Konrad Adenauer

As the first Chancellor of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963, Konrad Adenauer changed the face of post-war German and European history more than anyone else. Like many politicians of his generation, Adenauer had already realized, after World War I, that the only way to achieve lasting peace was a united Europe.
Adenauer was born in Cologne on January 5, 1876, and became involved in politics due to his marriage, which brought him into the fold of an influential Cologne family. As he fully utilized his political talent, his career took off while he was a member of the Catholic Centre Party, and in 1917 he became the mayor of Cologne.
From the late 1920s, the National Socialist (Nazi) Party began a smear campaign against Adenauer. In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, Adenauer refused to decorate the city with swastikas in anticipation of Hitler’s visit. For this reason, he was removed from office and his bank accounts were frozen. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, Adenauer was imprisoned in the notorious Gestapo prison in Brauweiler, near Cologne.
After the war, he devoted himself to founding the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a party he hoped would unite German Protestants and Catholics. In 1949, he became the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).
Due to his experiences during World War II, Adenauer became a pragmatic politician who focused his attention on promoting the idea of pan-European cooperation. Adenauer was a great advocate of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was proposed in the Schuman Declaration on May 9, 1950, as well as the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, signed in March 1957.