germany's economic miracle resurrection was led by which chancellor

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (German: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈhɛɐ̯man ˈjoːzəf ˈaːdəˌnaʊ̯ɐ] ( listen); 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963. He led his country from the ruins of World War II to a productive and prosperous nation that forged close relations with France, the United Kingdom and the United States.[2] During his years in power West Germany achieved democracy, stability, international respect and economic prosperity ("Wirtschaftswunder", German for "economic miracle").[3] He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a Christian Democratic party that under his leadership became one of the most influential parties in the country.

Konrad Adenauer

Adenauer, who was Chancellor until age 87, was dubbed "Der Alte" ("the elder"). British historian Roy Jenkins says he was "the oldest statesman ever to function in elected office."[4] He belied his age by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. He displayed a strong dedication to a broad vision of market-based liberal democracy and anti-communism. A shrewd politician, Adenauer was deeply committed to a Western-oriented foreign policy and restoring the position of West Germany on the world stage. He worked to restore the West German economy from the destruction of World War II to a central position in Europe, presiding over the German Economic Miracle. He was a driving force behind West Germany becoming the first German state to re-establish a national military (the Bundeswehr) in 1955. He came to terms with France, which made possible the economic unification of Western Europe. Adenauer opposed rival East Germany and made his nation a member of NATO and a firm ally of the United States.

A devout Roman Catholic, he had been a leading Centre Party politician in the Weimar Republic, serving as Mayor of Cologne (1917–1933) and as president of the Prussian State Council (1922–1933).

Konrad Adenauer was born as the third of five children of Johann Konrad Adenauer (1833–1906) and his wife Helene (née Scharfenberg; 1849–1919) in Cologne, Rhenish Prussia, on 5 January 1876.[5] His siblings were August (1872–1952), Johannes (1873–1937), Lilli (1879–1950) and Elisabeth, who died shortly after birth in c. 1880. One of the formative influences of Adenauer's youth was the Kulturkampf, an experience that as related to him by his parents left him with a lifelong dislike for "Prussianism", and led him like many other Catholic Rhinelanders of the 19th century to deeply resent the Rhineland's inclusion in Prussia.[6]

In 1894, he completed his Abitur and began studying law and politics at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Bonn. In 1896, at the age of 20, he was conscripted into the German army, but did not pass the physical exam due to chronic respiratory problems he had experienced since childhood. He was a member of several Roman Catholic students' associations under the K.St.V. Arminia Bonn in Bonn. He graduated in 1900,[5] and afterwards worked as a lawyer at the court in Cologne.[7]

He was strongly interested in the use of medicinal herbs, according to famous French herbalist Maurice Mességué, whom he met and befriended. Adenauer credited his vigorous health in his later years to the use of an infusion of barley water taken at night, but also maize stigma, mallow, sage, and yellow roses, which he used for the coughs to which he was prone. These were his favorite medicinal plants according to Mességué, though he had extensive knowledge of a wide range of plants. He agreed with Mességué that plants had to be free of sprays and not grown too artificially. He told Mességué that he owed his good health to "the plants, to nature."

Adenauer found relaxation and great enjoyment in the Italian game of bocce and spent a great deal of his post political career playing this game. His favorite holiday place to do this was in Cadenabbia, Italy, in a rented villa overlooking Lake Como, which has since been acquired as a conference centre by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the political foundation established by Adenauer's political party Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

As a devout Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906 and was elected to Cologne's city council in the same year. In 1909, he became Vice-Mayor of Cologne, an industrial metropolis with a population of 635,000 in 1914. Avoiding the extreme political movements that attracted so many of his generation, Adenauer was committed to bourgeois decency, diligence, order, Christian morals and values, and was dedicated to rooting out disorder, inefficiency, irrationality and political immorality.[8] From 1917 to 1933, he served as Mayor of Cologne and became a member of the Prussian House of Lords.

Adenauer headed Cologne during World War I, working closely with the army to maximize the city's role as a rear base of supply and transportation for the Western Front. He paid special attention to the civilian food supply, enabling the residents to avoid the worst of the severe shortages that beset most German cities during 1918â€“19.[9] In the face of the collapse of the old regime and the threat of revolution and widespread disorder in late 1918, Adenauer maintained control in Cologne using his good working relationship with the Social Democrats. In a speech on 1 February 1919 Adenauer called for the dissolution of Prussia, and for the Prussian Rhineland to become a new autonomous Land (state) in the Reich.[10] Adenauer claimed this was the only way to prevent France from annexing the Rhineland.[10] Both the Reich and Prussian governments were completely against Adenauer's plans for breaking up Prussia.[11] When the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were presented to Germany in June 1919, Adenauer again suggested to Berlin his plan for an autonomous Rhineland state and again his plans were rejected by the Reich government.[12]

He was mayor during the postwar British occupation. He established a good working relationship with the British military authorities, using them to neutralize the workers' and soldiers' council that had become an alternative base of power for the city's left wing.[13] During the Weimar Republic, he was president of the Prussian State Council (Preußischer Staatsrat) from 1921–33, which was the representation of the provinces of Prussia in its legislation. Since 1906, a major debate within the Zentrum concerned the question of whether the Zentrum should "leave the tower" (i.e. allow Protestants to join to become a multi-faith party) or "stay in the tower" (i.e. continue to be a Catholic-only party). Adenauer was one of the leading advocates of "leaving the tower", which led to a dramatic clash between him and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber at the 1922 Katholikentag, where the Cardinal publicly admonished Adenauer for wanting to take the Zentrum "out of the tower".[14]

In mid-October 1923, the Chancellor Gustav Stresemann announced that Berlin would cease all financial payments to the Rhineland and that the new Rentenmark, which had replaced the now worthless Mark would not circulate in the Rhineland.[15] To save the Rhineland economy, Adenauer opened talks with the French High Commissioner Paul Tirard in late October 1923 for a Rhenish republic in a sort of economic union with France which would achieve Franco-German reconciliation, which Adenauer called a "grand design".[16] At the same time, Adenauer clung to the hope that the Rentenmark might still circulate in the Rhineland. Adenauer's plans came to nought when Stresemann, who was resolutely opposed to Adenauer's "grand design", which he viewed as borderline treason, was able to negotiate an end to the crisis on his own.[16]

In 1926, the Zentrum suggested that Adenauer become Chancellor, an offer that he was interested in but ultimately rejected when the German People's Party insisted that one of the conditions for entering into a coalition under Adenauer's leadership was that Gustav Stresemann stay on as Foreign Minister.[17] Adenauer, who disliked Stresemann as "too Prussian," rejected that condition, which marked the end of his chance of becoming Chancellor in 1926.[18]

Election gains of Nazi Party candidates in municipal, state and national elections in 1930 and 1932 were significant. Adenauer, as mayor of Cologne and president of the Prussian State Council, still believed that improvements in the national economy would make his strategy work: ignore the Nazis and concentrate on the Communist threat. Adenauer thought the Nazis should be part of the Prussian and Reich governments based on election returns, even when he was already the target of intense personal attacks.[19] Political manoeuvrings around the aging President Hindenburg then brought the Nazis to power on 30 January 1933.

By early February Adenauer finally realized that all talk and any attempts at compromise with the Nazis were futile. Cologne's city council and the Prussian parliament had been dissolved; on 4 April 1933, he was officially dismissed as mayor and his bank accounts frozen. "He had no money, no home and no job."[20] After arranging for the safety of his family, he appealed to the abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Maria Laach for a stay of several months. According to Albert Speer in his book Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer, noting his civic projects, the building of a road circling the city as a bypass, and a "green belt" of parks. However, both Hitler and Speer concluded that Adenauer's political views and principles made it impossible for him to play any role in Nazi Germany.

Adenauer was imprisoned for two days after the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June 1934, however, on 10 August 1934, maneuvering for his pension, he wrote a ten-page letter to Hermann Göring (the Prussian interior minister). He stated that as Mayor he had violated Prussian laws in order to allow NSDAP events in public buildings and Nazi flags to be flown from city flagpoles and that in 1932 he had declared publicly that the Nazis should join the Reich government in a leading role.[21][22] In 1986 the magazine Der Spiegel reported that at the end of 1932, Adenauer had indeed demanded a joint government by his Zentrum party and the Nazis for Prussia.[23]

During the next two years, Adenauer changed residences often for fear of reprisals against him, while living on the benevolence of friends. With the help of lawyers in August 1937 he was successful in claiming a pension; he received a cash settlement for his house, which had been taken over by the city of Cologne; his unpaid mortgage, penalties and taxes were waived. With reasonable financial security he managed to live in seclusion for some years. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, he was imprisoned for a second time as an opponent of the regime. He fell ill and credited Eugen Zander, a former municipal worker in Cologne and communist, with saving his life. Zander, then a section Kapo of a labor camp near Bonn, discovered Adenauer's name on a deportation list to the East and managed to get him admitted to a hospital. Adenauer was subsequently rearrested (as was his wife), but in the absence of any evidence against him, was released from prison at Brauweiler in November 1944.

