAL DEATH 307

3 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NEW GERMANY 323

4 THE FEDERAL CHANCELLOR 344

5 BUILDING EUROPE – AND FACING THE BEAR 362

6 AT HOME AND AT WORK 380

7 POLITICS IS AN ART – NOT A SCIENCE 392

8 WHERE DOES GERMANY STAND? 410

9 CAN ANYONE BE TRUSTED? 424

10 ENTER THE GENERAL 446

11 KHRUSHCHEV’ S CHALLENGE 465

12 THREATS AND COUNTER-THREATS 486

13 FROM TRIUMPH TO DISMISSAL 503

14 FINALE 524

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 539

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 542

NOTES 546

INDEX 570

Charles Williams, Lord Williams of El-vel, has enjoyed a distinguished political career,becomingaLabour Life Peer in 1985beforebeingelected Deputy Leader of the Opposition in 1989. He is theauthor oftwo brilliantly received biographies, The Last Great Frenchman and Bradman. Konrad Adenauer––the man who has become known as the father of the New Germany––was one of the truly great leaders of the twentieth century. In an astonishing political career that spanned six decades, this extraordinary statesman lifted Germany out of the ruins of the Second World War and helped shape the modern political landscape, both of his own country and of Europe.

Marvelously well written by esteemed biographer Charles Williams, this authoritative portrait captures the complex man who, as West Germany’s first chancellor, brought the land of the Rhine out of the devastation wrought by wartime defeat to amazing prosperity and acceptance on the world scene. Difficult yet determined, Adenauer not only instilled his homeland with both economic prosperity and democratic principles, but also succeeded in defusing the tensions between France and Germany that had dominated much of their recent history, paving the way for the Treaty of Rome and the establishment of the European Economic Community.

Born in 1876 in Cologne, Adenauer was a devout Roman Catholic who rose from obscurity when he was elected mayor of that city, a position he held for sixteen years. He went on to achieve national prominence in the Weimar Republic but was imprisoned in a concentration camp when the Nazis came to power. Years later, he organized the Christian Democratic Union and became West Germany’s first chancellor, retiring after three consecutive reelections in 1963, a few years short of his ninetieth birthday.

Williams draws on hitherto untapped sources from the former Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic for this new biography. In this unforgettable life story of one of history’s great statesmen, Williams captures the glory, the triumphs, the failures, and the enduring legacy of this exemplary figure.

A penetrating epic tale that bears testimony to this most singular of nations, Adenauer is as much about the making of modern Germany as it is about one of the twentieth century’s foremost statesmen.

Critical Acclaim for ADENAUER

"A gripping narrative . . . brings to life an intriguing historical figure . . . an enthralling perspective on the processes that shaped the postwar world." ––Daily Telegraph (London)

"Charts the ironies of Adenauer’s complicated life. This is the story of a marathon man, but it is narrated at the pace of a sprinter and with the elegance of a hurdler."––The Times (London)

"Lucid and engaging. This is a well-researched and elegantly written volume which deserves a wider readership than the purely political."––The Herald (Glasgow)

"A highly readable, thoroughly reliable, intelligently critical life-and-times. . . . This portrait does justice to a man who is often invoked as a prophet of a United States of Europe, but who was in truth the greatest of German patriots."––Literary Review (London)

"Well-researched and admirably written . . . reveals Adenauer the man––with all his authority and strength, his persistence and endurance, and his streak of ruthlessness and political cunning."––The Independent (London)

THE LAST GREAT FRENCHMAN

"Knowledgeable, lucid . . . the best English biography of de Gaulle."––The New York Times Book Review

"Charles Williams has matched a great subject by something near to a great book."––Daily Telegraph (London)