[Europe]

In his 14 years as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,

Konrad Adenauer achieved the statesman-like accomplishments

of creating the conditions, domestically, for social peace and prosperity

and, from a foreign policy perspective, of bringing his country back into the international community.

The conditions for political action in the post-war era

were extremely complicated.

Despite this, he was sometimes disparagingly

referred to as the “great simplifier of politics”.

“I consider that a great compliment.”

“In reality, you have to look at things

so deeply that they are simple.

If you only look at the surface of things,

they aren’t simple.

But if you look deeply,

then you see the reality,

and that is always simple.

Whether or not that’s pleasant is another matter.”

[Konrad Adenauer A Founding Father of Europe]

[A Documentary by Anselm Döring-Manteuffel, Barbara v. Poschinger, Ule J.R. Eith]

Adenauer’s political achievements include

bringing the idea of the political unity

of western European countries

one step closer to reality.

Without the course-setting carried out at the time

the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 would

have been inconceivable.

Despite the current problems with currency union,

the natural interactions between European statesmen

make it all too easy to forget how difficult the

early stages of political interaction

were in the Europe of the 20th century.

At the end of the First World War,

all of the states represented here were

either enemies

or nationally distanced from one another.

How was Adenauer able to develop

a vision of Europe under these circumstances?

“The idea of European cooperation

and in particular cooperation between Germany and France,

came to me during the time of passive resistance.

Kuhne was Chancellor of the Reich at the time.

He was a friend of mine.

I often visited him in Berlin.

And when you saw how

woefully abandoned Germany was,

how it stood entirely alone

and nobody wanted to help,

maybe nobody could help,

at that point a firm resolve grew in me

to do everything I could

to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.”

Adenauer’s life experience was shaped by the deep national animosity

between the Germans and the French.

The most terrible battles in the First World War

took place on French soil.

The Battle of Verdun

alone resulted in 750 000 dead and

600 000 wounded soldiers on both sides.

After the victory over the German Empire in 1918,

French politics had no goal other than to

keep Germany weak and unable to retaliate.

As Mayor of Cologne, Adenauer

viewed the Treaty of Versailles as a disaster for both sides.

Nevertheless, Adenauer

- civilian and tolerant Catholic that he was -

abhorred the revisionist demands that extended to levels of fantasy

in the public opinion of the Weimar Republic.

When the National Socialists turned Weimar revisionism

into military policy,

and German soldiers marched into the demilitarised Rhineland in 1936,

the anti-Nazi Adenauer had long since been driven from his post.

While Hitler’s Germany prepared for war

and German troops continued to march on France,

Adenauer tried to keep himself hidden from the National Socialists.

“We will march victorious on France,

we will march, we will march to France.”

He often sought refuge at the

Maria Laach Abbey.

Konrad Adenauer experienced the German empire's collapse and unconditional surrender

as a private citizen

in his house in Rhöndorf,

under the suspicious surveillance of the Gestapo,

who took him and his family into

protective custody shortly before the end of the war.

Adenauer was lucky:

he was released.

In 1945, the Americans reinstated

him as the Mayor

of his badly destroyed native city of Cologne,

but he was dismissed again by the British shortly after.

The old game initially seemed to be repeating itself.

It wasn’t just in the Ruhr where the Allies

started to dismantle industrial plants.

The economic nationalism European states

targeted at one another

lived on.

But Adenauer’s vision for Europe

had focused on reconciliation between

Germany and France since the 1920s.

At the time, he said:

“If two neighbouring peoples have fought

against one another for centuries

there are only two options left.

Either one of them kills the other,

or they become friends.”

In order to become friends,

you need to create trust.

That failed after the First World War.

Now, after the Second World War,

the Americans were setting new standards for the

European countries.

Through the Marshall Plan, the US

wanted to encourage the

countries of Europe to cooperate with one another

economically, including the defeated Germany.

For Adenauer,

who had started a

new political career in 1946/47

and became Chair of the CDU in the British Zone,

President of the Parliamentary Council in 1948

and the first Federal Chancellor in 1949,

this provided the opportunity

to turn his vision of Europe

as a reconciliation between Germany and France

into a political concept.

