Page 122 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC/ SOCIAL UNION 95

ensure an adequate reporting about the Union’s economic programme and
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policy, for instance by hosting frequent press conferences, both the
collaboration within the party and with the media remained
unsatisfactory. Numerous petitions and complaints on the part of
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various politicians, newspapers – including papers associated to the Union
– and interest groups document this state of affairs for which also Konrad
Adenauer could be blamed for. Despite his constant concern with
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public relations and the great importance he attached to the campaign
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for the local elections in 1948, which he considered to be an indicator of
public opinion regarding economic policy and a prelude to the Bundestag
elections in the subsequent year, the party chairman kept a reserved
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attitude towards journalists after the harmful negative press that he
received when he was mayor of Cologne in 1933. Although this attitude

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slightly changed in 1946 when the party chairman cultivated close contacts
with various journalists, editors and correspondents, the relations to some
papers and their publishers, such as the Rheinische Post edited by Anton
Betz and the Kölnische Rundschau edited by Reinhold Heinen, remained
poor due to Adenauer’s criticism on their reporting. Furthermore, he
continuously hesitated to accept public opinion surveys. Upon receiving
the first polling results, he reportedly commented: ‘this public opinion
polling is the devil’s work! How can it be possible to find out so precisely
what people think politically, or what they think about the political parties
and how they will vote. I distrust clairvoyants and people who claim they
can read the future.’ While Adenauer eventually came to embrace public
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opinion polling, the concept of public relations did not yet fully pervade
his political acting. Nevertheless, the percentage of votes for the CDU
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increased in comparison to the Landtag elections in 1947.
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In order to attain more cohesion within the party and thus a more
coherent communication in the federal elections in August 1949, which in
turn required a national consistent manifesto of CDU and CSU, both
party chairmen, Konrad Adenauer and Josef Müller, supported the
establishment of a coordinating committee in October 1948. This panel
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of representatives from party and Administrative Council, headed by the
Christian Democrat Franz Etzel, was assigned the task to formulate a
common socio-political and economic concept for all three zones of
occupation. Moreover, this programmatic statement by the Union parties
was also meant to serve as guiding principle for the party representation in
the Economic Council and the delegates in the Administration for
Economics as well as manifesto for the election campaign; ultimately, it
was the party which had to direct and represent the economic policy in
politics and to the public while the administration in Frankfurt was solely