Erstellt am: 26.06.2006 Autor: Eckhart von Wildenradt Status: Bisher nicht definiert
A Delicate Relationship: Explaining the Origin of Contemporary German and French Relations under U.S. Hegemony 1945-1954
Not restricted by the perceived Soviet threat any longer, Europe’s political rhetoric is able to carry more weight in its relation with the United States. Political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic often act surprised and even angry when a seemingly united West is not able to agree upon a common political posture.
This paper aims to articulate a deeper understanding of the complicated relationship between the United States and continental Europe, and the ensuing difficult task of German political leaders to accommodate both American wishes and French aspirations, by juxtaposing French and German relations since the end of World War II and putting these in context of American influence in world affairs. The paper concludes that a deeper appreciation of the bi-lateral relationship between France and Germany can lead to a more useful perspective of the nature of the Atlantic community as a whole.
The simple definition of the West as an entity that ignores domestic and self-interest goals in the name of the common good, does not explain the contemporary frictions that have surfaced in the fight against terror and have reached a new height with the invasion of Iraq by a ‘coalition of the willing’ led by the U.S. Not only did the ‘coalition of the willing’ agitate European and U.S. relations, but the constellation of the coalition also crystallized post-World War II alliances within the West. “Though it was common,” as Ronald J. Granieri points out in his book The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949-1966, “for European and American political leaders to speak of the West as a unified community, in reality there existed at least two different ‘Wests,’ which sometimes overlapped and sometimes excluded each other, depending on the accent placed upon them by the observer.”[i] What is missing in the current debate is the appreciation of these two different “Wests” and their implications on a cohesive foreign policy posture that the end of the Cold War has presented western political leaders with.
On the one hand, some observers believe that after the end of World War II, with the triumphant victory of the United States and American security guarantees, Europe welcomed the Americanization of the continent and Great Britain. Despite differences in their historical experiences, the relationship between Europe and the United States gradually moved toward embracing the same ideological principles. It is this vision of the West that made up the default posture of western powers during the Cold War and finds its general confirmation in the contemporary foreign politics of the United States and Great Britain. On the other hand, other observers argue that American power has always ignored European anxiety about the use of force, and that cultural differences do play a role in defining the relationship between the United States and Europe. For a short period of time the terrible events of 9/11 aligned these critics behind the U.S. The sheer velocity of the debate that took place before the invasion of Iraq by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003, surprised many policy makers and underscores the need for a deeper examination of European and U.S. relationships. During the Cold War, it seemed to be sufficient to explain the differences between the United States and Europe as an ingrained European angst in the use of force. Historian Fritz Stern pointed out in 1981, that “[e]ven an unhistorical generation in Europe remembers World War I as the epitome of the mindless worship of force; they remember the guardians of morality sanctifying violence. For the Europeans, this century has been the experience of the absurd, first as an intuition of artists, than as a drama of history.”[ii]
Stern’s analysis does not include the fact that the last century also witnessed the decline of French dominance in world affairs and the realization by French political leaders that France was not able to maintain its status as a great power after the Second World War ended. The ensuing French resentment toward U.S. hegemony, and the key role Germany plays in European integration and in American foreign policy toward Europe, illustrates the complicated relationship between the Atlantic alliance and the European community.
France and Germany have had a long history of disputes and mutual animosity. The aftermath of World War II marked a reconciliation phase in their political histories. In French-German Relations: The Strasbourg-Kehl Encounter, 1945-55, David Meier gives an example of such reconciliation by discussing the disputed sovereignty of Kehl, a small village on the Rhine. Eventually, after eight years of French occupation following World War II, Kehl was returned to German sovereignty. Germany showed great restraint during negotiations: “the French dreamed of continued influence over the Rhine valley, . . the German authorities were careful to avoid antagonizing the French.”[iii] Germany, influenced by American political rhetoric, believed that “European history after the Second World War focused on the question of military security alongside economic and political integration.”[iv] The United States provided military security and economic prosperity to France and Germany and the rest of Europe. German political leaders believed that Germany’s security could only be found in a solid commitment to the West (Westbindung), shown through examples of cooperation and respect for the wishes of international organizations. This realization made Germany a junior partner in both the Atlantic community, dominated by the United States, and in the European integration process, led by France.
