Theodor Heuss

Theodor Heuss (* 31 January 1884 in Brackenheim; † 12 December 1963 in Stuttgart) was a German journalist, publicist, political scientist and almost 60 years liberal politician (NSV, FVg, FVP, DDP, FDP/DVP). When the FDP was founded in 1948, he became its first chairman. He was the first Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1959.

The Federal President

Understanding of office

The Basic Law does not give the Federal President by far the same powers as the Reich President of the Weimar Republic. The real centre of power is the Federal Chancellor. However, the path to "chancellor democracy" was not only due to the constitutional provisions or the assertive first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, but also to the understanding of office of the Federal President Theodor Heuss. Because the Weimar Republic had also failed because of the lack of consent of large parts of the population to the democratic state and because of fundamental political and social conflicts, Heuss, as a non-partisan representative of the Federal Republic, wanted to positively anchor the young democracy in the consciousness of its citizens. His goal was to bring the various social groups closer to the still unestablished state and to reconcile them with democracy. Integration was at the centre of his understanding of office, not the introduction of conflict into society. As a separate centre of power alongside the Chancellor, the Federal President feared stirring up open tensions that could have shaken the new state system.

As an integrating and representative head of state, however, Heuss was by no means without influence. Because he stood above the day-to-day political power struggles, he possessed moral authority through his personal integrity and credibility. Through his speeches and symbolic gestures, he brought important issues into the public arena and provided guidance. The education of Germans to democracy in a torn post-war society was an indispensable and momentous political act as an integration achievement.

Relationship with Konrad Adenauer

This integration course led to Heuss wanting to avoid confrontations with the Federal Chancellor or other constitutional bodies as much as possible. For this reason, he also shied away from an open trial of strength with Adenauer, whose power-conscious assertiveness and constitutional powers he had little to oppose anyway. At the beginning of his term of office, Heuss initially tried to expand his leeway. For example, he occasionally wanted to chair cabinet meetings or claimed the supreme command of the planned army for himself, but failed with these attempts. A division of labor gradually settled in, assigning the actual work of government to the chancellor and the field of integration and representation to the federal president. Despite their different backgrounds and natures, they generally communicated with each other in a spirit of trust and exchanged information regularly in talks and letters. Their mutual esteem was also helped by their agreement on the major and important political issues, such as the Westbindung, Germany and European policy, rearmament, or the policy of reconciliation and reparation towards the Jews and the State of Israel.

Symbol politics: national anthem and medals

Through his bourgeois appearance and his education, Theodor Heuss as head of state represented the greatest possible contrast to his predecessors Hindenburg and Hitler. Because he united politics, spirit and closeness to the people in his person, he represented a new, namely civil and democratic Germany at home and abroad. In his conduct of office he clearly set himself apart from the brutal conduct of National Socialism. At the beginning of his term of office he prevented a postage stamp with his portrait, later he refused a visit to the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth in order not to "follow the footsteps of Mr. Hitler on the festival hill and to Wahnfried".

Above all, Heuss wanted to establish unencumbered and suitable traditions for the Federal Republic by creating new state symbols. Of central importance to him was the introduction of a national anthem, for which he was responsible as Federal President. The old Song of the Germans by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Heuss argued, was no longer acceptable or appropriate for the new democracy as a result of its misuse by the National Socialists. He commissioned the poet Rudolf Alexander Schröder to write a new hymn, which he then presented to his fellow citizens - set to music by the composer Hermann Reutter - in his New Year's Eve address in 1950. But the verdict was scathing in the media, among the population and across party lines in politics. Having also lost the support of Adenauer and the CDU/CSU, Heuss gave up in early 1952. He admitted to having "underestimated traditionalism and its need to persevere". Aggrieved, he refrained from a solemn proclamation; instead, he merely acknowledged the "Deutschlandlied" in an exchange of letters with Adenauer.

Heuss had more success with the introduction of new orders, which were to express the gratitude of the democratic state towards its citizens. In 1950, for example, he established the Silver Laurel Leaf for special sporting (and initially also musical) achievements. In 1951 he founded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany with its various levels. And a year later he renewed the Peace Class of the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite for outstanding scientists and artists and became its protector.

Cultural policy

With his cultural, scientific and educational policy initiatives, Heuss sought to win over scientists, artists and intellectuals for the democratic state. Thus, as an honorary member of the Scientific Advisory Board, he supported the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, placed himself at the head of the "Gratitude Donation of the German People" in 1951, initiated the founding of the German Science Council in 1956, or accompanied the work of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Heuss, who throughout his life advocated the promotion of political education, encouraged the establishment of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation on 19 May 1958 and mobilised a number of friends and companions to this end.

From the early 1950s onwards, Heuss, who had a great affinity for design, was concerned with the subject of industrial design and defended concepts such as German workmanship and the joy of working against the appropriation by the regime and propaganda during the Nazi era. He was one of the first to recognise the importance of design and industrial design for the export-oriented German economy and initiated state promotion of design.