“As the last ceremonial act

before the start of a new political life in Germany,

the first government of the Federal Republic of Germany was constituted in Bonn.

The members of the cabinet,

led by Federal Chancellor Dr Adenauer,

were sworn in by Dr Köhler,

President of the Bundestag.”

“I swear, so help me God.”

“This completed the formation of the federal government.”

“Following a personal discussion

with the German politicians,

the three High Commissioners

signed the declaration on the entry into force

of the Occupation Statute

and proclaimed the end of the military government.”

Of course the head of the Federal Republic,

which was still under occupation law,

was unable to immediately turn his ideas into political reality.

In an exchange of ideas

with French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman,

the Schuman Plan,

the concept of the European Coal and Steel Community, was born.

The sovereign rights of the countries involved

in coal and steel production

were to be transferred to a joint European

commission, known as the

High Authority.

“Robert Schuman and I were in contact

a number of times.

In Robert Schuman, I saw a man

who really held peace close to his heart.

He was primarily passionate about

peace between France and Germany.

If I can pre-empt other questions,

his proposal of the European Coal and Steel Community

was primarily a political proposal.

At the time, when he sent me the official proposal,

he wrote me a private letter

explaining that the

basis of peace in Europe

had to be a good relationship between France and Germany.

In France, people were worried that

Germany would one day take

revenge for its defeat

and we might perhaps be frightened by what kind

of people France now has behind her.

That’s why, as he wrote to me,

he had had the following idea:

since any mobilisation

starts with the increased production

of iron and steel,

a contract should be concluded

enabling the

French people to control

what we would do in the field of iron and steel

and that, conversely, we could control

what France would do in that field.

That was the basis of the European Coal and Steel Community.

So it did not primarily have an economic significance,

but rather an eminently political one.”

Was Adenauer mainly interested

in an economic Europe?

Definitely. But not exclusively.

Rather he was guided by the idea of organic interdependence,

and these ideas were not just taking shape in Germany.

“300 students from nine different countries

met on 7 August 1950

on the border between Germany and France near Germershof,

pulled down the barriers

and burned the boundary posts and barriers

in a joint ceremony.”

“This act was a commitment to Europe

and a protest against the arbitrary nature of borders between peoples.”

“But on 7 September,

just four weeks later,

everything was back to the way it had been.”

[ZOLL - DOUANE]

“But Europe lives on.”

“These all too familiar images of a fragmented, divided Europe

full of barriers:

the community made them disappear in just a few months,

for coal and steel.”

Adenauer’s journey into international politics

aimed to secure the position of the fragile West German state

in the European context.

Shortly after Schuman’s proposal of the European Coal and Steel Community,

the first military confrontation

of the Cold War started,

in June 1950.

The Korean War in the Far East

also raised the question of

military security for the Federal Republic.

“During a break in negotiations,

Federal President Professor Heuss

received the foreign ministers of the western powers

at Hammerschmidt Villa.”

“Although there were difficulties down

to the last minute,

the negotiators for the Allies

and the Federal Chancellor

were able to eliminate all the disagreements.

The signing of the General Treaty

took place on the planned date

in the Hall of the Federal Council.”

“Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden signed for Britain.

Robert Schuman signed for France.

Dean Acheson signed for the United States.

Dr Adenauer signed for the Federal Republic.

At a subsequent reception,

the foreign ministers of the western powers

made statements to the world press.”

“... the entire country, until all Germans, East and West,

are reunited in freedom.”

“We must seek the consent of all.”

“The basis upon which a free and united Europe can be built.”

Initial attempts focused on

merging the western European armed forces,

including the West Germans.

In 1952,

when the Treaty on the European Defence Community

and the General Treaty had been signed,

there was hope that this could work.

But this hope proved to be an illusion.

The treaty on a western European army,

the European Defence Community,

was not ratified by the French Parliament.

“I can remember

Secretary of State Foster Dulles, on his visit to Bonn, saying that

the policy of the United States

was to help

western Europe

become a solid bulwark of Atlantic defence of

peace and freedom.

