50 YEARS OF THE ÉLYSÉE TREATY GERMANY AND FRANCE HALF A CENTURY OF FRIENDSHIP AND COOPERATION “…no greater, finer, or more useful Plan has ever occupied the human mind than the one of a perpetual and universal Peace among all the Peoples of Europe.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), French philosopher and writer Their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfa - Wars (1914-1918 and 1939-1945). The cost was thers clashed on the battlefield, where they immeasurable. More than 70 million people were looked into the mouth of hell. Their families suffe - killed in Europe and around the world, 13 million of red hardship, bereavement, destruction, bombard - them in Germany and France. The bloodletting and ment, occupation and in some cases deportation devastation left Europe on its knees. to the Nazi death camps. Whenever defeated, their nations endured the traumatic humiliations Yet it was amid the still-smouldering ruins of imposed by the victors. They learned to foster a these tragic events that the course of history was culture of revenge. reversed. After the Second World War, Franco- German reconciliation became the motivation for So it was that for 75 years, from 1870 until 1945, reconstructing Europe as a peaceful edifice. the middle of the European continent lived in the shadow of the confrontation between its neigh - In Paris on 22 January 1963, the Élysée Treaty offi - bouring and rival powers: France and Germany. cially set the seal on those intentions. Each had become the other’s hereditary foe. A vicious cycle of obsessive distrust and hatred had That was 50 years ago. taken hold. It was the symbolic beginning of a completely un - That enmity fed into three bloody conflicts: the precedented history of friendship and cooperation Franco-German War of 1870/1871 and the two World between states and nations. 50 YEARS OF THE ÉLYSÉE TREATY azi Germany submitted its unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945, bringing an end to N the Second World War in Europe. The victo - rious powers split the demoralized and physically devastated Germany into four occupation zones. France was one of those powers and pursued a particularly tough occupation policy to prevent any resurgence of German might. In 1949, the Cold War triggered the partition of Germany, which was becoming the front line in the OPTING confrontation between East and West. This lent impe - tus to the Federal Republic’s integration into Western structures, notably within Europe. On 9 May 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman formulated FOR PEACE a proposal that was to lay the foundations of the future, suggesting that German and French coal and steel production be placed under a common High Authority. War between the former enemies was now 194 5-1963 physically impossible, and the process of European integration had begun. Alongside these developments, a number of forward- looking thinkers were forming the building blocks of rapprochement between the societies of France and Germany. As early as 1945, these pioneers had unders - tood that peace would come as a result of better a p mutual understanding and the well-supported esta - d / e c n blishment of a democratic Germany. Their activities a i l l a - e r increased throughout the 1950s, with meetings, joint u t c i P publications and town twinnings helping to spread the © spirit of mediation. v i That rapprochement started to turn into reconciliation h c r a d l i as of 1958, under the influence of General de Gaulle B T N O and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. A genuine friendship M U D / developed between the one-time Resistance leader e c n a i l l a who had become President of the French Republic and - e r u t c i the Christian-Democrat, pro-European Chancellor with P © an anti-Nazi past. The two sides’ interests did the rest. On Dresden after the bombing (1945), Dresden today 22 January 1963, France and Germany signed the Élysée Treaty, putting the official seal on the reconciliation. 