Editing Konrad Adenauer (section)

=== First government ===
[[File:CDU Wahlkampfplakat - kaspl001.JPG|thumb|upright|Election poster, 1949: "With Adenauer for peace, freedom and unity of Germany, therefore CDU"]]
The first election to the [[Bundestag]] of West Germany was [[1949 West German federal election|held on 15 August 1949]], with the Christian Democrats emerging as the strongest party. There were two clashing visions of a future Germany held by Adenauer and his main rival, the Social Democrat [[Kurt Schumacher]]. Adenauer favored integrating the Federal Republic with other Western states, especially France and the United States in order to fight the [[Cold War]], even if the price of this was the continued division of Germany. Schumacher by contrast, though an anti-communist, wanted to see a united, socialist and neutral Germany. As such, Adenauer was in favor of joining NATO, something that Schumacher strongly opposed.

The Free Democrat [[Theodor Heuss]] was elected the first [[President of Germany|President of the Republic]], and Adenauer was elected Chancellor (head of government) on 15 September 1949 with the support of his own CDU, the [[Christian Social Union of Bavaria|Christian Social Union]], the liberal [[Free Democratic Party of Germany|Free Democratic Party]], and the right-wing [[German Party (1947)|German Party]]. It was said that Adenauer was elected Chancellor by the new German parliament by "a majority of one vote – his own".<ref name="Adenauer at 90">{{cite journal |last=Kellen |first=Konrad |title=Adenauer at 90 |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/1966-01-01/adenauer-90 |date=January 1966 |journal=[[Foreign Affairs]] |volume=44 |issue=2 |pages=275–290 |doi=10.2307/20039164 |jstor=20039164 |access-date=6 July 2014 |url-access=subscription |archive-date=18 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181218182722/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/1966-01-01/adenauer-90 |url-status=live }}</ref> At age 73, it was thought that Adenauer would only be a caretaker Chancellor.<ref name="1970s">{{cite book |title=How We Got Here: The 1970s |last=Frum |first=David |author-link=David Frum |year=2000 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York, New York |isbn=0-465-04195-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/8 8] |url=https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/8 }}</ref> However, he would go on to hold this post for 14 years, a period spanning most of the preliminary phase of the [[Cold War]]. During this period, the post-war division of Germany was consolidated with the establishment of two separate German states, the [[West Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]] (West Germany) and the [[German Democratic Republic]] (East Germany).

In the controversial selection for a "provisional capital" of the [[West Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]], Adenauer championed [[Bonn]] over [[Frankfurt am Main]]. The British had agreed to detach Bonn from their zone of occupation and convert the area to an autonomous region wholly under German sovereignty; the Americans were not prepared to grant the same for Frankfurt.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=340}} He also resisted the claims of [[Heidelberg]], which had better communications and had survived the war in better condition; partly because the Nazis had been popular there before they came to power and partly, as he said, because the world would not take them seriously if they set up their state in a city that was the setting for ''[[The Student Prince]]'', at the time a popular American operetta based on the drinking culture of [[Studentenverbindung|German student fraternities]].

As chancellor, Adenauer tended to make most major decisions himself, treating his ministers as mere extensions of his authority. While this tendency decreased under his successors, it established the image of West Germany (and later reunified Germany) as a "chancellor democracy".

==== Ending denazification ====
In a speech on 20 September 1949, Adenauer denounced the entire [[denazification]] process pursued by the Allied military governments, announcing in the same speech that he was planning to bring in an amnesty law for the Nazi war criminals and he planned to apply to "the High Commissioners for a corresponding amnesty for punishments imposed by the Allied military courts".{{sfn|Frei|2002|p=3}} Adenauer argued the continuation of denazification would "foster a growing and extreme nationalism" as the millions who supported the Nazi regime would find themselves excluded from German life forever.{{sfn|Herf|1997|p=217}} He also demanded an "end to this sniffing out of Nazis."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/from-dictatorship-to-democracy-the-role-ex-nazis-played-in-early-west-germany-a-810207.html|title = From Dictatorship to Democracy: The Role Ex-Nazis Played in Early West Germany|newspaper = Der Spiegel|date = 6 March 2012|last1 = Beste|first1 = Ralf|last2 = Bönisch|first2 = Georg|last3 = Darnstaedt|first3 = Thomas|last4 = Friedmann|first4 = Jan|last5 = Fröhlingsdorf|first5 = Michael|last6 = Wiegrefe|first6 = Klaus}}</ref> By 31 January 1951, the amnesty legislation had benefited 792,176 people. They included 3,000 functionaries of the SA, the SS, and the Nazi Party who participated in dragging victims to jails and camps; 20,000 Nazis sentenced for "deeds against life" (presumably murder); 30,000 sentenced for causing bodily injury, and about 5,200 charged with "crimes and misdemeanors in office.<ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/66780/amnesty-and-amnesia |title=Amnesty and Amnesia By Jeffrey Herf March 10, 2003 Adenauer's Germany Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration By Norbert Frei |magazine=The New Republic |access-date=2 September 2017 |archive-date=25 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825025151/https://newrepublic.com/article/66780/amnesty-and-amnesia |url-status=live }}</ref>

