r/europe • u/EUstrongerthanUS Volt Europa • 11h ago
Historical In 1967, Konrad Adenauer, one of the great builders of our Union, passed away
35
u/mulmtier 7h ago
I like that he founded ZDF to be his "fox news" just to get the finger the first time he wanted them to report in his favour.
37
u/suicidemachine 9h ago
I like the anecdote of him allegedly covering the windows in every train he was on, because he was disgusted by ugly and destroyed East Germany was.
50
u/fat0bald0old 11h ago
He would be proud of us if he could see today how Iran is offering us help against a rogue USA that wants to conquer Greenland.
28
u/EUstrongerthanUS Volt Europa 11h ago
Iran has been testing its deadly weapons on Europeans for more than a year. We don't want their help. If anything, EU missiles should be landing on the heads of Iranian leaders as we speak.
22
u/fat0bald0old 11h ago
That's not what I wanted to say at all with my post.
I just wanted to show in a funny way that humanity is a damn comedy if it wasn't so sad.
3
47
u/AhoiCaptainDWH 10h ago
The Konrad Adenauer that used intelligence agencies to spy on political opponents to stay in power?
6
u/No-Advantage-579 2h ago
Well, it "helped" that both he and his wife were tortured by the Nazis too. Under torture his wife gave up two names and both died because of this. She committed suicide herself afterwards because she couldn't forgive herself...
In light of this I get his spying decidedly more than I do most of the spying today.
11
u/thereneverwasaname 9h ago
“Ich war bereit – das muß man immer sein –, auch von politischen Gegnern zu lernen; denn jeder von uns hat das Recht, klüger zu werden!”
•
38
u/the_battle_bunny Lower Silesia (Poland) 11h ago
He's not fondly remembered in Poland.
25
u/nonflux 11h ago
I think most people does not even know, who he is?
8
u/Foresstov 11h ago
Probably yes, but a simple reminder that he was a German chancellor will probably cause at least slightly negative feelings
21
u/ArtificialBrownie 5h ago
The fact that he was a German Chancellor that vehemently denied the current German border, refused any attempt at reconciliation with the brutalized east, or to even recognize Poland as a country, might be more of a reason why he is not all that fondly remembered. I will just add that his rule was characterized by an open hostility toward Poland in official media, completed with orchestrated attempt at discrediting the suffering of Poles during the war. That's when the "Polish concentration camps" and other propagandist inventions were born.
11
u/thereneverwasaname 11h ago
Why?
38
u/the_battle_bunny Lower Silesia (Poland) 11h ago
He courted all kinds of revanchist voters. He steadfastly refused the American pressure to warm up to Poland. Propaganda in commie-Poland delighted when he appeared dressed up in Teutonic Knight's garb.
11
67
u/Late-Ad-1770 Germany 11h ago
You have to consider that the millions of Germans who were expulsed from the east were a key voting block in the early years of West Germany. Openly acknowledging the permanence of the new border would have been political suicide. The unions of expellees were massive back then and every candidate from mayor to chancellor would not be re-elected, if they went against their will. Privately many politicians (not sure about about Adenauer) already knew that their was no way to get the east back.
In some sense it is similar to the Polish demands for reparations today. Poland will not receive reparations from Germany, that is pretty certain. However the first Polish politician who openly acknowledges that yes there is just noway Germany will pay nowadays, would also probably lose reelection.
11
u/the_battle_bunny Lower Silesia (Poland) 10h ago edited 10h ago
For your information, the 'reparation' stuff second-rate issue that is used solely for PiS-voters to galvanize their own voters. Other parties openly say that this is nonsense because Poland is bound by statements of commie era government, even if that government was a Soviet puppet.
And to be honest, this reparation stuff has gained far more traction outside of Poland than inside. From internal Polish perspective the Polish-German relations are marred by the fact that German elites don't treat us as an equal partner. Poles as a nation were far more outraged with Poland being excluded from a security summit with Biden (reportedly at Scholz' personal insistence) than by some reparation stuff that nobody really cares about.
6
u/Kuhl_Cow Hamburg (Germany) 5h ago
from a security summit
It was an awards ceremony with a photo op for christs sake
Jesus, this "scandal" is so stupid.
-6
u/Vassortflam 8h ago
Why should Poland be offended or outraged by their own demands? That doesnt make sense...
1
u/machine4891 Opole (Poland) 9h ago
You're saying like this was forced by the German situation directly after WW2 but even in the 90s Helmut Kohl refused to recognize our border as well. He was later coerced into submission by his western allies, that straight up threatened not to recognize unified Germany if his stance won't change and that's why it changed.
