阿登纳

 

第一次世界大战后，新成立的魏玛共和国因通货膨胀和经济危机而陷入贫困，并认为自己被战后《凡尔赛条约》中的惩罚性条款所虐待。

1933年后在希特勒的领导下，德国试图将其极权主义强加于整个欧洲。

简而言之，在整个20世纪上半叶，统一的德国对于欧洲的和平来说，要么太强，要么太弱。

到1945年，它已经沦落到了自统一以来在欧洲和世界上最不安全的地位。

 

After the First World War, the newly established Weimar Republic was impoverished by inflation and economic crises and considered itself abused by the punitive provisions included in the postwar Treaty of Versailles. Under Hitler after 1933, Germany sought to impose its totalitarianism on all of Europe. In short, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, united Germany had been by turns either too strong or too weak for the peace of Europe. By 1945, it had been reduced to its least secure position in Europe and the world since unification.

 

为这个崩溃的社会恢复尊严和合法性的任务落在了康拉德-阿登纳身上，他在被希特勒解职前曾担任科隆市的市长（Oberbürgermeister）达16年。

阿登纳的背景使他幸运地被选为一个角色，这个角色既需要谦逊地处理无条件投降的后果，又需要坚强的性格为他的国家在民主国家中重新获得国际地位。

阿登纳出生于1876年--在俾斯麦领导下的德国统一仅五年之后--他的余生都与他的家乡科隆市联系在一起，科隆有高耸的哥特式大教堂，可以俯瞰莱茵河，而且它在历史上是汉萨城邦群的一个重要地点。

 

The task of restoring dignity and legitimacy to this crushed society fell to Konrad Adenauer, who had served as lord mayor (Oberbürgermeister) of Cologne for sixteen years before being dismissed by Hitler. Adenauer was by his background fortuitously cast for a role that required at once the humility to administer the consequences of unconditional surrender and the strength of character to regain an international standing for his country among the democracies. Born in 1876 – only five years after German unification under Bismarck – Adenauer was for the rest of his life associated with his native city of Cologne, with its towering Gothic cathedral overlooking the Rhine and its history as an important locus in the Hanseatic constellation of mercantile city-states.

 

作为一个成年人，阿登纳经历了俾斯麦之后统一的德国国家的三种配置：德皇时期的肆意妄为，魏玛共和国时期的国内动荡，以及希特勒时期的冒险主义，最终导致了自我毁灭和解体。

在努力为他的国家在战后的合法秩序中重塑一席之地的过程中，他面临着全球怨恨的遗留问题，而在国内，一个被革命、世界大战、种族灭绝、战败、分治、经济崩溃和道德沦丧的漫长过程所打击的公众的迷茫。

他选择了一条既谦虚又大胆的道路：承认德国的罪恶；接受战败和无能的惩罚，包括对其国家的分割；允许拆除其工业基础作为战争赔偿；并寻求通过屈服来建立一个新的欧洲结构，使德国能够成为一个可信赖的伙伴。

他希望，德国将成为一个正常的国家，尽管他知道，它总是带有不正常的记忆。

 

As an adult, Adenauer had experienced the unified German state’s three post-Bismarck configurations: its truculence under the Kaiser, domestic upheavals under the Weimar Republic, and adventurism under Hitler, culminating in self-destruction and disintegration. In striving to remake a place for his country in a legitimate postwar order, he faced a legacy of global resentment and, at home, the disorientation of a public battered by the long sequence of revolution, world war, genocide, defeat, partition, economic collapse and loss of moral integrity. He chose a course both humble and daring: to confess German iniquities; accept the penalties of defeat and impotence, including the partition of his country; allow the dismantling of its industrial base as war reparations; and seek through submission to build a new European structure within which Germany could become a trusted partner. Germany, he hoped, would become a normal country, though always, he knew, with an abnormal memory.