West Germany's first chancellor, Adenauer was born January 5, 1876, as one of three sons of a minor civil servant. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family with little money. His career in politics began as a member of the Cologne City Council and in 1917 he became lord mayor of the city. He also became president of the Prussian State Council and German Council of Cities and chairman of the Rhineland Provincial Committee. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Adenauer, who had not hidden distaste for them, lost his positions, was forced to go into "exile" for a year in an abbey and was later interned in a prison camp until his release in 1944 due to efforts by his son.

The day after the Allied capture of Cologne on May 8, 1945, the Americans asked him to be mayor again, but the British took control of the city and dismissed him. Adenauer then set to work forming a new political party combining Protestants and Catholics into the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). After the Western occupying powers agreed to merge their zones to form a new state, Adenauer was appointed president of the Parliamentary Council, which convened in Bonn on September 1, 1948, to hammer out a provisional constitution. After the first West German elections, when the CDU and its sister party, the Christian Social Union, won 139 of 402 seats, Adenauer became chancellor on September 15, 1949, by one vote. He was already 73.

As chancellor, Adenauer's primary focus was a sovereign, democratic West German state firmly anchored in the West. Under the Petersberg Agreement of November 22, 1949, the Allied powers agreed to stop dismantling German industry, to the opening of German consulates abroad and to Germany's participation in the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. For this Germany had to join the Council of Europe and the International Ruhr Authority, thereby recognizing de facto international control of the Ruhr.

Less than six months later, two Adenauer memoranda -- concerning the creation of a police force, possible German contributions to the defense of Europe and a revision of Germany's status vis-a-vis the Allied powers -- caused a stir at home, in part because many Germans, in light of their recent history, were against remilitarization. The memoranda, however, led to increased liberalization of the occupation regime and the eventual inclusion of Germany in plans for a European Defense Community and, when it failed, NATO.

The Paris and Bonn Conventions signed on October 23, 1954, normalized relations between Germany and the Western powers, ending the period of occupation. Adenauer also negotiated a compensation agreement with Israel in recognition of the horror perpetrated by Hitler and Germany on the Jews. His efforts toward conciliation and atonement helped give moral authority to the fledgling West German state.

Until the 1961 elections, Adenauer's foreign and domestic policies earned his party increasing majorities, culminating in an absolute majority in the 1957 election. But after 1961 the CDU-CSU had to form a coalition with the Free Democratic Party, and the FDP made it a condition that Adenauer retire in 1963. The last few years of his rule were troubled by a domestic scandal (the Spiegel Affair) and diminished by his attempt to retain power by taking the presidency -- before realizing the position was largely ceremonial and changing his mind. He also tried to prevent the ascendancy of Ludwig Erhardt, his minister of finance who had "authored" the Wirtschaftwunder, or "economic miracle," of the 1950s, to the position of chancellor due to personal dislike.

After retiring, Adenauer traveled and finished his memoirs until his death on April 20, 1967, at age 91. As Erhardt said of him after his death, "the rebirth of Germany is indelibly linked with (Adenauer's) name."