Konrad Adenauer was the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. In addition to the development of the young Federal Republic, integration with the West and Franco-German cooperation are associated with him. Adenauer was also chairman of the CDU for many years. Especially in the Rhineland there are sites related to Adenauer.
Life
Adenauer's life took place for the most part in the Rhineland and there near his hometown Cologne instead of. Born in 1876 as the child of a later chancellery councilor, he graduated from the (later demolished) apostle high school in Cologne and studied law in Freiburg in Breisgau, Munich and Bonn.
He made a career in local politics and became mayor of Cologne in 1917. In 1933 the National Socialists released him and Adenauer had to go into hiding for a time. In 1944 he was arrested after the attempted uprising on July 20, although the National Socialists could not accuse him of anything concrete.
In 1945 the Americans reinstated him as Lord Mayor, but the British removed him again. This indirectly led to the fact that he swapped the local stage in favor of the national or West German one. Adenauer played an important role in founding the CDU. In 1948/1949 he served as chairman of the Parliamentary Council, which drafted the Basic Law (the constitution of West Germany). In 1949, despite his old age, he was elected Chancellor by the Bundestag. He stayed in this office until 1963, with changing coalition partners and in some cases absolute majorities. Aside from the question of age, some in his party wanted a different foreign policy, and his reputation was damaged by the Spiegel affair in 1962. His successor was Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard, who only remained Chancellor and CDU Chairman for a few years.
The Adenauer era is characterized by the expansion of the young West German democracy and the welfare state, an economic upswing, integration into Western European alliances and NATO, as well as rearmament. Adenauer's relationship to France was rather changeable, but he went down in history with Charles des Gaulle as the founder of the Franco-German friendship. The Catholic Adenauer was an anti-communist and also retained a certain distrust of the Western powers, which could abandon the Federal Republic, as well as of the German people, which could again allow themselves to be seduced by demagogues.
Sites
The most important stations of Adenauer's life are in the Rhineland, especially in Cologne and Bonn and their surroundings; he died in Rhöndorf (town of Bad Honnef near Bonn), the residence of the last third of his life. His house today is this Federal Chancellor Adenauer House Foundation, which can be visited as a museum and also contains an archive. It should be less interesting for tourists than for historians Archive for Christian Democratic Politics his, which is located in St. Augustin (also near Bonn). However, it also organizes exhibitions, conferences and other events.
In Bonn itself, the permanent exhibition in the House of History to a large extent about Adenauer's tenure; The much admired object is a contemporary Mercedes, Adenauer's company car.
Above all, that was the original location of Adenauer's work as Federal Chancellor Palais Schaumburg as the first Federal Chancellery. However, due to renovation, it is currently not open to the public. The former plenary hall of the Bundestag (in the Bundeshaus) has long been replaced by a successor building, but it still exists King Museumwhere the Parliamentary Council was opened. However, this is primarily recommended for visitors interested in science. Rather on the edge (geographically and historically) is the house on Bonn's Petersberg, where important conferences have taken place. It now houses a Luxury hotel.
During the time of National Socialism, Adenauer lived briefly in the Benedictine abbey Maria Laach in the Eifelwhich is interesting in itself from a tourist point of view. Through the mediation of the local abbot, he found himself in the Benedictine section of the Holy Cross in early 1935 for a short time Manufacture shelter on the Weser. In August 1944, Adenauer was in Cologne EL-DE house interrogated, which today as a documentation center provides information about National Socialism in Cologne. Adenauer became in November of the same year from the Brauweiler prison (Pulheim in the north-west of Cologne).
Adenauer also has buildings in Cologne that go back to his initiative or were built during his tenure as Lord Mayor (1917-1933). The most noticeable of these is the exhibition grounds, a huge angular building in the Deutz district on the right bank of the Rhine. During the Nazi era, Adenauer himself was briefly imprisoned in the so-called exhibition camp. On the other side of the Rhine, in the district, is the University of Cologne (rebuilt from 1919).
Outside the Rhineland is Cadenabbia, Adenauer's favorite vacation spot in northern Italy. There on Lake Como is his former villa (Villa la Collina), which has been a conference center of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation since 1977.
Monuments and miscellaneous
Perhaps the best-known Adenauer monument is the bronze head near the Bonn Federal Chancellery. On the side of the back of the head, the artist Hubertus von Pilgrim reproduced some stations in Adenauer's life in relief images in 1981.
In Cologne there has been a rather modest, reserved figure from Adenauer at the Church of St. Apostles on Neumarkt since 1995.
The also life-size statue in Berlin-Charlottenburg shows a smiling Adenauer with a fluttering coat.
Furthermore, countless streets, bridges, schools and other objects are named after Adenauer. Most likely to be mentioned is the party headquarters of the CDU. The Konrad-Adenauer-Haus in Bonn stood there until it was demolished in 2003; the new and current Konrad-Adenauer-Haus was inaugurated in 2000 and is located near the Berliner Zoo.
Adenauer head in Bonn, front
profile
Sculpture at Saint Apostles in Cologne
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Berlin-Charlottenburg
Konrad-Adenauer-Haus (CDU federal office), Berlin
Memorial stone for the friendship treaty of 1963, Berlin-Tiergarten
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literature
Anyone who finds the two-volume Adenauer biography by Hans-Peter Schwarz to be too extensive will find the Notes on Adenauer by the same author find a critical commentary entry. The (older) biography of Gösta von Uexküll is also rather clear.
