Both leaders oversaw a nation damaged by war and viewed suspiciously by other countries.
Adenauer became chancellor in 1949. Germany’s major cities were still largely piles of rubble. The workforce was undersized because so many people had died during the war.
Not only did Germany have to rebuild its infrastructure, but it had to persuade the victorious Allies to let it do so. The western Allies - England, France, and the United States - had merged their three portions of Germany together to form West Germany.
The Soviet occupational zone, East Germany, had no chance to experience any type of political or economic liberty. It was under the harsh domination of the socialist occupational forces.
The western Allies had, in early 1949, all the power in West Germany. The German government could do nothing without the permission of the “high commissioners” who represented the Allied governments.
Adenauer had first to create a plan to rebuild Germany and to jumpstart its economy. Then he had to persuade the Allies to let him act on those plans: not an easy task.
The most probable outcome was the Adenauer would fail to develop successful plans, and would not be allowed by the Allies to act on them anyway. Germany would probably become a “third-world” nation: a historic failure.
Nobody expected much from Adenauer, or from Germany. As historian Hans-Peter Schwarz writes,
Contemporaries and historians have generally agreed that the first four years of Adenauer’s chancellorship were the most important of his time in government. Phrases such as ‘laying the foundations,’ ‘setting the course,’ and ‘founding years of the republic’ have frequently been used to describe these early years. Though at the time it was generally recognized that the situation facing him was complex and fraught with difficulties, this fact is often forgotten in retrospect. Adenauer’s fourteen-year chancellorship remains a source of considerable fascination, also for historians. One consequence has been a tendency to exaggerate Adenauer’s prospects for success in 1949 and to underestimate the problems he faced. In fact, in autumn 1949 failure seemed rather more likely than success.
Difficult decisions awaited Adenauer. Nobody could tell him with certainty what steps to take to rescue the nation’s devastated economy. No results were guaranteed.
Relying on his appointee Ludwig Erhard, the new government cut personal income taxes drastically. For many citizens, tax rates fell by more than half.
Adenauer also removed many price controls. Sellers were allowed to experiment with different price levels to see which worked best. After years of dictatorship, the economy was finally free.
These two policies - lowering taxes and removing price controls - fueled what economists call the Wirtschaftswunder or ‘economic miracle.’ When West Germany seemed destined to slowly slide into a “third world” condition, it instead became one of the largest economic and manufacturing powers in the world.
Adenauer’s political opponents inside Germany - from the competing political parties - weren’t happy with his administration, but they figured that they would simply wait until Adenauer’s time in office was over.
Konrad Adenauer would, however, be Germany’s chancellor for a surprising fourteen years. Together with Ludwig Erhard, he kept the Germans free from excessive regulation and taxation. Adenauer’s policies energized the German economy throughout the 1950s and made it the fastest-growing on the planet.
The fact that he was almost 75 years old when he became chancellor did not get in the way of Adenauer’s plans to make Germany the manufacturing the economic giant of Europe, and a powerful financial force around the world. Hans-Peter Schwarz writes:
Adenauer’s age itself led many observers to assume that he would be no more than a transitional figure. In the early days this fact helped him. During the formation of his government, opponents and rivals were able to console themselves with the thought that time would soon eliminate an old man who had been under stress for years and was now on an exhausting political treadmill.
More than 50 years later, economists still study Adenauer’s years in office, from 1949 to 1963, as one of the most productive eras. His policies were an unprecedented success in economic growth, and manifested the link between personal political liberty and prosperity for citizens at every income level.