==== Opposition to the Oder–Neisse Line ====
The Adenauer government refused to accept the [[Oder–Neisse line]] as Germany's eastern frontier.<ref>Duffy, Christopher ''Red Storm on the Reich'', Routledge: London, 1991 page 302</ref> This refusal was in large part motivated by his desire to win the votes of [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)|expellees]] and right-wing nationalists to the CDU, which is why he supported {{lang|de|Heimatrecht}}, i.e. the right of expellees to return to their former homes.{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|p=638}} It was also intended to be a deal-breaker if negotiations ever began to reunite Germany on terms that Adenauer considered unfavorable such as the neutralization of Germany as Adenauer knew well that the Soviets would never revise the Oder–Neisse line.{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|p=638}} Privately, Adenauer considered Germany's eastern provinces to be lost forever.{{sfn|Ahonen|1998|p=48}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F002449-0027, Bonn, Bundestag, Pariser Verträge, Adenauer.jpg|thumb|upright|Adenauer speaking in the {{lang|de|[[Bundestag]]}}, 1955]]

==== Advocacy for European Coal and Steel Community ====
At the [[Petersberg Agreement]] in November 1949 he achieved some of the first concessions granted by the Allies, such as a decrease in the number of factories to be dismantled, but in particular his agreement to join the [[International Authority for the Ruhr]] led to heavy criticism. In the following debate in parliament Adenauer stated:
:<blockquote>''The Allies have told me that dismantling would be stopped only if I satisfy the Allied desire for security, does the Socialist Party want dismantling to go on to the bitter end?''<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110131043551/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805208,00.html A Good European] ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' 5 December 1949</ref>{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|p=450}}</blockquote>
The opposition leader [[Kurt Schumacher]] responded by labeling Adenauer "Chancellor of the Allies", accusing Adenauer of putting good relations with the West for the sake of the Cold War ahead of German national interests.

After a year of negotiations, the [[Treaty of Paris (1951)|Treaty of Paris]] was signed on 18 April 1951 establishing the [[European Coal and Steel Community]]. The treaty was unpopular in Germany where it was seen as a French attempt to take over German industry.{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|p=608}} The treaty conditions were favorable to the French, but for Adenauer, the only thing that mattered was European integration.{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|p=612}} Adenauer was keen to see Britain join the European Coal and Steel Community as he believed the more free-market British would counterbalance the influence of the more [[Dirigisme|''dirigiste'']] French, and to achieve that purpose he visited London in November 1951 to meet with Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]].{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|pp=612–613}} Churchill said Britain would not join the European Coal and Steel Community because doing so would mean sacrificing relations with the U.S. and Commonwealth.{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|p=613}}

==== German rearmament ====
From the beginning of his Chancellorship, Adenauer had been pressing for [[German rearmament (post-WWII)|German rearmament]]. After the outbreak of the [[Korean War]] on 25 June 1950, the U.S. and Britain agreed that West Germany had to be rearmed to strengthen the defenses of Western Europe against a possible Soviet invasion. Further contributing to the crisis atmosphere of 1950 was the bellicose rhetoric of the East German leader [[Walter Ulbricht]], who proclaimed the reunification of Germany under communist rule to be imminent.{{sfn|Gaddis|1998|p=124}}{{sfn|Large|1996|p=66}} To soothe French fears of German rearmament, the French Premier [[René Pleven]] suggested the so-called [[Pleven plan]] in October 1950 under which the Federal Republic would have its military forces function as part of the armed wing of the multinational [[European Defense Community]] (EDC).{{sfn|Gaddis|1998|p=125}} Adenauer deeply disliked the "Pleven plan", but was forced to support it when it became clear that this plan was the only way the French would agree to German rearmament.{{sfn|Schwarz|1995|pp=592–594}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2005-0062, Bonn, Ermekeilkaserne, Adenauer, Blank, Heusinger.jpg|thumb|upright|Adenauer in 1950 at the Ermekeil barracks in Bonn with [[Adolf Heusinger]] (right), one of the authors of the Himmerod memorandum]]

