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This book investigates the radical transformation of the relationship between Germany and France, neighbors whose border constituted one of the deepest fault lines of European history. For generations, the French and the Germans believed they were “eternal enemies,” and this myth of primordial hatred was the lens through which they interpreted each other’s every move. Yet today, a Franco-German war is unimaginable. Passman locates the reshaping of the French-German dynamic in the civic organizations that made the very notion of cooperation credible. After World War I, and in the decades to follow, Franco-German associations kept calling for an end to their animus. Through journals, cul...
No example demonstrates the fluidity of the past within the German Democratic Republic more powerfully than the history of the Prussian state. Initially attacked in East German official histories as the historical engine of German militarism and reaction, Prussia underwent a remarkable transformation in official and public memory from around the end of the 1970s. This was the so-called 'Prussia-Renaissance', in which, for the first time, the East German state began to recognise and even celebrate figures from Prussian history who had not served a 'progressive' agenda. But the 'Prussia-Renaissance' was also a political and cultural phenomenon with a wide public resonance. The 'Prussia-Renaiss...
This book examines external perceptions of the Franco-German relationship, both from a historical perspective and as a driving force for regional integration. By providing various country and regional studies, it analyses the various types of perception and self-perception in several regions around the globe. Here, Franco-German cooperation serves as a mirror in which third-party countries view their own situation, today and in the future. The contributions address the questions of if and how the Franco-German reconciliation and cooperation is perceived as a role model for other regions, especially for the reconciliation of other inter-state and international conflicts. A concluding chapter highlights the divergences and convergences between the respective conflicts, and proposes recommendations for actors involved in diplomacy and international relations. The book is intended to provide scientific support for the implementation of the Franco-German Aachen Treaty of January 2019. It will appeal to scholars in political science and cultural studies, and to anyone interested in learning more about the Franco-German relationship and on external perspectives on it.
Are countries truly reconciled after successful conflict resolution? Are only resource-rich regions capable of reconciliation, while supposedly resource-poor ones are condemned to recurring conflicts? This book examines the availability of various resources for political reconciliation, and explores how they are utilized in overcoming particular obstacles during the process. While the existing literature focus on themes such as justice, apology and resentment, the analysis here is centered on intellectual resources in terms of ideas, memory cultures, master narratives, economic incentives, civil society initiatives and object lessons. The research and comparative research in this volume are conducted by renowned regional experts from South Africa to the Asia-Pacific, thus providing multidisciplinary perspectives and new insight on the subject.
As the site of royal coronations, Reims cathedral was a monument to French national history and identity. But after German troops bombed the cathedral during World War I, it took on new meaning. The French reimagined it as a martyr of civilization, as the rupture between the warring states. Despite a history of mutual respect, the bombing of the cathedral caused all social, scientific, artistic, and cultural ties between Germany and France to be severed for decades. The resulting battle of words and images stressed the differences between German Kultur and French civilisation. Artists and intelligentsia caricatured this entrenched cultural dichotomy, influencing portrayals of the two nations...
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Contributions by Gunter Behnisch.
This monograph is a summary of research in twentieth-century Polish-French relations conducted by the authors over the course of many years. This relationship is shown against the background of the dynamic international situation. The structure for arguments made in this work consists of events from the years 1944 to 1989 and thus covers the period in which communists took power in Poland and stabilized and solidified their rule over the country. In addition to sections devoted to political relations, this work contains detailed discussion of economic issues as well as of cultural, academic, scientific and educational questions. The authors devoted individual chapters to relations between the communist parties of both countries, arguing that actions taken by these parties influenced the shape of the relationship far beyond inter-party collaboration.
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