Germany went through a moral and political crisis in the period from 1945 to 1949. What did it mean to be a German? Was it still possible to be a German without being associated with National Socialism? The German people rejected the notion of collective guilt. When confronted with the question of responsibility for Hitler, they claimed that the harsh and unfair treatment after World War I had created a political environment that would make it possible for Hitler’s politics to gain support within German society in the first place.[v] In terms of who had suffered the most and who had been exposed to the greatest amount of violence, the lines between civilians and combat soldiers became blurred. “In World War II the civilian population could rightly argue that they had suffered as much as the soldiers, and veterans, returning to the rubble of 1945, were in generally willing to acknowledge this.”[vi] As James M. Diehl points out in Germany in Defeat, 1918 and 1945, that the defeat was of such proportion that “the barriers and myths that developed after 1918 did not reemerge in 1945,”[vii] but the search for meaning lingered throughout society.
Artists such as Wolfgang Borchert and Günter Eich gave voice to the Zeitgeist and the dissolution within German society. In his drama, Draußen vor der Tür (1947), returning war-veteran Borchert describes how a homebound German soldier was not able to share his perceived guilt with the rest of society, because the populace was trying to forget the National Socialist experience quickly[viii]. Eich, through his poem Inventure (1948), articulates the inability of German literature, in the tradition of Goethe and Schiller, to be able to write at all. Instead, Eich composed a poem that literally describes the meager inventory most Germans found themselves in possession of following World War II, but also implies the heavy burden of hidden guilt that was haunting the German people.[ix]
It is not in the scope of this paper to analyze the German Vergangenheitsbewältigung, but the fast pace of the German economic recovery and the emergence of the Cold War, did not seem to make it necessary for the German population to discuss or admit to the question of guilt, until the late 1960s. Rather than admitting that the majority of the population had actually elected Adolf Hitler to power, the population was very content with the thought that a small clique of industrialists, military men, and landowners were responsible for the rise of Adolf Hitler. The National Socialism experience, and the wide array of radical ideologies that had circulated throughout Germany and Europe after World War I, evoked a nearly universal skepticism about all ideology within German society after the Second World War.[x] For example, in his successful reelection campaign (1957), Chancellor Konrad Adenauer ran on a simple slogan which would simply say: Keine Experimente! (No Experiments).[xi] As Diethelm Prowe writes in Economic Democracy in Post-World War II Germany, “the central concerns were order and the search for balance, not revolutionary change.”[xii]
Differing from French social reform efforts in the postwar era, German economic planning and socialization was “primarily concerned with wresting the power to abuse economic and ultimately political influence from cartels and industrialists without returning it to the hands of an all-powerful government or state bureaucracy.”[xiii] In retrospect, the experience of the Third Reich, the sheer magnitude of the defeat coupled with a division of the country, paved the way for the growth of democracy within Germany. As Diehl writes, “the Third Reich had produced significant, albeit unintended, social changes that aided the development of democracy after its fall; the pursuit of totalitarian aspirations had, for example, destroyed many of the institutions and traditional social and political forces that had obstructed the path of democracy in the 1920s.”[xiv] Not only were the soldiers and civilians united in rebuilding a shattered country, but “many industrialists and especially their neo-liberal allies did not wish unqualified restoration because they, too, had felt the disastrous consequences of the uncontrolled system of cartels, unlimited speculation, and brazen disregard for the interests and welfare of labor.”[xv] Big business and labor unions were able to approach each other objectively and this led to increased collaboration between these two poles. “Any postwar problems caused by the war and defeat could be blamed on National Socialism or, more conveniently, on the occupied powers.”[xvi] Neophyte politicians were able to convince their countrymen that they were sincere and effective representatives of their interests. “In 1949, the Federal Republic stood poised not on the brink of economic disaster, as in 1922, but on the threshold of an unprecedented prosperity which would legitimize the new order.”[xvii] The primary focus of German politicians in the early years of the Federal Republic was on domestic affairs. Bertolt Brecht described the German policy as divided into the Magenpolitik and the GrossePolitik.[xviii] Brecht believed that German politicians should first concentrate on domestic issues, before turning toward the policy of international relations. It is thus not surprising that any shifts from established foreign policies have a long tradition of being thoroughly debated within the German Bundestag, and find their origins in the comments made by Bertolt Brecht in the late 1940s. German politicians gradually balanced the interests of the Anglo-American West with a deeper European integration led by France.
