Activities and affiliations

Government and administration Germany state institutions 1876–1967 ○ Natural causes

The chancellor who made provisional statehood durable

As president of the Parliamentary Council, Adenauer helped present the Basic Law as a provisional settlement rather than a final constitution for a divided Germany.

Konrad Adenauer was a Catholic conservative statesman who helped shape the Federal Republic after the collapse of Nazism and the division of Germany. As president of the Parliamentary Council, he supported a provisional Basic Law rather than a permanent constitution, leaving open the possibility of reunification while establishing democratic institutions in the western zones. As the first Federal Chancellor, he pursued Westbindung, European integration, and a socially regulated market economy, while his anti-communist policy hardened the political division of the Cold War. His career thus joined parliamentary reconstruction with the consolidation of a state whose provisional founding became durable.

Government and administration Germany state institutions 1889–1953 ○ Natural causes

The social democrat who became the voice of divided Berlin

“People of the world, look upon this city! You cannot, you must not, forsake us!”

Ernst Reuter was a German politician whose path from social democracy through communism and back reflected the upheavals of twentieth-century Europe. After Nazi persecution and exile in Turkey, he returned to Berlin and joined municipal administration to a practical social-democratic politics. During the Berlin Blockade, he gave West Berliners’ resolve an international voice and helped make the divided city a symbol of freedom and self-government. His career also reveals the tensions of a generation that moved from revolutionary radicalism toward democratic local government.

Government and administration Germany state institutions 1913–1992 ○ Natural causes

A social democrat who made reconciliation a politics of divided cities

After the Wall was built, he said: “The Wall must go, but until it goes, the city must live.”

Willy Brandt was a German social-democratic politician shaped by exile and resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. As Governing Mayor of West Berlin, he defended the city’s morale after the Wall was built and pressed the West to honor its responsibilities, helping popularize the name “Wall of Shame.” As chancellor, he pursued Ostpolitik and “change through rapprochement,” easing Cold War confrontation and earning the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize.

Political and party leadership Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 1930–2017 ○ Natural causes

The chancellor who seized the initiative on the German question with a ten-point unification plan days before Malta

On 28 November 1989, Kohl rose in the Bundestag without having told his allies, or even his own foreign minister. President Bush received Kohl's letter summarizing the Ten-Point Plan just as the chancellor was already speaking in Bonn.

A Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician who served sixteen years as chancellor of West Germany and reunified Germany, leading both European integration and German reunification. On 28 November 1989, without consulting his allies, he presented a 'Ten-Point Plan' for German unity to the Bundestag; days later, at the Malta summit, the German question dominated the proceedings on his terms. The following year, on 3 October 1990, Germany was reunified; together with French president François Mitterrand, Kohl drove the Maastricht Treaty and the introduction of the euro. He achieved reunification by extending the West German system into the former East, and after his long tenure ended with electoral defeat in 1998, he resigned as CDU honorary chairman amid a party donations scandal.