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KONRAD ADENAUER. by Santi, Amaia and Leire. Konrad Hermann Josef Adenauer, who was born on 5th January 1876 and died on 19 April 1967, was a German statesman. Although his political career spanned sixty years, beginning as early as 1906, he is most noted for
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KONRAD ADENAUER by Santi, Amaia and Leire
Konrad Hermann Josef Adenauer, who was born on 5th January 1876 and died on 19 April 1967, was a German statesman. Although his political career spanned sixty years, beginning as early as 1906, he is most noted for his role as the first Chancellor of West Germany from 1949–1963 and chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1950 to 1966. He was the oldest chancellor ever to serve Germany, leaving at the age of eighty-seven.
Early life Konrad Adenauer was born as the third of five children of Johann Konrad Adenauer (1833-1906) and his wife Helene (1849-1919) (née Scharfenberg) in Cologne, Rhenish Prussia. His siblings were August (1872-1952), Johannes (1873-1937), Lilli (1879-1950) and Elisabeth, who died shortly after birth in c. 1880. In 1894, he completed his Abitur and started to study law and politics at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Bonn. He was a member of several Roman Catholic students’ associations under the K.St.V. Arminia Bonn in Bonn. He finished his studies in 1901. Afterwards he worked as a lawyer at the court in Cologne.
Political career As a devout Roman Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906 and was elected to Cologne’s city council in the same year. In 1909, he became Vice Mayor of Cologne. From 1917 to 1933, he served as Mayor of Cologne. He had the unpleasant task of heading Cologne in the era of British occupation following the First World War and lasting until 1926. He managed to establish faithful relations with the British military authorities and flirted with Rhenish separatism (a Rhenish state as part of Germany, but outside Prussia). During the Weimar Republic, he was president of the Prussian State Council (Preußischer Staatsrat) from 1922 to 1933, whichwas the representative of the Prussian cities and provinces.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Centre Party lost the elections in Cologne and Adenauer fled to the abbey of Maria Laach, threatened by the new government after he refused to shake hands with a local Nazi leader. His stay at this abbey, which lasted for a year, was cited by its abbot after the war, when accused by Heinrich Böll and others of collaboration with the Nazis. He was imprisoned briefly after the Night of the Long Knives in mid 1934. During the next two years, he changed residences often for fear of reprisals against him by the Nazis. In 1937, he was successful in claiming at least some compensation for his once confiscated house and managed to live in seclusion for some years.
In 1945 he took part in the foundation of the Democratic Christian Union (CDU) and became the new president of the zone of British occupation. When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949, Adenauer became chancellor. During the following fourteen years he headed a coalition composed by the CDU, the Social Christian Bavarian Union and the Free Democrats. From 1951 until 1955 also he was the minister of Exteriors of the Federal Republic of Germany. Adenauer's principal objective was to do of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1955, under Adenauer's leadership, the Federal Republic joined the Organization of the Agreement of the North Atlantic (NATO) and obtained the recognition as independent State.
Adenauer's principal objective was to do of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1955, under Adenauer's leadership, the Federal Republic joined the Organization of the Agreement of the North Atlantic (NATO) and obtained the recognition as independent State. Under his mandate, the Federal Republic of Germany also was one of the charter members of the Economic European Community or Common Market (nowadays the European Union). In 1963, after signing the Agreement of Friendship German Franc who was putting end to almost hundred years of rivalry itch France, Adenauer gave up his post at the age of 87.
Death Adenauer died on April 19, 1967 in his family home in Rhöndorf. According to his daughter, his last words were "Da jitt et nix zo kriesche!" (Kölsch slang for "There's nothin' to weep about!") His state funeral in Cologne Cathedral was attended by a large number of world leaders, among them US president Lyndon B. Johnson on his only visit to a European country. After the service, his body was brought back to Rhöndorf on the Rhine aboard Kondor, a Jaguar class fast attack craft of the German Navy. He is interred on the Waldfriedhof.