[Applause]

We are still under occupation law,

with all of the consequences that occupation law brings with it.

Even if the Western Allies

were making restrained use of the

rights they had at the time,

they are still making use of them.

Through the ratification of these treaties,

we as a free people,

are laying the foundation for political and economic

unification of Europe,

thereby saving Europe

from the threat of collapse and downfall.”

“The most bitter disappointment

and the greatest setback for the whole of German politics,

to my mind,

was the setback

on the issue of the European Defence Community.

As you know, the French parliament

ultimately shelved the treaty, ad acta,

without any discussion.”

“1954?”

"That was a very hard blow.

It was the French Parliament’s fault,

but it was also the Bundestag’s fault.

The whole issue had been treated in the

Bundestag in a way...

It spent several years in the Bundestag.

That was the real difficulty.

Federal President Heuss had also opposed it.

He wanted a constitutional opinion.

If you can imagine the

impression that must have given the French side

when they saw that the German side

was having the difficulties

that were coming to light,

it is understandable how they ultimately no longer believed

in the whole thing.

But if you think about

how different things would have been in Europe

if the treaty had been accepted

by all of those involved at the time...

the annexes to the treaty

that had been concluded with England

and the United States

had long been ratified,

but there were still problems between the main parties,

France and Germany,

and ultimately the whole thing fell apart.

That was a terrible blow."

Adenauer was much too much of a political pragmatist

to resign after the failure of the EDC.

The inclusion of the Federal Republic

in the Western Alliance

was now planned as an alliance of individual sovereign states.

This meant the German army was created as a national

army and not an integral component of

a European Defence Community.

By joining NATO and the Western European Union,

the Federal Republic

was included in a European-Atlantic alliance

that did not exclude the possibility of a future

European integration policy.

“The step you are taking now,

the creation

of the Federal Armed Forces on the basis of compulsory military service,

this step you are taking under conditions,

that we, as the social democratic opposition,

deeply regret.”

“We are not gaining freedom,

we are not gaining any sovereignty,

we were not becoming a subject of politics,

instead we are merely remaining an object

of the politics of the other powers.”

It took Adenauer until 1955 to make

the Federal Republic of Germany

a political subject.

The Federal Republic

was included in the circle of western states on an equal footing.

Was Adenauer’s idea of Europe only

based on the countries in the west of the continent?

And what sort of concept of Europe did he have

to guide him?

Adenauer was a Catholic from the Rhineland.

He was cosmopolitan and embraced life.

He was a staunch democrat.

He spoke often, as was common at the time,

about the Christian West,

meaning European peoples culturally shaped

by Roman Christianity,

undoubtedly including Poles, Czechs,

Slovaks and Hungarians.

His understanding of the Christian West,

however, also included the idea of democratic self-determination.

Europe in the time of the Cold War

and the Iron Curtain meant,

when Adenauer spoke of it,

the countries which, based on their cultural and political constitution,

were able to

play an active role in shaping a merger.

The focus of his idea of Europe

was always, however, the desire for reconciliation with France.

As uncomplicated as the contact with Foreign Minister Robert Schuman was

at the start of the 1950s,

so full of friction

and distrust was

the relationship with the President of the Council of Ministers in 1954:

Pierre Mendès France.

Adenauer viewed the

new President of the 5th Republic with scepticism at the start.

When Charles de Gaulle took the reins

of the French government in 1958,

the Federal Chancellor viewed him primarily as a

representative of a nationalist France.

The first meeting started with trepidation,

but the two partners quickly became aware

how similar their political convictions were,

having experienced two world wars.

Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle,

as members of the same generation,

became champions of national reconciliation

between the Germans and the French.

“I was and am of the opinion

that without resolving these two

issues, the future for the German people

will be exceptionally difficult.

France and Germany are neighbours.

We will always remain neighbours.

We have fought wars against one another.

I stood on the battlefield at Mourmelon,

where the graves of French and German soldiers

from the war in 1870/71,

from the war in 1914-18,

and from the last great war, are to be found.

We had both stopped marching there,

the French troops and the German troops.

That made an exceptionally deep impression on me.

