Gustav Heinemann - "Der Macher" (CDU, 1949-1953)
The nomination of Gustav Heinemann as the CDU chancellor candidate was a surprise. The post-war mayor of Essen defeated the "old man" Konrad Adenauer, former mayor of Cologne. Adenauer was instead elevated to the position of the first president of the new German republic. The forty year-old Protestant jurist was quite popular within the CDU for several reasons. For instance, his participation in the Kirchenkampf [1] during the Nazi dictatorship was revered. He also represented the inter-confessional nature of the new Christian Democrats compared to the Catholic Zentrumspartei. His outspoken criticism of both “unhinged capitalism” and communism also followed the party consensus. With Heinemann at the helm, the Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, were ready for the first free election in Germany since Hitler's Machtergreifung.
The 1949 election proved to be a minor success for the CDU. After a heated campaign against the socialist-leaning SPD, led by the idealistic Kurt Schumacher, the Union between the CDU and the CSU narrowly emerged as the strongest party in the new Bundestag. While gaining 31.4 percent of the popular vote and thus 140 out of the 402 seats total, the Union lacked the ability to govern without coalition partners. At first, Heinemann and several other CDU politicians considered a grand coalition with the defeated Social Democrats, but the portions of the party close to Adenauer opposed this, preferring a coalition with smaller parties. Once the negotiations were over, the FDP and the Deutsche Partei joined the Union in government, for a total of 219 seats.
Heinemann and his cabinet first worked towards ensuring the creation of a Christian economic system, masterminded by the Bavarian economist and Minister for Economic Affairs Ludwig Erhard. The "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" proved to be just what the rebuilding German economy seemed to need, making the new government quickly popular. But before the economic reforms started to kick into gear, a major point of contention emerged: the capital question. With government control being confined to the former occupation zones of the Western allies, Berlin was out of the question for being the new German capital city. So, in early September 1949 a heavy debate raged in the provisional Bundestag in Bonn. The result was seen as a surprise: Frankfurt am Main narrowly defeated the provisional capital of Bonn with 203 votes for Frankfurt. 179 delegates voted for Bonn, 2 abstained, and 18 were absent. It was also decided that the move to Frankfurt would happen just prior to the 1953 election. [2]
Another major debate was the future foreign policy of the new German state. While in essence every German politician wanted to mend relations with the Western Allies, the big questions were if Germany should re-militarize, if reunification should be an immediate priority and if Germany should ally with the United States. The debate was especially big within the CDU. Heinemann and others believed that reunification should be the top priority, while most Union members believed that early reunion was unlikely given the current geopolitical climate. That divide in particular was even visible within Heinemann's cabinet. Despite his own wishes, Heinemann ultimately sided with the majority of the party when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin offered to reunite the Germanies as a neutral state in 1952 with the Stalin Notes [3] Around the same time the military debate was reaching its peak as well. Vice-chancellor Theodor Heuss from the FDP, as well as Heinemann himself were against forming a new German army. And in the end, when it came to the debate in the Bundestag, the idea of a German military was shot down, at least for the present. [4]
When it became clear that his term was coming to an end, Heinemann felt like returning to his previous positions in the church, leading to him staying behind and stepping down from his positions within the CDU. He once again resumed his previous post in the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland in 1953 [5] just days after the CDU had a new leader….
[1] The Kirchenkampf was the Nazi's attempt at taking over the Protestant churches and eradicating the so-called Confessing Church, whose most famous member was Dietrich Bonhoeffer but also Heinemann and a young Johannes Rau. Heinemann was also crucial in the denazification of the Protestant Church, co-authoring the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt.
[2] That was a serious debate IOTL and, as people should know, it ultimately favored Bonn. With Adenauer relatively sidelined, the move to Frankfurt goes through though.
[3] The Stalin Notes did entail what's mentioned here and have been dismissed as an empty promise of Stalin by modern historians.
[4] Yet again, another serious point of contention IOTL.
[5] Heinemann was the leader of the Protestant Church of the Rhineland IOTL from 1949 to 1962. ITTL he assumes that post later, because of obvious reasons
OOC: Okay, the update is now "finished". Sorry for the provisional nature of the original post.