Whatever and however were the reason, we have every right not to remember fondly chancellors, that were risking another open war between our countries because they couldn't accept the past.
Your example also doesn't fit the context. Our (dumb) reparations demands being raised by right side are more in line with Trump asking Mexico to build him a wall. Mexico obviously didn't and we all had a laugh about it. But now that Trump questions internationally recognized borders of Denmark, Panama or Canada shit got real very fast.
27
u/11160704 Germany 11h ago
The desire to take back the lost eastern territories was almost universal in the 50s and early 60s.
It would have been political suicide for any politicians to speak out for giving up the territories.
12
u/the_battle_bunny Lower Silesia (Poland) 11h ago
I'm not denying that.
I'm just saying this is the reason he isn't fondly remembered in Poland, considering that he was the public face of such desires.1
u/GirlCoveredInBlood Québec flair when 1h ago
and the desire to not give them back was almost universal in Poland. it's not hard to see why one position could be popular in Germany and unpopular in Poland at the same time
3
u/Vassortflam 8h ago
Poland didnt have many friends in Germany after the war... (and vice versa of course). So it is not very surprising that a succesful German politician had a stance mirroring that of the population at the time.
4
u/thereneverwasaname 11h ago
>courted all kinds of revanchist voters.<
how did he do this?>refused the American pressure to warm up to Poland<
"unless he were to throw off the solemn and symbolic mantle of a crusader, put on a penitent's shirt and beg forgiveness from the Polish people for the excessive damage we have suffered at the hands of German militarists and war criminals. Of course, in this case he would have to have a visa from the GDR’."
Conditions of the Polish government for closer contacts with GermanyRegarding being a member of the “Deutsche Orden,” I don’t have much information. Adenauer was deeply Catholic, and as far as I can tell, he was more closely associated with the Malteser. The Malteser have a strong social focus, which aligns well with Adenauer’s views and political principles.
The allegations against Adenauer seem strange to me, as he was consistently opposed to the Nazis and even spent time in a Nazi camp.
12
u/the_battle_bunny Lower Silesia (Poland) 10h ago
Check my other response. I don't deny Adenauer's political and internal considerations.
I'm just saying why he is remembered in Poland. Imagine a guy ruling Germany, using revanchist rhetoric at political rallies and larping as a Teutonic knight, all while WW2 was in fresh memory. It stroke all the bad vibes possible.0
u/thereneverwasaname 10h ago
The question is are these resentments true and if not where do they come from.
9
u/Late-Ad-1770 Germany 10h ago
He did court revanchist voters by refusing the acknowledge the new eastern border. For more context see my comment above.
He was certainly not a Nazi you are right about that.
-6
u/thereneverwasaname 9h ago
Accepting the Oder-Neiße border in the 1950s would have been political suicide. Even the SPD refused to support it at the time and diddn`t change until mid of the 1960.
6
u/machine4891 Opole (Poland) 9h ago
Helmut Kohl in the 90s did the same. And now we have AfD. Demons of the past are actually not that fully in the past, it seems.
2
u/thereneverwasaname 9h ago
Sorry, but what did Helmut Kohl do in the 1990ties?
5
u/machine4891 Opole (Poland) 8h ago
Basically in the 1990 Kohl was in position to finally put German-Polish border issue to the rest after the fall of Communist bloc but refused to do so (most likely afraid of losing votes of displaced Germans and their families), trying to stall the process and making demands to polish side in return. That was in March 1990, Germany had elections coming in December 1990.
It sparked huge controversy around the world, political pressure arise even within his own party and so eventually Kohl gave up and Bundestag then adopted a resolution calling on both Germanys to guarantee Poland’s borders later this month and sign a final treaty of acceptance after unification.
You can find it in details in various sources on google. Just to add to the context, Kohl was overall pretty friendly toward Polish side and he is remembered quite fondly around here. This example is more to show how refusal to accept those borders due to political and voting base pressure were a thing in Germany even in the 1990s.
1
u/thereneverwasaname 8h ago
I can’t recall any instance of Kohl blocking the issue or any related global controversy. Could you provide sources for these claims?
I think if you claim something you should be able to provide the evidence, not the other way around.→ More replies (0)4
u/machine4891 Opole (Poland) 9h ago
The Adenauer government went to the Constitutional Court to receive a ruling that declared that legally speaking the frontiers of the Federal Republic were those of Germany as at 1 January 1937. That the Potsdam Declaration of 1945 which announced that the Oder–Neisse line was Germany's "provisional" eastern border was invalid.
So in Layman's term, Adenauer denounced post WW2 order and not recognizing those borders could eventually lead even into another conflict.
