The Conservatives succeeded Labour and Churchill replaced Atlee in 1951,there were hopes this party might be more "Europe-minded". But they were no more enthusiastic towards integration. The Churchill government would give its support to Europe but there was no question of Britain taking an active part. Chairman of the Council of Europe,Spaak accessed the Assembly would have to "do without Britain's support in order to make any headway". The third bid for a supranational government was successful.
Monnet believed something "more practical and ambitious" was needed to achieve the desired goal, and an opportunity came in 1950. West Germany had emerged finally as a self-government of Chancellorship. Under its Basic Law passed on 8 May 1949, the new Federal Democratic Republic or FDR, was based on a federation of the eleven highly decentralised Land governments guaranteed by a constitutional court. All international treaties had to be ratified by the Lander through their legislative assembly,the Bundesrat. The largest and most powerful Land, Bavaria, had actually voted against the new constitution, for not reserving even greater power to the Lander.
Economically by this time, the new Germany, under the guidance of Ludwig Erhard, was already showing signs of a remarkable recovery. This raised the question of how the new nation should be assimilated into the western European community. At the Council of Europe in August 1949 Churchill had shocked many delegates by proposing that she should be given the warmest of welcomes. Two of the western occupying powers, the USA and Britain, wanted to see her continue on the road towards full economic recovery and nationhood as soon as possible. But this had provoked a deep rift with France, which wanted to continue exercising control over the German economy, for fear that she might once again become too strong a political and economic rival.
The argument centred on the bone of contention, the coal and steel industries of the Ruhr,heartland of Germany's economy and formerly the arsenal of her war machine. In 1948, France had demanded the setting up of an International Ruhr Authority, which would enable French officials to control Germany's coal and steel production and ensure that a substantial part of that production was diverted to aid French reconstruction. It was a curious echo of France's policy after the First World War. Naturally a new West Germany was bitterly opposed to such an authority. Equally so were the other two occupying powers, America and Britain.
For over two years this dispute had festered, without resolution. But in the spring of 1950 the US Secretary of State Dean Acheson finally lost patience. He issued France with what amounted to an ultimatum. On 11 May there would be a foreign ministers' meeting in London; and unless the French could offer a satisfactory compromise proposal, the USA would impose a solution on all parties.
This gave Monnet the opportunity for which he had been waiting. For years he had dreamed of building a "United States of Europe", beginning by integrating the coal and steel industries, and setting up a supranational authority to run them. This was the idea first put forward in the 1920s, by Coudenhove and Loucheur, and partly implemented by Mayrisch in 1926. It was the idea Monnet himself had outlined to Spaak in 1941 and in his Algiers memorandum in 1943. But what Monnet had in mind was that the coal and steel industries, not just of France and Germany but of other western European countries, should be placed under the direction of a supranational authority: just as over dinner in Paris in 1917 he and Salter had come up with a similar plan for the control of allied shipping.
When Monnet came to put his plan to paper at the end of April,allegedly after two weeks' strenuous walking in the Swiss Alps, he was obviously troubled by how much he dare reveal of its real underlying purpose. Before getting to its final stage, it went through nine separate drafts. In the first, the pooling of coal and steel was regarded as "the first step of a Franco-German Union and a European federation". By the fifth draft, this had been changed to "Europe must be organised on a federal basis. . But , by the final draft, almost all of this was missing. All he would allow himself was a reference to the pool being the "first step of a European federation",a vague term which could mean different things to different people.
Monnet had in mind the creation of a European entity with allthe attributes of a state, the anodyne phrasing was deliberately chosen with a view to making it difficult to dilute by converting it into just another intergovernmental body. It was also couched in this fashion so it would not scare off national governments by emphasising that its purpose was to override their sovereignty.
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Friday, 1 June 2007
Communism in Czechoslovakia
Primarily US interest in the European arena was triggered by fear of Communist take-overs in Italy and France, where Communists were briefly the largest single party in the Assembly. A severe winter of 1946-1947 had caused economic dislocation that undermined a post-war optimism about the potential for recovery of western Europe's economies. Serious concern arose in Washington about the ambitions of Communism in Europe.
However, the first country to enter economic crisis was Britain: over-stretched by huge military commitments.
The US abrupted the "lend lease" war loan agreement in 1945 after the Japanese war came to an end. The US had loaned Britain $48.5 billion. Britain's adverse trade balance soared. On 27 February 1947 Britain informed Washington she could no longer afford sending financial aid to the governments of Greece and Turkey(in addition to her substantial military commitment to Palestine,where the British mandate was coming under severe pressure from the campaign by Jewish nationalists and terrorist groups to set up a state of Israel).
Crisis meetings were staged between members of Congress and State Department officials. The possibility of a Communist take-over in both Greece and Turkey might manifest the spread of Communism to Iran and India.
Truman announced a support package for military and economic assistance in Greece and Turkey. "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
This marked the beginning of America's cold war foreign policy and the point of relations between Communist "East" and non-Communist "West". Local Communist parties were making significant gains in Eastern Europe;Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia. It was clear Stalin was intending every country of central Europe into a Soviet Empire. The Marshall Plan (US Secretary of State) was an altruistic gesture by the US to help the impoverished Western allies but was also a gateway for the US to import strong commercial interests in a market of several hundred million persons.
US Congress at first were hostile to the plan but as Czechoslovakia was turned over to Communist control in 1948 resistance to the plan diminished.
The French found the Communist threat highly advantageous. Mendes-France commented: "The Communists are rendering us a great service. Because we have a "Communist danger", the Americans are making a tremendous effort to help us. We must keep up this indispensable Communist scare."
However, the first country to enter economic crisis was Britain: over-stretched by huge military commitments.
The US abrupted the "lend lease" war loan agreement in 1945 after the Japanese war came to an end. The US had loaned Britain $48.5 billion. Britain's adverse trade balance soared. On 27 February 1947 Britain informed Washington she could no longer afford sending financial aid to the governments of Greece and Turkey(in addition to her substantial military commitment to Palestine,where the British mandate was coming under severe pressure from the campaign by Jewish nationalists and terrorist groups to set up a state of Israel).
