Konrad Adenauer

West Germany's first chancellor was elected in 1949 by a single vote, his own, and governed through coalitions with the Free Democrats and smaller conservative parties for most of fourteen years. Adenauer absorbed or outlasted his junior partners with ruthless skill, and the arrangement delivered pension indexation in 1957, the social market economy alongside Ludwig Erhard and rearmament within NATO. His reluctance to leave office strained the FDP to breaking point, and they forced a promise of his retirement as their price in 1961.