Even as early as 1944, before the end of the Second World War, France was engaged in restoring national pride. In contrast to Germany, France acknowledged “that the interest of the nation and the interest of the alliance do not necessarily coincide, that, in fact, they frequently collide with one another, and, in case of such opposition, are at least of equal weight.”[xix] This was the policy of General De Gaulle although he spent his political carrier trying to enhance France’s prestige by advocating European integration. De Gaulle believed that undermining American influence in Europe would make it easier to substitute French leadership for it, while maintaining the belief that America served a broader purpose.[xx] Under this perception, it was possible for De Gaulle to justify a independent political approach toward the Soviet Union, and reminding U.S. ambassador Jefferson Caffrey in 1944 that a real threat existed that the Soviet Union would overrun the European continent in due time, that cooperation with the United States was very important to French interest.[xxi]
In the years from 1944 to 1947, France maintained a foreign policy that did not diverge much from the Soviet belief that there “would always be a strong urge of the Germans to unite and that the whole purpose of any international organization must be to neutralize this tendency by applying economic and other measures, including, if necessary, force.”[xxii] This assessment was further underlined when General De Gaulle, who had barely set up his régime within Paris in1944, went to Moscow on December 10, 1944 to sign the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Alliance.[xxiii] General De Gaulle sought to gain more influence in international affairs, and the Franco-Soviet Pact was intended to provide France with greater status. As Robert R. Bowie writes in Tensions within the Alliance, “since the war, De Gaulle’s primary aim has been to achieve greater status and independence for a France overshadowed by the United States and the Soviet Union.” [xxiv] Simultaneously, De Gaulle believed that the Franco-Soviet Pact would help to unite the different political fractions within France. As Alfred Grosser writes in General De Gaulle and the Foreign Policy of the Fifth Republic, “General De Gaulle was borne to power on the wave of xenophobic nationalism by those groups and movements which reproached the leaders of the state for having accepted surrender and humiliation.”[xxv] The Franco-Soviet Pact was seen as an important instrument in enhancing French prestige in international affairs. Géraud André points out in Can France again be a Great Power, “the fact that the treaty of alliance with Soviet Russia took precedence [ in De Gaulle’s mind] . . . over the treaty of alliance with England, (which, in practice, would have involved a bond of alliance with the United States), can be accounted for only by the very vivid memory he kept of the high-handed treatment which both President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill meted out to him time after time.”[xxvi] These early attempts of De Gaulle to restore credibility in French foreign policy, did not achieve their desired goals, but rather revealed how impotent France’s foreign policy attempts were immediately following liberation.
