Man from the Wine Country

Little Bonn, on the west bank of the Rhine, bustled to prepare itself as the world's newest capital. One morning last week, a black limousine stopped in front of the gleaming white, ultra-modern Teachers' College which carpenters and masons were enlarging to hold the legislative houses of the long-awaited German Federal Republic. Out of the car stepped a tall, elderly man, in sober dark suit and high, starched collar. One or two of the workmen recognized him as he passed, and nodded gravely; he responded with a grin. Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor-apparent of the Federal Republic, was on his way to his office, and to one of the most momentous tasks undertaken by any man in the postwar world.

For the Christian World. "A start must be made," said Adenauer when he presided last year over West Germany's constitutional assembly, "so that Germany can earn a place among the free nations of the world." As Chancellor, at 73, he will guide a nation neither whole nor as yet quite free--still distrusted by the outside world, beset with grave economic problems, vestiges of hatred and despair.

Adenauer belongs in the ranks of Europe's Christian Democratic politicians, whose emergence to leadership in the West is one of the Continent's striking postwar phenomena. His Christian Democratic Union (C.D.U.), together with its political counterparts in Italy, France, Belgium and The Netherlands, may well prove to be the force to stem the assault of Communism and to bring about Europe's regeneration. He states his political credo simply: "Germany can be reconstructed on a sound basis only if she declares herself wholeheartedly for the Christian world of the West and all it stands for." In her external relations, Adenauer sees Germany as the eastern bulwark of a free Europe; to fit her into her place he favors a competitive economy based on the principles of "free private initiative and profit-sharing for the worker." He speaks fervently of the mission of Christian democracy, not for Germany alone but for all Europe:

"In the Iron Curtain countries today the only real opposition to the Communist regimes comes from the ranks of the churches. The Socialists may proclaim that they are the chief enemies to Communism, and in Berlin they have certainly demonstrated that fact, but what has happened in every Eastern European country the Communists have taken? The left-wing of the Socialist parties has always gone Communist under pressure . . .

"But Christianity is indivisible. Christianity is not a shallow materialistic concept masquerading as a .life philosophy, as are Leninism and Marxism; Christianity is a dynamic spiritual force that outlives all politics. Christianity is the answer to all ideologies. The only possible hope for peace and order in Europe lies in a federated Europe based on Christian ideals."

Longer than Empire. The man of this faith was born a Roman Catholic in the shadow of Cologne's magnificent twin-spired cathedral. His father, a minor bureaucrat, wanted him to be a bank clerk, but young Konrad looked with awe upon the high Beamten (officials) who strode about Cologne exuding importance. He decided to get a university education so that he could be a Beamter some day too. With the help of scholarships and spare-time work, he studied law and economics, settled down to practice law in Cologne. At 30 he started up the ladder of bureaucracy, four years later he was deputy mayor.

One day in 1917 his driver fell asleep at the wheel and smashed into a streetcar. Adenauer's face was badly injured, still bears scars. While he was still in the hospital, Cologne's mayor died, and a delegation of the city council dropped in to inform Adenauer of the news. "They sent a delegation," Adenauer grins, "because they had heard of my severe head injuries. They wanted to make sure I was still normal." Satisfied that he was, the city council elected him mayor.

In almost two decades as mayor, Adenauer proved a vigorous, progressive, highly popular administrator. He helped found Cologne's university, promoted the revival of an annual trade fair, set up a model settlement for workers. He had a natural flair for politics. "When I sat in the city hall in Cologne," Adenauer once said, "I used to think to myself: the Roman Empire went down, Bismarck's Prussian dream collapsed and now Kaiser Wilhelm's Reich has been destroyed. But this old city of Cologne lives on. It has outlasted them all, and it is worth all one's energies to protect and cherish it."

