Adenauer Hardcover - 2001

From the jacket 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.

Media reviews

Citations

• New York Review of Books, 11/01/2001, Page 19
• Reference and Research Bk News, 08/01/2001, Page 33