Crisis meetings were staged between members of Congress and State Department officials. The possibility of a Communist take-over in both Greece and Turkey might manifest the spread of Communism to Iran and India.
Truman announced a support package for military and economic assistance in Greece and Turkey. "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
This marked the beginning of America's cold war foreign policy and the point of relations between Communist "East" and non-Communist "West". Local Communist parties were making significant gains in Eastern Europe;Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia. It was clear Stalin was intending every country of central Europe into a Soviet Empire. The Marshall Plan (US Secretary of State) was an altruistic gesture by the US to help the impoverished Western allies but was also a gateway for the US to import strong commercial interests in a market of several hundred million persons.
US Congress at first were hostile to the plan but as Czechoslovakia was turned over to Communist control in 1948 resistance to the plan diminished.
The French found the Communist threat highly advantageous. Mendes-France commented: "The Communists are rendering us a great service. Because we have a "Communist danger", the Americans are making a tremendous effort to help us. We must keep up this indispensable Communist scare."
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Catholics and the Supra State
The European Union (EU) is a supranational and intergovernmental union of twenty-seven states and a political body. It was established in 1992 by the Treaty on European Union (The Maastricht Treaty), and is the de facto successor to the six-member European Economic Community founded in 1957. Since then new accessions have raised its number of member states, and competences have expanded.
The EU is one of the largest economic and political entities in the world, with a total population of 494 million and a combined nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of €11.6 (US$15.6) trillion in 2006.[1] The Union is a single market with a common trade policy,[2] a Common Agricultural/Fisheries Policy, and a Regional policy to assist underdeveloped regions.[3] It introduced a single currency, the euro, adopted by 13 member states. The EU initiated a limited Common Foreign and Security Policy, and a limited Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters.
Important EU institutions and bodies include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. Citizens of EU member states are also EU citizens: they directly elect the European Parliament, once every five years. They can invest, live, travel, and work in other member states (with some temporary restrictions on new member states[4]). Passport control and customs checks at most internal borders were abolished by the Schengen Agreement.
Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, to the southeast by the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. To the east, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and by the Caspian Sea.
Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, covering about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2.0% of the Earth's surface. The only continent smaller than Europe is Australia. In terms of population, it is the third-largest continent (after Asia and Africa) with a population of 710,000,000 or about 11% of the world's population. However, the term continent can refer to a cultural and political distinction or a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europe's precise borders, area, and population. Russia is Europe's largest country by area and population. Europe is the birthplace of the European Union, a union of twenty-seven independent states based on the European Communities and founded to enhance political, economic and social co-operation and integration.
Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958), reigned as the 260th pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from March 2, 1939 until his death.
Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and cardinal secretary of state, in which roles he worked to conclude treaties with European nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Germany. After World War II, he was a vocal supporter of lenient policies toward vanquished nations and a staunch opponent of communism. His leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II and The Holocaust remains the subject of continued historical controversy.
One of the "Founding Fathers" of a Supranational Europe was Robert Schuman,a Luxembourg born ex Nazi prisoner and politician for France in 1948.
les of Nato's Article 5 were also repeated in the European Defence Community Treaty which failed as the French National Assembly declined to vote its ratification. Schuman was a proponent of an Atlantic Community. This was strongly resisted by Communists, ultranationalists and Gaullists.
Schuman later served as Minister of Justice and first President of the European Parliamentary Assembly which bestowed on him by acclamation the title 'Father of Europe'. In 1958 he received the Karlspreis, an Award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace, commemorating Charlemagne, ruler of what is today France and Germany, who resided and is buried at Aachen. He was also a knight of the Order of Pope Pius IX.
Celibate, modest and un-ostentatious, Schuman was an intensely religious man and Bible scholar. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Pope Pius XII, St. Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Maritain. It was announced on 15 May 2004 that the diocesan investigation of the cause of beatification would soon conclude; this might have as its result that Schuman will be declared "Blessed" by the Roman Catholic Church.
Pius is one of few popes in recent history to exercise his papal infallibility by issuing an apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, which defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He also promulgated forty-six encyclicals, including Humani Generis, which is still relevant to the Church's position on evolution. He also decisively eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals with the Grand Consistory in 1946. Most sedevacantists regard Pope Pius XII as the last true Pope to occupy the Holy See. His ongoing canonization process progressed to the venerable stage on September 2, 2000 under Pope John Paul II.
Another founding father of the European Suprastate was Konrad Adenauer.
As a devout Roman Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906 and was elected to Cologne's city council in the same year. In 1909, he became Vice-Mayor of Cologne. From 1917 to 1933, he served as Mayor of Cologne. He had the unpleasant task of heading Cologne in the era of British occupation following the First World War and lasting until 1926. He managed to establish faithful relations with the British military authorities and flirted with Rhenish separatism (a Rhenish state as part of Germany, but outside Prussia). During the Weimar Republic, he was president of the Prussian State Council (Preußischer Staatsrat) from 1922 to 1933, which was the representative of the Prussian cities and provinces.
When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, the Centre Party lost the "elections" in Cologne and Adenauer fled to the abbey of Maria Laach, threatened by the new government after he had refused even to shake hands with a local Nazi leader. The hosting of Adenauer for a year at this abbey was cited by its abbot after the war, when accused by Heinrich Boll and others of collaboration with the Nazis.
He was imprisoned briefly after the Night of the Long Knives. During the next two years, he changed residences often due to reprisals inflicted on him by the Nazis. In 1937, he was successful in claiming at least some compensation for his once confiscated house and managed to live in seclusion for some years.
According to Albert Speer in his Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer, noting his building of a road circling the city as a bypass, and of a "green belt" of parks. However, both Hitler and Speer felt that due to Adenauer's principal political views and general stubbornness, he couldn’t possibly play any role within their movement nor be helpful to the Nazi party in any way.
After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, in 1944, he was imprisoned for the second time, being known as an opponent of the regime. But no active role in the plot could be connected to him by the Gestapo and he was released some weeks later. Shortly after the war, the Americans installed him again as Mayor of Cologne, but the British administration dismissed him for his alleged incompetence.
