To regain this freedom, the nation would first have to rebuild itself physically: its industries and infrastructure.
Amidst the devastation caused by massive bombing, that prerequisite would have been difficult enough by itself: the cities and factories were largely destroyed. But Adenauer faced an additional challenge: he had to first persuade the western Allies - England, France, and the United States - to trust Germany.
The Allies controlled Germany as part of the immediate postwar arrangement. When combat ended in 1945, there was lots of chaos and no functional government, and the Allied presence was necessary.
By 1949, the nation was minting its own coins again, and the time had arrived for bits of independence to be granted to the Germans. Until then, the ruling power was in the hands of the “high commissioners,” a group of leaders appointed by the Allies. It was with them that Adenauer would have to bargain, as Horst Osterheld writes:
Adenauer began by setting himself five goals: the restoration of the economy and of good order internally, the reclamation of political capability, the readoption into the family of nations and the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in the camp of the free nations. He embarked on these goals only one day after his first Cabinet had taken the oath on 21 September 1949, by beginning to negotiate the Petersberg Agreement with the High Commissioners, who at that time had all the power in their hands. The outstanding item was the dismantling of the great German industrial concerns. Had this been carried out according to plan, things would have looked hopeless for the German economy. Adenauer fought for every workshop and every machine. The result repaid his efforts: eighteen large works were struck off the dismantling list, including the Bayer works, the chemical factories of Hüls and Gelsenberg, the Thyssen foundries, the Klöckner works, the Bochum corporation and Ruhrstahl A.G.; in Berlin all the factories were actually preserved. A gigantic success, “almost as important psychologically as materially, that is, to the morale of our leading industrialists and the enthusiasm of our working population.”
The tentative plans by the Allies to largely disassemble German industrial capability was halted, and West Germany began to work ceaselessly on what textbooks now call the “economic miracle” - the transformation from nearly complete wartime destruction to economic superpower in little more than a decade.
Those living in East Germany had a more difficult time. The occupying Soviet army dismantled research laboratories and even entire factories, crated them up, and sent to to Russia. East Germany had been home, e.g., to the rocket development center at Peenemünde, which was technologically ahead of anything the USSR had.
In West Germany, the people had found a reliable leader in Adenauer. He had bravely and vocally opposed Hitler, and had paid the price because of it for twelve long years. He’d been arrested and narrowly escaped death.
Adenauer would lead Germany for well over a decade, from a nation decimated by war to a leading world economic power. He was on good terms with U.S. presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. He developed working relationships with other European nations, who relied on his intentions to develop peace and freedom.