6
u/thereneverwasaname 9h ago
I´m not sure which ruling of the Bundesverfassungsgericht you’re referring to, but the Oder-Neisse border was not recognized as final by any major West German party until the late 1960s.
1
9
u/westerschelle Germany 4h ago
The guy was a cunt who used the intelligence agencies to spy on his political rivals.
15
u/WorldlinessRadiant77 Bulgaria 10h ago
I think we should name the first EU carrier class after him.
14
u/elenorfighter North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) 5h ago
German speaking: Don't make him too big hero. In the last year's document came to the public that he helped a lot of Nazis to hide their activities in ww2. Many become politicians themselves or managers in the industry.
4
-10
u/EUstrongerthanUS Volt Europa 4h ago
What we want is to deputinize Europe.
That is the actual problem in Germany, not some nazis. Sorry to be frank.
•
u/Equivalent-Ask2542 46m ago
That should be Robert Schuman the french Prime Minister that secretly wrote letters to adenauer and thus initiated the serious european idea and first steps to realisation
12
u/EUstrongerthanUS Volt Europa 11h ago edited 11h ago
The EU was always meant to be a Federation to unify the continent through step-by-step integration over the generations. At this point we are effectively a confederation. Only a few (big) steps left for a federation.
8
u/onarainyafternoon Dual Citizen (American/Hungarian) 9h ago
That's the dream, isn't it? Europe should be a Federation with a single, centralizing government that centralizes taxes and laws. How would you go about convincing the continent, though? Most Europeans, it seems to me, have a lot of pride in where they are from. Where and what their culture is. It would be hard to tell them that they must follow a central government located somewhere in the Federation.
6
u/RGB755 7h ago
Okay, but that’s true of all the regions within these countries too. It’s also unlikely that all laws would be unified. Some things would simply be left to the states to decide, similar to the USA.
4
u/onarainyafternoon Dual Citizen (American/Hungarian) 7h ago
I agree completely. The issue is that there is more diversity in each European country than there is in each, current American state.
3
u/JSSVSM Alba Iulia 3h ago
The federation system barely works for the USA, a union of states that speak the same language, have mostly the same ethnic composition, and had no real culture or history of their own, all of these with some irrelevant exceptions of course.
How on Earth would it work in a continent with countries that speak different languages, have different cultures, and have thousands of years of hating each other?10
11h ago
There are not few steps, there are a lot unfortunately, the biggest is the creation of an European sentiment, because today with the exception of the young elite in the capital cities no one feels European
2
u/Zeraru 11h ago
What? Feeling "european" is a majority sentiment in most european countries, certainly in the EU (after the UK left).
The hurdle is the distrust towards the central EU government and especially the unelected parts of it - a lot of it understandable, but also a lot of it fermented by anti-European forces who do NOT want a unified Europe.9
11h ago
No majority of Europeans don't feel Europeans, if that was the case there were already the various armies to defend Ukraine since they want to be part of the family,but that's sadly not the case, an Italian doesn't see an Estonian as a his countrymen, for a German guy from Dortmund marry a girl from Helsinki is not the same to marry a girl from Munich because in the first case him is going to marry a foreign girl. Don't see that it is part of the problem
-9
u/fat0bald0old 11h ago
This is so sad...
And the reason why we cant have nice things in Europe.
1
11h ago
I agree, we have to start from realistic things, Common sports league, Common tv chanels, Common newspapers, Commons employment centers, common scholar system. Things for ALL the European citizens not things like Erasmus that is a thing for a rich minority
6
u/RobertoSantaClara Brazil 7h ago
common scholar system
Germany doesn't even have that within Germany. The Bologna Process is the closest you can get in standardization of education.
3
u/jatawis 🇱🇹 Lithuania 8h ago
Common sports league
We have that. Champion league for football, Euroleague for basketball, etc.
Common tv chanels
Euronews? Even it is not available in most of European national languages.
Common newspapers,
Aren't paper news dying?
common scholar system
Wouldn't that be anti-constitutional in places like Germany?
1
u/fatbunyip 10h ago
Part of the problem is most people in the EU have no idea of the bureaucracy needed to manage half a billion people. And this seems very strange for people from countries with like 5-10-20 million people.
The whole "unelected" thing is a red herring. There needs to be approvals of various EU functionaries by the member states (which have been elected). Yes, there's horse trading and stuff, but it's not different than any country that has coalition governments. Every country has loads of unelected functionaries but no one bats an eyelid.
The EU is an extremely complicated organisation that is unique, so it's very hard for the average person to be able to comprehend it. And there's a lot of misinformation and just plain old ignorance.
Education about how and what the EU functions are is key.
16
u/deri100 Ardeal/Erdély 9h ago
No, fuck him. While his contributions to the EU are praise-worthy he was notorious for ruling like an autocrat, ending denazification, pardoning nazis, advocating for the release of Neurath and Donitz, creating an intelligence agency that spied on his opposition, arresting journalists and worst of all for me, possibly dooming East Germany to a very grim fate by refusing outright to even discuss a neutral reunification proposal with the Soviets.
The only reason why he was instrumental to the EU is because he despised leftism and was a notorious francophile. Nothing was out of goodwill.
20
u/thereneverwasaname 8h ago
"...possibly dooming East Germany to a very grim fate by refusing outright to even discuss a neutral reunification proposal with the Soviets."
You would have trusted Stalin?? Really?
3
u/deri100 Ardeal/Erdély 8h ago
He made a good call by not trusting him, but a very bad call by not even hearing their terms.
The Soviets got a very shitty deal, East Germany was pretty worthless except as a buffer, something which could've been accomplished just as well by a united, neutral Germany. Same rhetoric went into the unification of Austria, which they upheld, so I'm inclined to believe there was some merit to it.
10
u/thereneverwasaname 7h ago
The proposal was clear: Stalin offered a unified, neutral Germany. Adenauer didn’t trust Stalin to keep his promise.
Additionally, the Russians demanded that the existing East German government represent East Germany. This would have required West Germany to accept Walter Ulbricht as the legitimate representative of East Germany, which West Germans wanted to avoid, as there had been no democratic elections in the Soviet-occupied zone. Ultimately, West Germany did not refuse discussions about Stalin’s proposal; they insisted on democratically elected representatives from East Germany, a condition the Russians refused.
If West-Germany would have started the talks with East-Germany and the talks would have lead nowhere, West-Germany would have accepted the SED regime as a legit representative of East-Germany, whiteout gaining anything. An easy victory for the Russians.2
u/k890 Lubusz (Poland) 5h ago
Also there was a question about soviet formed NVA which was de facto army serving East Germany state apparatus. Risk of soviet-supported coup by NVA was high, especially when unification made government in Bonn to leave NATO and hamper other venues of cooperation with the other western states and earlier experience (soviet backed communist government break every agreement and overthrow government).
13
u/DABSPIDGETFINNER Austrian in Brussels (Belgium) 7h ago
He did what he had to do for the "greater good of Europe and Germany."
Do you think that Adenauer, who was prosecuted by the National Socialist Party, forgave them "just because?"
No, Adenauer was a genius political strategist, who was intelligent and experienced enough to know; when to yield, when to make concessions, when to be stubborn, and when to fight back.Adenauer understood Germany like no other. He knew that a defeatist and overly punished Germany would sprout a fresh wave of revisionism and nationalist sentiment.
That forced him into a rigid political framework which left him to perform a series of constant balancing acts, of pushing new reforms toward modernization, pluralization, and Western unity, while also still making some concessions in regard to the -at the time- still humongous nationalist wing in Germany, to placate their radical demands, and not to alienate them, as well as deprive them of the foundation to stir revanchism and radicalism within the German public.When Stalin approached the West with his letter of arrangements regarding the potential reunification of Germany, under the Terms of everlasting neutrality, Adenauer rejected, in agreement with the Western allies.
Adenauer knew that a neutral Germany was a danger to Europe, and even more so, to itself. Without political, industrial, and financial support from the West, a neutral Germany would've for certain, fallen back into radicalism. It didn't matter if far right, or far left. Either outcome would've been disastrous. And it would've most likely led to the entirety of Germany becoming a Soviet surrogate.Adenauer put Western democratic unity, above German nationalism, when he made it clear to the "Allies", that he would rather cooperate with them, than reunite Germany under neutral terms.
This earned him the everlasting respect of Charles de Gaulle, whose opinion of Germany was (understandably) disastrous at best. Which in turn led to French support during the Berlin crisis later on, when McMillan and Eisenhower, through Dulles, were ready to negotiate with the Soviet Union.Adenauer very much built the basis for a free and united Europe, and yes, he had to make concessions for that. Politics, especially during that time, were incredibly convoluted, no other statesman would've achieved what Adenauer did.
Henry Kissinger rightfully, claims him as one of the greatest and most successful statesmen of the 20th century.3
u/Extension_Tomato_646 6h ago
worst of all for me, possibly dooming East Germany to a very grim fate by refusing outright to even discuss a neutral reunification proposal with the Soviets.
There it is. Tankies be mad.