As De Gaulle put his signature under the treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union, the Soviets planned to use De Gaulle’s presence in Moscow to give momentum to their proposal to install a new Polish government. De Gaulle was supposed to agree with the Soviet scheme, but the general refused.[xxvii] Within a few weeks of the meeting, De Gaulle, under the insistence of his new Soviet allies, “was left outside the Yalta Conference. . . . France also did not enter the Potsdam Conference, which met five months later. With a single stone the Russians thus killed two birds. They not only taught De Gaulle a lesson on the necessity of displaying flexibility; by keeping him away they made it easier to achieve their own and Poland’s desires in the location of Germany’s eastern frontier.”[xxviii]
French politicians were not only struggling to formulate a consistent policy in the international sphere, but were faced with unstable domestic policies as well. In 1946, the French Communist Party was still part of the governing coalition, and any overly anti-Soviet line would have pulled the Communist Party toward the opposition.[xxix] Michael Creswell and Marc Tractenberg go as far as to state in France and the German Question, 1945-1955, that “a showdown with the Communists could provoke a political (and economic) crisis within France and might even lead to civil war.”[xxx] Under these circumstances, it seemed impossible to harmonize an effective French foreign policy with the domestic realities on the ground.
Shortly after the liberation of Paris, a government of unity emerged within France, and De Gaulle tried to capitalize on this unique experience. But in 1946, the French government returned to the old-style party politics that left little hope of improvements on the institutional front, and General De Gaulle resigned on January 20, 1946. Alfred Grosser writes that De Gaulle’s successor, Georges Bidault, “continued to be obsessed primarily by Germany,”[xxxi] but Creswell and Trachtenberg add that, “French leaders were not concerned with Germany as such. From their point of view, there obviously was a German problem, even if, for the time being, the Soviet threat was a far greater problem.”[xxxii] Both De Gaulle and Bidault did, however, recognize that a divided Germany would keep Western forces in Western Germany and Soviet forces in Eastern Germany. As long as Germany was divided, the continued presence of foreign forces in West and East Germany would not only provide France with security from the Soviets but also from the Germans as well. As Creswell and Trachtenberg write, “[t]he system that was developing, the Cold War political system, was thus quite satisfactory from the French point of view.”[xxxiii]
Before exploring German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s Schaukelpolitik, it is important to define this German term. In the context of post-World War II, Schaukelpolitik meant the ability of Adenauer to swing between Germany’s need for security, provided by the United States (Atlanticism), and the French desire to increase her influence, by decreasing the influence of the United States in Europe through greater integration (Gaullitism). These are the two poles that made up the foreign policy of Adenauer under the umbrella of the West.
Adenauer came to power in September of 1949. As soon as the Chancellor took office, he realized that a close tie to the West was essential for the survival of the Federal Republic of Germany that had risen out of the ashes of World War II. Germany was deeply insecure and alongside Adenauer’s pragmatic politics, therefore, existed a deep insecurity. According to Ronald Granieri, Adenauer believed that, “[t]he Germans had to show good faith to ensure that the Allies would allow them to claim membership in the West. . . steps had to be taken quickly to forge bonds with the West before either the Allies or the Germans fell prey to their baser natures.”[xxxiv]
Adenauer envisioned an active participation of Germany in the Western strategy and European integration, and he demonstrated this desire when he was invited to the Allied High Commission (AHC) to receive the official copy of the Occupation Statute on September 21, 1949. Instead of following the official ceremony, Adenauer stepped right on to the carpet and “declared his government’s commitment to immediate reconstruction, he concluded by emphasizing the need for European integration with German participation.”[xxxv] Ronald Granieri further describes Adenauer’s extraordinary actions by writing that, “[r]ather than stand aside and receive orders, [Adenauer] joined the High Commissioners on their level, or at least on their carpet.”[xxxvi] Not only did the gesture change the dynamics of the meeting, but it also demonstrated that Germany was prepared to take on responsibilities and “Adenauer used the carpet to express his desire for an equal partnership in the West.”[xxxvii]
Adenauer’s assertive behavior came right after the Berlin Blockade, which had greatly boosted the confidence of the Germans in the West. As Grosser writes, “[t]he airlift, which had permitted Berlin to survive from July 1948 to May 1949, was of capital importance to a psychological integration of Germany with the West.”[xxxviii] The blockade showed the German people the extent the Soviets were prepared to go in order to achieve their political goals, and the quick and lasting response of the allies illustrated that the West, in particular the United States, was committed to the survival of Berlin and Western Germany. “It had also become clear that the United States was more disposed to treat Germany with consideration in case of danger than in the case of a détente.”[xxxix]