Shortly after the war ended, the American occupation forces once again installed him as Mayor of Cologne, which had been heavily bombed. After the city was transferred into the British zone of occupation, however, the Director of its military government, General Gerald Templer, dismissed Adenauer for incompetence in December 1945.[24] The probable reason for this was that Adenauer considered the Germans the equals of the occupying Allies, a view the British did not appreciate, resulting in his sacking.[25] Adenauer's dismissal by the British contributed much to his subsequent political success and allowed him to pursue a policy of alliance with the West in the 1950s without facing charges of being a "sell-out".

After being dismissed, Adenauer devoted himself to building a new political party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which he hoped would embrace both Protestants and Roman Catholics in a single party, and thereby achieve his long-standing goal of bringing the Zentrum "out of the tower". According to Adenauer, a Catholic-only party would lead to German politics being dominated by anti-democratic parties yet again.[26] In January 1946, Adenauer initiated a political meeting of the future CDU in the British zone in his role as doyen (the oldest man in attendance, AltersprÃ¤sident) and was informally confirmed as its leader. Adenauer had become a leader almost by default. During the Weimar Republic, Adenauer had often been considered a future Chancellor and after 1945, his claims for leadership were even stronger.[27] The other surviving Zentrum leaders were considered unsuitable for the tasks that lay ahead.[28]

Reflecting his background as a Catholic Rhinelander who had long chafed under Prussian rule, Adenauer believed that Prussianism was the root cause of National Socialism, and that only by driving out Prussianism could Germany become a democracy.[29] In a December 1946 letter, Adenauer wrote that the Prussian state in the early 19th century had become an "almost God-like entity" that valued state power over the rights of individuals.[29] Adenauer's dislike of Prussia even led him to oppose Berlin as a future capital.[30] Adenauer's Sonderweg view of German history, with National Socialism as a natural outgrowth out of Prussianism, sharply contrasted with the views of the Social Democratic leader Kurt Schumacher, who saw National Socialism as a natural outgrowth of capitalism.[31] These two radically differing views of recent German history led Adenauer and Schumacher in turn to recommend very different solutions for a better future. For Schumacher, to banish National Socialism meant replacing the capitalist system with a Marxist socialist system, whereas, for Adenauer, banishing National Socialism meant purging Prussianism.

Adenauer viewed the most important battle in the postwar world as between the forces of Christianity and Marxism, especially Communism.[32] In Germany during this period, the term Marxism described both the Communists and the Social Democrats as the latter were officially a Marxist party until the Bad Godesberg conference of 1959 when the SPD repudiated its commitment to achieving a Marxist society. The same anti-Marxist viewpoints led Adenauer to denounce the Social Democrats as the heirs to Prussianism and National Socialism.[33] Adenauer's ideology was at odds with many in the CDU, who wished to unite socialism and Christianity.[34] Adenauer worked diligently at building up contacts and support in the CDU over the following years, and he sought with varying success to impose his particular ideology on the party.

Adenauer's leading role in the CDU of the British zone won him a position at the Parliamentary Council of 1948, called into existence by the Western Allies to draft a constitution for the three western zones of Germany. He was the chairman of this constitutional convention and vaulted from this position to being chosen as the first head of government once the new "Basic Law" had been promulgated in May 1949.

The first election to the Bundestag of West Germany was held on 15 August 1949, with the Christian Democrats emerging as the strongest party. There were two clashing visions of a future Germany held by Adenauer and his main rival, the Social Democrat Kurt Schumacher. Adenauer favored integrating the Federal Republic with other Western states, especially France and the United States in order to fight the Cold War, even if the price of this was the continued division of Germany. Schumacher by contrast, though an anti-communist, wanted to see a united, socialist and neutral Germany. As such, Adenauer was in favor of joining NATO, something that Schumacher was strongly opposed to.

The Free Democrat Theodor Heuss was elected the first President of the Republic, and Adenauer was elected Chancellor (head of government) on 15 September 1949 with the support of his own CDU, the Christian Social Union, the liberal Free Democratic Party, and the right-wing German Party. It was said that Adenauer was elected Chancellor by the new German parliament by "a majority of one vote - his own".[35] At age 73, it was thought that Adenauer would only be a caretaker Chancellor.[36] However, he would go on to hold this post for 14 years, a period spanning most of the preliminary phase of the Cold War. During this period, the post-war division of Germany was consolidated with the establishment of two separate German states, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

In the controversial selection for a "provisional capital" of the Federal Republic of Germany, Adenauer championed Bonn over Frankfurt am Main. The British had agreed to detach Bonn from their zone of occupation and convert the area to an autonomous region wholly under German sovereignty; the Americans were not prepared to grant the same for Frankfurt.[37] He also resisted the claims of Heidelberg, which had better communications and had survived the war in better condition; partly because the Nazis had been popular there before they came to power and partly, as he said, because the world would not take them seriously if they set up their state in the city of The Student Prince.

As chancellor, Adenauer tended to make most major decisions himself, treating his ministers as mere extensions of his authority. While this tendency decreased under his successors, it established the image of West Germany (and later reunified Germany) as a "chancellor democracy".

In a speech on 20 September 1949, Adenauer denounced the entire denazification process pursued by the Allied military governments, announcing in the same speech that he was planning to bring in an amnesty law for the Nazi war criminals and he planned to apply to "the High Commissioners for a corresponding amnesty for punishments imposed by the Allied military courts".[38] Adenauer argued the continuation of denazification would "foster a growing and extreme nationalism" as the millions who supported the Nazi regime would find themselves excluded from German life forever.[39] By January 31, 1951, the amnesty legislation had benefited 792,176 people. They included 3,000 functionaries of the SA, the SS, and the Nazi Party who participated in dragging victims to jails and camps; 20,000 Nazis sentenced for "deeds against life" (presumably murder); 30,000 sentenced for causing bodily injury, and about 5,200 charged with "crimes and misdemeanors in office.[40]

The Adenauer government refused to accept the Oder–Neisse line as Germany's eastern frontier.[41] This refusal was in large part motivated by his desire to win the votes of expellees and right-wing nationalists to the CDU, which is why he supported Heimatrecht, i.e. the right of expellees to return to their former homes.[42] It was also intended to be a deal-breaker if negotiations ever began to reunite Germany on terms that Adenauer considered unfavorable such as the neutralization of Germany as Adenauer knew well that the Soviets would never revise the Oder-Neisse line.[42] Privately, Adenauer considered Germany's eastern provinces to be lost forever.[43]

At the Petersberg Agreement in November 1949 he achieved some of the first concessions granted by the Allies, such as a decrease in the number of factories to be dismantled, but in particular his agreement to join the International Authority for the Ruhr led to heavy criticism. In the following debate in parliament Adenauer stated:

The Allies have told me that dismantling would be stopped only if I satisfy the Allied desire for security, does the Socialist Party want dismantling to go on to the bitter end?[44][45]

The opposition leader Kurt Schumacher responded by labeling Adenauer "Chancellor of the Allies", accusing Adenauer of putting good relations with the West for the sake of the Cold War ahead of German national interests.

After a year of negotiations, the Treaty of Paris was signed on 18 April 1951 establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. The treaty was unpopular in Germany where it was seen as a French attempt to take over German industry.[46] The treaty conditions were favorable to the French, but for Adenauer, the only thing that mattered was European integration.[47] Adenauer was keen to see Britain join the European Coal and Steel Community as he believed the more free-market British would counterbalance the influence of the more dirigiste French, and to achieve that purpose he visited London in November 1951 to meet with Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[48] Churchill said Britain would not join the European Coal and Steel Community because doing so would mean sacrificing relations with the U.S and Commonwealth.[49]

From the beginning of his Chancellorship, Adenauer had been pressing for German rearmament. After the outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June 1950, the U.S. and Britain agreed that West Germany had to be rearmed to strengthen the defenses of Western Europe against a possible Soviet invasion. Further contributing to the crisis atmosphere of 1950 was the bellicose rhetoric of the East German leader Walter Ulbricht, who proclaimed the reunification of Germany under communist rule to be imminent.[50][51] To soothe French fears of German rearmament, the French Premier René Pleven suggested the so-called Pleven plan in October 1950 under which the Federal Republic would have its military forces function as part of the armed wing of the multinational European Defense Community (EDC).[52] Adenauer deeply disliked the "Pleven plan", but was forced to support it when it became clear that this plan was the only way the French would agree to German rearmament.[53]

In 1950, a major controversy broke out when it emerged that Adenauer's State Secretary Hans Globke had played a major role in drafting anti-semitic laws in Nazi Germany.[54] Adenauer kept Globke on as State Secretary as part of his strategy of integration.[55] Starting in August 1950, Adenauer began to pressure the Western Allies to free all of the war criminals in their custody, especially those from the Wehrmacht, whose continued imprisonment he claimed made West German rearmament impossible.[56] Adenauer had been opposed to the Nuremberg Trials in 1945â€“46, and after becoming Chancellor, he demanded the release of the so-called "Spandau Seven," as the seven war criminals convicted at Nuremberg and imprisoned at Spandau Prison were known.[57]

