editorial" "
30 January 1933 22 January 1963: two important dates for France, Germany and Europe” “
Only thirty years separate two major events in the history of the European continent, which each led in diametrically opposite directions. On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. So Germany chose what was worst: it chose the unimaginable, the unspeakable; it entered the history of totalitarianism; the tunnel of war, the destruction of the person, the perpetration of the Crime of the Shoah. Thirty years later, a new German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, who reconstructed his country over the material and spiritual ruins left by his predecessor, and the President of the French Republic who had personified the rejection of the disgrace and shame of France, General de Gaulle, signed the Elysée Treaty. They wanted thereby to overcome the nationalism and hatred of the past, to reject the ruinous logic according to which treaties are followed by wars, and affirm the values of peace and friendship. They wanted to create a community of destiny. The treaty of 1963 was prepared by the creation of the first European Communities, the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community and Euratom, based on the delegation of sovereignty, under the impulse of visionaries such as Jean Monnet, and of the Christian Democrat parties represented by Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer and Alcide De Gasperi. With his Declaration of 9 May 1950 Robert Schuman had proposed that the production of coal and steel be placed in common, and this remains the cornerstone of European unity; it also changed the conditions of Franco-German relations. But if the French and the Germans began to form habits of work in common in their joint dedication to the reconstruction of Europe on radically new foundations, together with the Belgians, the Italians, the Luxembourgers and the Dutch, this Europe of the Six could not advance if the age-old antagonism between France and Germany were not first eliminated. That was the necessary prerequisite for reincorporating the new Germany in a Europe in process of transformation. Jacques Maritain had written in 1940, in the midst of the war: “Everyone who has meditated on Europe knows that, morally as geographically, the German problem lies at the heart of the problems and sufferings of this continent. Without the German contribution, without German cooperation, there can be neither peace nor civilization in Europe”. So the French Catholic philosopher foresaw the problems which would come to be those of the postwar period, and remarked: “After the war Europe will have to tackle the same problems that forced it into the war, because they were frozen by the historical forces that human reason has failed to overcome and that had spelt disaster”. To find the right solutions to these problems, it was necessary to reinforce the relations between the initial 6 countries (then between 9, 12 and 15 for the time being) with a bilateral relation entirely renewed by the treaty of 22 January 1963, which is not a classic treaty, but which creates the conditions for multiple relations, in all the fields of life of the two peoples. The psychological consequences of these relations were rapid and profound. “It should not be forgotten that in creating a relation without precedent in history and without equivalent in the world, between two States once traditionally opposed, the Elysée Treaty gave a guarantee of European harmony. The events of Berlin of 30 January 1933 ought to remind us that this harmony needs to be constructed each day. They teach the world’s rulers that, if history is often tragic, the political will for peace and reconciliation, if it really exists, does vanquish in the end. There is no evil destiny in history.