Adenauer’s perception of the international political environment was that Germany was eventually going to be used as a bargaining tool in détente between the West and the East. These German fears would reach a new height during the Cuba Missile Crisis of 1962 when it was believed that, in spite of all of American’s denials, some kind of agreement was in the making whereby West-Berlin, or the non-recognition of East-Germany, could serve as a bargaining tool in obtaining Soviet concession on Cuba.[xl]
In 1949 however, France believed that détente was serving her international interests, because an East-West détente would mollify political fractions within France and diminish Germany’s role within the international community. Grosser explains, “[w]hile tensions between the East and the West favored Germany, giving her an active role in international affairs and adding weight to her military potential, it was disadvantageous to France, where anti-communist consensus was less strong and the military tasks were essentially extra-European. Any East-West détente, on the other hand, tended to make the Federal Republic again a simple object of diplomacy, while it tended to restore France to its status as the fourth great power.”[xli] German rearmament would hence become an issue that was difficult for French politicians to officially accept.
Adenauer took the initiative by proposing a Franco-German economic union. The offer was made with two purposes in mind, namely, “to satisfy French concerns over German recovery, and to convince the other Allies that his government was still committed to European integration.”[xlii] The Chancellor wanted to make it clear to both the Americans and the French that European integration and close relations with the United States were inextricably linked. On the domestic front, Adenauer faced fierce resistance, because France was insisting on making the Saar territory an economic protectorate. During a state visit to Germany of U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Kurt Schumacher, the Chair of the Social Democrats, told the Secretary that Germany was not about to lose its national identity. This nationalistic rhetoric helped Adenauer’s agenda, because the Secretary became convinced that Schumacher was “a fanatic of a dangerous and pure type.”[xliii] The deep division between Adenauer’s party and the opposition had become apparent to the Allies, and on the next meeting with the AHC, Adenauer reminded “the High Commission that the bitter rhetoric of the opposition reminded him of the debates over ‘fulfillment’ of the Versailles treaty during the 1920s. The only difference, he added, was that this time the nationalists were coming from the Left, not the Right.”[xliv] Skillfully, Adenauer was able to mute the opposition within Germany and indirectly put pressure on France by articulating to the Allies that they needed to show some flexibility in order to prevent a backlash within Germany.
In May of 1950, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed to integrate the French and German coal and steel industry. This proposal would later develop into the European Coal and Steel Community, and was made as much out of political consideration as out of economic necessity. Schuman articulated that there existed a fear in France, that once Germany had recovered from the war, she would attack France. He could imagine that reciprocal feelings might be present within Germany.[xlv] The idea behind the Franco-German agreement was that the united coal and steel industry would have a calming effect in both countries, because any rearmament would first show up by an increase in the coal and steel production.
The Schuman proposal showed that it was possible for France and Germany to cooperate, which raised hopes that future agreements would come to a fruitful conclusion (German rearmament), and American support reinforced the link between European integration and close ties with the U.S. The Schuman proposal had laid the foundation for admitting Germany into the North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO) in 1954. The West would, however, witness four years of intense political wrangling, before Germany was finally admitted into NATO.
In his book An Ambivalent Alliance, Ronald Granier first points out that France, during the New York Conference on the German issue of sovereignty in September of 1950, “ . . .remained opposed [to the question of German rearmament], and no amount of pressure could move them. The final communiqué reported only that the foreign ministers had discussed rearmament and had referred it to the NATO council.”[xlvi] Granier does not explain the reversal in the French outlook toward German rearmament in October of 1950, when he further writes that the “[French] Prime Minister Réné Pleven building on Churchill’s idea, announced his plan for an international European army [with German participation].”[xlvii] The Pleven Plan would later develop into a proposed European Defense Community (EDC).
In contrast to Granier, Creswell and Tachtenberg, point out that the French delegation in New York in 1950 was actually not opposed to German rearmament per se. Indeed, “even before the New York meetings French officials had generally accepted the idea of West German rearmament—or so it seemed at the time to the American ambassador, David Bruce—and one of the key arguments they made had to do with the burden-sharing issue. ‘It would be ridiculous,’ they thought, if West Germany could enjoy a peacetime economy while at the same time the other European countries had to make substantial, additional military efforts.” Even more, “the French believed that a highly integrated NATO structure was needed, if only to provide a framework within which West German rearmament could take place.”[xlviii] The main problem for France in coming to a workable agreement on German rearmament during the New York conference, can perhaps be traced back to the fear that rearming West Germany could provoke the Soviet Union. This line of reasoning also agrees with the assessment made earlier in this paper that France did favor détente, because détente would make Germany a ‘simple object of diplomacy.’
As it was, France did not agree to the concept of German rearmament proposed by the New York conference. Alfred Grosser voices the general frustration that persisted throughout the Alliance toward France in the early 1950s, when he writes that, “from the very start, the French attitude toward German rearmament could be summed up in the following paradox, jestingly posed by a German newspaper; ‘The French want a German Army that is at one and the same time bigger than the Russian Army and smaller than the French Army.’”[xlix] It is worth noting that in the early 1950s, the view in Washington was beginning to warrant the establishment of a highly centralized NATO system, that would consider plans for a controlled rearmament of West Germany within the framework of an integrated Atlantic or European defense force.[l] I believe that it was this American attitude that encouraged Prime Minister Réné Pleven to put forth his feeble EDC plan in October of 1950.
While the West struggled to find a solution to the German rearmament question, the Soviet Union tried to exploit the disagreements within the West by proposing German reunification. In March of 1952, Stalin composed a scheme to the West offering German reunification with complete political sovereignty and its own defense force and industry. Immediately, the proposal became known as the ‘Stalin Note.’ Germany would gain membership in all international organizations, and the occupying troops would be withdrawn. The Stalin note made sure to point out that “the existence of any organization on German territory, inimical to democracy and the maintenance of peace must not be permitted.”[li] The Stalin note went on to mentioning that “all Germans, all former members of the Wehrmacht, including high-ranking military officers and generals, even former Nazis would be given civilian and political rights equal to all other German citizens for participation in the building of a peace loving democratic Germany.”[lii] The only limitation the Stalin note stipulated toward German reunification was that Germany would legally commit herself “not to enter into any kind of coalition or military alliance directed against any power which took part in the war against Germany.”[liii] The Stalin note led to a fierce domestic debate within Germany, because reunification seemed possible and there were still German Prisoners of War within the territory of the Soviet Union. Adenauer rejected the Stalin note, because he believed that Germany could only find international security within the Western strategic system. He also feared that the Allies could become mistrustful of German nationalism, and that “reflected his desire to see [on-going] treaties [with the West completed] quickly.”[liv] Adenauer believed that the future of Germany was still very insecure, and so he repeated Germany’s commitment to European integration. As Granieri writes, “the point is not whether Adenauer was ‘correct’ or not, but rather to see how his approach to the note fit with his conception of the Federal Republic’s place in the West.”[lv] The Chancellor was clearly worried about the fragile relationship of German-Allied cooperation. The Stalin note spurred the efforts of Germany to come to agreement on the EDC, and failed in separating Germany from future European integration and strategic alliances across the Atlantic. Germany would follow any proposal that the West had in store for the country.
The EDC was signed in May of 1952. Together with France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, Germany would become part of a European Defense Community.[lvi] The French foreign policy agenda, however, would again collide with nationalistic feelings at home, and as Creswell and Trachtenberg write, “no French parliament would ratify that treaty, and in August 1954 the Pierre Mendés French government finally allowed it to be voted down.”[lvii] The implosion of the EDC, led to a standstill in German foreign policy. Only a British initiative, with American support, anchored Germany within the Western Alliance in 1954. As Granieri writes, “this agreement would transform the Brussel Pact into the Western European Union (WEU), a looser organization than the EDC, but one that would provide at least the appearance of European cooperation. Adenauer expressed ‘complete agreement’ with the British plan. . . . He also hedged his bets by informing US High Commissioner Conant that if France refused to go along, the Germans were interested in a security treaty with Great Britain and the US, as long as it guaranteed West German sovereignty.”[lviii]
This initiative, followed by strong commitment from Germany, would find its culmination in two landmark conferences held in London and Paris in late 1954. These two conferences provided the foundation for the establishment of a West German army and for the integration of that army into NATO.[lix] The dynamics within the West shifted toward the Atlantic pole and slowly the Germans were able to witness the growth of international empathy.
In conclusion, events of the nine years following World War II are a great example of how complex the international relationships between Germany, France, and the United States are. This paper has focused intensively on the connection between domestic attitudes and foreign policy behavior, and how these domestic attitudes shape foreign policy behavior.
In the case of Germany, it was much easier for Chancellor Adenauer to push his agenda than it was for the changing French governments to develop a consistent foreign policy, because of the magnitude of the defeat Germany witnessed at the end of World War II. Germany’s insecurity after the Second World War, and Chancellor Adenauer’s conviction that Germany could only find security guarantees through integration within the Western security system, defined the way that German foreign policy would be structured. Adenauer, however, was not interested in handing Germany over to foreign control, but he sought to create a security environment within which the Federal Republic could achieve maximum sovereignty and political credibility. In doing so, Adenauer set a precedent for future German foreign policy behavior. Beginning with Adenauer, German political leaders have always walked a fine line between Atlantic and Gaullist forces.
A historical background of the origins of the Atlantic community provides the reader with a deeper appreciation for German foreign policy behavior, and reveals why multilateralism in German foreign policy is based upon a deep conviction that only through European integration and a firm commitment toward the Western Alliance can German external security needs be met. The deviation of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from this policy in 2002/2003, can be traced back to his inability to contemplate and grapple with the balancing act Germany has been engaged with within the West since 1949.
In the case of France, the humiliation of France by Germany during World War II, led to a revival of nationalistic feelings from within, and French political leaders tried to accommodate these. Starting in 1ate 1944, French foreign policy was marked by an attempt to distinguish her from the perception that she was just another link in the transatlantic alliance. The signing of the bi-lateral treaty between France and the Soviet Union followed by the resignation of de Gaulle in 1946, and the French initiative of the EDC with its failure to be ratified by the French parliament in 1954, are examples of how French political leaders struggled to externalize these domestic obligations. These attempts failed and made French politicians seek ‘equal predominance’ within deeper European integration.
It is this paradox in French foreign policy that make relations between France and Germany so complicated. The legacy of the complex relationship between Germany, France and the United States, that emerged at the beginning of the Cold War, is still the main cause of friction between Gaullism and Atlanticism , the two different poles within the Atlantic Alliance.
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[i]Ronald J. Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, The CDU/CSU, And The West, 1949-1966, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), viii.
[ii]Fritz Stern, “A Shift of Mood in Europe,” The New York Times, 2 September 1981. A27.
[iii]David A. Meier, “French-German Relations: The Strasbourg-Kehl Encounter, 1945-55,” in European Review of History, 11 (1) (2004), 55 and 58.
[iv]Ibid., 55.
[v]James M. Diehl, “Germany in Defeat, 1918 and 1945: Some Comparisons and Contrasts,:” in The History Teacher, (4) 22, 1989. 401 and 402.
[vi]Ibid., 402.
