Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy

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

An American band played the German national anthem. I saw how tears were running down the face of one of my companions, and I, too, was deeply moved. It had been a long and hard road from the total catastrophe of the year 1945 to this moment of the year 1953, when the German national anthem was heard in the national cemetery of the United States.[5

Leadership is most essential during periods of transition, when values and institutions are losing their relevance, and the outlines of a worthy future are in controversy.

The group lacked a clear political direction and doctrine; indeed, the tone of discussions at this initial meeting was more socialist than classically liberal. In part because of Adenauer’s objections, the question of first principles was put aside, and the group simply settled on its name: the Christian Democratic Union.[12] The following month, A

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 tw

Whatever their personal characteristics or modes of action, leaders inevitably confront an unrelenting challenge: preventing the demands of the present from overwhelming the future. Ordinary leaders seek to manage the immediate; great ones attempt to raise their society to their visions.

the test of statesmen is the durability of political structures under stress, while prophets gauge their achievements against absolute standards. If the statesman assesses possible courses of action on the basis of their utility rather than their ‘truth’, the prophet regards this approach as sacrilege, a triumph of expediency over universal princip

he cautioned me ‘never to confuse energy with strength’.

As a result of Austria’s defeat combined with Woodrow Wilson’s doctrine of national self-determination and democratic ideology, a plethora of states weak in structure and inadequate in resources now faced Germany in Eastern and Central Europe. Any future resurgence of German military capacity would have to be defeated by a French offensive into the