Dealing with the National Socialist past

Even as Federal President, Heuss continued to plead for an unsparing confrontation with National Socialism. In a widespread climate of exoneration and repression in politics and among the population, he warned against self-righteousness, self-pity and forgetting too quickly. As early as December 1949, in an address to the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Wiesbaden, he emphatically pointed out: "There is no point in talking around things. The hideous injustice that has taken place against the Jewish people must be brought up in the sense: are we, am I, are you to blame because we lived in Germany, are we complicit in this diabolical crime?" Heuss rejected the charge of collective guilt, but introduced the moral concept of collective shame, which he said concerned all Germans. At the dedication of the memorial at the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, he made clear: Jews "will never, they can never forget what was done to them; Germans must never forget what was done by people of their ethnicity during those shameful years." Remembering Nazi crimes was seen by Heuss as the basis for democratic renewal and for reconciliation with the victims. Thus, reconciliation and reparation policies towards the Jews and the State of Israel were close to his heart.

In a speech commemorating the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Hitler on July 20, 1944, Heuss acquitted the conspirators, some of whom he knew personally, of charges of breach of oath and treason. By emphasizing the borderline situation in which the assassins found themselves between their oath to Hitler and their personal conscience, he justified resistance to an amoral and inhuman regime. In doing so, Heuss established a positive commemorative tradition that is still remembered today. Heuss' speeches on the politics of remembrance did not only trigger approval. Part of the population considered them a provocation and protested against them in letters to him. But Heuss himself also pursued a past policy in some cases that seems questionable today. For example, during his time in office he repeatedly advocated the pardon of war criminals such as Ernst von Weizsäcker, the former State Secretary in the Foreign Office. Even more irritating was his use of the former Einsatzgruppen leader Martin Sandberger, who had been sentenced first to death and then to life imprisonment for the murder of thousands of Jews, communists and partisans.

Speeches

During his two terms in office, Heuss gave a total of 775 speeches. It was primarily his speeches with which he also had an impact on the general population. Heuss established the speech as a trademark of the Federal President also for his successors. He drafted his speeches himself and recited them freely, relying at most on notes, in his Swabian honorific bass. He was able to engage with very different groups of listeners and gave the impression that he was addressing each of them personally. With his comprehensive education he linked historical with current topics. He spiced his sometimes rambling line of thought with a pinch of humor and irony. Instead of conclusive answers, he offered food for thought. Even if he wanted to shake up his fellow citizens with uncomfortable truths on some topics, in his speeches he ultimately focused on reconciliation in an insecure post-war society.

Foreign state visits

Year	Month	State
1956	May 14-22	Greece
1957	May 5-13	Turkey
	19-22 November	Italy
	November 27-28	Vatican
1958	28 May - 3 June	Canada
	June 4 - June 23	USA
	October 20-23	United Kingdom

In 1955, the Federal Republic largely gained its sovereignty through the Treaty on Germany. As Federal President, Theodor Heuss has since been able to make several state visits abroad. Of central importance were his gestures of reconciliation towards the countries that had suffered under Nazi tyranny and bomb terror during the Second World War. In 1956, for example, he honored the victims of a brutal reprisal action by the German occupiers in Greece. A year and a half later, during his visit to Italy, he laid a wreath at the Fosse Ardeatine, where the SS had shot over 300 Italian hostages in 1944. The state visit to Great Britain, where the consequences of the bombing war were still visible, was also explosive. Even though Heuss was warmly received by the British Queen and government and his person and appearance received much praise, there was also criticism from the British side that the visit was still too early and unease in the German media as to whether Heuss could still represent the Federal Republic in a contemporary manner.

Ultimately, however, Heuss's state visits also paved the way for better relations with former wartime opponents because he did not avoid the mortgage of National Socialism. By his own life and civilian personality alone, he represented a changed, peaceful and democratic Germany that had learned from its history.

Influence on day-to-day politics

Heuss's leadership was not limited to symbolic gestures, representational tasks and speeches. He did not act without opinion; he sometimes intervened in important issues of day-to-day politics, thus abandoning his role as a non-partisan head of state. He saw himself as a representative of a policy that he judged to be correct and responsible. Thus, he supported - mostly behind the scenes in conversations and letters - Adenauer's Germany policy and the goal of West integration. He was a supporter of rearmament and in 1952 requested an expert opinion from the Federal Constitutional Court on a German contribution to the European Defence Community, but then withdrew it on Adenauer's advice. He also got involved in the inner-party disputes of the FDP and criticized the behavior of some nationalistic FDP state associations. When Heuss considered the verbal outbursts of the Federal Minister of Justice, his party friend Thomas Dehler, to be no longer acceptable, he rejected his reappointment in 1953.

