De Gaulle and Adenauer - A Franco-German Friendship - History Documentaries - SWR HD

http://www.swr.de/geschichte/ In September 1958, Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle met for the first time. Their goal was nothing less than friendship between their nations. Meeting on September 14, 1958 They were both very curious about each other when they first met: Konrad Adenauer feared meeting de Gaulle as a belligerent general who still hated the Germans he had fought against all his life. De Gaulle, who had been Prime Minister of France for a few weeks, had, in a demonstrative gesture, invited the German Chancellor to his private country house in Colombey-les-deux-Églises, something he had never done with a politician before and never did again. When Adenauer said goodbye, something like a miracle had occurred: The two politicians had spontaneously developed a cordial relationship and were determined to finally end the old enmity between Germany and France. The immense burden of Franco-German history, wars, conflicts, and mutual humiliations, was also felt in their personal lives from the very beginning. The Road to Friendship At the end of the Second World War in 1945, it seemed inconceivable that Germany and France could ever reconcile. Four years after their first meeting at Colombey-les-deux-Églises in 1962, both politicians made state visits to their respective neighboring countries. These sparked so much enthusiasm among both populations that Adenauer and de Gaulle decided to crown and consolidate their new friendship with a treaty. On January 22, 1963, the two signed the treaties at the Élysée Palace in Paris, embraced, and exchanged a "fraternal kiss" – a gesture in which contemporaries saw their longing for a lasting reconciliation between Germans and French. However, it took the next generation of politicians to truly breathe life into this treaty. The first were Helmut Schmidt and Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who recount their achievements in the film. Most of the subsequent Franco-German political pairs (Kohl/Mitterrand, Schröder/Chirac, Merkel/Sarkozy, and Hollande) also placed themselves in the tradition established by Adenauer and de Gaulle: the idea of ​​Franco-German friendship as the foundation for peace in Europe.