==== Amnesty and employment of Nazis ====
In 1950, a major controversy broke out when it emerged that Adenauer's State Secretary [[Hans Globke]] had played a major role in drafting anti-semitic [[Nuremberg Laws|Nuremberg Race Laws]] in Nazi Germany.<ref>Tetens, T.H. ''The New Germany and the Old Nazis'', New York: Random House, 1961 pages 37–40.</ref> Adenauer kept Globke on as State Secretary as part of his strategy of integration.{{sfn|Herf|1997|pp=289–290}} Starting in August 1950, Adenauer began to pressure the Western Allies to free all of the war criminals in their custody, especially those from the [[Wehrmacht]], whose continued imprisonment he claimed made [[West German rearmament]] impossible.{{sfn|Goda|2007|pp=101–149}} Adenauer had been opposed to the [[Nuremberg trials|Nuremberg Trials]] in 1945–46, and after becoming Chancellor, he demanded the release of the so-called "Spandau Seven", as the seven war criminals convicted at Nuremberg and imprisoned at [[Spandau Prison]] were known.{{sfn|Goda|2007|p=149}}

In October 1950, Adenauer received the so-called "[[Himmerod memorandum]]" drafted by four former Wehrmacht generals at the [[Himmerod Abbey]] that linked freedom for German war criminals as the price of German rearmament, along with public statements from the Allies that the [[Myth of the clean Wehrmacht|Wehrmacht committed no war crimes]] in World War II.{{sfn|Large|1996|pp=97–98}} The Allies were willing to do whatever necessary to get the much-needed German rearmament underway, and in January 1951, General [[Dwight Eisenhower]], commander of NATO forces, issued a statement which declared the great majority of the Wehrmacht had acted honorably.<ref>Bickford, Andrew ''Fallen Elites: The Military Other in Post–Unification Germany'', Stanford: 2011 pages 116–117</ref>

On 2 January 1951, Adenauer met with the American High Commissioner, [[John J. McCloy]], to argue that executing the [[Landsberg Prison|Landsberg prisoners]] would ruin forever any effort at having the Federal Republic play its role in the Cold War.{{sfn|Frei|2002|p=157}} At the time, American occupation authorities had 28 Nazi war criminals left on death row in their custody. In response to Adenauer's demands and pressure from the German public, McCloy and [[Thomas T. Handy]] on 31 January 1951 reduced the death sentences of all but the 7 worst offenders.{{sfn|Frei|2002|pp=164–165}}

By 1951 laws were passed by the [[Bundestag]] ending denazification. [[Denazification]] was viewed by the United States as counterproductive and ineffective, and its demise was not opposed.<ref>The Nazi-ferreting questionnaire cited 136 mandatory reasons for exclusion from employment and created red-tape nightmares for both the hapless and the guilty; see ''The New York Times'', 22 February 2003, p. A7.</ref> Adenauer's intention was to switch government policy to reparations and compensation for the victims of Nazi rule (''[[Wiedergutmachung]]'').<ref>Steinweis, Alan E., Rogers, Daniel E. ''The Impact of Nazism: New Perspectives on the Third Reich and Its Legacy.'' Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2003, p. 235</ref><ref name=Art />

Officials were allowed to retake jobs in civil service, with the exception of people assigned to Group I (Major Offenders) and II (Offenders) during the denazification review process.<ref name=Art>Art, David, ''The politics of the Nazi past in Germany and Austria'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 53–55</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav?start=%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D#__bgbl__%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D__1578237681963|title=Gesetz zur Regelung der Rechtsverhältnisse der unter Artikel 131 des Grundgesetzes fallenden Personen (Bundesgesetzblatt I 22/1951, p. 307 ff.)|date=11 May 1951|language=de|access-date=5 January 2020|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803035403/https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav?start=%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D#__bgbl__%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D__1578237681963|url-status=live}}</ref> Adenauer pressured his rehabilitated ex-Nazis by threatening that stepping out of line could trigger the reopening of individual de-Nazification prosecutions. The construction of a "competent Federal Government effectively from a standing start was one of the greatest of Adenauer's formidable achievements".{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=391}}