Elly Heuss-Knapp as "First Lady"

In the exercise of his strenuous office, Heuss found support in his wife Elly Heuss-Knapp. She continued to be an important interlocutor and advisor to him and accompanied him as "First Lady" on trips and receptions. She also created her own area of responsibility when, in 1950, together with Antonie Nopitsch, she founded the Deutsche Müttergenesungswerk, an umbrella organization for the numerous maternity convalescent homes run by social and charitable associations. To this day, every woman (or life partner) of the Federal President has taken on the patronage of the Müttergenesungswerk. Plagued by illness for years, Elly Heuss-Knapp died of her severe heart condition on 19 July 1952. At Elly Heuss-Knapp's request, the almost 70-year-old Hedwig Heuss subsequently took over the role of "First Lady" for the remainder of the Federal President's term of office. Hedwig Heuss was the widow of Ludwig Heuss, the eldest brother of Theodor Heuss.

Recognition

During his first term in office, Heuss gained great political prestige and popularity among the general population. Every day he received several hundred letters from citizens who appreciated him and his conduct of office, asked for help, wanted to discuss problems with him, gave him gifts, or even strongly criticized him. Even though he had no constitutional authority or financial resources for many of these requests, he often personally wrote letters in response, in order to act as an educator for democracy through this channel as well. Numerous honors and awards paid tribute to him (see below). The celebrations for his 70th birthday on 31 January 1954, which lasted over three days, testified to the recognition that politicians and the public had for the Federal President. It was not surprising, then, that when he was re-elected on 17 July 1954, he was overwhelmingly elected to a second term in office by a cross-party majority in the Federal Assembly: In the first ballot he received 85.6 percent of all votes.

In the vernacular he was affectionately called "Papa Heuss". This reflected a great longing in post-war society for normality and a benevolent father figure. His bourgeois and popular appearance with hat, stick, cigar, red wine glass, his thoughtful humor and his penchant for anecdotes met this expectation. This also revealed the flip side of his great popularity: the increasing depoliticization of a "grandfather figure harmonized to the point of harmlessness," according to the judgment of publicist and Heuss connoisseur Hermann Rudolph. Heuss rejected this trivialization of his person and thus also of his conduct in office, as he made clear in a letter to Federal Minister of the Interior Gerhard Schröder in the spring of 1959: "For years I have been fighting against this dad talk, which is obnoxious to me".

Term end

At the end of his second term, when 84 percent of the population rated Heuss' performance in office as good or excellent, politicians and the public considered amending the Basic Law to allow the respected Federal President to serve another term. Heuss himself initially did not completely rule out this idea, but ultimately rejected a Basic Law amendment related to his person. Instead, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer announced his candidacy for the highest office of state because he believed that the Federal President had considerably more powers than those exercised by Heuss. This provoked a heated exchange of letters with Heuss, who saw his performance as Federal President devalued. In the end, Adenauer also realized that he would continue to have considerably more influence on day-to-day politics as Chancellor than in the office of Federal President, and withdrew his candidacy. Finally, on 1 July 1959, the Federal Assembly elected Heinrich Lübke to succeed Heuss in the second ballot by a narrow absolute majority. Heuss' term in office ended on 12 September 1959.

The last years in Stuttgart

After leaving Bonn, Heuss moved into his retirement residence at Feuerbacher Weg 46 on Stuttgart's Killesberg in September 1959 (today's Theodor-Heuss-Haus). There he wanted to devote himself above all to his family and friends, his literary inclinations and the writing of his memoirs, which he continued until 1933. He found the many requests for lectures and patronage mostly a disturbance, to which he sometimes reacted brusquely. Nevertheless, he wanted to continue to be publicly active, gave lectures on topics that were important to him, and remained on the boards of some cultural institutions to which he continued to feel connected.

As a former Federal President, he also spoke out on current events that particularly moved him, such as the "swastika smearings" on the Cologne synagogue at the end of 1959 or the defamation of the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor, Willy Brandt, whom he defended against accusations of illegitimate birth and emigration. Some trips abroad still took him to France, Israel and India, where he was received like a state guest and held talks with high-ranking politicians. After his health deteriorated and he had to have a leg amputated in the late summer of 1963, he died at his home on 12 December 1963. The funeral service was held as part of a state funeral on 17 December 1963 in the Stiftskirche (Stuttgart). The double grave of Theodor Heuss and his wife is located at the Waldfriedhof Stuttgart.

Numerous obituaries were written for Heuss. The social philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, prominent representative of the neo-Marxist "Frankfurt School," paid tribute to him with remarkable words: "There existed between him and the supposedly anonymous and alienated masses something hardly imaginable: contact without demagogy." Heuss, he said, reminded people of the "idea of the citizen of a world in which one need not fear." The Times of London wrote on the occasion of the death of Theodor Heuss's successor, Heinrich Lübke: