[Textbooks on Franco-German History and Reconciliation]
published in Identité Nationale et Enseignement de l’Histoire, Claude Carpentier (ed.), L'Harmattan, Paris, 1999, pp. 13-28
What role can historians and school history textbooks, particularly at secondary level, play in the transformation of a conflictual binational relationship marked by conflict, even periods of open warfare, into a peaceful and cooperative relationship? This question raises a number of issues around the nature and effectiveness of possible or probable misalignments between how the definition of the past binational relationship is defined, established or conceived as it was by historians on both sides and how it is transcribed into the teaching of the younger generations, who in turn are called upon to consolidate the rapport between the two nations, and not least their own degree of influence over the official, intergovernmental policies in this regard. The Franco-German relationship has given rise to three wars (1870, 1914 and 1939), two of which extended across the world, over three quarters of a century. This relatively brief, at best average, chapter from a historical point of view is predestined to foster stereotypes which will remain, however, only artificial if there are shifts in the quality of the relationship during the period. Each war left its marks on the respective populations, renewed from one generation to the next with the two 'world' wars, either as a direct result of the occupations suffered during or at the end of the wars, or indirectly through treaties (1871, 1919) or statutes (1945/49) affecting the sovereignty of the vanquished for a variable period of time (until 1990 for Germany). Is historical research capable of liberation itself from these latent constraints?