In October 1950, Adenauer received the so-called "Himmerod memorandum" drafted by four former Wehrmacht generals at the Himmerod Abbey that linked freedom for German war criminals as the price of German rearmament, along with public statements from the Allies that the Wehrmacht committed no war crimes in World War II.[58] The Allies were willing to do whatever necessary to get the much-needed German rearmament underway, and in January 1951, General Dwight Eisenhower, commander of NATO forces, issued a statement which declared the great majority of the Wehrmacht had acted honorably.[59]

On 2 January 1951, Adenauer met with the American High Commissioner, John J. McCloy, to argue that executing the Landsberg prisoners would ruin forever any effort at having the Federal Republic play its role in the Cold War.[60] In response to Adenauer's demands and pressure from the German public, McCloy on 31 January 1951 reduced the death sentences of most of the 102 men at Landsberg, hanging only 7 of the prisoners while the rest of those condemned to death were spared.[61]

By 1951 laws were passed by the Bundestag ending denazification. Denazification was viewed by the United States as counterproductive and ineffective, and its demise was not opposed.[62] Adenauer's intention was to switch government policy to reparations and compensation for the victims of Nazi rule (Wiedergutmachung).[63][64] Officials were allowed to retake jobs in civil service, with the exception of people assigned to Group I (Major Offenders) and II (Offenders) during the denazification review process.[64][65] Adenauer pressured his rehabilitated ex-Nazis by threatening that stepping out of line could trigger the reopening of individual de-Nazification prosecutions. The construction of a "competent Federal Government effectively from a standing start was one of the greatest of Adenauer's formidable achievements".[66]

Contemporary critics accused Adenauer of cementing the division of Germany, sacrificing reunification and the recovery of territories lost in the westward shift of Poland and the Soviet Union with his determination to secure the Federal Republic to the West. Adenauer's German policy was based upon Politik der StÃ¤rke (Policy of Strength), and upon the so-called "magnet theory", in which a prosperous, democratic West Germany integrated with the West would act as a "magnet" that would eventually bring down the East German regime.[67]

In 1952, the Stalin Note, as it became known, "caught everybody in the West by surprise".[68] It offered to unify the two German entities into a single, neutral state with its own, non-aligned national army to effect superpower disengagement from Central Europe. Adenauer and his cabinet were unanimous in their rejection of the Stalin overture; they shared the Western Allies' suspicion about the genuineness of that offer and supported the Allies in their cautious replies. In this, they were supported by leader of the opposition Kurt Schumacher (a very rare occurrence), and recent (21st century) findings of historical research.[citation needed] Adenauer's flat rejection was, however, still out of step with public opinion; he then realized his mistake and he started to ask questions. Critics denounced him for having missed an opportunity for German reunification. The Soviets sent a second note, courteous in tone. Adenauer by then understood that "all opportunity for initiative had passed out of his hands,"[69] and the matter was put to rest by the Allies. Given the realities of the Cold War, German reunification and recovery of lost territories in the east were not realistic goals as both of Stalin's notes specified the retention of the existing "Potsdam"-decreed boundaries of Germany.

Adenauer recognized the obligation of the German government to compensate Israel, as the main representative of the Jewish people, for The Holocaust. Germany started negotiations with Israel for restitution of lost property and the payment of damages to victims of Nazi persecution. In the Luxemburger Abkommen, Germany agreed to pay compensation to Israel. Jewish claims were bundled in the Jewish Claims Conference, which represented the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany. Germany then initially paid about 3 billion Mark to Israel and about 450 million to the Claims Conference, although payments continued after that, as new claims were made.[70] In the face of severe opposition both from the public and from his own cabinet, Adenauer was only able to get the reparations agreement ratified by the Bundestag with the support of the SPD.[71] Israeli public opinion was divided over accepting the money, but ultimately the fledgling state under David Ben-Gurion agreed to take it, opposed by more radical groups like Irgun, who were against such treaties. Those treaties were cited as a main reason for the assassination attempt by the radical Jewish groups against Adenauer.[72]

On 27 March 1952, a package addressed to Chancellor Adenauer exploded in the Munich Police Headquarters, killing one Bavarian police officer. Investigations revealed the mastermind behind the assassination attempt was Menachem Begin, who would later become the Prime Minister of Israel.[73] Begin had been the former commander of Irgun and at that time headed Herut and was a member of the Knesset. His goal was to put pressure on the German government and prevent the signing of the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany, which he vehemently opposed.[74] The West German government kept all proof under seal in order to prevent antisemitic responses from the German public.

When a rebellion in East Germany was harshly suppressed by the Red Army in June 1953, Adenauer took political advantage of the situation and was handily re-elected to a second term as Chancellor.[75] The CDU/CSU came up one seat short of an outright majority. Adenauer could thus have governed in a coalition with only one other party, but retained/gained the support of nearly all of the parties in the Bundestag that were to the right of the SPD. For all of his efforts as West Germany's leader, Adenauer was named Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1953. In 1954, he received the Karlspreis (English: Charlemagne Award), an Award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea, European cooperation and European peace.

The German Restitution Laws (BundesentschÃ¤digungsgesetz) were passed in 1953 that allowed some victims of Nazi prosecution to claim restitution.[76] Under the 1953 restitution law, those who had suffered for "racial, religious or political reasons" could collect compensation, which were defined in such a way as to sharply limit the number of people entitled to collect compensation.[77]

In the spring of 1954, opposition to the Pleven plan grew within the French National Assembly.[78] The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told Adenauer that Britain would ensure that German rearmament would happen, regardless if the National Assembly ratified the EDC treaty or not.[79] In August 1954, the Pleven plan died when an alliance of conservatives and Communists in the National Assembly joined forces to reject the EDC treaty under the grounds that German rearmament in any form was an unacceptable danger to France.[80]

British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden used the failure of the EDC to advocate for independent West German rearmament and West German NATO membership.[80] Thanks in part to Adenauer's success in rebuilding West Germany's image, the British proposal met with considerable approval.[80] In the ensuing London conference, Eden assisted Adenauer by promising the French that Britain would always maintain at least four divisions in the British Army of the Rhine as long as there was a Soviet threat, with the strengthened British forces also aimed implicitly against any German revanchism.[81] Adenauer then promised that Germany would never seek to have nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as heavy warships, strategic bombers, long-range artillery, and guided missiles, though these promises were non-binding.[81] The French had been assuaged that West German rearmament would be no threat to France. Additionally, Adenauer promised that the West German military would be under the operational control of NATO general staff, though ultimate control would rest with the West German government; and that above all he would never violate the strictly defensive NATO charter and invade East Germany to achieve German reunification.[82]

In May 1955, West Germany joined NATO and in November a West German military, the Bundeswehr, was founded.[80] Though Adenauer made use of a number of Wehrmacht generals and admirals in the Bundeswehr, he saw the Bundeswehr as a new force with no links to the past, and wanted it to be kept under civilian control at all times.[83] To achieve these aims, Adenauer gave a great deal of power to the military reformer Wolf Graf von Baudissin.[84]

In November 1954, Adenauer's lobbying efforts on behalf of the "Spandau Seven" finally bore fruit with the release of Konstantin von Neurath.[85] Adenauer congratulated Neurath on his release.[86] President Heuss went even further, telling Neurath of his "martyrdom" at Nuremberg, and strongly implied that Neurath had been framed by the Allies.[87] The statements welcoming Neurath's release by Heuss and Adenauer sparked controversy all over the world.[87] At the same time, Adenauer's efforts to win freedom for Admiral Karl Dönitz ran into staunch opposition from the British Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, Ivone Kirkpatrick, who argued Dönitz would be an active danger to German democracy.[88] Adenauer then traded with Kirkpatrick no early release for Admiral Dönitz with an early release for Admiral Erich Raeder on medical grounds.[89]

Adenauer's achievements include the establishment of a stable democracy in West Germany and a lasting reconciliation with France, culminating in the Élysée Treaty. His political commitment to the Western powers achieved full sovereignty for West Germany, which was formally laid down in the General Treaty, although there remained Allied restrictions concerning the status of a potentially reunited Germany and the state of emergency in West Germany. Adenauer firmly integrated the country with the emerging Euro-Atlantic community (NATO and the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation). Adenauer is closely linked to the implementation of an enhanced pension system, which ensured unparalleled prosperity for retired people. Along with his Minister for Economic Affairs and successor Ludwig Erhard, the West German model of a "social market economy" (a mixed economy with capitalism moderated by elements of social welfare and Catholic social teaching) allowed for the boom period known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") that produced broad prosperity. The Adenauer era witnessed a dramatic rise in the standard of living of average Germans, with real wages doubling between 1950 and 1963. This rising affluence was accompanied by a 20% fall in working hours during that same period, together with a fall in the unemployment rate from 8% in 1950 to 0.4% in 1965.[90] in addition, an advanced welfare state was established.[91]

In return for the release of the last German prisoners of war in 1955, the Federal Republic established diplomatic relations with the USSR, but refused to recognize East Germany and broke off diplomatic relations with countries (e.g., Yugoslavia) that established relations with the East German rÃ©gime.[92] Adenauer was also ready to consider the Oder-Neisse line as the German border in order to pursue a more flexible policy with Poland but he did not command sufficient domestic support for this, and opposition to the Oder-Neisse line continued, causing considerable disappointment among Adenauer's Western allies.[93]