50 YEARS OF THE ÉLYSÉE TREATY CONSIGNING HATE TO THE PAST PIONEERS AND PEACE-MAKERS To begin with, there were no more than a handful of them. Intellectuals, journalists, writers, civil servants, trade unionists, clergymen or youth workers, many had a background in religion, both Catholic and Protestant, or in Resistance circles. Some were former soldiers, concentration camp inmates or prisoners of war. From 1945 and right on through the 1950s, these individuals worked to bring German and French people closer together. Their ideas may not have had a direct s impact on politics, but they helped gradually change e g a m i prevalent mindsets. - g k a / e “Invalides”, a caricature by c n a i l Franco-German rapprochement thus took root in civil Bertall on the Franco-German l a - e War of 1870/1871, published r u society after the Second World War before gaining a t c in the satirical magazine Le i P political dimension. Grelot on 13 August 1871. © THE ADVENT OF TOWN TWINNING: ALFRED GROSSER RECONCILIATION FROM THE BOTTOM UP IS IT RIGHT TO SPEAK OF “RECONCILIATION”? In 1950, Montbéliard and Ludwigsburg became the first According to Professor Alfred Grosser, political scientist, histo - Franco-German pair of towns to be twinned. It took rian, sociologist and pioneer of Franco-German rapprochement, courage to enact this plan only five years after the war, “Franco-German rapprochement made sense with respect to but as Montbéliard’s Mayor Lucien Tharradin put it, the war of 1914-1918. That conflict was a clash between two nations.” In contrast, 1945 was the triumph of free peoples over “You can’t build anything on hate.” “Who will still dare the Nazi regime. “There was certainly no call for reconciliation to deny that we need to make peace with one another? with Germans whom Hitler had imprisoned; once Nazism had To live with our fingers permanently poised on our been defeated, what we wanted was to work with them to make triggers, ready to engulf the world in flames, is no way a post-war Germany they could identify with.” for two nations to exist.” JOSEPH ROVAN “THE GERMANY THAT WE DESERVE” “The more our enemies have disfigured the face of humanity, the more we must respect it, even embellish n it, in them. […] Tomorrow’s Germany will reflect what o m i S we have been worthy of.” n e v S / e c Joseph Rovan, former concentration camp inmate n a i l Translated extract from an article published in French magazine Esprit l a - e on 1 October 1945, when France was pursuing its very tough occupation r u t c policy in Germany i P © Professor Alfred Grosser (born in 1925) 50 YEARS OF THE ÉLYSÉE TREATY EUROPE – BOUND TOGETHER BY A COMMON DESTINY Throughout the 1950s, Franco-German reconciliation was synonymous with European integration, which germinated as the Cold War took hold. It all started in 1950 with an incredibly bold proposi - tion – to pool mining and steel production. This was a move that would effectively preclude any prospect of Franco-German war. Couched in the idea of federalization, the project came out of Jean Monnet’s reflections on the future of Europe. In 1951, the European Coal and a Steel Community (ECSC) laid the foundation stone of p d / e European integration. c n a i l l a - e r u t c With France and Germany forming the core, Belgium, i P Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy gathered © Konrad Adenauer (l.), Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi (r.) around them. These six signed the Treaties of Rome on 25 March 1957 to establish the European Economic Community (EEC) and Euratom. The EEC created a common market in which goods could circulate freely. THE FOUNDING ACT: Europe was making tangible progress. The issue of its THE SCHUMAN DECLARATION political architecture, however, remained unresolved. “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a France put forward a proposal for political union in single plan. It will be built through concrete achieve - 1960, but it was not taken up. ments which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. […] With this aim in view, the French Government proposes that action be taken immediately […] It proposes that Franco-German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common High Authority, within the framework of an organization open to the participation of the other countries of Europe. […] The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and s e g a Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially m i - g k a impossible.” / e c n a i l Declaration by Robert Schuman, l a - e r French Foreign Minister, 9 May 1950 u t c i P © The Treaties of Rome were signed on 25 March 1957. 50 YEARS OF THE ÉLYSÉE TREATY TWO VISIONARIES CHARLES DE GAULLE AND KONRAD ADENAUER When General de Gaulle returned to office in 1958, Chancellor A MEETING OF MINDS BETWEEN TWO MEN AND, THROUGH THEM, Adenauer at first feared that the President’s strong attach - []BETWEEN TWO COUNTRIES ment to French independence might weaken the fledgling European project. Then, on 14 September, de Gaulle invited the German Chancellor to join him in more intimate surroundings at his private residence in Colombey-les-deux-Églises. Similar in their humility and love of culture, the two heads of state found themselves brought together by mutual respect and shared convictions.