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Entry: The Empty Manger Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_empty_manger#12540 Post contents: <b>THE SHORT ANSWER</b> The best available in English is probably Schwarz, Hans-Peter, <i>Konrad Adenauer: a German politician and statesman in a period of war, revolution, and Reconstruction</i>, Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995ff; v. 1. From the German Empire to the Federal Republic, 1876-1952. v. 2. The Statesman: 1952-1967. I welcome the recommendations of others. <b>THE LONG ANSWER</b> Paul, it's probably way too early for a good biography of Adenauer. Heck, it's too early even for one of Bismarck, whose achievement are in question, as I shall discuss later. And we're still waiting for at least an honest one of Dishonest Abe, Woodrow the Worst, and The Great Satan (FDR). There are several books out there about Adenauer in German that are excessively adulatory and hagiographic. Even saints aren't plaster saints, and the rest of us, even our best men like Adenauer, are too full of flaws. The historian is obliged to tell of of these flaws. "No man is a hero to his valet" said that incarnation of St. Joan of Arc, the 20th C's greatest man, who saved his country not once but three times from utter disaster and shame, gave it its best constitution to date, and who had the charism of prophecy, Charles de Gaulle, -- and a man sorely in need of a generous helping of humble pie. Ditto Winnie, who in addition often showed very poor judgement (sorry, John Lukacs). Also, 30 Years' Rule or no regarding documents, we still don't have available all the documents from the 1950s, some doubtless gathering dust in KGB files. One German historian I know found in the Eisenhower library in Kansas documents demonstrating that the Russians, in 1956, offered to do to Germany what was done to Austria: unite the four zones into a neutral country. Adenauer wouldn't hear of it. (good for him!) Lots of Ossies and Berliners used to have nothing but hatred for Adenauer because of his own hatred for Prussia. Even back in the 20s, he wanted a Western Rheinland Union and reconciliation with France. (He was right, in my judgement.) Whether Adenauer is still so hated by Ossies I can't say. The historical background of the man is generally lacking to Anglophones. Last time I checked, I know of no good study of the Kulturkampf between Prussia, later the Reich, and the Catholic Church. Adenauer, we forget, was a major political figure in the late Kaiserzeit and even more so in the Weimar Republic. Schwarz largely avoids these pitfalls. He will do until our grandchildren have a more Olympic perspective. For now: The other great German, The Prince von Bismarck, was in my humble opinion, a bust. Look who ol' Otto's enemies were: 1. The Catholics, 2. The Liberals (in the European sense of the word), and 3. The Socialists Well, in 1949, these three enemies of Bismarck gathered in Bonn -- the CDU/CSU, the FDP, and the SPD respectively --under Konrad the Great's leadership, undid the mess of Bismarck. and did a better job of constituting Germany. Compare Otto's bust with Konrad's Triumphs: (1) the reconciliation with France, a breach as old as the Treaty of Verdun (AD 843), (2) the founding of Germany's first good regime, with a constitution better than the USA's (states' rights secure), with a very healthy and vigorous economy, thanks in no small part to that other great man, Erhard (it took Middle Europe a century to recover economically and culturally from the 30 Years War. It took West Germany 15 years to recover economically [culturally is another matter]). (3) the founding of a Uniting Europe with the Treaty of Rome. (4) The anchoring of Germany solidly into Western Europe and the Atlantic world. (5) The banishment of the "far Right" and the marginalization (at least until the 60s) of the "Far Left" (6) the reconcilation with Jews and the State of Israel (7)the treaty with the Soviet Union and the return (after 10 years) of German POWs (8)And the development of Christian Democracy: a free market economy, but also "Capitalism with a human face", and a Christian democracy that gladly reached out to Protestants (something that didn't happen in The Orange Netherlands until the 1990s, or so I'm told). No small achievement. Because democracy usually produces midgets, we ought to applaud the few giants who appear. Also the 20th and the 21 Centuries (to date) have given us pygmies (at least in politics). Those great knights, tall in the saddle, De Gaulle and Adenauer, were men of the 19th Century, a better day and age. Thanks for asking. Sorry for so long a writeback; I don't have time to make it short. Sent at: 2008 10 07