Among the chancellors of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer stands out.
It was he who, in 1949—following the Nazi dictatorship, World War II, and the Holocaust—was able to form the first federal government and anchor the externally imposed democracy in the West. In doing so, he laid the foundations for a success story that would bring prosperity and peace to West Germans for decades to come.
But it was also Adenauer who accepted the division of Germany and enabled millions of his compatriots to remain silent about their past.

Renowned contemporary historian Norbert Frei takes the 150th anniversary of the founding chancellor’s birth as an opportunity to paint an uncompromising portrait of the man who shaped German history after 1945 like no other

Norbert Frei taught modern and contemporary history at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena.
Prior to that, he conducted research at institutions including the Institute for Contemporary History, Harvard University, Princeton, Jerusalem, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.