Magazine / History / Narrating the Nation / Article | 06/05/2008

A history of European identity, by Wolfgang Schmale

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Europeanists in the 20th century

Out of fear of the political, economic and cultural decline of Europe, a new European collective grew up after the First World War, in the form of the different Europe-movements and interest groups, that of the Europeanists. Many writers belonged to this group, not least Thomas Mann. With the Europe movements and interest groups of the interwar years (1918 – 1939), significantly more people were drawn into the Europe debate and challenged to think about their own European identity and to work towards preserving it. These movements also connected the political world (parties and governments) with very varied interest groups and social groups.[1] What remains significant is that the resistance groups in the Second World War, and the federalists of the 1940s and 1950s, joined forces with the Europeanists of the inter-war years and continued along the path they had taken.

The development of this new European collective did not occur in a straight line. The Europeanists of the war and inter-war years came from a very broad political spectrum, from socialist to right-wing conservative. That spectrum included political Catholicism as much as political Protestantism, in the inter-war years also Jewish intellectuals. On the right wing, however, there was no clear delineation against anti-democrats, fascists, falangists and Nazis. The Nazis, above all, developed concepts about Europe for propagandistic and power-political reasons – which, measured against the traditional concepts of Europe, do have to labelled anti-European – which had an effect in Germany, among countless collaborators in Europe, and on German and non-German fighters in the Waffen-SS. Individual Nazi officials like Baldur von Schirach, whose European Youth Association held its founding congress from 14th to 18th September 1942 in Vienna, tried to lay the foundations of a European-National Socialist collective, but this was thwarted not least by Hitler himself, since every form of network requires a separation of powers and therefore makes impossible the unlimited power which Hitler pursued.

The Europeanists in the European resistance did not form a homogenous European collective. But, in danger of their lives, they created European networks and discussed questions relating to a future united Europe. In comparison to the time frame between the revolutions of 1848 – those revolutions had a strong European component, since they were causally linked to one another, but in the end they led to more nationalism – and the end of the Second World War, the members of resistance groups - whether they were in France, Italy or Germany, or in exile in London, Geneva or elsewhere – managed to bridge the gaps between their various different world views. Even a part of the Communist Resistance participated for some three years in this bridge building.[2] Even though after the war no European federal state came into existence, and even though Europe was divided ideologically into two blocs, the resistance's achievement in bridging differences and creating networks remained historic. Among other things, it had shown that there was an alternative to the nearly 150 year-old process of increasing disunity and conflict escalation in Europe, and it put this into practice within the framework of the very limited possibilities for action and life which existed in the underground or while in custody.

The Europeanism of the post-war years was essentially based in the Europeanism of the Resistance, but it reached ever wider circles in politics, the economy, culture and the churches. The leading role of socialists or social democrats, as well as that of Christian Democrats – not to forget the Liberals - in the formulation of concepts of Europe in the Resistance during the Second World War contributed to the fact that Europeanism was anchored in the main political parties in the post-war period. With respect to the inter-war years, new social groups were won over to the goal of European unity and unification. In spite of differences as to just what this unity should look like, conditions developed again which had pertained at the time of the European demos of the early modern period and the Enlightenment: Europe itself was the goal, as a European collective which defines its identity by means of Europe. Encouraged by the Council of Europe, an identity emblem was eventually created, the well-known European flag with twelve golden stars in a circle against a blue background. Any religious connotations connected with the number twelve have been repeated officially denied by the Council of Europe and the EU alike, which took over the emblem for itself: the emblem is said to symbolise unity and harmony. Be that as it may, it is today the only identity emblem which has established itself over all the others.

Between 1945 and 1989, this development was essentially limited to the democratic European countries. But the European idea also survived in the Eastern bloc and personal networks were formed there. Above all, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe had a positive effect in this regard.[3] When the changes came in 1989-1990, the unification of the continent under the aegis of democracy did not have to start from scratch.

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