Germany · Konrad Adenauer (series: Unity and Justice and Freedom, 2nd issue)

Konrad Adenauer was born in Cologne in 1876 into a Catholic family of civil servants and studied law. His political career began in the Centre Party. From 1917 until his removal from office by the National Socialists in 1933, he was Lord Mayor of Cologne. During this period, among other things, he supported the re-establishment of the University of Cologne and the transformation of former fortification areas into green spaces. At the same time, he was a member of the Prussian State Council, of which he was president for a time.

Adenauer rejected the Nazi regime and largely withdrew from politics after his removal from office. In 1944, following the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, he was temporarily imprisoned, although he was not part of the circle of conspirators. After the end of the war, he participated in the establishment of the Christian Democratic Union. As president of the Parliamentary Council, he took part in the deliberations on the Basic Law in 1948 and 1949.

His government policy aimed to give the young Federal Republic the ability to act in foreign policy. This included joining the European Coal and Steel Community and NATO, as well as rearmament within the framework of the Bundeswehr. These decisions were controversial in domestic politics because they were closely linked to the division of Germany and the question of the prospects for reunification.

Another focus was rapprochement with former wartime enemies. Institutionalised cooperation developed with France and was formalised in the Élysée Treaty in 1963. With regard to Israel, the Federal Republic assumed material obligations under the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement to provide compensation for National Socialist persecution and expropriation.

The coin issue commemorates the round-number birthday of a politician whose career encompassed municipal politics in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic as well as the reconstruction of the state after 1945. The anniversary thus provides an opportunity to recall the formative phase of the political order of the Federal Republic and its early foreign-policy decisions.