Adenauer's achievements include the establishment of a stable democracy in defeated Germany, a lasting reconciliation with France, a general political reorientation towards the West, recovering limited but far-reaching sovereignty for West Germany by firmly integrating it with the emerging Euro-Atlantic community (NATO and the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation). Adenauer is also associated with establishing an efficient pension system, which ensured an unparallelled prosperity for retired persons, and - along with his Minister for Economic Affairs and successor, Ludwig Erhard - with the West German model of a "social market economy" (a mixed economy with capitalism moderated by elements of social welfare and Catholic social teaching), which allowed for the boom period known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") and produced broad prosperity. Thus Adenauer ensured a truly free and democratic society which had been almost unknown to the German people before - notwithstanding that more or less hopeless attempt between 1919 and 1933 (the Weimar Republic) - and which is today not just normal but also deeply integrated into modern German society. He thereby laid the ground for the western world to trust Germany again in spite of all the horrible crimes that had been committed in Germany's name under the Nazis. Precisely because of Adenauer’s former policy a later reunification of both German states was possible, the united Germany remaining part of the European Union and the Nato.
Tony Blair will declare himself a Catholic after he leaves Downing Street, according to a leading cleric.
Father Michael Seed, who has been a spiritual confidant to Mr Blair and his family for the last six years, made the prediction to friends at a recent memorial service.
Known for bringing high-profile politicians and aristocrats into the Catholic fold, Seed said that Blair was ‘a Catholic by desire’ and that this did not necessitate a formal conversion.
There has long been speculation that Mr Blair, an Anglican, would convert to Catholicism, the faith of his wife Cherie.
Meanwhile, Downing Street refused to comment on Blair's religious intentions. A spokesman said: "This story is always circulating in one form or another.
"The Prime Minister remains a member of the Church of England."
Anglican leader the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has recently praised Blair for defending religious values and differences during his time in office.
Dr Williams paid tribute to Blair's commitment to religious freedom: "Tony Blair has understood as well as any Prime Minister in recent times why religion matters, how faith communities contribute to the common good and why religious extremism should have no place in a progressive society.
"As a man of genuine personal faith, he has not shied away from the risk associated with confronting extremism, while respecting difference."
The EU is one of the largest economic and political entities in the world, with a total population of 494 million and a combined nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of €11.6 (US$15.6) trillion in 2006.[1] The Union is a single market with a common trade policy,[2] a Common Agricultural/Fisheries Policy, and a Regional policy to assist underdeveloped regions.[3] It introduced a single currency, the euro, adopted by 13 member states. The EU initiated a limited Common Foreign and Security Policy, and a limited Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters.
Important EU institutions and bodies include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. Citizens of EU member states are also EU citizens: they directly elect the European Parliament, once every five years. They can invest, live, travel, and work in other member states (with some temporary restrictions on new member states[4]). Passport control and customs checks at most internal borders were abolished by the Schengen Agreement.
Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, to the southeast by the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. To the east, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and by the Caspian Sea.
Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, covering about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2.0% of the Earth's surface. The only continent smaller than Europe is Australia. In terms of population, it is the third-largest continent (after Asia and Africa) with a population of 710,000,000 or about 11% of the world's population. However, the term continent can refer to a cultural and political distinction or a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europe's precise borders, area, and population. Russia is Europe's largest country by area and population. Europe is the birthplace of the European Union, a union of twenty-seven independent states based on the European Communities and founded to enhance political, economic and social co-operation and integration.
Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958), reigned as the 260th pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from March 2, 1939 until his death.
Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and cardinal secretary of state, in which roles he worked to conclude treaties with European nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Germany. After World War II, he was a vocal supporter of lenient policies toward vanquished nations and a staunch opponent of communism. His leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II and The Holocaust remains the subject of continued historical controversy.
One of the "Founding Fathers" of a Supranational Europe was Robert Schuman,a Luxembourg born ex Nazi prisoner and politician for France in 1948.
les of Nato's Article 5 were also repeated in the European Defence Community Treaty which failed as the French National Assembly declined to vote its ratification. Schuman was a proponent of an Atlantic Community. This was strongly resisted by Communists, ultranationalists and Gaullists.
Schuman later served as Minister of Justice and first President of the European Parliamentary Assembly which bestowed on him by acclamation the title 'Father of Europe'. In 1958 he received the Karlspreis, an Award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace, commemorating Charlemagne, ruler of what is today France and Germany, who resided and is buried at Aachen. He was also a knight of the Order of Pope Pius IX.
Celibate, modest and un-ostentatious, Schuman was an intensely religious man and Bible scholar. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Pope Pius XII, St. Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Maritain. It was announced on 15 May 2004 that the diocesan investigation of the cause of beatification would soon conclude; this might have as its result that Schuman will be declared "Blessed" by the Roman Catholic Church.
Pius is one of few popes in recent history to exercise his papal infallibility by issuing an apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, which defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He also promulgated forty-six encyclicals, including Humani Generis, which is still relevant to the Church's position on evolution. He also decisively eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals with the Grand Consistory in 1946. Most sedevacantists regard Pope Pius XII as the last true Pope to occupy the Holy See. His ongoing canonization process progressed to the venerable stage on September 2, 2000 under Pope John Paul II.
Another founding father of the European Suprastate was Konrad Adenauer.
As a devout Roman Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906 and was elected to Cologne's city council in the same year. In 1909, he became Vice-Mayor of Cologne. From 1917 to 1933, he served as Mayor of Cologne. He had the unpleasant task of heading Cologne in the era of British occupation following the First World War and lasting until 1926. He managed to establish faithful relations with the British military authorities and flirted with Rhenish separatism (a Rhenish state as part of Germany, but outside Prussia). During the Weimar Republic, he was president of the Prussian State Council (Preußischer Staatsrat) from 1922 to 1933, which was the representative of the Prussian cities and provinces.
When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, the Centre Party lost the "elections" in Cologne and Adenauer fled to the abbey of Maria Laach, threatened by the new government after he had refused even to shake hands with a local Nazi leader. The hosting of Adenauer for a year at this abbey was cited by its abbot after the war, when accused by Heinrich Boll and others of collaboration with the Nazis.
He was imprisoned briefly after the Night of the Long Knives. During the next two years, he changed residences often due to reprisals inflicted on him by the Nazis. In 1937, he was successful in claiming at least some compensation for his once confiscated house and managed to live in seclusion for some years.
According to Albert Speer in his Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer, noting his building of a road circling the city as a bypass, and of a "green belt" of parks. However, both Hitler and Speer felt that due to Adenauer's principal political views and general stubbornness, he couldn’t possibly play any role within their movement nor be helpful to the Nazi party in any way.
After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, in 1944, he was imprisoned for the second time, being known as an opponent of the regime. But no active role in the plot could be connected to him by the Gestapo and he was released some weeks later. Shortly after the war, the Americans installed him again as Mayor of Cologne, but the British administration dismissed him for his alleged incompetence.
Adenauer's achievements include the establishment of a stable democracy in defeated Germany, a lasting reconciliation with France, a general political reorientation towards the West, recovering limited but far-reaching sovereignty for West Germany by firmly integrating it with the emerging Euro-Atlantic community (NATO and the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation). Adenauer is also associated with establishing an efficient pension system, which ensured an unparallelled prosperity for retired persons, and - along with his Minister for Economic Affairs and successor, Ludwig Erhard - with the West German model of a "social market economy" (a mixed economy with capitalism moderated by elements of social welfare and Catholic social teaching), which allowed for the boom period known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") and produced broad prosperity. Thus Adenauer ensured a truly free and democratic society which had been almost unknown to the German people before - notwithstanding that more or less hopeless attempt between 1919 and 1933 (the Weimar Republic) - and which is today not just normal but also deeply integrated into modern German society. He thereby laid the ground for the western world to trust Germany again in spite of all the horrible crimes that had been committed in Germany's name under the Nazis. Precisely because of Adenauer’s former policy a later reunification of both German states was possible, the united Germany remaining part of the European Union and the Nato.
Tony Blair will declare himself a Catholic after he leaves Downing Street, according to a leading cleric.
Father Michael Seed, who has been a spiritual confidant to Mr Blair and his family for the last six years, made the prediction to friends at a recent memorial service.
Known for bringing high-profile politicians and aristocrats into the Catholic fold, Seed said that Blair was ‘a Catholic by desire’ and that this did not necessitate a formal conversion.
There has long been speculation that Mr Blair, an Anglican, would convert to Catholicism, the faith of his wife Cherie.
Meanwhile, Downing Street refused to comment on Blair's religious intentions. A spokesman said: "This story is always circulating in one form or another.
"The Prime Minister remains a member of the Church of England."
Anglican leader the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has recently praised Blair for defending religious values and differences during his time in office.
Dr Williams paid tribute to Blair's commitment to religious freedom: "Tony Blair has understood as well as any Prime Minister in recent times why religion matters, how faith communities contribute to the common good and why religious extremism should have no place in a progressive society.
"As a man of genuine personal faith, he has not shied away from the risk associated with confronting extremism, while respecting difference."
Monday, 28 May 2007
Optimism among Communism
"...it is a disgrace that Europe had to wait for a word of command from the other side of the Atlantic before she realised where her own duty lay."
Dr. Henri Brugmans,Chairman of the European Union of Federalists, August 1947.
To achieve peace,freedom and an end to "all crimes and follies of the past" Winston Churchill said, "we must build a kind of United States of Europe."
Churchill renewed this message in London in 1947, at The Hague in 1948 and at Strasbourg in 1949. Churchill's world stature helped inspire the steps to create the European Union.
But the type of European Federation envisioned by Churchill and that which would become to take shape in the 1950's were distinctively different. He made this clear by his references at Zurich to the "pan-European union" worked on by the French patriot Aristide Briand and the "immense body which was brought into being amidst high hopes after the First World War- the League of Nations. Churchill had envisioned an internationalist idealism for Europe from the 1920's based on an alliance of sovereign states.
Conversely it was this type of "intergovernmentalism" which the founders of what was to be the European Union regarded as their greatest obstacle. When the project was finally launched ,the man chiefly responsible was openly dismissive of Churchill's type of "United Europe". Monnet was convinced that the goal could only be teached in a wholly different way.
Churchill had clarified in Zurich and later that any "United Europe" was a rooted partnership between Germany and France. There was no question of direct participation with Britain. "The British Empire and Commonwealth" were to remain separate.
All the essential ideas of the European Union had come into being from essential ideas made in the 1920's , before the rise of Hitler, as a way to prevent a recurrence of a First World War. In that sense they failed.
Chiefly, since the ideas were disinterred after 1945 the political balance of Europe had changed the world out of recognition. The internal fighting between France and Germany paled into significance against "an iron curtain descended across the Continent",in that respect Europe's national enmities were specifically addressed to solving a problem which no longer existed.
The end of World War Two was to act as a spur to scheme more international co-operation than the end of the Great War 25 years earlier. Many of the international institutions which were to provide a framework for the post-war world were called into being at this time. Foremost among them was the United Nations, set up in 1945 to replace the League of Nations(which was only formally dissolvedin 1946). The first UN General Assembly was held in London in January 1946 under the presidency of Belgium's foreign minister Paul-Henri Spaak. From the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, as instruments of post-war financial and economic reconstruction, came the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In October 1947, indirectly through the UN, came the signing of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs designed to work for the progressive liberalisation of World Trade. All these were intergovernmental structures based on co-operation between sovereign governments. As with the League of Nations before them, their prime mover,closely supported by Britain, was the United States of America. Americans would not again retreat into isolationism. The US firmly committed to playing a central role symbolised by the new HQ was positioned in New York and not in Switzerland.
US isolationism was impossible because of the post Second world war re-shaping of power. Leading Western European nations had their imperial possessions scattered across every continent.But the US and USSR had become superpowers with two potentially deadly conflicting political idealogies.
