Wirtschaftswunder
Apr. 11th, 2022 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Adenauer - the Father of the New Germany, by Charles Williams
In the New Year I identified three books that had been sitting on my wish list for years, that I thought I ought to get round to reading. Only sometime later did I notice that they all have something of a WW2-theme to them, though that's not exactly unusual for my reading anyway. But then the war in Ukraine broke out, and the imminent onset of WW3 did not feel like the best time for this reading material.
But anyway, after a suitable sojourn of other reading material, I returned to this biography first, perhaps partly as a symmetry to the recent FDR biography. In fact these two gentlemen turn out to have some similarities of political character, if not of political position. There's more than a whiff of gerrymandering at any available opportunity by Adenauer (compare with the packing of the Supreme Court), and also the reluctance to "let go" towards the end. But, in balance, there are also the achievements: the formation of the CDU from the ruins of 1945, and more than a decade of reconstruction of West Germany. The book splits into four sections of Adenauer's life: The Kaiser's Germany, Weimar Germany, Hitler's Germany, and Adenauer's Germany - the last of these reasonably taking up about half the book although it is disproportionate to the length of time. From modest origins, Adenauer became Mayor of Köln during World War I and occupied the position through post-war occupation and until 1933. Hounded from office and persecuted for some time when the Third Reich took power, Adenauer had some peripatetic years, and carefully absented himself from any active resistance during World War 2. After an uneasy relationship with the occupying powers, he was eventually one of the founders of the CDU. What comes over now as a rather reactionary political philosophy, based largely on religious doctrine, may at the time have seemed more reasonable; his dislike of the SPD - considered merely a cover for the communists, and atheist to boot - seems likewise to be rather reactionary and paranoid, but there's no doubt it was electorally successful. This book also gives some insight into the perspectives and motivations of early post-war Germany in terms of the prospects for forming a single state, multiple states, or other arrangements; the supra-national ECSC and its successors; relations with France, and de Gaulle in particular; and alignment towards NATO or neutrality - the latter of which Adenauer perceived would lead inevitably to Germany becoming a Soviet satellite. The fickle nature of American military involvement in Europe - and the sometime reluctance of Europe to become self-sufficient in its defence - seem long-term issues that have still to be resolved.
In the New Year I identified three books that had been sitting on my wish list for years, that I thought I ought to get round to reading. Only sometime later did I notice that they all have something of a WW2-theme to them, though that's not exactly unusual for my reading anyway. But then the war in Ukraine broke out, and the imminent onset of WW3 did not feel like the best time for this reading material.
But anyway, after a suitable sojourn of other reading material, I returned to this biography first, perhaps partly as a symmetry to the recent FDR biography. In fact these two gentlemen turn out to have some similarities of political character, if not of political position. There's more than a whiff of gerrymandering at any available opportunity by Adenauer (compare with the packing of the Supreme Court), and also the reluctance to "let go" towards the end. But, in balance, there are also the achievements: the formation of the CDU from the ruins of 1945, and more than a decade of reconstruction of West Germany. The book splits into four sections of Adenauer's life: The Kaiser's Germany, Weimar Germany, Hitler's Germany, and Adenauer's Germany - the last of these reasonably taking up about half the book although it is disproportionate to the length of time. From modest origins, Adenauer became Mayor of Köln during World War I and occupied the position through post-war occupation and until 1933. Hounded from office and persecuted for some time when the Third Reich took power, Adenauer had some peripatetic years, and carefully absented himself from any active resistance during World War 2. After an uneasy relationship with the occupying powers, he was eventually one of the founders of the CDU. What comes over now as a rather reactionary political philosophy, based largely on religious doctrine, may at the time have seemed more reasonable; his dislike of the SPD - considered merely a cover for the communists, and atheist to boot - seems likewise to be rather reactionary and paranoid, but there's no doubt it was electorally successful. This book also gives some insight into the perspectives and motivations of early post-war Germany in terms of the prospects for forming a single state, multiple states, or other arrangements; the supra-national ECSC and its successors; relations with France, and de Gaulle in particular; and alignment towards NATO or neutrality - the latter of which Adenauer perceived would lead inevitably to Germany becoming a Soviet satellite. The fickle nature of American military involvement in Europe - and the sometime reluctance of Europe to become self-sufficient in its defence - seem long-term issues that have still to be resolved.