Adenauer's Cologne in March 1945

Chapter 19 XIX Potsdam Germany
The idea of a Christian party or parties uniting all confessions through their common opposition to Marxist atheism, after being written into a formal program in Adenauer's Cologne in March 1945, took hold more or less independently in all parts of Germany. Advocates of such a party in the Soviet zone gave it a name, Christian Democratic Union, on 25 June when they secured a license to form it. In the US zone the name Christian Social People's party was more frequently used until September, when Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came into general use in the Laender of the Western Military District and Christian Social Union (CSU) was adopted in Bavaria. By the time they emerged in the US zone, the CDU and CSU were, in the words of one observer, "a banquet for political gourmets." The CDU in particular attempted to embrace all elements opposed to communism or social democracy for religious or any other reasons, and even some that were not opposed. Its right wing catered to industrialists, big businesses, and large landowners, while its left wing looked for support from civil servants, small shopkeepers, and farmers and, in working class areas, endorsed socialization of some industries. The CSU additionally presented itself as a defender of the Bavarian way of life and as a staunch ally of the Catholic Church. Both parties also let it be known, to the marked annoyance of military government, that they were prepared to welcome repentant Nazis to their ranks, and both endorsed the view that denazification should be limited to the "real" Nazis, the small numbers in the top leadership. The rest they dismissed as Mussnazis, Nazis by compulsion.