Far from being the centre of world politics, Europe was to become the reservoir in which the two new superpowers would act out their greater rivalry.
The division of Europe was to become deeper. In 1944 the Moscow conference had agreed that most of central and Eastern Europe ,from being liberated from Nazi occupation by the Red Army, would fall after the war into "the Soviet sphere of influence".
Pre-war democracies ended after hostilities including Czechoslovakia,Poland, Hungary and Romania who then re-established democratic, multiparty forms of government. Although under the shadow of Soviet occupation,the full political ambitions of the Communists were not yet obvious. Yugoslavia came under one-party Communist rule by Tito,then still Stalin's ally. Albania followed suit, and played an active role in promoting an attempted Communist take-over of Greece only narrowly averted by Britain's armed intervention in the Greek civil war of 1944-1945.
However, there was still grounds for optimism to re-establish self-governing institutions in all those occupied countries that had been liberated by the Western Allies; despite the presence in Italy and France of large Communist parties, which were to provide a constant reminder of how fragile the re-born democracies of Western Europe might prove if economic recovery was not successful.
Dr. Henri Brugmans,Chairman of the European Union of Federalists, August 1947.
To achieve peace,freedom and an end to "all crimes and follies of the past" Winston Churchill said, "we must build a kind of United States of Europe."
Churchill renewed this message in London in 1947, at The Hague in 1948 and at Strasbourg in 1949. Churchill's world stature helped inspire the steps to create the European Union.
But the type of European Federation envisioned by Churchill and that which would become to take shape in the 1950's were distinctively different. He made this clear by his references at Zurich to the "pan-European union" worked on by the French patriot Aristide Briand and the "immense body which was brought into being amidst high hopes after the First World War- the League of Nations. Churchill had envisioned an internationalist idealism for Europe from the 1920's based on an alliance of sovereign states.
Conversely it was this type of "intergovernmentalism" which the founders of what was to be the European Union regarded as their greatest obstacle. When the project was finally launched ,the man chiefly responsible was openly dismissive of Churchill's type of "United Europe". Monnet was convinced that the goal could only be teached in a wholly different way.
Churchill had clarified in Zurich and later that any "United Europe" was a rooted partnership between Germany and France. There was no question of direct participation with Britain. "The British Empire and Commonwealth" were to remain separate.
All the essential ideas of the European Union had come into being from essential ideas made in the 1920's , before the rise of Hitler, as a way to prevent a recurrence of a First World War. In that sense they failed.
Chiefly, since the ideas were disinterred after 1945 the political balance of Europe had changed the world out of recognition. The internal fighting between France and Germany paled into significance against "an iron curtain descended across the Continent",in that respect Europe's national enmities were specifically addressed to solving a problem which no longer existed.
The end of World War Two was to act as a spur to scheme more international co-operation than the end of the Great War 25 years earlier. Many of the international institutions which were to provide a framework for the post-war world were called into being at this time. Foremost among them was the United Nations, set up in 1945 to replace the League of Nations(which was only formally dissolvedin 1946). The first UN General Assembly was held in London in January 1946 under the presidency of Belgium's foreign minister Paul-Henri Spaak. From the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, as instruments of post-war financial and economic reconstruction, came the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In October 1947, indirectly through the UN, came the signing of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs designed to work for the progressive liberalisation of World Trade. All these were intergovernmental structures based on co-operation between sovereign governments. As with the League of Nations before them, their prime mover,closely supported by Britain, was the United States of America. Americans would not again retreat into isolationism. The US firmly committed to playing a central role symbolised by the new HQ was positioned in New York and not in Switzerland.
US isolationism was impossible because of the post Second world war re-shaping of power. Leading Western European nations had their imperial possessions scattered across every continent.But the US and USSR had become superpowers with two potentially deadly conflicting political idealogies.
Far from being the centre of world politics, Europe was to become the reservoir in which the two new superpowers would act out their greater rivalry.
The division of Europe was to become deeper. In 1944 the Moscow conference had agreed that most of central and Eastern Europe ,from being liberated from Nazi occupation by the Red Army, would fall after the war into "the Soviet sphere of influence".
Pre-war democracies ended after hostilities including Czechoslovakia,Poland, Hungary and Romania who then re-established democratic, multiparty forms of government. Although under the shadow of Soviet occupation,the full political ambitions of the Communists were not yet obvious. Yugoslavia came under one-party Communist rule by Tito,then still Stalin's ally. Albania followed suit, and played an active role in promoting an attempted Communist take-over of Greece only narrowly averted by Britain's armed intervention in the Greek civil war of 1944-1945.
However, there was still grounds for optimism to re-establish self-governing institutions in all those occupied countries that had been liberated by the Western Allies; despite the presence in Italy and France of large Communist parties, which were to provide a constant reminder of how fragile the re-born democracies of Western Europe might prove if economic recovery was not successful.
Friday, 25 May 2007
Early opposition to the European Supra State
Two fascist opposers to the "New Europe" early in 1941 were Mussolini's finance minister Alberto de Stefani and Camillo Pellizzi, editor of the magazine "Civilita Fascista". De Stefani wrote, " ...Nationalities do not form a sound basis for the planned new order...A European Union could not be subject to the variations of internal policy that are characteristic of liberal regimes.
But many advocates since the 1920's of the cause of European unity in occupied countries believed themselves that working with the Nazis was a way to achieve it. The list included Benoist Mechin, secretary of State for Franco-German relations and a Vichyite, the writer and philosopher Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The Belge leader of the Fascist Rexist movement wrote a tract, Europe for the Europeans in which he saw Nazi Europe not as a political entity but as a bastion against Communism. The Norwegian collaborationist leader, Vidkun Quisling argued that Europe would only be strong and peaceful if united. He wanted to see a Pan-Germanic Federation with a federal flag and the Fuhrer as president. Nothing in the birth of Europe illuminati provided any practical model for the type of political integration that was to emerge after the war.
