WI: Adenauer killed near the end of WW2?

Nekronion

Apparently Adenauer was supposed to be sent to the concentration camp
in Buchenwald, after being imprisoned after the July 20th plot (According to the Adenauer Foundation http://www.konrad-adenauer.de/drittes_reich.html ), only due to the help of a doctor, who sent him to a hospital he was able to escape.

So what if Adenauer is actually sent to Buchenwald?
With his age, he probably wouldn't survive the harsh conditions, so how would postwar Germany and Europe play out without him?

And if he somehow manages to survive, how would a politician Adenauer, who lived through a concentration camp change things?
 

Max Sinister

Banned
I just checked his first cabinet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_Adenauer_I ), and found no appropriate replacement. Erhard is good at economics, but not so good as a chancellor, and besides, he wasn't even a CDU member until later. Most prominent CDU man I recognize is - Gustav Heinemann, of all people. Who IOTL left the CDU for the SPD because he was against rearmament. Maybe TTL will see chancellor Kurt Schumacher? Either as the head of a grand coalition, or even one of SPD, Centre Party and the left CDU wing, tolerated by the Communists?
 

Nekronion

Max Sinister said:
I just checked his first cabinet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_Adenauer_I ), and found no appropriate replacement. Erhard is good at economics, but not so good as a chancellor, and besides, he wasn't even a CDU member until later. Most prominent CDU man I recognize is - Gustav Heinemann, of all people. Who IOTL left the CDU for the SPD because he was against rearmament. Maybe TTL will see chancellor Kurt Schumacher? Either as the head of a grand coalition, or even one of SPD, Centre Party and the left CDU wing, tolerated by the Communists?
Click to expand...

Hm Jakob Kaiser is described as a major rival of Adenauer, so he would be the one that would be the most probable. Also he was for the Nationalisation of key industries and for a neutral Germany, similar to the Spd, so he would possibly strife for a grand coalition with them.
 

freivolk

Jakob Kaiser was the former leader of the CDU in the Soviet zone. As an exil in the West, he had no real own power bloc in the CDU.
I think this could be a possibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Arnold

I assume the most realist option is a great coalition, lead by the CDU.
Schumacher would be to radical as chancellor and an leftwing-goverment is 1949 not very realistic.
 

Adler

Banned
Schumacher would make it as it was Adenauer, who made the CDU out of the Zentrum by opening the party also for protestants. Even if that did happen, too, we would see several changes:

1. The provisorical capital would be Frankfurt and not Bonn. As it was Adenauer, who was in favour of Bonn as it was near to his domicile in Rhöndorf.

2. Adenauer was only elected by a small margin. No successor would have it. I guess a kind of Weimar coalition, SPD, CDU, FDP would make it. With Schumacher as chancellor.
That would be very interesting. Schumacher was a "Kommunistenfresser" as was Adenauer. And he was able to keep the whole SPD in line, something, what after him nobody was able to do so for long. But most importantly he was a Prussian protestant and no Rhenian catholic.

And now the butterflies start. He, as a member of the SPD, who was in the KZ, believed to speak as a German without personnel (or party) guilt to the Allies. He would partly act differently. Because of this I guess he would not refused the Stalin note at once but would have played with Stalin.

Adler
 

Monty Burns

Adler17 said:
Schumacher would make it as it was Adenauer, who made the CDU out of the Zentrum by opening the party also for protestants. Even if that did happen, too, we would see several changes:

1. The provisorical capital would be Frankfurt and not Bonn. As it was Adenauer, who was in favour of Bonn as it was near to his domicile in Rhöndorf.

2. Adenauer was only elected by a small margin. No successor would have it. I guess a kind of Weimar coalition, SPD, CDU, FDP would make it. With Schumacher as chancellor.
That would be very interesting. Schumacher was a "Kommunistenfresser" as was Adenauer. And he was able to keep the whole SPD in line, something, what after him nobody was able to do so for long. But most importantly he was a Prussian protestant and no Rhenian catholic.
Click to expand...

I fully agree with this. As a result, I'd assume that some steps toward collectivism and etatism would be taken. This had some proponents even within the CDU at the time.

Considering the Stalin notes Schumacher would be more open, true. I don't think it'll go far, though.
 

freivolk

For several reasons is a Schumacher-chancellorship not very realistic.

1) Schumacher was very controversial. He was sure, that the time for socialism had come, that capitalism was dying, and that any compromise, which would save capitalism was unacceptable. He always attacked the other partys in a hateful/ spiteful manner. He also thought, that the SPD had to prove, that they were far more nationalistic the the bourgais-partys. Its difficult to see him as a leader of a grand coalition or any coalition. IOTL he did all to prevent a grand coalition, because he was sure that Adenauers goverment would crash and burn and that then Germans would finally accept Socialism. As some CDU-members played with the idea to vote instead of Heus a moderate Socialdemocrat as the first bundespräsident (as a fist step for a grand coalition), he run himself against Heus to make sure that this would not happen.
I think he wouldn´t accept to became chancellor. His proposals for a joint goverment would be unacceptable for the CDU and it would lead to an rightwing goverment again.

2) Schumacher was already a dying man. The time in KZ ruined his health and he died in 1952. As chancellor with a lot more work and stress, he would propably die earlier.

3) Actually its a good chance, that the SPD will do worse and the CDU will do better without Adenauer in 1949. Adenauer didn´t had at this time the nimbus he had in later elections, but a popular, more centrist Ministepräsident like Arnold would be very helpful for the CDU. Schumacher still would be, like IOTL, a major handocap for the election campaigne of the SPD.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
I know exactly one thing Schumacher said about the CDU: "Goethe had a vocabulary of 20,000 words. Adenauer has one of 500."
 

freivolk

During the 1949 elections, there was the joke, that the CDU should pay Schumacher money, because he was her best propagandist.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top