It was symbolic of the whole thing.

I mentioned it because it was symbolic.

We will, therefore, have the same fate.

As I mentioned,

we have been at war for years.

That has to end.

Not just ‘it has to end’,

we need to become real and true friends

who make policy together.”

The close political relationship

between the Federal Republic of Germany and France

became a solid foundation for further European unity.

The influence of the USA, however, cannot be ignored.

Ultimately, it was in their interest

for western European unity to make progress.

“Under the Angel of Reims,

the Archbishop welcomed the Chancellor

and the French President

and escorted them, in a ceremonial procession, into the cathedral.”

“A ceremonial pathos filled the church.

This is the place where Charles VII

received the crown from the hands of Joan of Arc

The German troops surrendered in Reims on 7 May 1945.

The formative power of two great men

- Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer -

allows the desire of many generations to become a reality.”

The USA primarily encouraged economic integration,

starting with the Marshall Plan in 1947 and

continuing until the Treaty of Rome in 1957,

even though there were subsequent trade rivalries

between the European Economic Community and America.

“Rome.

In the Capitol, the hour struck for Europe.

Negotiations were concluded on the formation of a common market

and the European

Atomic Energy Community.

The Federal Chancellor and

representatives of Italy, France,

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg

signed this significant treaty.

This brought unity in Europe a significant step closer.”

Adenauer’s close contact with the United States

was primarily based on his trusting relationship

with American Secretary of State,

John Foster Dulles.

“John Foster Dulles and I

developed a real friendship

over a relatively short time.

I don’t think that Dulles

ever lied to me,

and I never lied to him.

We were very open with one another.

But the most important thing

was that his politics, like mine,

had an ethical basis,

so we always found a solution relatively quickly

and got over any opposition we had.

That resulted in a real friendship.

John Foster Dulles was a Christian-minded man,

and I hope I was too,

so we found one another easily.”

After Dulles died in 1959,

in the global political crisis over Berlin,

that culminated in the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961,

de Gaulle became the Adenauer’s closest political ally.

He was the most emphatic in his support for Adenauer’s demand

that western powers should not simply abandon their claim to a presence in West Berlin

under Soviet pressure.

In all of the years of western European integration policy, had Adenauer

forgotten the East?

No.

That would be a fundamental misunderstanding of his vision of Europe.

But he was a realist

who focused primarily on policy making

where he was able to make a difference,

and that was western Europe.

[Moscow proposes a peace treaty with Germany.]

Stalin’s offer to unify the Federal Republic

and the GDR in March 1952,

included the condition

that a united Germany could not belong to any military alliances,

making the further integration of western Europe

impossible.

The early restoration of Germany as a nation state

would have increased national anxiety about the Germans

among neighbouring European countries

to such an extent

that the political will to come together

would have been destroyed as a result.

Konrad Adenauer’s firm goal

was firstly to include the Federal Republic steadfastly

in an alliance of western European-Atlantic states

and only then,

with the security of these links,

to look for a way to achieve balance with the East.

The anti-Communist sentiment that was generally widespread

in the West and the fear of the Soviet Union

made this idea very plausible at the time.

[Stop: Sector border]

Shortly after the western governments rejected

Stalin’s offer to negotiate,

the sector borders (as they were called at the time)

were set up between the FRG and GDR

[Caution: mines in the Soviet sector]

from the eastern side,

and the growing connections were separated.

The West held back.

The same thing happened during the popular uprising in the GDR

on 17 June 1953.

This remained a bitter experience

for many people

in both parts of Germany.

“On 17 June 1953,

the world held its breath.”

[End of the democratic sector of Greater Berlin]

“The surface of Bolshevik tyranny

suddenly cracked wide open.

Through the window of free Berlin,

the world saw the desperate struggle for the liberation

of the population in the Soviet zone.

It was workers who cast the first stone

against the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The workers of East Berlin and the sectors.

Stones against tanks.

This showed both the unequal balance of power

in this fight for liberation

and the desperate bravery

of the enslaved people.

The Soviets sent in tanks

to support their puppets

and suppressed the uprising with brutal violence.