In 1956, during the Suez Crisis, Adenauer completely supported the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt, arguing to his Cabinet that Nasser was a pro-Soviet force that needed to be cut down to size.[94] Adenauer was appalled that the Americans had come out against the attack on Egypt alongside the Soviets, which led Adenauer to fear that the United States and Soviet Union would "carve up the world" with no thought for European interests.[95]

Right at the height of the Suez crisis, Adenauer visited Paris to meet the French Premier Guy Mollet in a show of moral support for France.[96] The day before Adenauer arrived in Paris, the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin sent the so-called "Bulganin letters" to the leaders of Britain, France, and Israel threatening nuclear strikes if they did not end the war against Egypt.[96] The news of the "Bulganin letters" reached Adenauer mid-way on the train trip to Paris. The threat of a Soviet nuclear strike that could destroy Paris at any moment added considerably to the tension of the summit.[97] The Paris summit helped to strengthen the bond between Adenauer and the French, who saw themselves as fellow European powers living in a world dominated by Washington and Moscow.[98]

Adenauer was deeply shocked by the Soviet threat of nuclear strikes against Britain and France, and even more so by the apparent quiescent American response to the Soviet threat of nuclear annihilation against two of NATO's key members.[99] As a result, Adenauer became more interested in the French idea of a European "Third Force" in the Cold War as an alternative security policy.[100] This helped to lead to the formation of the European Economic Community in 1957, which was intended to be the foundation stone of the European "Third Force".[101]

Adenauer reached an agreement for his "nuclear ambitions" with a NATO Military Committee in December 1956 that stipulated West German forces were to be "equipped for nuclear warfare".[102] Concluding that the United States would eventually pull out of Western Europe, Adenauer pursued nuclear cooperation with other countries. The French government then proposed that France, West Germany and Italy jointly develop and produce nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and an agreement was signed in April 1958. With the ascendancy of Charles de Gaulle, the agreement for joint production and control was shelved indefinitely.[103] President John F. Kennedy, an ardent foe of nuclear proliferation, considered sales of such weapons moot since "in the event of war the United States would, from the outset, be prepared to defend the Federal Republic."[104] The physicists of the Max Planck Institute for Theoretical Physics at Göttingen and other renowned universities would have had the scientific capability for in-house development, but the will was absent,[105] nor was there public support. With Adenauer's fourth-term election in November 1961 and the end of his chancellorship in sight, his "nuclear ambitions" began to taper off.

1957 saw the reintegration of the Saarland into West Germany. The election of 1957 essentially dealt with national matters.[105] His re-election campaigns centered around the slogan "No Experiments".[36] Riding a wave of popularity from the return of the last POWs from Soviet labor camps, as well as an extensive pension reform, Adenauer led the CDU/CSU to the first—and as of 2018, only—outright majority in a free German election.[106] In 1957, the Federal Republic signed the Treaty of Rome and became a founding member of the European Economic Community. In September 1958, Adenauer first met President Charles de Gaulle of France, who was to become a close friend and ally in pursuing Franco-German rapprochement.[107] Adenauer saw de Gaulle as a "rock" and the only foreign leader whom he could completely trust.[108]

In response to the Ulm Einsatzkommando trial in 1958, Adenauer set up the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes.[109]

On 27 November 1958 another Berlin crisis broke out when Khrushchev submitted an ultimatum with a six-month expiry date to Washington, London and Paris, where he demanded that the Allies pull all their forces out of West Berlin and agree that West Berlin become a "free city", or else he would sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany.[110] Adenauer was opposed to any sort of negotiations with the Soviets, arguing if only the West were to hang tough long enough, Khrushchev would back down.[111] As the 27 May deadline approached, the crisis was defused by the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who visited Moscow to meet with Khrushchev and managed to extend the deadline while not committing himself or the other Western powers to concessions.[112] Adenauer believed Macmillan to be a spineless "appeaser", who had made a secret deal with Khrushchev at the expense of the Federal Republic.[113][114]

Adenauer tarnished his image when he announced he would run for the office of federal president in 1959, only to pull out when he discovered that under the Basic Law, the president had far less power than he did in the Weimar Republic. After his reversal he supported the nomination of Heinrich Lübke as the CDU presidential candidate whom he believed weak enough not to interfere with his actions as Federal Chancellor. One of Adenauer's reasons for not pursuing the presidency was his fear that Ludwig Erhard, whom Adenauer thought little of, would become the new chancellor.

By early 1959, Adenauer came under renewed pressure from his Western allies, to recognize the Oder-Neisse line, with the Americans being especially insistent.[115] Adenauer gave his "explicit and unconditional approval" to the idea of non-aggression pacts in late January 1959, which effectively meant recognising the Oder-Neisse line, since realistically speaking Germany could only regain the lost territories through force. After Adenauer's intention to sign non-aggression pacts with Poland and Czechoslovakia became clear, the German expellee lobby swung into action and organized protests all over the Federal Republic while bombarding the offices of Adenauer and other members of the cabinet with thousands of letters, telegrams and telephone calls promising never to vote CDU again if the non-aggression pacts were signed.[116] Faced with this pressure, Adenauer promptly capitulated to the expellee lobby.[116]

In late 1959, a controversy broke out when it emerged that Theodor Oberländer, the Minister of Refugees since 1953 and one of the most powerful leaders of the expellee lobby had committed war crimes against Jews and Poles during World War II.[117] Despite his past, on 10 December 1959, a statement was released to the press declaring that "Dr. Oberländer has the full confidence of the Adenauer cabinet".[118] Other Christian Democrats made it clear to Adenauer that they would like to see Oberländer out of the cabinet, and finally in May 1960 Oberländer resigned.[119]

In 1961 Adenauer had his concerns about both the status of Berlin and US leadership confirmed, as the Soviets and East Germans built the Berlin Wall. Adenauer had come into the year distrusting the new US President, John F. Kennedy. He doubted Kennedy's commitment to a free Berlin and a unified Germany and considered him undisciplined and naÃ¯ve.[120] For his part, Kennedy thought that Adenauer was a relic of the past. Their strained relationship impeded effective Western action on Berlin during 1961.[121]

The construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and the sealing of borders by the East Germans made Adenauer's government look weak. Adenauer chose to remain on the campaign trail, and made a disastrous misjudgement in a speech on 14 August 1961 in Regensburg when he engaged in a personal attack on the SPD Mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt saying that Brandt's illegitimate birth had disqualified him from holding any sort of office.[122] After failing to keep their majority in the general election on 17 September, the CDU/CSU again needed to include the FDP in a coalition government. Adenauer was forced to make two concessions: to relinquish the chancellorship before the end of the new term, his fourth, and to replace his foreign minister.[123] In his last years in office, Adenauer used to take a nap after lunch and, when he was traveling abroad and had a public function to attend, he sometimes asked for a bed in a room close to where he was supposed to be speaking, so that he could rest briefly before he appeared.[124]

During this time, Adenauer came into conflict with the Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard over the depth of German integration to the West. Erhard was in favor of allowing Britain to join to create a trans-Atlantic free trade zone, while Adenauer was for strengthening ties amongst the original founding six nations of West Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy.[125] In Adenauer's viewpoint, the Cold War meant that the NATO alliance with the United States and Britain was essential, but there could be no deeper integration into a trans-Atlantic community beyond the existing military ties as that would lead to a "mishmash" between different cultural systems that would be doomed to failure.[126] Though Adenauer had tried to get Britain to join the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951–52, by the early 1960s Adenauer had come to share General de Gaulle's belief that Britain simply did not belong in the EEC.[127] The Élysée Treaty was signed in January 1963 to solidify relations with France.

In October 1962, a scandal erupted when police arrested five Der Spiegel journalists, charging them with espionage for publishing a memo detailing weaknesses in the West German armed forces. Adenauer had not initiated the arrests, but initially defended the person responsible, Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, and called the Spiegel memo "abyss of treason". After public outrage and heavy protests from the coalition partner FDP he dismissed Strauss, but the reputation of Adenauer and his party had already suffered.[128][129]

Adenauer managed to remain in office for almost another year, but the scandal increased the pressure already on him to fulfill his promise to resign before the end of the term. Adenauer was not on good terms in his last years of power with his economics minister Ludwig Erhard and tried to block him from the chancellorship. In January 1963, Adenauer privately supported General Charles de Gaulle's veto of Britain's attempt to join the European Economic Community, and was only prevented from saying so openly by the need to preserve unity in his cabinet as most of his ministers led by Ludwig Erhard supported Britain's application.[130] A Francophile, Adenauer saw a Franco-German partnership as the key for European peace and prosperity and shared de Gaulle's view that Britain would be a disputative force in the EEC.[131] Adenauer failed in his efforts to block Erhard as his successor, and in October 1963 he turned the office over to Erhard. He remained chairman of the CDU until his resignation in December 1966.[132]