As one historian commented, " Such pan- European illusions were actively fostered by the Nazis themselves. Clearly the bulk of Third Reich statements relating to pan-Europeanism disseminated by the Nazis in the occupied territories can be dismissed as cynical propaganda calculated to encourage, if not the active co-operation, then the passive acquiescence of the new vassals. Neither Hitler,nor many of his leading hierarchs such as Goebbels, had the slightest intention to compromise absolute German hegemony through the creation of a European confederation, "subsidiary" or otherwise."
The Nazis did not supply "European Integration" as it was to spill over in the post war years. Nazi thinking was an ideological cul-de-sac.
While Nazis occupied Europe during the war, the dreams of European Unity went underground. In each occupied country, resistance movements emerged. If this movement as a whole had any unifying philosophy, it was a determination to seek a new beginning in the post-war reconstruction of Europe. This then was the concept of a United Europe. In common with the pre-war "Pan Europeanists" (and that of the Nazis when it suited them), they held nationalism and national pride to be responsible for past European wars. The prevailing ethos supported the creation of new structures to transcend historical boundaries. This much was openly declared, long before the end of the war, by resistance groups all over Europe including Germany itself.
But the most strident supporters of European unity were the Italian Communists, who were at the core of the anti-Fascist movement.
So came of this, a major figure to contribute to the development of the European Union, the Italian, Altiero Spinelli. Born in 1907 he was a Communist at the age of 17 and had been active in opposing Mussolini's fascism. In 1928 he was arrested and imprisoned, spending 12 years in jai before eventually being sent to a prison on the Mediterranean island of Ventonene, 30 miles west of Naples.
In prison he broke with Communism and embraced the cause of European unity. With the help of a fellow prisoner, Ernesto Rossi, he composed what became known as the "Ventonen Manifesto" under the title Towards a free and United Europe. This was to become one of the basic texts of European Federalism. The co-author was a friend of the liberal economist,Luigi Einaudi.
Spinelli considered the future Europe to be plunging into chaos,exploiting this to secure the "definitive abolition of the division of Europe into national,sovereign states. In order to achieve this he called on his followers to foment revolution. True to his political ideology he proclaimed, "the European revolution must be socialist.
Spinelli had in mind an all powerful,supra national authority. He saw this developing into a "United States of Europe" with its own constitution and armed forces. It would have the power to ensure that its "deliberations for the maintenance of common order are executed in the individual federal states."
He stated," During revolutionary times, when institutions are not simply to be administered but created," he insisted," democratic procedures fail miserably."
A passage describes Spinelli's model of "European Federation" from his manifesto;
"During the revolutionary crisis, this movement will have the task of organising and guiding progressive forces,using all the popular bodies which form spontaneously...waiting to be guided. It derives its vision and certainty of what must be done from the knowledge that it the deepest needs of modern society and not from any previous recognition by popular will, as yet non-existent.In this way it issues the basic guidelines of the new order..By this dictatorship of the revolutionary party a new State will be formed, and around this State new, genuine democracy will grow."
In other words, "the people" were not to be involved in the process of constructing the new state. Popular assent would only be sought when the project was all but complete. At that moment their "crowning dream" would be the calling of a "constituent assembly" to "decide upon the constitution they want". The drawing up of the constitution would be the final act in the emergence of the "United States of Europe"
In 1941 Spinell's manifesto was smuggled to the mainland from prison. His idea came to be adopted by the Communist-dominated Italian Resistance as a whole, leading to the formation in 1943 of the European Federalist Movement. This spread the message to other groups in other countries giving rise to a series of meetings in neutral Switzerland, culminating in a major conference in Geneva in July 1944, attended by activists from all over Europe. At Geneva, the assembled representatives produced their Draft Declaration of the European Resistance Movement, largely drafted by Spinelli who had by now been released from prison.
The life of people in the post-war world,it was agreed, must be based on "the respect of the human individual,on security, on social justice, on the complete utilisation of economic resources for the benefit of the whole, and on the autonomous development of national life."
These aims,it was considered "cannot be fulfilled unless the different countries of the world agree to go beyond the dogma of the absolute sovereignty of the state and unite in a single federal organisation." The draft declared a worldwide organisation could not be achieved immediately,so in the immediate post-war period, "the European problem must be given a more direct and more radical solution."
This "direct solution" would consist of a European "Federal Union". It would control its own army, no national armies would be allowed. It would also have its own court, with sole jurisdiction over constitutional matters and exclusive rights to arbitrate in conflicts between the central authority and member states.
It was another 40 years before Spinelli would make his central contribution to the shape of the European Union as it finally emerged. But the ideals on which this was based were all there in the declaration of 1944, originating from the few pages he had scribbled in his island prison, at a time when Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich" had seemed the undisputed master of Europe.
But many advocates since the 1920's of the cause of European unity in occupied countries believed themselves that working with the Nazis was a way to achieve it. The list included Benoist Mechin, secretary of State for Franco-German relations and a Vichyite, the writer and philosopher Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The Belge leader of the Fascist Rexist movement wrote a tract, Europe for the Europeans in which he saw Nazi Europe not as a political entity but as a bastion against Communism. The Norwegian collaborationist leader, Vidkun Quisling argued that Europe would only be strong and peaceful if united. He wanted to see a Pan-Germanic Federation with a federal flag and the Fuhrer as president. Nothing in the birth of Europe illuminati provided any practical model for the type of political integration that was to emerge after the war.
As one historian commented, " Such pan- European illusions were actively fostered by the Nazis themselves. Clearly the bulk of Third Reich statements relating to pan-Europeanism disseminated by the Nazis in the occupied territories can be dismissed as cynical propaganda calculated to encourage, if not the active co-operation, then the passive acquiescence of the new vassals. Neither Hitler,nor many of his leading hierarchs such as Goebbels, had the slightest intention to compromise absolute German hegemony through the creation of a European confederation, "subsidiary" or otherwise."
The Nazis did not supply "European Integration" as it was to spill over in the post war years. Nazi thinking was an ideological cul-de-sac.