The sacrifices made by the

freedom fighters on this 17 June

were not in vain.”

Western powers were also forced to watch the

uprising in Hungary just as powerlessly,

until it was brutally suppressed by

Red Army soldiers.

“Our cameras were there.

They were also in Moscow

when the Federal German state visit to

the Soviet Union was received slightly later.

A guard of honour had been formed.

Bulganin and Molotov welcomed the German Federal Chancellor

at the Soviet airfield.”

Since 1955,

the government in Bonn had had no option but

to seek political contact and diplomatic relations

with the Soviet Union, so they could

at least keep the German question on the table.

“The people stood in front of Spiridonovka Palace,

the meeting place for the politicians.

The smiles in the conference room

could not hide the fact

that different opinions clashed here.

Left of Dr Adenauer: Minister for Foreign Affairs von Brentano,

and Kiesinger, member of parliament in the Bundestag.”

“I went to Moscow then

with a delegation

made up of members of the government

and members of the Bundestag.

The negotiations in Moscow,

which were initially very intense,

(Khrushchev was a very temperamental man,

if you shake a fist at me

I will shake mine back at you),

but ultimately the atmosphere was not so bad.

Then an offer was made to me

to release all the prisoners

the Russians still held.

The Russians initially claimed

they didn’t have any prisoners left.

The ones they still held

had been convicted of war crimes.

But later, 38 000 people

returned.

I can say one thing though:

the Russians stuck to the promise they had

given me very rigidly.

They released the prisoners

very correctly and diligently.”

Was the establishment of diplomatic relations

the price Adenauer had to pay

for the release of the prisoners?

And was that difficult for him?

“But honestly,

how can you talk about ‘price’?

If you want something

from a country you don’t have diplomatic relations with,

you definitely won’t get anything.

I never understood

why we shouldn’t establish diplomatic relations.”

“Your officials tell you

this nonsense is necessary

to keep the peace.

They try to convince

you that these measures of the so-called GDR

would have kept the peace.

You are smart enough

to recognise this lie.

It’s Ulbricht,

he had the wall and the barbed wire built.

He is driving your fellow citizens

from their houses along the sector borders.

He is even ordering you

to fire on your fellow citizens.”

From 1958 it became increasingly difficult

to keep the German question on the table.

The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961

sealed the division of Germany,

but at the same time it confirmed

that the eastern side had ultimately

accepted the West’s claim to a presence

in West Berlin.

Adenauer always encouraged

this toughness on the part of the West,

and during the Berlin crisis,

up to 1960, only de Gaulle initially supported him

“Here in Berlin

the three previous occupying powers

- the United States,

France and Great Britain -

have their own rights.

It is about ensuring that these rights

are retained in relation to the former partner

of the three, the

Soviet Union.

Under international law

the question of reunification,

and I'll come to the right of self-determination shortly,

under international law it is based on the fact that

in the General Treaty

that the Federal Republic

signed with the three states just mentioned,

Article 7 states that

the four contracting parties consider one of the

first tasks of their policies to be

achieving reunification.”

In 1961, the American government

under newly elected President John F. Kennedy

pivoted to the hard western line,

and competition began between the US and France,

between Kennedy and de Gaulle,

for who could exert the greatest influence over Adenauer.

This would determine Bonn’s European policy direction.

De Gaulle wanted a two-party alliance between Germany and France

as the core of political western Europe,

in which France would dominate

and the US would have barely any influence at all.

Kennedy wanted to maintain and strengthen the

Atlantic-European alliance as set out

in the NATO Treaty.

The statesmen visited the FRG in quick succession,

but de Gaulle campaigned for his cause

more in the West and the South of the country,

while Kennedy campaigned in Berlin.

“It's only necessary

to see the fire

in your eyes to

be convinced

that this enthusiasm

has predestined you to be masters of your lives

and the future!”

Just a few months after de Gaulle’s state visit,

on 22 January 1963,

the treaty between Germany and France,

the Élysée Treaty, was signed.

It set out particularly close, regular political coordination

between Bonn and Paris.

At the end of the Adenauer era,

European integration policy seemed

to be merged in rapprochement between Germany and France.