Adenauer ensured a truly free and democratic society and laid the groundwork for Germany to reenter the community of nations and to evolve as a dependable member of the Western world. It can be argued that because of Adenauer's policies, a later reunification of both German states was possible; and unified Germany has remained a solid partner in the European Union and NATO. The British historian Frederick Taylor argued that Federal Republic under Adenauer retained many of the characteristics of the authoritarian "deep state" that existed under the Weimar Republic, and that in many ways the Adenauer era was a transition period in values and viewpoints from the authoritarianism that characterized Germany in the first half of the 20th century to the more democratic values that characterized the western half Germany in the second half of the 20th century.[133]

Adenauer's years in the Chancellorship saw the realization of a number of important initiatives in the domestic field, such as in housing, pension rights, and unemployment provision. A major housebuilding programme was launched, while measures introduced to assist war victims[134] and expellees.[135] A savings scheme for homeownership was set up in 1952,[136] while the Housebuilding Act of 1956 reinforced incentives for owner-occupation. Employer-funded child allowances for three or more children were established in 1954, and in 1957 the indexation of pension schemes was introduced, together with an old age assistance scheme for agricultural workers.[137] The 1952 Maternity Leave Law foresaw 12 weeks of paid leave for working mothers, who were also safeguarded from unfair dismissal,[138] and improvements in unemployment benefits were carried out.[139] The Soldiers’ Law of 1956 laid down that soldiers had the same rights as other citizens, “limited only by the demands of military service.”[140] Following a Federal Act of 1961, social assistance provided a safety net of minimum income “for those not adequately catered for by social insurance.”[141] Controversially, however, a school lunch programme was abolished in 1950.[142]

By the early 1960s, connections between the CDU under Adenauer and the intelligence services ("Bundesnachrichtendienst" / BND) had become significantly closer than would be generally known until many years later. Thanks to the BND, information on the internal machinations of the opposition SPD party were available to the entire CDU leadership, and not merely to Adenauer in his capacity as chancellor. It was Adenauer himself who personally instructed the BND to spy on his SPD rival, the future chancellor Willy Brandt.[143]

Adenauer died on 19 April 1967 in his family home at RhÃ¶ndorf. According to his daughter, his last words were "Da jitt et nix zo kriesche!" [144] (Cologne dialect for "There's nothin' to weep about!")

Konrad Adenauer's state funeral in Cologne Cathedral was attended by a large number of world leaders, among them United States President Lyndon B. Johnson, Charles de Gaulle and Heinrich Lübke. After the Requiem Mass and service, his remains were taken upstream to Rhöndorf on the Rhine aboard Kondor, with two more Jaguar class fast attack craft of the German Navy, Seeadler and Sperber as escorts, "past the thousands who stood in silence on both banks of the river".[145] He is interred at the Waldfriedhof ("Forest Cemetery") at Rhöndorf.

When, in 1967, after his death at the age of 91, Germans were asked what they admired most about Adenauer, the majority responded that he had brought home the last German prisoners of war from the USSR, which had become known as the "Return of the 10,000".

In 2003, Adenauer was voted the 'greatest German of all time' in a contest called Unsere Besten run on German public-service television broadcaster ZDF in which more than three million votes were cast. Adolf Hitler and other Nazis were excluded from the nominations.[146]

Adenauer was the main motive for one of the most recent and famous gold commemorative coins: the Belgian 3 pioneers of the European unification commemorative coin, minted in 2002. The obverse side shows a portrait with the names Robert Schuman, Paul-Henri Spaak and Konrad Adenauer; the three most important figures of the founding fathers of the European Union.


why is there a giant bean in chicago

Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Sir Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed The Bean because of its shape. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons).

Cloud Gate

Coordinates: 41°52′57.67″N 87°37′23.97″W / 41.8826861°N 87.6233250°W / 41.8826861; -87.6233250

Kapoor's design was inspired by liquid mercury and the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7Â m) high arch. On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, and it is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties.

The sculpture was the result of a design competition. After Kapoor's design was chosen, numerous technological concerns regarding the design's construction and assembly arose, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture's upkeep and maintenance. Various experts were consulted, some of whom believed the design could not be implemented. Eventually, a feasible method was found, but the sculpture's construction fell behind schedule. It was unveiled in an incomplete form during the Millennium Park grand opening celebration in 2004, before being concealed again while it was completed. Cloud Gate was formally dedicated on May 15, 2006, and has since gained considerable popularity, both domestically and internationally.

Lying between Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west, Grant Park has been Chicago's front yard since the mid-19th century. Its northwest corner, north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute, east of Michigan Avenue, south of Randolph Street, and west of Columbus Drive, had been Illinois Central rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it was made available for development by the city as Millennium Park.[1] For 2007, the park was Chicago's second largest tourist attraction, trailing only Navy Pier.[2]

In 1999, Millennium Park officials and a group of art collectors, curators and architects reviewed the artistic works of 30 different artists and asked two for proposals. American artist Jeff Koons submitted a proposal to erect a permanent 150-foot (46 m) sculpture of a playground slide;[3][4] his glass and steel design featured an observation deck 90 feet (27 m) above the ground that was accessible via an elevator.[5] The committee chose the second design by internationally acclaimed artist Anish Kapoor. Measuring 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m) and weighing 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons), the proposal featured a seamless, stainless steel surface inspired by liquid mercury.[6] This mirror-like surface would reflect the Chicago skyline, but its elliptical shape would distort and twist the reflected image.[7] As visitors walk around the structure, its surface acts like a fun-house mirror as it distorts their reflections.[8]

In the underside of the sculpture is the omphalos, an indentation whose mirrored surface provides multiple reflections of any subject situated beneath it.[9] The apex of the omphalos is 27 feet (8.2Â m) above the ground. The concave underside allows visitors to walk underneath to see the omphalos, and through its arch to the other side so that they view the entire structure.[10] During the grand opening week in July 2004, press reports described the omphalos as the "spoon-like underbelly".[11][12] The stainless steel sculpture was originally envisioned as the centerpiece of the Lurie Garden at the southeast corner of the park. However, Park officials believed the piece was too large for the Lurie Garden and decided to locate it at AT&T Plaza, despite Kapoor's objections.[13] Skyscrapers to the north along East Randolph Street, including The Heritage, the Smurfit-Stone Building, Two Prudential Plaza, One Prudential Plaza, and Aon Center are visible, reflected on both the east and west sides of the sculpture.

Although Kapoor does not draw with computers, computer modeling was essential to the process of analyzing the complex form,[14] which created numerous issues. Since the sculpture was expected to be outdoors, concerns arose that it might retain and conduct heat in a way that would make it too hot to touch during the summer and so cold that one's tongue might stick to it during the winter. The extreme temperature variation between seasons was also feared to weaken the structure. Graffiti, bird droppings and fingerprints were also potential problems, as they would affect the aesthetics of the surface.[4][15] The most pressing issue was the need to create a single seamless exterior for the external shell, a feat architect Norman Foster once believed to be nearly impossible.[15]

While the sculpture was being constructed, public and media outlets nicknamed it "The Bean" because of its shape, a name that Kapoor described as "completely stupid".[13] Months later, Kapoor officially named the piece "Cloud Gate".[16] (Kapoor eventually accepted the nickname of "The Bean".[17]) Critical reviews describe the sculpture as a passage between realms.[18] Three-quarters of the sculpture's external surface reflects the sky and the name refers to it acting as a type of gate that helps bridge the space between the sky and the viewer.[19] The sculpture and plaza are sometimes referred to jointly as "Cloud Gate on the AT&T Plaza".[20] It is Kapoor's first public outdoor work in the United States,[20] and is the work by which he is best known in the country according to the Financial Times.[21]

The British engineering firm Atelier One and freelance engineer Chris Hornzee-Jones (who later went on to form the engineering firm Aerotrope in 2005) provided the sculpture's structural design,[22][23] and Performance Structures, Inc. (PSI) was chosen to fabricate it because of their ability to produce nearly invisible welds.[3] The project began with PSI attempting to recreate the design in miniature. A high-density polyurethane foam model was selected by Kapoor, which was then used to design the final structure, including the interior structural components.[24] Initially, PSI planned to build and assemble the sculpture in Oakland, California, and ship it to Chicago through the Panama Canal and St. Lawrence Seaway. However, this plan was discarded after park officials deemed it too risky, so the decision was made to transport the individual panels by truck and to assemble the structure on-site, a task undertaken by MTH Industries.[3][24][25]

The sculpture's weight raised concerns. Estimating the thickness of the steel needed to create the sculpture's desired aesthetics before fabrication was difficult.[26] Cloud Gate was originally estimated to weigh 60 short tons (54 t; 54 long tons) when completed.[27] However, the final figure was almost twice as heavy at 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons). This extra weight required engineers to reconsider the sculpture's supporting structures. The roof of the Park Grill, upon which Cloud Gate sits, had to be built strong enough to bear the weight. The large retaining wall separating Chicago's Metra train tracks from the North Grant Park garage supports much of the weight of the sculpture and forms the back side of the restaurant. This wall, along with the rest of the garage's foundation, required additional bracing before the piece was erected.[26] Cloud Gate is further buttressed by lateral members underneath the plaza that are anchored to the sculpture's interior structure by tie rods.[24]

Inside Cloud Gate's polished exterior shell are several steel structures that keep the sculpture standing. The first structural pieces, two type 304 stainless steel rings, were put into place in February 2004. As construction continued, crisscrossing pipe trusses were assembled between the two rings.[28] The trusses and supporting structures were only present for the construction phases. The finished sculpture has no inner bracing.[29] The supporting structural components were designed and constructed to ensure that no specific point was overloaded, and to avoid producing unwanted indentations on the exterior shell. The frame was also designed to expand and contract with the sculpture as temperatures fluctuate. As a result, the two large rings supporting the sculpture move independently of each other, allowing the shell to move independently of the rings.[24]

When Cloud Gate's interior components were completed, construction crews prepared to work on the outer shell; this comprises 168 stainless steel panels, each 3⁄8 inch (10 mm) thick and weighing 1,000 to 2,000 pounds (450 to 910 kg).[30] They were fabricated using three-dimensional modeling software.[24] Computers and robots were essential in the bending and shaping of the plates,[25] which was performed by English wheel and a robotic scanning device.[31] Metal stiffeners were welded to each panel's interior face to provide a small degree of rigidity. About a third of the plates, along with the entire interior structure, were fabricated in Oakland.[24] The plates were polished to 98 percent of their final state and covered with protective white film before being sent to Chicago via trucks.[32] Once in Chicago, the plates were welded together on-site, creating 2,442 linear feet (744 m) of welded seams.[30] Welders used keyhole welding machines rather than traditional welding guns.[6] The plates were fabricated so precisely that no on-site cutting or filing was necessary when lifting and fitting them into position.[30]

When construction of the shell began in June 2004, a large tent was erected around the piece to shield it from public view.[33] Construction began with the omphalos, where plates were attached to the supporting internal steel structure, from the inside (underside) of the sculpture downward to the outermost surfaces.[32] This sequence caused the structure to resemble a large sombrero when the bottom was complete.[34]

The shell of Cloud Gate was fully erected for the grand opening of Millennium Park on July 15, 2004, although it was unpolished and thus unfinished, because its assembly had fallen behind schedule. The piece was temporarily uncovered on July 8 for the opening, although Kapoor was unhappy with this as it allowed the public to see the sculpture in an unfinished state.[35] The original plan was to re-erect the tent around the sculpture for polishing on July 24, but public appreciation for the piece convinced park officials to leave it uncovered for several months. The tent was again erected in January 2005 as a 24-person crew from Ironworkers Local 63 polished the seams between each plate.[30][36] In order to grind, sand and polish the seams, six levels of scaffolding were erected around the sides of the sculpture, while climbing ropes and harnesses were used to polish harder-to-reach areas.[30] When the upper and side portions of the shell were completed, the tent was once again removed in August 2005. On October 3, the omphalos was closed off as workers polished the final section.[37] Every weld on the Cloud Gate underwent a five-stage process, required to produce the sculpture's mirror-like finish.[30]

The sculpture was finally completed on August 28, 2005, and officially unveiled on May 15, 2006.[38][39] The cost for the piece was first estimated at $6 million; this had escalated to $11.5 million by the time the park opened in 2004,[40] with the final figure standing at $23 million in 2006.[4] No public funds were involved; all funding came from donations from individuals and corporations.[4]

Kapoor's contract states that the constructed piece should be expected to survive for 1,000 years.[41] The lower 6 feet (1.8 m) of Cloud Gate is wiped down twice a day by hand, while the entire sculpture is cleaned twice a year with 40 U.S. gallons (33 imp gal; 150 L) of liquid detergent. The daily cleanings use a Windex-like solution, while the semi-annual cleanings use Tide.[42] A notable February 2009 rare incident saw two names etched in letters about 1 inch (25 mm) tall on the northeast side of the curved sculpture. The graffiti was removed by the same firm that did the original polishing.[43]

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley declared the day of the sculpture's dedication, May 15, 2006, to be "Cloud Gate Day". Kapoor attended the celebration, while local jazz trumpeter and bandleader Orbert Davis and the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic played "Fanfare for Cloud Gate", which Davis composed.[44] The public took an instant liking to the sculpture, affectionately referring to it as "The Bean".[45] Cloud Gate has become a popular piece of public art[8][46] and is now a fixture on many souvenirs such as postcards, sweatshirts, and posters.[47] The sculpture has attracted a large number of locals, tourists, and art aficionados from around the world.[48] The sculpture is now the piece by which Kapoor is most identified in the United States.[49]

Time describes the piece as an essential photo opportunity, and more of a destination than a work of art.[8]The New York Times writes that it is both a "tourist magnet" and an "extraordinary art object",[48][50] while USA Today refers to the sculpture as a monumental abstract work.[51] Chicago art critic Edward Lifson considers Cloud Gate to be among the greatest pieces of public art in the world.[44] The American Welding Society recognized Cloud Gate, MTH Industries and PSI with the group's Extraordinary Welding Award.[52] Time named Millennium Park one of the ten best architectural achievements of 2004, citing Cloud Gate as one of the park's major attractions.[53]

When the park first opened in 2004, Metra police stopped a Columbia College Chicago journalism student who was working on a photography project in Millennium Park and confiscated his film because of fears of terrorism.[54] In 2005, the sculpture attracted some controversy when a professional photographer without a paid permit was denied access to the piece.[55] As is the case for all works of art currently covered by United States copyright law, the artist holds the copyright for the sculpture. This allows the public to freely photograph Cloud Gate, but permission from Kapoor or the City of Chicago (which has licensed the art) is required for any commercial reproductions of the photographs. The city first set a policy of collecting permit fees for photographs. These permits were initially set at $350 per day for professional still photographers, $1,200 per day for professional videographers and $50 per hour for wedding photographers. The policy has been changed so permits are only required for large-scale film, video and photography requiring ten-person crews and equipment.[56]

In addition to restricting photography of public art, closing a public park for a private event has also been controversial. In 2005 and 2006, almost all of Millennium Park was closed for a day for corporate events. On both occasions, as one of the park's primary attractions, Cloud Gate was the focus of controversy. On September 8, 2005, Toyota Motor Sales USA paid $800,000 to rent most venues in the park including Cloud Gate on AT&T Plaza from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.[57][58] On August 7, 2006, Allstate paid $700,000 to rent the park. For this price, Allstate acquired the visitation rights to a different set of features and only had exclusive access to Cloud Gate after 4 p.m.[59] These corporate closures denied tourists access to Kapoor's public sculpture, and commuters who walk through the park were forced to take alternative routes. City officials stated that the money would help finance free public programs in Millennium Park.[57]

In 2015, a sculpture similar to Cloud Gate was reported in Karamay, China at the site of an oil discovery, which according to Eduardo PeÃ±alver, the Dean of Cornell Law School, "very probably" is a copyright infringement against Cloud Gate.[60] Though designed to resemble an oil bubble, Kapoor hoped that legal action would be taken against what he termed a Chinese knockoff.[61] Mayor Rahm Emanuel was less concerned and said that it was a flattering imitation.[62]

Anish Kapoor has a reputation for creating spectacles in urban settings by producing works of extreme size and scale.[21] Before creating Cloud Gate, Kapoor had created art that distorted images of the viewer instead of portraying images of its own. In so doing, he acquired experience blurring the boundary between the limit and the limitless.[63] Kapoor drew on past experience to design Cloud Gate, in particular the designing of Sky Mirror (2001), a 20-foot (6.1 m) 10-short-ton (9 t; 9-long-ton) concave stainless steel mirror that also used a theme of distorted perception on a grand scale.[63]

Kapoor's objects often aim to evoke immateriality and the spiritual, an outcome he achieves either by carving dark voids into stone pieces, or more recently, through the sheer shine and reflectivity of his objects.[45] This Indian artist's works have no fixed identity, but rather occupy an illusionary space that is consistent with eastern theologies shared by Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, as well as Albert Einstein's views of a non-three-dimensional world.[18] Kapoor explores the theme of ambiguity with his works that place the viewer in a state of "in-betweenness".[64] The artist often questions and plays with such dualities as solidity–emptiness or reality–reflection, which in turn allude to such paired opposites as flesh–spirit, the here–the beyond, east–west, sky–earth, etc. that create the conflict between internal and external, superficial and subterranean, and conscious and unconscious.[65] Kapoor also creates a tension between masculine and feminine within his art by having concave points of focus that invite the entry of visitors and multiplies their images when they are positioned correctly.[65][66]

Kapoor often speaks of removing both the signature of the artist from his works as well as any traces of their fabrication, or what he refers to as "traces of the hand".[18][45] He aspires to make his works look like they have independent realities that he reveals rather than creates.[18] For him, removing all the seams from Cloud Gate was necessary in order to make the sculpture seem as though it was "perfect" and ready-made. These effects increase the viewer's fascination with it and makes them wonder what it is and where it came from.[46] His attempts to hide his works' seams as an artist stand in contrast to Frank Gehry's architectural designs in the park, Jay Pritzker Pavilion and BP Pedestrian Bridge, which display their seams prominently.[16]

Cloud Gate is described as a transformative, iconic work.[67] It is similar to many of Kapoor's previous works in the themes and issues it addresses. While the sculpture's mirror effects are reminiscent of fun-house fairground mirrors, they also have a more serious intent; they help dematerialize this very large object, making it seem light and almost weightless.[8][68] Cloud Gate is considered Kapoor's most ambitious use of complex mirrored form dynamics.[69] Kapoor challenges his viewers to internalize his work through intellectual and theoretical exercise. By reflecting the sky, visiting and non-visiting pedestrians and surrounding architecture, Cloud Gate limits its viewers to partial comprehension at any time. The interaction with the viewer who moves to create his own vision gives it a spiritual dimension.[64] The sculpture is described as a disembodied, luminous form,[64] which is also how his earlier 1000 Names (1979â€“80) was described when it addressed the metaphysical and mystical.[65]

The viewer physically enters the art when he walks underneath it into its "navel". The omphalos is a "warped dimension of fluid space". In this dimension, solid is transformed into fluid in a disorienting multiplicative manner that intensifies the experience. It is emblematic of Kapoor's work to deconstruct empirical space and venture into manifold possibilities of abstract space.[69] The experience is described as a displaced or virtual depth that is composed of multiplied surfaces.[70]

According to project manager Lou Cerny of MTH Industries, "When the light is right, you can't see where the sculpture ends and the sky begins."[71] The sculpture challenges perception by distorting and deforming the surrounding architecture.[72] The skyscrapers along East Randolph Street to the northeast (Two Prudential Plaza, and Aon Center), north (One Prudential Plaza) and northwest (The Heritage, Crain Communications Building) are reflected on Cloud Gate's surface when viewed from either the east or the west. The sculpture also warps viewers' perception of time by changing the speed of movements such as the passing of clouds.[72]

Although in the conventional sense Cloud Gate is not an opening that leads anywhere in the same way that monumental gates do, it frames a view and is celebratory in the way it creates a ceremonial place. The work is credited with achieving a new level or understanding described as a transubstantiation of material, reminiscent of that which the artist experienced during a 1979 trip to India. Kapoor's 1000 Names evolved immediately after this trip; twenty-five years later he created Cloud Gate, an object that emerged from material forms to become immaterial.[18]

Kapoor often relies on tenets of Hinduism in his art and says that "The experience of opposites allows for the expression of wholeness."[18] Primal dualities that are one, such as the lingam and yoni, are important to Indian culture, and Cloud Gate represents both the male and female in one entity by symbolizing both the vagina and testicles.[18] Thus, it represents the tension between the masculine and the feminine.

The sculpture has been used as a backdrop in commercial films, notably in the 2006 Hollywood film The Break-Up, which had to reshoot several scenes because the sculpture was under cover for the initial filming.[73] It is also prominently featured in the ending scene of Source Code. Director Duncan Jones felt the structure was a metaphor for the movie's subject matter and aimed for it to be shown at the beginning and end of the movie.[74] The sculpture served as an aesthetic and symbolic setting for the 2012 film The Vow when the lead characters share a kiss under it.[75][76] It also appears in the video to "Homecoming", a song by Chicago native Kanye West, featuring Chris Martin of the band Coldplay.[77] The sculpture is also featured in the 2008 mumblecore film Nights and Weekends. It was also featured in the Bollywood film Dhoom 3[78] and the 2014 movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction, the fourth installment in the Transformers series.[79] A modified reproduction of Cloud Gate is also included in Watch Dogs, a video game released in 2014 that takes place in Chicago.[80] Unlike the real sculpture, the in-game replica is a curved, white torus.[81]


who created frankenstein the monster in the movie

In a European village, a young scientist, named Henry Frankenstein, and his assistant Fritz, a hunchback, piece together a human body, the parts of which have been collected from various sources, including stealing freshly buried bodies in a cemetery, and recently hanged criminals. Frankenstein desires to create human life through electrical devices which he has perfected. He sends Fritz to a school where Dr. Waldman, Henry's old medical professor, teaches, to steal a brain; Fritz drops the normal brain and has to take the brain of a criminal.

Frankenstein (1931 film)

Frankenstein is a 1931 American pre-Code horror monster film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale and adapted from the play by Peggy Webling (which in turn is based on the novel of the same name by Mary Shelley), about a scientist and his assistant who dig up corpses to build a man animated by electricity, but his assistant accidentally gives the creature an abnormal, murderer's brain. The resultant monster is portrayed by Boris Karloff in the film.

The movie stars Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Karloff, and features Dwight Frye and Edward van Sloan. The Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. The make-up artist was Jack Pierce. A hit with both audiences and critics, the film was followed by multiple sequels and has become arguably the most iconic horror film in history.

In 1991, the Library of Congress selected Frankenstein for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[3]

Elizabeth, his fiancÃ©e, is worried over his peculiar actions. She cannot understand why he secludes himself in an abandoned watch tower, which he has equipped as a laboratory, refusing to see anyone. She and a friend, Victor Moritz, go to Dr. Waldman, and ask Waldman's help in reclaiming the young scientist from his experiments. Waldman tells them that Frankenstein has been working on creating life. Elizabeth, intent on rescuing Frankenstein, arrives just as Henry is making his final tests. He tells them to watch, claiming to have discovered the ray that brought life into the world. They watch Frankenstein and the hunchback as they raise the dead creature on an operating table, high into the room, toward an opening at the top of the laboratory. Then a terrific crash of thunder, the crackling of Frankenstein's electric machines, and the hand of Frankenstein's creature begins to move, prompting Frankenstein to shout 'It's alive!'.

The manufactured creature, despite its grotesque form, initially appears to be a simple, innocent creation. Frankenstein welcomes it into his laboratory and asks his creation to sit, which it does. He then opens up the roof, causing the creature to reach out towards the sunlight. Fritz enters with a flaming torch, which frightens the creature. Its fright is mistaken by Frankenstein and Waldman as an attempt to attack them, and it is chained in the dungeon. Thinking that it is not fit for society and will wreak havoc at any chance, they leave the creature locked up, where Fritz antagonizes it with a torch. As Henry and Waldman consider the creature's fate, they hear a shriek from the dungeon. Frankenstein and Waldman find the creature has strangled Fritz. The creature lunges at the two but they escape, locking the creature inside. Realizing that the creature must be destroyed, Henry prepares an injection of a powerful drug and the two conspire to release the creature and inject it as it attacks. When the door is unlocked the creature lunges at Frankenstein as Waldman injects the drug into the creature's back. The creature falls to the floor unconscious.

Henry collapses from exhaustion, and Elizabeth and Henry's father arrive and take him home. Henry is worried about the creature but Waldman reassures him that he will destroy it. Later, Henry is at home, recovered and preparing for his wedding while Waldman examines the creature. As he is preparing to vivisect it, the creature awakens and strangles him. It escapes from the tower and wanders through the landscape. It has a short encounter with a farmer's young daughter, Maria. She is not afraid of him and asks him to play a game with her in which they toss flowers into a lake and watch them float. The creature enjoys the game, but when they run out of flowers he thinks Maria will float as well, so he throws her into the lake where, to his puzzlement, she drowns. Upset by this outcome, the creature runs away.

With preparations for the wedding completed, Henry is serenely happy with Elizabeth. They are to marry as soon as Waldman arrives. Victor rushes in, saying that the Doctor has been found strangled. Henry suspects the creature, who enters Elizabeth's room, causing her to scream. When the searchers arrive, they find Elizabeth unconscious on the bed. The creature has escaped.

Maria's father arrives, carrying his daughter's body. He says she was murdered, and the villagers form a search party to capture the creature, and bring it to justice (dead or alive). In order to search the whole country for the creature, they split into three groups: Ludwig leads the first group into the woods, Henry leads the second group into the mountains, and the Burgomaster leads the third group by the lake. During the search, Henry becomes separated from the group and is discovered by the creature, who attacks him. The creature knocks Henry unconscious and carries him off to an old mill. The peasants hear his cries and they regroup to follow. They find the creature has climbed to the top, dragging Henry with him. The creature hurls the scientist to the ground. His fall is broken by the vanes of the windmill, saving his life. Some of the villagers hurry him to his home while the rest of the mob set the windmill ablaze, killing the entrapped creature inside.

At Castle Frankenstein, Frankenstein's father, Baron Frankenstein, celebrates the wedding of his recovered son with a toast to a future grandchild.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on February 12, 1931, Dracula starring Bela Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, head of production Carl Laemmle Jr. announced immediate plans for more horror films.[4]

Frankenstein begins with Edward Van Sloan stepping from behind a curtain and delivering a brief caution before the opening credits:

How do you do? Mr. Carl Laemmle feels it would be a little unkind to present this picture without just a word of friendly warning: We are about to unfold the story of Frankenstein, a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God. It is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation; life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So, if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now's your chance to uh, well,––we warned you!!

