In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the victors were unable to agree on Germany’s fate, and the separation of the country—the result of the nascent Cold War—emerged as a de facto, if provisional, settlement. Yet East and West Germany would exist apart for half a century, making the "German question" a central foreign policy issue—and given the war-torn history between the two countries, this was felt no more keenly than in France. Drawing on the most recent historiography and previously untapped archival sources, this volume shows how France’s approach to the German question was, for the duration of the Cold War, both more constructive and consequential than has been previously acknowledged.

In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the victors were unable to agree on Germany’s fate, and the separation of the country—the result of the nascent Cold War—emerged as a de facto, if provisional, settlement. Yet East and West Germany would exist apart for half a century, making the "German question" a central foreign policy issue—and given the war-torn history between the two countries, this was felt no more keenly than in France. Drawing on the most recent historiography and previously untapped archival sources, this volume shows how France’s approach to the German question was, for the duration of the Cold War, both more constructive and consequential than has been previously acknowledged.

List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Frédéric Bozo and Christian Wenkel

PART I: FROM CAPITULATION TO COOPERATION

Chapter 1. France and the German Question, 1945–1949: On the interdependence of Historiography, Methodology, and Interpretations
Rainer Hudemann

Chapter 2. Economic and Industrial Issues in France’s Approach to the German Question in the Postwar Period
Françoise Berger

PART II: THE EMERGENCE OF THE BLOC SYSTEM

Chapter 3. France, German Rearmament, and the German Question, 1945–1955
Michael H. Creswell

Chapter 4. Impossible Allies? Soviet Views of France and the German Question in the 1950s  
Geoffrey Roberts

PART III: THE DE GAULLE FACTOR

Chapter 5. An Arbiter between the Superpowers: De Gaulle and the German Question, 1958–1969
Garret J. Martin

Chapter 6. The German Question in the Eastern Policies of France and Germany in the 1960s
Benedikt Schoenborn

PART IV: THE ERA OF OSTPOLITIK

Chapter 7. Perceptions of Ostpolitik: French-West German Relations and the Evolving German Question under Willy Brandt and Georges Pompidou
Gottfried Niedhart

Chapter 8.  France, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the German Question
Nicolas Badalassi

Chapter 9. The Economic and Monetary Dimensions of the German Question: A French Perspective, 1969–1979
Guido Thiemeyer

PART V: THE END GAME

Chapter 10. The French ‘Obsession’ with the German Question: Willy Brandt, François Mitterrand, the German Question and German Unification, 1981–1990
Bernd Rother

Chapter 11. All about Europe? France, Great Britain and the Question of German Unification, 1989–90
Ilaria Poggiolini

Chapter 12. Franco-Soviet Relations, German Unification, and the End of the Cold War
Frédéric Bozo

PART VI: ENDURING CONCERNS: ANSCHLUSS, BORDERS, AND THE TWO GERMANYS

Chapter 13. Towards a New Anschluss? France and the German and the Austrian Questions, 1945–55
Thomas Angerer

Chapter 14. France, Poland, and Germany's Eastern Border, 1945–1990. The Recurrent Issue of the German Question in French-Polish Relations
Pierre-Frédéric Weber

Chapter 15. A Surprising Continuity: The French Attitude and Policy Towards the German Democratic Republic, 1949–1990
Christian Wenkel

Index