Adenauer's devotion to Cologne and his native Rhineland gave rise to an abiding dislike for Prussia. His eyes were turned West (he is known for his strong pro-French sympathies). Adenauer--who does not drink--once said:

"There is not one Germany. There are three. One (Bavaria) is the Germany of beer, a second (Prussia) is the Germany of schnapps and the third (the Rhineland) is the Germany of wine. The only people sober enough to rule all three in a sane, sensible manner are those from the wine country."

Among the Flowers. A powerful leader of the Center (a Catholic party that was the most stable of all parties in the Weimar Republic), Adenauer was openly hostile to the Nazis from the moment they started rising to power. When Hitler was about to visit Cologne in 1933, his fanatic followers draped the great Rhine bridge with huge swastikas. Adenauer ordered his police to tear them down. Goring promptly ordered Adenauer's discharge from office and banishment from Cologne. Adenauer found asylum in a convent on an island down the Rhine.

Later he was arrested twice by the Gestapo on suspicion of having played a part in underground activities. He was quickly released. But in the Gestapo jails, he was kept sleepless by the cries of agony from other prisoners. "I said to myself," he said later: "How can these same fellows now be so cruel who served under me in Cologne as good citizens and efficient policemen?"

During the war years, Adenauer retired to a spacious white house near Cologne, and worked in his garden. In 1945 the U.S. Army reinstalled him once again as mayor of his beloved Cologne.

Only five months later, however, when Cologne had become part of the British zone, Adenauer was abruptly dismissed from office. British authorities charged unconvincingly that he had "not energetically carried out the orders of the military government, particularly regarding the housing of the people ..." Adenauer once more retired to his flowers.

The Old Fox. When the Western powers lifted their ban on political parties in Germany, Adenauer emerged as one of the founders of the Christian Democratic

Union. Although the C.D.U. was the direct descendant of the former Center party, there was a big difference. The Center had been almost entirely Roman Catholic; the C.D.U. broadened its base to include Protestant elements. A somewhat unwieldy conglomeration of religious groups, of Ruhr industrialists and Christian trade unionists, the C.D.U. owes its political effectiveness to Adenauer. Dignified and charming in a stately sort of way, he smoothed party crises with the silk-gloved infighting tactics he had used with his city council in Cologne. Political friends and enemies alike call him "the old fox."

Adenauer, a staunch democrat in politics, is an autocrat of the breakfast and the dinner table. His son says: "Father leaves democracy at the door. He rules our family with a strong hand. If a rose tree must be transplanted, he decides when and where. If my sister wants to bake a cake, he must say yes or no. This is not unusual in Germany, you know; this is how it should be."

The Old Reliable. Ever since his Christian Democratic Union had come out ahead in the West German elections (TIME, Aug. 22), Adenauer's work load had increased staggeringly. Letters have poured in--from oldtime civil servants seeking jobs, from contractors eager to get in on Bonn's construction boom, from well-wishers, favor-askers, crackpots, foreign diplomats. Callers pressed him relentlessly--a U.S. broadcasting company wanted to record his message to the American people; Bonn's deputy mayor came to talk over housing for mushrooming government' bureaus; a secretary asked him to approve the musical program for the opening of parliament. Adenauer was still negotiating, shrewdly as ever, to form a cabinet that would guarantee him the most workable coalition. (The Socialists are now definitely out; in are the free-enterprising Protestant Free Democrats and the extreme nationalist Deutsche Partei.) From Bonn last week, TIME Correspondent David Richardson cabled: "Neither young nor dynamic, Adenauer is the kind of pre-Nazi politician who did not succumb to National Socialism and who now must lead his country's new life until a new generation, not tainted by Hitler, can rise to power. Adenauer has limitations, but he can at least be counted upon to seek better relations between Germany and the West. He will try to continue the free enterprise that has done so much to speed German recovery. He is a shrewd and able coalitionist at a time when a coalition government (without Communists) must succeed."

American, British and French officials now agree with the Germans who voted for him that Adenauer is by far the best choice at this stage of the great effort to bring Germany into the free world.

"To that effort, the old man from the wine country has pledged all his foxiness, all his sobriety, and all his faith."

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