On the path to a “hereditary friendship”?: Franco-German relations since the end of the second world war

Abstract

"What a strange, cruel, beautiful and intense adventure it has been for these two fraternal peoples who needed more than a millennium to recognize each other as they are, to acknowledge each other, and to unite."1 Dramatic in tone and wholly fitting in content, French President François Mitterrand’s remarks reminded the Germans of the vicissitudes of Franco-German "brotherhood" on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Arising from the breakdown of the Carolingian Kingdom of the Franks, the historical twins Germany and France could look back on a convoluted thousand-year history. After hundreds of years in which repulsion and crossfertilization characterized their relationship, antagonism became the determining factor after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Instrumentalized by interested groups, the resort to arms seemed to be the consequence of a "hereditary enmity.".