Adenauer The Father of the New Germany [Hardcover]

Critical Acclaim for ADENAUER

A gripping narrative . . . brings to life an intriguing historical figure . . . an enthralling perspective on the processes that shaped the postwar world. --Daily Telegraph (London)

Charts the ironies of Adenauer's complicated life. This is the story of a marathon man, but it is narrated at the pace of a sprinter and with the elegance of a hurdler. --The Times (London)

Lucid and engaging. This is a well-researched and elegantly written volume which deserves a wider readership than the purely political. --The Herald (Glasgow)

A highly readable, thoroughly reliable, intelligently critical life-and-times. . . . This portrait does justice to a man who is often invoked as a prophet of a United States of Europe, but who was in truth the greatest of German patriots. --Literary Review (London)

Well-researched and admirably written . . . reveals Adenauer the man--with all his authority and strength, his persistence and endurance, and his streak of ruthlessness and political cunning. --The Independent (London)

THE LAST GREAT FRENCHMAN

Knowledgeable, lucid . . . the best English biography of de Gaulle. --The New York Times Book Review

Charles Williams has matched a great subject by something near to a great book. --Daily Telegraph (London)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS viii

PREFACE x

PART ONE: The Kaiser’s Germany

1 COLOGNE: 1876 3

2 ‘GAUDEAMUS IGITUR JUVENES DUM SUMUS’ 15

3 THE END OF YOUTH 31

4 THE LADDER OF AMBITION 45

5 A TIME OF TRAGEDY 60

6 THE MANAGEMENT OF DEFEAT 75

PART TWO: Weimar Germany

l³!