This may have been a result of the personal experiences of both Adenauer

and de Gaulle during the crisis years in Berlin,

but even more so, it was the conclusion of a lifetime's work

aiming to achieve reconciliation between Germany and France.

Adenauer had always seen that as a requirement

for bringing together all western European countries.

“With this treaty,

a period of conflict and opposition,

of wars,

a period that has lasted over 400 years,

is at an end, and at an end forever.

The special thing about this treaty is that

it will not bring an end to serious difficulties,

differences or similar problems,

it will not get rid of them.

What is special is that it

makes provisions to ensure

that tensions like those never occur again.”

“Berlin was expecting President Kennedy

on the fourth day of his visit to Germany.

The Communist regime in East Berlin

had hung red cloths on the Brandenburg Gate

to deny him the chance to look towards East Berlin.

It erected a board with political slogans

against the Federal Republic

directly behind the wall.”

The US insisted on close ties

between the Federal Republic and the Atlantic Alliance.

By visiting Germany,

President Kennedy demonstrated

America's interest

in the continuation of stable relations

with the West German state.

"To all mankind, freedom is indivisible.

and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

When all are free, then we can look forward

to that day when this city will be joined as one

and this country. All free men,

wherever they may live,

are citizens of Berlin,

and, therefore, as a free man,

I take pride in the words: 'Ich bin ein Berliner'.”

The Bundestag affirmed the integration of the Bonn Republic

into the American-dominated Western alliance,

as created with Adenauer’s involvement in the years up to 1955.

The Élysée Treaty

was only ratified

once it was expressly stated in the preamble

that the agreements of the Élysée Treaty

would not have a negative impact on any of the existing western European and Atlantic

alliance structures.

De Gaulle did not achieve his goal

of an independent axis between Paris and Bonn.

More than this, though, after 30 years the treaty served to achieve

mutual understanding

and proved to be a reliable pillar

in the structure of the European Community.

What was the real achievement of Adenauer’s European policy?

Was it reconciliation with France?

Was it the inclusion of the Federal Republic

in the European-Atlantic alliance,

as part of NATO?

Was it economic unification

from the European Coal and Steel Community to the European Defence Community?

Ultimately, it was the linking

of these three different, but

closely related, goals,

which can be viewed as a crystallisation process

that affected more than just western Europe.

In 1967, Adenauer said:

“But we need to look to the East.

Europe includes countries

with a rich European past.

We need to give them the chance to join too.

Europe must be great,

must be strong,

must have influence,

to bring its interests in global politics

to the fore.”

“Riots.

Shortly after the announcement

of the result of the vote,

there were serious clashes

between radical opponents of Europe

and the police.

In the centre of Copenhagen.

several hundred demonstrators set up barricades

and threw stones at police.

Twenty-four security personnel were injured,

one of whom had life-threatening injuries.”

“Crime Scene Europe.

The perpetrators: initially 6, now 12 European countries

which have been trying for more than 40 years

to overcome old times and new problems.”

“I would choose the community,

because I think that in the long term

the individual countries will not be able to exist alone.

Only as a community will there be strength.

“I would choose Maastricht.”

“I know there shouldn’t be any borders any more,

they don’t exist any more in any case.

Laws should continue to be aligned

- I don't know what the relationship should be like.

I know there should be one currency,

but how should that be implemented?

What consequences does that have for me specifically?

It isn’t clear to me,

and that’s the problem.

That’s why I’m voting a clear No.”

“Yes to Europe, yes.”

“Why?”

“I can tell you the reason -

because I have a French girlfriend.”

Adenauer the pragmatist understood how to guide

Germany out of its self-inflicted isolation

in Europe.

His patriotic policies

made him one of the founding fathers

of modern-day Europe.

[Konrad Adenauer A Founding Father of Europe]

[Script: Anselm Döring-Manteuffel] Director: Barbara v. Poschinger]

[Editing: Gisela Gondolatsch] [Narrator: Wolfgang Kaven]

[Production: Ule J.R. Eith & Partner]

[A collaboration between: European Community] [Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk]