He came up with an emergency bread recipe to improve the food supply during World War I. He had already made various inventions in the 1910s. What do you know about this aspect?Īdenauer was very technically skilled. Those are character traits that weren't always well received.īeyond being a politician, he also had an unexpected creative side, working on many inventions throughout his life. When he had a goal in mind, he'd always try to find his way to implement it. He always approached politics with strong pragmatism. But he was also someone who wasn't always easy to deal with. He was ready to take responsibility for the reconstruction of Germany and its modernization. I believe that when he became chancellor at the age of 73, he was the right man at the right time at the right place. Konrad Adenauer had a rough-edged personality, and he was well aware of the importance of his office. On an international level, he searched to establish these connections because - beyond overcoming nationalism and promoting European integration - he also assumed that economically interdependent western democracies would no longer wage war against each other. He particularly aimed to establish alliances with the West, with liberal parliamentary democracies, and to bring the Germans on the western track. That was one of his motivations to push the European Union forward. He also aimed to overcome nationalism in 1945 through an international approach. It was really a difficult period for him.Īlthough he was not a member of the resistance, he always expressed his views against the Nazis. He is even said to have considered suicide. He had a family to provide for and these existential problems made him suffer from depression. He fought to claim a pension during this period. He lived deprived of public functions until 1944. Could you tell us more about this period?Īfter 16 years in office as the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer was expelled by the Nazis when they took power in 1933. You have mentioned that Konrad Adenauer was forced out of office in 1933, as he had positioned himself against the Nazis. Yet in the end he could not stop his son's calling to become a priest. His father was very skeptical about his son's wish. Paul became aware of the spirituality of this convent, and it is during this period that he developed his desire to become a priest. When he was dismissed from his office as mayor of Cologne in 1933, it opened a new perspective on his father for the son, who visited him relatively frequently in Maria Laach. During the first 10 years of his life, he didn't get to see his father much, as he was so deeply involved in regional and communal politics as the mayor of Cologne at the time.
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Paul Adenauer, born in 1923, was the second son from Konrad Adenauer's second marriage. This later relationship offers an interesting contrast.
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He apparently had little time for his children when they were young.
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It offers new nuances for Adenauer researchers, as his son was with his father almost every day, so he knew him in a unique way that doesn't compare to what others knew of him. It also provides the perspective of the son on his father. These records are particularly interesting because they not only provide insight into the current events of the time they also reveal how Adenauer felt personally, how he discussed personal things with his son. What did you find most fascinating about this diary? At the time, Paul Adenauer was living in his parents' house again and his diary covers the period from 1961 to 1966, up until his father's death in 1967. When I got to read this material, I immediately knew it provided unique insight into Konrad Adenauer's work and life in the late years of his chancellorship and the years that followed. Hanns Jürgen Küsters: In 2015, when the housekeeper of Konrad Adenauer's son, Paul Adenauer, who was a priest, died, one of his journals was discovered. He recently published the book "Konrad Adenauer - Der Vater, die Macht und das Erbe - Das Tagebuch des Monsignore Paul Adenauer 1961-1966" (Konrad Adenauer - The Father, the Power and the Heritage - the Journal of Monsignore Paul Adenauer 1961-1966) and also co-organized the exhibition "Unity Only in Freedom - Konrad Adenauer and the German Question," which goes on show at the German Historical Museum in Berlin on April 22.ĭW: Tell us about the new book about Konrad Adenauer you've published. Political scientist Hanns Jürgen Küsters is the director of the scientific services and archives of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation.