Konrad Adenauer, dyed in wool capitalist

Once as Lord Mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer objected the flying of Nazi flag in his office. As the First Chancellor of the post war Germany he has in his element the same hard core capitalism that made German recovery possible but at the cost of alienating Russia and her allies. Read for more:

Born in the Nineteenth Century, 5/1/1876 precisely, Konrad had charisma to be the leader of CSU and won the first federal election convincingly to propagate his three dimensional political philosophy based on Christian social ethics, undiluted conservatism and liberal democratic capitalism. He hated experimenting with any other political system and often snarled at any deviation by sloganizing his famous mantra: “Keine Experimente” meaning no experiment.

Konrad’s Ideals

Three main ideals that drove him to fame are:

1. Germany must have political stability

2. Economic recovery and thereafter sustainable growth for a long time

3. Fully integrated with the West and avoid contact with the East championed by Stalin.

Pluses

During his 14 year chancellorship of 1949-1963 he demonstrated his trait as dyed in wool capitalist. Here are few of good things he did:

1. Joining NATO and allying with both USA and UK he unveiled the policy of “westcindung” (Binding to the West)

2 Signed up The Treaty of Paris (1951) that established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) to pool the coal and steel industries of six Western European nations viz., France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg

3. Followed it with The Treaty of Rome (1957) that, established the European Economic Community, the precursor of the present European Union

4. Initialled Elysee Treaty in 1963 to bring about Franco-German reconciliation

5. Finally, Konrad was able to mesh conflicting ideals of free market capitalism with a social welfare.

Minuses

1. Konrad remained an unrepentant capitalist with his ant-communist stand by unveiling “Hallstein doctrine” that eschewed recognising East Germany even though it is populated by German brothers.

2. As a skilful manager of international relations he paid an official visit to Moscow and met up with Stalin in 1955. But he rejected Stalin’s notion that Germany must be a neutral country like Switzerland. However, Konrad succeeded in freeing remaining German war prisoners held by Moscow

3. Covertly at the beginning and overtly later on, he worked against his own finance minister Ludwig Erhard and in fact walked an extra mile in preventing Ludwig contesting German Chancellorship. This was his great undoing. The CDU rebelled and he was unceremoniously asked to leave chancellorship. By the way, Ludwig Erhard is the founder and promoter of “Wirtschaftswunder” (Economic miracle) based on the idea of social market economy, which is credited as the main pushing force that made rapid economic recovery possible in Germany.

Lessons Learned

Konrad Adenauer is indeed a dyed in wool capitalist. He brought about German resurgence in geopolitics and geoeconomics. But he failed to understand that there is other side of the coin in terms communism that later gave way to socialism. Today, the trend is to go away from unmitigated capitalism towards inclusive socialism as Putin in Russia and XI Jinping in China have proven.

My Advice

Navigating strategy amid geoeconomics makes Konrad Adenauer an object lesson to be studied by present and future leaders of Germany.

 

Cheers!

 

Muthu Ashraff

Strategy Adviser

Mobile: + 94 777 265677

E-mail: cosmicgems@gmail.com

Blog:   Strategy Adviser