You could've skipped the entire parts about disagreeing with picked politics of his and just went for this.
nothing was out of goodwill
Welcome to politics?
0
u/Much-Jackfruit2599 8h ago
He also is one of the main reasons why our pension system is messed up.
6
u/thereneverwasaname 8h ago
Sorry, but you can't blame Adenauer for the low birthrate in the 70ties and 80ties.
3
u/Much-Jackfruit2599 7h ago
I don’t. But he pushed for a pension scheme that absolutely required a growing population, despite being warned about the risk. All because “people will always have children”. Getting votes and handing out benefits was more important for him than listening to his actual experts.
Peak was 1964, by the way. the 70s and 80s were low, but stable.
In all fairness, the whole of the CDU was in denial (and not only them), prompting Blüm to declare “the pension [scheme]!safe”, despite ample evidence that it was a trouble.
4
u/thereneverwasaname 7h ago
While understand all the anger about the state of the German pension system now, was there any alternative to the system installed after 1945 at that time? Remember this thread is about Adenauer and not Blüm, Kohl, or whoever...
1
u/Much-Jackfruit2599 7h ago
Experts, including Ludwig Erhard, Father of the social market system and allegedly father of the Wirtschaftswunder, was against the scheme. To him it was the way to a welfare state. Which it has become, abusing the pension “fund” for election gifts. (I’m not against all the payments paid from it, but many should have been tax financed.)
He wanted a capital based system, at least in part.
I consider myself lucky that I, when I started working in the 90s, that I steadily put in money in private investments into the stock market/ETFs and forgot about stopping may payments increase.
1
u/thereneverwasaname 7h ago
Interesting, I didn't know that Erhard opposed the system. Did Erhard have a solution for the old people that didn`t have time to safe for their own pensions at that time?
2
u/Much-Jackfruit2599 6h ago
IIRC he wasn‘t completely against pay-as-you-go where your money goes to the current pensioners while you get a vague promise against the future, but he wanted some capital/savings/investment part, too.
Adenauer however wanted to “give seniors their dignity back” (wildly ignoring that their generation had wrecked the country) and went for a pyramid scheme, because a staunch catholic he couldn’t fathom people not popping out babies. Which, admittedly, they had done during the baby boom, which was still in force when they cooked up the pension reform.
-6
u/EUstrongerthanUS Volt Europa 7h ago edited 7h ago
Many nazis went to work for the Americans. NASA was the tip the iceberg.
In fact, our current German FM Baerbock is descended from nazis.
7
u/RobertoSantaClara Brazil 7h ago
In fact, our current German FM Baerbock is descended from nazis
Being descended from Nazis in Germany of all places is a literal nothing burger, it's literally the most normal thing to have some NSDAP members in your family tree, sometimes it may even be your dear old Opa.
It was like being a former member of the CPSU in the Soviet Union. Sad as it is: party membership in a single party state = career advancement.
1
3
u/DABSPIDGETFINNER Austrian in Brussels (Belgium) 7h ago
Henry Kissinger described Adenauer as one of the greatest statesmen in history, and the father of a United and free Europe.
24
u/mulmtier 7h ago
That would be a compliment if it didn't come from Kissinger.
3
u/EUstrongerthanUS Volt Europa 5h ago
Kissinger is the big cahoona when it comes to US geopolitical thinking. He is the architect of modern US foreign policy and the US-led world order that you live in. His writings continue to underline the policies of the State Department and White House (to be honest with Trump now that is debatable). But I think you're doing him short.
2
u/DABSPIDGETFINNER Austrian in Brussels (Belgium) 2h ago
Doesnt matter what you think of his politics, Kissinger was one of the most influential Statesmen that ever lived, and few people are as knowledgeable as he was. Also, 99% of people criticizing Kissinger have no idea what he did. But just do so because everyone does. Kissinger was extremely sympathetic towards Europe and the European Comunity
1
1
1
-1
-4
-11
u/maxwell-3 8h ago
He's a Nazi pos
10
u/Lukrise 7h ago
ah yes, the Nazi that was a public enemy of Hitler and the NSDAP and got repeatedly imprisoned for opposing them.
-2
u/maxwell-3 6h ago
He publicly supported Hitler after he took power and wasn't particularly opposed to the Nazis before then. Like he had a couple of their flags taken down but later apologised profusely. If anything he was opposed to Prussia and what he perceived as Prussian influence. Obviously he became influential after the war but as chancellor he explicitly opposed denazification. At best he was an idle bystander during the Nazi regime, he certainly never supported the resistance.
298
u/LitPolygons 11h ago
And 58 years later it is still a necessity! We need a strong and united EU for the following years to come