Adenauer : The Father of the New Germany - Softcover

Williams, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349113696 ISBN 13: 9780349113692

Publisher: Abacus, 2003

Synopsis

After the Second World War Germany lay in ruins. To Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) belongs much of the credit for raising West Germany to a position of economic prosperity and making it a respected free-world ally. Adenauer was born in 1876, in Cologne, part of a devout Roman Catholic family. He was elected mayor of Cologne in 1917, a post he held for 16 years, then a representative in the Prussian State Council of which he became president in 1928. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Adenauer was stripped of all his political positions, imprisoned and then sent to a concentration camp. But after the war he organised a new party, the Christian Democratic Union and in 1949 he became West Germany's first chancellor, retiring after four consecutive re-elections in 1963. Charles Williams' magisterial biography of a great twentieth-century statesman - and German - is also a monumental history of modern Germany. The book's four sections: 'The Kaiser's Germany', 'Weimar Germany', 'Nazi Germany' and 'Adenauer's Germany' - bear eloquent testimony to this most singular of nations.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

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.

From the Back Cover

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)

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0349113696
• ISBN 13: 9780349113692
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608