CONTENTS > FAMOUS PEOPLE > ADENAUER
Biography and Timeline
Konrad Adenauer was the first chancellor of the German Federal Rebublic, an office he held for 14 years — an era in which the country recovered from the Nazi dictatorship, built up Europe’s strongest economy, dealt with the Berlin Wall and the Cold War, and gained a leading role in Europe.
Adenauer studied law in Freiburg i.B., Munich, and Bonn. In 1906 he was elected to the Cologne city council. In 1917 he became mayor of Cologne. In that position Adenauer was responsible for many improvements to the city and the reestablishment of the university. When the Nazis came to power, Adenauer refused to cooperate and he was put out of office. After several arrests, he was sent to a concentration camp in 1944. After the war, the Americans restored him as mayor of Cologne in May 1945, but the British removed him from office in September when they assumed control of the city. However, Adenauer was by then active in the CDU party he had helped found, and he became the country’s first chancellor, winning by just one vote on Sept. 15, 1949.
As chancellor, Adenauer worked to strengthen German foreign policy and ties with the U.S. and France in particular. He became a respected world leader and pushed Germany’s membership in NATO and the EEC (later the European Union). After resigning as chancellor in 1963, he remained the head of the CDU until 1966. Adenauer died at his villa in Rhöndorf near Bonn in 1967.
Konrad Adenauer’s name also belongs to another key historic event: the dedication of Germany’s very first autobahn. As Cologne’s mayor, Adenauer headed the ceremonies for the opening of the Cologne-Bonn autobahn in 1932. Construction had begun in 1929 and was completed in the summer of 1932. Mayor Adenauer opened the new 20 km (12 mi) superhighway on August 6 with the words: “So werden die Straßen der Zukunft aussehen.” (“This is how the roads of the future will look.”) Today this segment is part of the A555 autobahn. (No, Hitler did not invent the autobahn!)
Konrad Adenauer Timeline
1876: Konrad Hermann Josef Adenauer is born January 5 in Cologne as the third of five children of the Catholic lawyer Konrad Adenauer and his wife Helene, nee Scharfenberg.
1894-1901: Studies law in Freiburg, Munich, and Bonn.
1904: Marries Emma Weyer. Three children from the marriage: Konrad, Max und Ria.
1905: Becomes a member of the German Center Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei).
1906: Elected city councilman (Beigeordneter) in Cologne.
1915: Adenauer patents his recipe for Kölner Brot (“Cologne bread”)
1916: Death of his wife Emma.
1917: Elected mayor (Oberbürgermeister) of Cologne.
1932: Mayor Adenauer presides over opening ceremonies for the Cologne-Bonn autobahn, the world’s first, on August 6.
1933: In February Adenauer refuses to receive Hitler during a campaign visit to Cologne and has Nazi flags removed from the Deutzer bridge. In March Adenauer leaves the city and the Nazis announce his removal from office.
1934: The Nazis arrest Adenauer but release him two days later.
1944: After the attempted assassination of Hitler in July, Adenauer is arrested and put in a concentration camp.
1945: Restored as mayor of Cologne by the Americans in May, removed from office by the British in October when they assume control of the city.
1949-1963: In August 1949 Adenauer is elected as a representative in the German Bundestag (parliament). In September he becomes Germany’s first Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler), winning office by just one vote. He remains chancellor for 14 years until his resignation in 1966.
1957: Konrad Adenauer becomes the first German chancellor to address the US Congress (in two separate sessions). Fifty-two years later, on Nov. 3, 2009, Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a joint session of Congress for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (Nov. 9).
1967: Adenauer dies near Bonn on April 19.
On the Web
- Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung eV (in English, French, German, Spanish)
- Konrad Adenauer - DHM (timeline in German)
- Konrad Adenauer - Schulreferat (in German)
Related Pages
- Angela Merkel - Germany’s first female chancellor
- Famous Germans, Austrians and Swiss
- Famous Graves - The graves and cemeteries of the famous
- Wer bin ich? Ratespiel (coming soon)
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