While Nazis occupied Europe during the war, the dreams of European Unity went underground. In each occupied country, resistance movements emerged. If this movement as a whole had any unifying philosophy, it was a determination to seek a new beginning in the post-war reconstruction of Europe. This then was the concept of a United Europe. In common with the pre-war "Pan Europeanists" (and that of the Nazis when it suited them), they held nationalism and national pride to be responsible for past European wars. The prevailing ethos supported the creation of new structures to transcend historical boundaries. This much was openly declared, long before the end of the war, by resistance groups all over Europe including Germany itself.
But the most strident supporters of European unity were the Italian Communists, who were at the core of the anti-Fascist movement.
So came of this, a major figure to contribute to the development of the European Union, the Italian, Altiero Spinelli. Born in 1907 he was a Communist at the age of 17 and had been active in opposing Mussolini's fascism. In 1928 he was arrested and imprisoned, spending 12 years in jai before eventually being sent to a prison on the Mediterranean island of Ventonene, 30 miles west of Naples.
In prison he broke with Communism and embraced the cause of European unity. With the help of a fellow prisoner, Ernesto Rossi, he composed what became known as the "Ventonen Manifesto" under the title Towards a free and United Europe. This was to become one of the basic texts of European Federalism. The co-author was a friend of the liberal economist,Luigi Einaudi.
Spinelli considered the future Europe to be plunging into chaos,exploiting this to secure the "definitive abolition of the division of Europe into national,sovereign states. In order to achieve this he called on his followers to foment revolution. True to his political ideology he proclaimed, "the European revolution must be socialist.
Spinelli had in mind an all powerful,supra national authority. He saw this developing into a "United States of Europe" with its own constitution and armed forces. It would have the power to ensure that its "deliberations for the maintenance of common order are executed in the individual federal states."
He stated," During revolutionary times, when institutions are not simply to be administered but created," he insisted," democratic procedures fail miserably."
A passage describes Spinelli's model of "European Federation" from his manifesto;
"During the revolutionary crisis, this movement will have the task of organising and guiding progressive forces,using all the popular bodies which form spontaneously...waiting to be guided. It derives its vision and certainty of what must be done from the knowledge that it the deepest needs of modern society and not from any previous recognition by popular will, as yet non-existent.In this way it issues the basic guidelines of the new order..By this dictatorship of the revolutionary party a new State will be formed, and around this State new, genuine democracy will grow."
In other words, "the people" were not to be involved in the process of constructing the new state. Popular assent would only be sought when the project was all but complete. At that moment their "crowning dream" would be the calling of a "constituent assembly" to "decide upon the constitution they want". The drawing up of the constitution would be the final act in the emergence of the "United States of Europe"
In 1941 Spinell's manifesto was smuggled to the mainland from prison. His idea came to be adopted by the Communist-dominated Italian Resistance as a whole, leading to the formation in 1943 of the European Federalist Movement. This spread the message to other groups in other countries giving rise to a series of meetings in neutral Switzerland, culminating in a major conference in Geneva in July 1944, attended by activists from all over Europe. At Geneva, the assembled representatives produced their Draft Declaration of the European Resistance Movement, largely drafted by Spinelli who had by now been released from prison.
The life of people in the post-war world,it was agreed, must be based on "the respect of the human individual,on security, on social justice, on the complete utilisation of economic resources for the benefit of the whole, and on the autonomous development of national life."
These aims,it was considered "cannot be fulfilled unless the different countries of the world agree to go beyond the dogma of the absolute sovereignty of the state and unite in a single federal organisation." The draft declared a worldwide organisation could not be achieved immediately,so in the immediate post-war period, "the European problem must be given a more direct and more radical solution."
This "direct solution" would consist of a European "Federal Union". It would control its own army, no national armies would be allowed. It would also have its own court, with sole jurisdiction over constitutional matters and exclusive rights to arbitrate in conflicts between the central authority and member states.
It was another 40 years before Spinelli would make his central contribution to the shape of the European Union as it finally emerged. But the ideals on which this was based were all there in the declaration of 1944, originating from the few pages he had scribbled in his island prison, at a time when Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich" had seemed the undisputed master of Europe.
Thursday, 24 May 2007
"Fortress Europe"
Salter never gave up hope of his plans for a European steel and coal union. During a meeting in Washington in 1941 he met Paul-Henri Spaak, the pre-war prime minister of Belgium. It marked the beginning of a personal alliance with a dream of a united Europe that was to become extremely influential in the forming of post-war Europe.
As the tide of war swung to the Allies favour, Monnet's attention turned more and more to the shape of a Europe he wished to see emerge in the post-war era.
At the end of February 1943 after the Allies had retaken French North Africa, Monnet was sent to Algiers to arrange for arms shipments to the French Free Forces. Here Monnet formed a close alliance with the politician sent out by Churchill, Harold Macmillan. They had extensive talks about the future of France and post-war Europe, and agreed that, as high-handed as he was De Gaulle was a man of sufficient stature to lead a government in exile.
They laid down there the foundations of a provisional French government, the Comite Francais de Liberation Nationale (CFLN), to be led by de Gaulle. In their first meeting they produced a memorandum which declared:
"There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty with all that implies in terms of prestige politics and economic protectionism. If the nations of Europe adopt defensive positions again, huge armies will be necessary again. Under the future peace treaty, some nations will be allowed to re-arm; others will not. That was tried in 1919;we all know the result..
The nations of Europe are too circumscribed to give their peoples the prosperity made possible, and hence necessary, by modern conditions. They will need larger markets. And they will have to refrain from using a major proportion of their resources to maintain "key" industries needed for national defence...
Prosperity and vital social progress wil remain elusive until the nations of Europe form a federation of a "European entity" which will forge them into a single economic unit..Our concern is a solution to the European problem. The British, the Americans, the Russians ahve worlds of their own into which they can temporarily retreat. France cannot opt out, for her very existence hinges on a solution to the European problem..."
This vision was being developed by Monnet in which European peace could only be maintained if Europe was organised by a supranational authority sufficient to overrule the fractious impulses of national sovereignty. This would forge the member states into a "single economic unit", based on integrating those "key industries needed for national defence", such as coal and steel. Moreover, despite his earlier attempts at Anlgo-French union, it would also be a Europe where no direct involvement of Britain would be involved than that of America or Russia.
