America's Germany, Germany's Europe: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the politics of German Westbindung, 1949-1963

This dissertation analyzes the political origins and development of the relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and its allies within the Atlantic Alliance during the Chancellorship of Konrad Adenauer. It focuses on the actions of Adenauer and his party, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU or Union) in defining and implementing the policy of Westbindung, the integration of the Federal Republic into the community of western nations. Using the papers of Union leaders and organizations in constructing a chronological political narrative, the dissertation traces the rise of the Union as a political force and the relationship between the party's internal structure and its foreign policy. Of particular concern is the fundamental ambivalence within the Union about the proper shape of the western community, and Adenauer's role as Chancellor and party leader in balancing competing conceptions of the West and managing the Federal Republic's role within that community.;Although Adenauer and the Union defended Westbindung as the best way to provide a secure community within which the Federal Republic could regain its sovereignty in stability, the shape of this community and the Federal Republic's place in it were themselves open to much discussion. The principal controversy lay between advocates of the cultural West or Abendland, who emphasized Continental European integration and Franco-German reconciliation; and advocates of a broader vision of the West, who sought an Atlantic Community that would include both Continental Europe and the Anglo-American world. At issue was the proper relationship between the Federal Republic, a unifying Europe, and the United States of America. This intellectual problem was always present in the politics of the Adenauer Era, becoming more acute in the 1960s as events such as the Berlin Wall crisis caused members of the Union to doubt the long-term commitment of the United States to German and European concerns, and growing electoral competition deprived the Union of its exclusive claim to Westbindung. By examining the complex relationships underneath the image of western unity, this dissertation hopes to offer insights into contemporary problems of European politics and European-American relations.