Immediately, following his success in Dracula, Bela Lugosi had hoped to play Dr. Frankenstein in Universal's original film concept, but the actor was expected by Carl Laemmle Jr. to be the Monster[5] (a common move for a contract player in a film studio at the time) to keep his famous name on the bill.[6] After several disastrous make-up tests (said to resemble that of Paul Wegener in The Golem), the Dracula star left the project. Although this is often regarded as one of the worst decisions of Lugosi's career, in actuality, the part that Lugosi was offered was not the same character that Karloff eventually played. The character in the Florey script was simply a killing machine without a touch of human interest or pathos, reportedly causing Lugosi to complain, "I was a star in my country[7] and I will not be a scarecrow over here!"[8] Florey later wrote that "the Hungarian actor didn't show himself very enthusiastic for the role and didn't want to play it." However, the decision may not have been Lugosi's in any case, since recent evidence suggests that he was kicked off the project, along with director Robert Florey when the newly arrived James Whale asked for the property. Whale had been imported from England by the Laemmles and given a free hand as to his choice of projects at Universal. He was immediately attracted to Frankenstein and greatly revised the script and conceptualization of the project, which had troubled the management. Florey and Lugosi were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would later go on to play the monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man a decade later, when his career was in decline (in the original shooting script the Monster spoke, cancelling Lugosi's initial objection to the part, but his filmed dialogue sequences were cut prior to release, along with the premise that the Monster was blind, which was the way Lugosi had played it).[9]

Actors who worked on the project were, or became familiar to, fans of the Universal horror films. These included Frederick Kerr as the old Baron Frankenstein, Henry's father; Lionel Belmore as Herr Vogel, the BÃ¼rgermeister; Marilyn Harris as Little Maria, the girl the monster accidentally kills; Dwight Frye as Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant, Fritz; and Michael Mark as Ludwig, Maria's father. Kerr died a year and a half later.

Kenneth Strickfaden designed the electrical effects used in the "creation scene". So successful were they that such effects came to be considered an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving the Frankenstein Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil built by the inventor Nikola Tesla himself.[10] According to this same source, Strickfaden also doubled for Karloff during the creation scene, as Karloff was afraid of being burned by sparks being thrown off the arcing electrical equipment simulating lightning. Although he was partially covered by a surgical drape, Karloff's abdomen was otherwise exposed during the scene and the high-voltage arc "scissors" threw white-hot bits of metal when they were used to create flashes.

The film opened in New York City at the Mayfair Theatre on December 4, 1931, and grossed $53,000 in one week.[8]

The scene in which the monster throws the little girl into the lake and accidentally drowns her has long been controversial. Upon its original 1931 release, the second part of this scene was cut by state censorship boards in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York.[8] Those states also objected to a line they considered blasphemous, one that occurred during Frankenstein's exuberance when he first learns that his creature is alive. The original line was: "It's alive! It's alive! In the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!"[8] Kansas requested the cutting of 32 scenes, which, if removed, would have halved the length of the film.[11] Jason Joy of the Studio Relations Committee sent censor representative Joseph Breen to urge them to reconsider. Eventually, an edited version was released in Kansas.[8] The shot of Maria being thrown into the lake was rediscovered during the 1980s in the collection of the British National Film Archive. Modern copies incorporate it.[12]

As with many Pre-Code films that were reissued after strict enforcement of the Production Code in 1934, Universal made cuts from the original camera negative.[13]

Mordaunt Hall gave Frankenstein a very positive review and said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings." "[T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm."[14]

Film Daily also lauded the picture, calling it a "gruesome, chill-producing and exciting drama" that was "produced intelligently and lavishly and with a grade of photography that is superb."[15]

Variety reported that it "Looks like a Dracula plus, touching a new peak in horror plays," and described Karloff's performance as "a fascinating acting bit of mesmerism." Its review also singled out the look of the film as uniquely praiseworthy, calling the photography "splendid" and the lighting "the last word in ingenuity, since much of the footage calls for dim or night effect and the manipulation of shadows to intensify the ghostly atmosphere."[16]

John Mosher of The New Yorker was less enthused, calling the film only a "moderate success" and writing that "The makeup department has a triumph to its credit in the monster and there lie the thrills of the picture, but the general fantasy lacks the vitality which that little Mrs. P.B. Shelley was able to give her book."[17]

Frankenstein has continued to receive acclaim from critics and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1931,[18][19][20][21] as well as one of the greatest movies of all time.[22][23] It holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.[24] In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".[25][26] In 2004, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.[27]

Frankenstein also received recognition from the American Film Institute. It was named the 87th greatest movie of all time on 100 Years... 100 Movies.[22] The line "It's alive! It's alive!" was ranked as the 49th greatest movie quote in American cinema.[28] The film was on the ballot for several of AFI's 100 series lists, including AFI's 10 Top 10 for the sci-fi category,[29] 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition),[30] and twice on 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains for both Dr. Henry Frankenstein and the Monster in the villains category.[31]

The film was ranked number 56 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies.[32] It was also ranked number 27 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.[33] Additionally, the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 14th scariest film ever made.[34]

The film was a big hit. In June 1932, the film had earned reported rentals of $1.4 million. In 1943, Universal reported it had earned a profit of $708,871. By 1953, all the Frankenstein films earned an estimated profit of $13 million.[35]

Frankenstein was followed by a string of sequels, beginning with Bride of Frankenstein (1935), in which Elsa Lanchester plays the Monster's bride.

The next sequel, Son of Frankenstein (1939), was made, like all those that followed, without Whale or Clive (who had died in 1937). This film featured Karloff's last full film performance as the Monster. Son of Frankenstein featured Basil Rathbone as Baron Wolf von Frankenstein, Bela Lugosi as bearded hunchback Ygor, and Lionel Atwill as Inspector Krogh.

The Ghost of Frankenstein was released in 1942. The movie features Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster, taking over from Boris Karloff, who played the role in the first three films of the series, and Bela Lugosi in his second appearance as the demented Ygor.

The fifth installment, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man was released in 1943, directed by Roy William Neill, and starring Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. This is also the sequel to The Wolf Man, with Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man. Karloff returned to the series, but not the role, in the follow-up, House of Frankenstein (1944), which also featured Chaney, and adds Dracula, played by John Carradine, and a hunchback for good measure. House of Dracula (1945) continued the theme of combining Universal's three most popular monsters.

Many of the subsequent films which featured Frankenstein's monster demote the creature to a robotic henchman in someone else's plots, such as in its final Universal film appearance in the deliberately farcical Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Frankenstein 1970 updated the story by having Victor Frankenstein (played by Karloff) animate the Monster using a nuclear reactor.

Although Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant is often referred to as "Igor" in descriptions of the films, he is not so called in the earliest films. In both Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, Frankenstein has an assistant who is played both times by Dwight Frye who is crippled. In the original 1931 film the character is named "Fritz" who is hunchbacked and walks with the aid of a small cane. In Bride of Frankenstein, Frye plays "Karl" a murderer who stands upright but has a lumbering metal brace on both legs that can be heard clicking loudly with every step. Both characters would be killed by Karloff's monster in their respective films. It was not until Son of Frankenstein (1939) that a character called "Ygor" first appears (here played by Bela Lugosi and revived by Lugosi in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) after his apparent murder in the earlier film). This character — a deranged blacksmith whose neck was broken and twisted due to a botched hanging — befriends the monster and later helps Dr. Wolf Frankenstein, leading to the "hunchbacked assistant" called "Igor" commonly associated with Frankenstein in popular culture. Frye also appears in later films in the series, such as in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).

Guillermo del Toro had expressed interest in directing the reboot film for Universal.[36] Del Toro said his Frankenstein would be a faithful "Miltonian tragedy", citing Frank Darabont's "near perfect" script, which evolved into Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein.[37] Del Toro said of his vision, "What I'm trying to do is take the myth and do something with it, but combining elements of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein without making it just a classical myth of the monster. The best moments in my mind of Frankenstein, of the novel, are yet to be filmed [...] The only guy that has ever nailed for me the emptiness, not the tragic, not the Miltonian dimension of the monster, but the emptiness is Christopher Lee in the Hammer films, where he really looks like something obscenely alive. Boris Karloff has the tragedy element nailed down but there are so many versions, including that great screenplay by Frank Darabont that was ultimately not really filmed."[38] He has also cited Bernie Wrightson's illustrations as inspiration, and said the film will not focus on the monster's creation, but be an adventure film featuring the character.[39] Del Toro said he would like Wrightson to design his version of the creature. The film will also focus on the religious aspects of Shelley's tale.[40] In June 2009, del Toro stated that production on Frankenstein was not likely to begin for at least four years.[41] Despite this, he has already cast frequent collaborator Doug Jones in the role of Frankenstein's monster. In an interview with Sci Fi Wire, Jones stated that he learned of the news the same day as everybody else; that "Guillermo did say to the press that he’s already cast me as his monster, but we’ve yet to talk about it. But in his mind, if that’s what he’s decided, then it's done... It would be a dream come true."[42] The film will be a period piece.[43]

Universal Pictures is developing a shared universe of rebooted modern-day versions of their classic Universal Monsters, with various films in different stages of development. In June 2017, producer/director Alex Kurtzman revealed that Frankenstein is one of the films that will have an installment in the Dark Universe.[44] Javier Bardem is cast to portray the titular character. But on November 8, 2017, Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan moved on to other projects, leaving the future of the Dark Universe in doubt.[45]