After the victory of the CDU and CSU in the elections on September 6, 1953, Adenauer formed a government supported by the CDU / CSU, FDP, DP and GB / BHE.
In addition to reconstruction, the question of “rearmament” had become a central issue in German politics since 1950. The opposition left, especially the SPD, and political forces within the governing parties turned against the German contribution to the defense of the western world, proposed by Adenauer under the influence of the Korean War (1950-53) and particularly welcomed by the USA (resignation G. Heinemanns as Minister of the Interior in October 1950). Under the motto “Without me” a broad, but politically not self-contained movement developed against the formation of German armed forces, which in 1955 became the ” Paulskirchenbewegung «Ended. After lengthy negotiations, accompanied by passionate debates in the Bundestag, the Federal Republic of Germany committed itself in 1952 to the establishment of German armed forces within the framework of the European Defense Community (EVG) and in return achieved the termination of the occupation statute in the Germany Treaty (May 26, 1952). Since the French National Assembly rejected the EVG Treaty in 1954, the Germany Treaty that was legally linked to it by a joint could not come into force for the time being. Only in the context of the Paris Treaties (23.10.1954), which were based in particular on the London Act and, inter alia, also included the Germany Treaty, the Western powers released the Federal Republic of Germany into independence (5.5.1955) and granted it the right to set up its own armed forces within the framework of the Western European Union and the North Atlantic Pact (NATO); thus began the establishment of the Bundeswehr. Learn more about Germany and Europe, please click computergees.com.
When Adenauer agreed to the “Europeanization” of the Saar region in the Paris treaties with the overarching goal of Franco-German understanding, GB / BHE (1955) and FDP (1956) left the government coalition. After the population of the Saarland had rejected its “Europeanization” in a referendum (October 23, 1955), it was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany on January 1, 1957.
In 1952 the federal government enforced the ban on right-wing extremist SRPs before the Federal Constitutional Court; In 1956 she achieved the dissolution of the KPD and its subsidiary organizations.
Under the election slogan »No experiments«, the Union parties won an absolute majority on September 15, 1957 and together with the DP formed the government under Adenauer. In 1957 it carried out a pension reform, with which an increase in pensions and their connection to the development of wages as well as their financing according to the pay-as-you-go system was brought about. It also embodied the specific focus of the German welfare state on old age and health (much less on families and children) than largely socialized areas. On July 1, 1959, the Federal Assembly elected H. Lübke (CDU) as Federal President. Under the leadership of E. Ollenhauer, since Schumacher’s death(September 1952) Chairman of the SPD and its parliamentary group in the Bundestag, the SPD initially continued its previous opposition course. In the Godesberg program (adopted in November 1959), however, it turned away from Marxist maxims and sought to develop beyond the character of a workers’ party into a people’s party. In a speech to the Bundestag (June 30, 1960), H. Wehner signaled that the SPD was moving closer to the foreign policy course it had previously opposed. With the signing of the ” Treaty of Rome” (on March 25, 1957), Adenauer continued the policy of integration into the West (establishment of the EEC and EURATOM on January 1, 1958). On January 22nd, 1963 he finished with the French President C. de Gaulle signed the Franco-German Treaty.
In the course of the deepening division of Germany, Berlin (West) had expanded its ties to the Federal Republic of Germany. While the Adenauer government saw the Federal Republic of Germany’s unconditional ties to the West on the question of Germany as a possibility of forcing the USSR to give up its position in the GDR (“Politics of Strength”; rejection of the ” Stalin Note “, March 10, 1952), the SPD saw in this policy poses a threat to the reunification of the two German states. In the Hallstein Doctrine (September 29, 1955), the Adenauer government emphasized the sole right of the Federal Republic of Germany to speak for all Germans.
The development of German politics since around the mid-1950s, which began with the change in Soviet policy from a reunification concept to the demand for recognition of two German states (two-state theory), continued in the Berlin crisis of 1958 and with the construction of the Berlin Wall (13.8. 1961) reached a dramatic climax, also weakened Adenauer’s domestic political position; in addition, the latent criticism of his style of government increased (“politics of solitary decisions”, “chancellor democracy”). Adenauer saw himself after the federal elections on September 17, 1961, in which the Union lost an absolute majority limited to a term of two years as part of a “small coalition”. The ” mirror affair ” (October 1962) developed into a serious domestic political crisis. Adenauer resigned as Federal Chancellor on October 15, 1963.