[vii] Ibid.,
[viii]Wolfgang Borchert, Draußen vor der Tür: Ein Stück, das kein Theater spielen und kein Publikum sehen
will (Outside the Door: A Drama that does not want to play and does not want to see any Audience),
(Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 2003). The play had its début on 20 November 1947, a day after Wolfgang Borchert died.
[ix] Günter Eich, Inventure
[x] Diethelm Prowe, “Economic Democracy in Post-World War II Germany: Corporatist Crisis Response, 1945-1948,” in The Journal of Modern History, (4) 57, 1985, 456-457.
[xi] Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance, 149.
[xii] Prowe, “Economic Democracy in Post-World War II Germany,”452.
[xiii] Ibid., 456.
[xiv] Diehl, “ Germany in Defeat, 1918 and 1945, 401.
[xv]Prowe, “Economic Democracy in Post-World War II Germany,” 456 and 457.
[xvi]Diehl, “ Germany in Defeat, 1918 and 1945, 402.
[xvii]Ibid., 405.
[xviii]Ibid., 404.
[xix]Alfred Grosser, “France and Germany in the Atlantic Community,” in International Organization, (3) 17,
1963. 551.
[xx] Robert R. Bowie, “Tensions within the Alliance,” in Foreign Affairs, (42) 1, 1963, 56.
[xxi] Michael Creswell and Marc Trachtenberg, “France and the German Question, 1945-1955,” in Journal of Cold War Studies, (5) 3, 2003, 8.
[xxii] Joseph Stalin quoted in “France and Germany in the Atlantic Community,” 551.
[xxiii] Géraud André, “Can France again be a Great Power?” in Foreign Affairs, (26) 1, 1947. 26.
[xxiv] Bowie, “Tensions within the Alliance,” 55.
[xxv] Alfred Grosser, “General De Gaulle and the Foreign Policy of the Fifth Republic,” in International Affairs, (39) 2, 1963, 200.
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] André, “Can France again be a Great Power?” 26.
[xxviii] Ibid., 26.
[xxix] Grosser, “France and Germany in the Atlantic Community,” 551.
[xxx] Creswell and Trachtenberg,“France and the German Question, 1945-1955,” 9.
[xxxi] Grosser, “France and Germany in the Atlantic Community,” 551.
[xxxii] Creswell and Trachtenberg, “France and the German Question, 1945-1955,” 15.
[xxxiii] Ibid.
[xxxiv] Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance, 30.
[xxxv] Ibid.
[xxxvi] Ibid., 32.
[xxxvii] Ibid. Teppichpolitik: This policy of Adenauer’s has become legend in West German history and part of every subsequent account of the state’s history.
[xxxviii] Grosser, “France and Germany in the Atlantic Community,” 555.
[xxxix] Ibid.
[xl] Ibid., 565.
[xli] Ibid., 554-555.
[xlii] Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance, 36.
[xliii] Ibid., 33-34.
[xliv] Ibid., 34.
[xlv] “Robert Schuman,” (22 April 2006).
[xlvi] Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance, 42.
[xlvii] Ibid., 46.
[xlviii] Creswell and Trachtenberg, “France and the German Question, 1945-1955,” 19.
[xlix] Grosser, “France and Germany in the Atlantic Community,” 554.
[l] Creswell and Trachtenberg, “France and the German Question, 1945-1955,” 19 and 20.
[li] For this particular referral, please see bulletin point number five in “Stalin Note und Antwortnote des Westens,” (April 24, 2006).
[lii] Ibid., bulletin point number six.
[liii] Ibid., bulletin point number seven.
[liv] Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance, 21 and 53.
[lv] Ibid., 53.
[lvi] Creswell and Trachtenberg, “France and the German Question, 1945-1955,” 22.
[lvii] Ibid.
[lviii] Ibid.
[lix] Creswell and Trachtenberg, “France and the German Question, 1945-1955,” 22.