Contemporary critics accused Adenauer of cementing the division of Germany, sacrificing reunification and the recovery of territories lost in the westward shift of [[Poland]] and the [[Soviet Union]] with his determination to secure the Federal Republic to the West. Adenauer's German policy was based upon ''Politik der Stärke'' (Policy of Strength), and upon the so-called "magnet theory", in which a prosperous, democratic West Germany integrated with the West would act as a "magnet" that would eventually bring down the East German regime.{{sfn|Large|1996|p=70}}

==== Rejecting the reunification offer ====
In 1952, the [[Stalin Note]], as it became known, "caught everybody in the West by surprise".{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=376}} It offered to unify the two German entities into a single, neutral state with its own, non-aligned national army to effect superpower disengagement from [[Central Europe]]. Adenauer and his cabinet were unanimous in their rejection of the Stalin overture; they shared the Western Allies' suspicion about the genuineness of that offer and supported the Allies in their cautious replies. Adenauer's flat rejection was, however, still out of step with public opinion; he then realized his mistake and he started to ask questions. Critics denounced him for having missed an opportunity for [[German reunification]]. The Soviets sent a second note, courteous in tone. Adenauer by then understood that "all opportunity for initiative had passed out of his hands,"{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=378}} and the matter was put to rest by the Allies. Given the realities of the [[Cold War]], German reunification and recovery of [[Former eastern territories of Germany#Potsdam Agreement, 1945|lost territories in the east]] were not realistic goals as both of Stalin's notes specified the retention of the existing "Potsdam"-decreed boundaries of Germany.

[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-P092352, Israel, Konrad Adenauer und Salmann Schasar.jpg|thumb|Adenauer with Israeli President [[Zalman Shazar]], 1966]]

==== Reparation to victims of Nazi Germany ====
Adenauer recognized the obligation of the West German government to compensate [[Israel]] for [[The Holocaust]].{{Failed verification|date=March 2021}} West Germany started negotiations with Israel for restitution of lost property and the payment of damages to victims of Nazi persecution. In the {{lang|de|[[Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany|Luxemburger Abkommen]]}}, West Germany agreed to pay compensation to Israel. Jewish claims were bundled in the [[Claims Conference|Jewish Claims Conference]], which represented the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany. West Germany then initially paid about 3 billion [[Deutsche Mark|Mark]] to Israel and about 450 million to the Claims Conference, although payments continued after that, as new claims were made.<ref name=bpb>{{Cite web |url=http://www.bpb.de/publikationen/JNSEQM,0,0,Wiedergutmachung.html |title=Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung – Wiedergutmachung |access-date=30 September 2011 |archive-date=10 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090410071957/http://www.bpb.de/publikationen/JNSEQM,0,0,Wiedergutmachung.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In the face of severe opposition both from the public and from his own cabinet, Adenauer was only able to get the reparations agreement ratified by the ''Bundestag'' with the support of the SPD.<ref name="Moeller, Robert pages 26-27">Moeller, Robert ''War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany'', Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001 pages 26–27.</ref> Israeli public opinion was divided over accepting the money, but ultimately the fledgling state under [[David Ben-Gurion]] agreed to take it, opposed by political parties such as [[Herut]], who were against such treaties.

==== Assassination attempt ====
On 27 March 1952, a package addressed to Chancellor Adenauer exploded in the [[Munich]] Police Headquarters, killing one Bavarian police officer, Karl Reichert.<ref>{{cite book| author-last1= Gehler | author-first1= Michael |title= Three Germanies: West Germany, East Germany and the Berlin Republic | date = 1 October 2010 | publisher = Reaktion Books | isbn= 978-1861897787| page =62| edition= Illustrated paperback}}</ref> Investigations revealed the mastermind behind the assassination attempt to be [[Menachem Begin]], who would later become the Prime Minister of [[Israel]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,421441,00.html |title=Interview with H. Sietz, investigator (German) |access-date=15 June 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620034025/http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,421441,00.html |archive-date=20 June 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Begin had been the commander of [[Irgun]] and at that time headed [[Herut]] and was a member of the [[Knesset]]. His goal was to put pressure on the German government and prevent the signing of the [[Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany]], which he vehemently opposed.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/germany/article/0,,1797768,00.html |title=Menachem Begin 'plotted to kill German chancellor' |newspaper=The Guardian |date=15 June 2006 |location=London |first=Luke |last=Harding |access-date=15 December 2016 |archive-date=13 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191213144515/https://www.theguardian.com/germany/article/0,,1797768,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The West German government kept all proof under seal in order to prevent [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] responses from the German public.