GERMAN CHANCELLORS SURVIVOR- winner: Willy BRANDT, over Adenauer !

[minionofmidas]

Fehrenbach

Yeah, some weird elderly compromise who was neither the leader of his party nor a member of the strongest party... not quite the same as a "nonpartisan" interim prime minister, but close.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, some weird elderly compromise who was neither the leader of his party nor a member of the strongest party... not quite the same as a "nonpartisan" interim prime minister, but close.

This could apply for much of Weimar.

Not to those left, though. Though Stresemann's party was so weak that he too should be considered a joke chancellor (besides, he was a failure as chancellor).

Stresemann.

[minionofmidas]

I vote for Merkel !!

NO NO NO LEAVE THAT FOR T'OTHER SURVIVOR PLEASE!

I still got two people in these one I want gone before her. And (shock, perhaps ) they're both Social Democrats. If SDinos.

I vote for Friedrich Ebert.

[minionofmidas]

Sorry, I get lost

Who left?

Check the opening post. Or just help vote Ebert off.

[minionofmidas]

Ebert

[minionofmidas]

Helmut Schmidt.

I'll go for Merkel after he's off, so Merkel lovers, you know the way to torture me.

[minionofmidas]

Hmmm.... oh well, Merkel. The chance for Schmidt will come back. Merkel might not. After all, the next obvious alternative is Adenauer.

[minionofmidas]

BUT, in internal affairs, Germany didn't do very good with him, in terms of economics and public finances.

Cite?

Schmidt, of course.

[minionofmidas]

Adenauer.

A weird one, that yin. An old-world 19th century catholic authoritarian whose old-world hatred of Prussian authoriarianism led him to dabble in high treason in the early 20s (Rhenanian Separatism, lol)... and who seized the chance of defeating Prussian authoritarianism that the division of Germany provided. And who therefore, despite all the lip service to "German Unity", set about perpetuating that division.
It was a great success. You have to grant him that. I'm glad it worked out that way. Though the work would of course have remained incomplete without the 68ers. (And though it set the CDU on its incredibly twisted course of condemning and all the same propping up the GDR regime, and collecting the votes of those who condemned it most unreasoningly. A course it still hasn't come off off, and that's not doing Germany any good.)
But that doesn't make the man at all likeable.

[minionofmidas]

But, well, would there have been 68ers without, first, Adenauer ?...

Ah, who knows. It is quite likely the partition would have happened even without a leading West German politician who actively wanted it (without saying so out loud - that's the part that I'm holding against him). But perhaps not. It's impossible to say with any certainty.
A bloc-free (more or less) united Germany would have likely developped somewhat along the ways of Austria or Finland, one would reckon. Both of which had their major economic development jump, and their major social liberal paradigm shifts, somewhat later than the countries of (North)western Europe. The question is whether such a large and still potentially powerful country as Germany would have been allowed to develop that way.

Obviously, I had my reasons for not voting for Adenauer earlier, but it's time now.

Adenauer again.

[minionofmidas]

Finland and Austria were small countries and acted a bit as de facto "free-riders".

Of course.

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Of course.

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This - both parts, actually - is much less clear. Propping up those goddam Germans' economy so they don't embarass you by all running away to the West was an absolute money loser. It was also quite unpopular the whole eastern bloc over - these were the very people who'd waged that murderous war, after all. And getting both sides out of both parts would have benefitted the East far more than the West. Especially as West Germany's impending NATO entry had the Russians running absolutely scared - ever heard of the March 10th, 52 offer? Anticommunists like to forget that the Russians were playing purely a holding game in Europe from as early as 1947, and knew it. They liked to ignore it at the time, too.

Another question is whether the Americans would have permitted it. And whether West Germans would have even wanted it if the choices would have been set squarely before them.
Quite possibly not.

[minionofmidas]

Alright, Adenauer again.

And yes, predictable final.

[minionofmidas]

Total of 9-8.

Hey OWL, willkommen zurück! Lange nicht gesehen.

(I hope you counted his vote, otherwise it's 9-7.)

[minionofmidas]

Alright, so I miscounted. (Or you did. I'm not going to check. Probably me, anyways. )

[minionofmidas]

The point that this is the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and not the Warsaw uprising, and that apparently some people in Poland found this wrong (or at least lacking in a similar gesture for the ethnic Poles) was quite missed by the German public, btw.