Subtitle: Deutsch-französische Schulbuchgespräche im 20. Jahrhundert
[Wrong turns and paths out of emnity. German-French Textbooks Discussions in the Twentieth Century]
published in Deutsche und Franzosen im zusammenwachsenden Europa 1945 – 2000, Kurt Hochstuhl (ed.), Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 2003, pp. 73-103
The German-French textbook discussions are of particular interest due to the pronounced conflictual nature of Franco-German relations in the first half of the twentieth century and the understanding that subsequently followed. In the immediate aftermath of the First World War serious efforts were made to eliminate hatred of the former enemy from textbooks and, although these were largely unsuccessful in the interwar period, soon after 1945, Franco-German recommendations for teaching history were drawn up, which marked the beginning of successful Franco-German cooperation. So what had changed by 1945 to enable an understanding that had always failed before. Had new methods of textbook discussions been developed? Were other topics at the centre of the conversations? Answers to these questions can shed light on one facet of the much-vaunted Franco-German friendship and help to understand under which conditions textbook representations can be objectified and freed from one-sided, national patterns of perception and interpretation. To this end, the following section will comparatively examine the debates surrounding school history textbooks that took place in Germany and France, and between the two countries, after the First World War.