In 1942 Europe was politically united. In Hitler's "Fortress Europe", the Fuhrer dismissed European unity as a "presumptious irrelevance". He loathed the early European movement and banned all "European Unity" associations as soon as he had had the chance.
But downscale in the Nazi hierarchy some spent the war years conceiving plans for a federal European unity. Werner Daitz, a leading Nazi economist launched a society for the European Economic Planning and Macroeconomics (Grossraumwirtschaft) and produced a book, "What the New Order in Europe Brings to the European Peoples." His ideologue added to many of the time that attacked "outmoded" notions of national sovereignty and the nation state.
In 1938 Daitz had declared that the idea of the state derived from British political theory and the French Revolution. He held the nation to be small and selfish compared to the "great common undertaking" which was Europe.
Another enthusiast for unity was Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. In late 1942 he headed a Committee on the Restructuring of Europe, giving a number of academics and politicians free reign to discuss the creation of Europe's future.
The Nazi finance minister, Walther Funk, also held "common interests" had to take precedence over particular ones. He reconstructed the post-war economy within the framework of a "New European Order" and a new world economy.
With Germany in occupied lands and charging the occupied lands for it, Goebbels remarked, "It is only right and just that we take the leadership of Europe into our own hands..The German people...have actually won the hegemony of Europe and have a moral right to it."
Goebbels then recognised that the rhetoric of "Europeanism" could serve a useful propaganda purpose. With the tide of war, he projected Germany as the protector of "European" culture against the barbarians from the east. This sought to encourage occupied countries to "volunteer" their young men to join the Waffen-SS and to mobilise their economies against the Bolshevik hordes in what was increasingly styled a "European war of liberation."
The propaganda had its effect. 50,000 non-Germans from every part of occupied Europe fought on the Eastern front, under the bannerof the Waffen-SS. Many believed they were defending "Europe" rather than serving the interests of Germany.
The disparaging persistent theme from the many disparate themes though, was still one to proclaim the end to the nation state and it's absorption into a greater European identity; and that the emerging "New Europe" could now recover its old self-confidence and compete with any power in the world.
As the tide of war swung to the Allies favour, Monnet's attention turned more and more to the shape of a Europe he wished to see emerge in the post-war era.
At the end of February 1943 after the Allies had retaken French North Africa, Monnet was sent to Algiers to arrange for arms shipments to the French Free Forces. Here Monnet formed a close alliance with the politician sent out by Churchill, Harold Macmillan. They had extensive talks about the future of France and post-war Europe, and agreed that, as high-handed as he was De Gaulle was a man of sufficient stature to lead a government in exile.
They laid down there the foundations of a provisional French government, the Comite Francais de Liberation Nationale (CFLN), to be led by de Gaulle. In their first meeting they produced a memorandum which declared:
"There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty with all that implies in terms of prestige politics and economic protectionism. If the nations of Europe adopt defensive positions again, huge armies will be necessary again. Under the future peace treaty, some nations will be allowed to re-arm; others will not. That was tried in 1919;we all know the result..
The nations of Europe are too circumscribed to give their peoples the prosperity made possible, and hence necessary, by modern conditions. They will need larger markets. And they will have to refrain from using a major proportion of their resources to maintain "key" industries needed for national defence...
Prosperity and vital social progress wil remain elusive until the nations of Europe form a federation of a "European entity" which will forge them into a single economic unit..Our concern is a solution to the European problem. The British, the Americans, the Russians ahve worlds of their own into which they can temporarily retreat. France cannot opt out, for her very existence hinges on a solution to the European problem..."
This vision was being developed by Monnet in which European peace could only be maintained if Europe was organised by a supranational authority sufficient to overrule the fractious impulses of national sovereignty. This would forge the member states into a "single economic unit", based on integrating those "key industries needed for national defence", such as coal and steel. Moreover, despite his earlier attempts at Anlgo-French union, it would also be a Europe where no direct involvement of Britain would be involved than that of America or Russia.
In 1942 Europe was politically united. In Hitler's "Fortress Europe", the Fuhrer dismissed European unity as a "presumptious irrelevance". He loathed the early European movement and banned all "European Unity" associations as soon as he had had the chance.
But downscale in the Nazi hierarchy some spent the war years conceiving plans for a federal European unity. Werner Daitz, a leading Nazi economist launched a society for the European Economic Planning and Macroeconomics (Grossraumwirtschaft) and produced a book, "What the New Order in Europe Brings to the European Peoples." His ideologue added to many of the time that attacked "outmoded" notions of national sovereignty and the nation state.
In 1938 Daitz had declared that the idea of the state derived from British political theory and the French Revolution. He held the nation to be small and selfish compared to the "great common undertaking" which was Europe.
Another enthusiast for unity was Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. In late 1942 he headed a Committee on the Restructuring of Europe, giving a number of academics and politicians free reign to discuss the creation of Europe's future.
The Nazi finance minister, Walther Funk, also held "common interests" had to take precedence over particular ones. He reconstructed the post-war economy within the framework of a "New European Order" and a new world economy.
With Germany in occupied lands and charging the occupied lands for it, Goebbels remarked, "It is only right and just that we take the leadership of Europe into our own hands..The German people...have actually won the hegemony of Europe and have a moral right to it."
Goebbels then recognised that the rhetoric of "Europeanism" could serve a useful propaganda purpose. With the tide of war, he projected Germany as the protector of "European" culture against the barbarians from the east. This sought to encourage occupied countries to "volunteer" their young men to join the Waffen-SS and to mobilise their economies against the Bolshevik hordes in what was increasingly styled a "European war of liberation."
The propaganda had its effect. 50,000 non-Germans from every part of occupied Europe fought on the Eastern front, under the bannerof the Waffen-SS. Many believed they were defending "Europe" rather than serving the interests of Germany.
The disparaging persistent theme from the many disparate themes though, was still one to proclaim the end to the nation state and it's absorption into a greater European identity; and that the emerging "New Europe" could now recover its old self-confidence and compete with any power in the world.
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