Adenauer Converted Germany

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31349, 20 April 1967, Page 16

Adenauer Converted Germany

(N.Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyright)

BONN, April 19. Dr. Konrad Adenauer, who died today, converted a conquered Germany into a powerful and prosperous ally of the West during his 14 years as Chancellor of West Germany. He also succeeded in effecting a reconciliation with France.

His authoritarian rule began with, the birth of the West German Federal Republic in 1949, when he was 73 years old—a time when most men retire on pension. When he celebrated his 90th birthday on January 5, 1966, just before giving up the chairmanship of the Christian Democratic Party, he received 5000 birthday presents and 17,000 messages of congratulation. Elected four times as Chancellor, he bowed out reluctantly on October 15, 1963,

to Dr. Ludwig Erhard, his Economics Minister who has been credited with the “miracle” of West Germany’s post-war economic recovery. Dr. Adenauer rejected suggestions that he should name Dr. Erhard as his successor and repeatedly expressed his view that “the author of the economic miracle” was no politician. Surprising Energy Dr. Adenauer’s energy in old age was a constant surprise to his cabinet, to his aides and to foreign statesmen.

He drank sparingly (mostly moselle wine), had little use for tobacco and grew roses as a hobby. He liked music, painting—and Agatha Christie’s detective novels. Twice married and twice widowed, he leaves four sons, three daughters and many grandchildren. Dr Adenauer was born in Cologne on January 5, 1876, the son of a municipal official. After studying law he switched to politics . and became

Mayor of Cologne in 1917 as a leading member of the Catholic Centre Party. Opposed Nazis His hostility to the rising Nazi Party led to his dismissal from office in 1933. The Gestapo arrested him three times before and during the Second World War, but he served only brief periods in custody.

After the German capitulation, the Americans restored him as Mayor of Cologne. But whep the British took over the occupation zone, they dismissed him for “incompetence.”

Two months later, Dr. Adenauer became co-founder of the Christian Democratic Union and faced only one major political rival in West Germany, the Socialist leader, the late Dr. Kurt Schumacher. Dr. Adenauer’s long and arduous negotiations for the abolition of the occupation statute reached a successful conclusion on May 26, 1952, when he welcomed the three Western Foreign Ministers in the West German Parliament and signed the

Bonn Conventions which gave almost complete sovereignty to Western Germany. The next day he signed in Paris the abortive European Defence Community Treaty—later rejected by the French National Assembly—which was to bring into being a sixnation European army, including 300,000 Germans.

In April, 1953, he was the first German chancellor to pay an official visit to the United States.

In 1958 he had the first of several meetings with General De Gaulle—then Prime Minister of France—who invited him to his house in eastern France for informal talks. A few weeks later he was. faced with the Berlin crisis, precipitated by the Soviet Government’s proposal for the establishment of a free city of West Berlin with the termination in 1959 of Western occupation rights. He stood out uncompromisingly for continued acceptance of the four-power guarantees of Western rights in the city and the maintenance of existing freedoms in the Western sectors.