France and the German Question, 1945–1990

Frédéric Bozo is Professor of Contemporary History at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, University of Paris III, Institute of European Studies. He is the author of numerous books, including Mitterrand, the End of the Cold War, and German Unification (2009) and French Foreign Policy since 1945 (2016), and the editor of such collections as Europe and the End of the Cold War: A Reappraisal (2008).

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