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Adenauer played a leading role in German national politics as a member of the Catholic [[Center Party]]. From 1917 to 1933 he served in the provincial diet of the Rhineland and in the Prussian state council as a representative of the Center Party. He later became president of the council and was also a member of the executive committee of the Center Party. In 1926 Adenauer publicly advocated a political union of Evangelical and Catholic Christians. He hoped to oppose the philosophy of the socialist class struggle with a program for a Christian social order of society.

Adenauer played a leading role in German national politics as a member of the Catholic [[Center Party]]. From 1917 to 1933 he served in the provincial diet of the Rhineland and in the Prussian state council as a representative of the Center Party. He later became president of the council and was also a member of the executive committee of the Center Party. In 1926 Adenauer publicly advocated a political union of Evangelical and Catholic Christians. He hoped to oppose the philosophy of the socialist class struggle with a program for a Christian social order of society.

In 1933 Adenauer was dismissed from all his positions by the Hitler regime for "crimes against the German people." For about 12 years he lived in political exile at RhöndorfRhondorf near Bonn. Toward the end of 1944 he was put in a concentration camp by the Nazis as part of a political purge.

After Germany's surrender in May 1945 the Americans reinstalled Adenauer as lord mayor of Cologne. A few months later he was dismissed by the British, when Cologne was made part of their occupation zone, "for reasons of political incompetence."

Adenauer became one of the founders of the [[Christian Democratic Union]] (CDU), a conservative coalition of Catholics and Protestants whose aim was to rebuild a shattered Germany in the Christian spirit. Adenauer insisted there be harmony between Protestants and Catholics in the new party.

 

In 1946, at age 70, his great political career really began. Adenauer became CDU party leader and won a series of electoral battles against the vchief rival, the [[Social Democrats]] (SDP), the former Socialist party. The three western zones of occupation merged into West Germany and in 1948 he became president of the parliamentary council, charged with designing a democratic constitution for the German Federal Republic. In 1949, the first German Federal Diet elected him chancellor. He was re-elected in 1953, 1957, and 1961. He retired in 1963, but remained the powerful head of the CDU until his death.

==Further reading==

==Further reading==