The only way to envision the future is to draw from historical precedents that have actually worked, even in the face of the most outrageous acts of violence and the most bitter distrust. There is a way, and that is to look to history and build the future not as a carbon copy but inspired by possibility and possible futures.
The end of centuries of conflict between France and Germany, culminating in a stable and lasting peace after World War II, represents one of the most remarkable cases of reconciliation in modern history. This transformation was not accidental but the result of deliberate choices in economics, politics, education, and symbolic diplomacy that gradually reshaped national interests and collective memory. One of the most foundational steps was the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951, designed by Jean Monnet and supported by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman. By placing the key war industries—coal and steel—under a supranational authority, the ECSC made future wars between France and Germany materially impossible, binding their economic fates together. This project laid the groundwork for the European Economic Community in 1957 and ultimately the European Union, embedding both countries in a framework of shared laws, trade agreements, and political institutions that encouraged cooperation over rivalry.
In parallel with this economic and institutional integration, both societies undertook civic and educational reforms aimed at healing historical wounds. The Élysée Treaty of 1963 institutionalized youth exchanges, language programs, and shared educational efforts. Jointly revised textbooks fostered a more balanced understanding of the two world wars, replacing narratives of blame with those of shared suffering and responsibility. Public acts of symbolic reconciliation played a crucial role in reshaping national consciousness: Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer’s joint prayer in Reims Cathedral in 1962 and the powerful image of François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl holding hands at Verdun in 1984 publicly signaled a new emotional and moral order. These gestures humanized the former enemy and reoriented both societies toward peace as a shared moral imperative.
The lessons from this transformation are broad and deeply relevant. Economic interdependence through shared industries created material incentives for peace. Political cooperation through common institutions built trust and routine collaboration. Honest historical reappraisal allowed for the reconstruction of mutual respect. Emotional diplomacy, conveyed through symbolic acts of humility and shared grief, reinforced the psychological foundations of reconciliation. Importantly, the shift from dominance to collective security—reflected in institutions like NATO and the EU—offered an alternative to militarism. These dynamics together created not only a peaceful status quo but a resilient emotional and civic commitment
Lessons
Economic
Integrate vital industries and create mutual dependencies that tie peace to prosperity.
Lessons
Political
Develop shared institutions where former rivals can build trust through routine cooperation.
Lessons
Educational
Promote historical honesty and joint narratives that humanize the other and teach interdependence.
Lessons
Emotional/Spiritual
Use symbolic acts to acknowledge pain and signal transformation — ritual plays a crucial role in healing.
Lessons
Security
Replace the logic of dominance with collective security frameworks (e.g., NATO and the EU).
Now, when it comes to selling, promoting, and supporting this, the level of support waxes and wanes based on leadership, as well as the proximity to tragedy. Therefore, these variables could change within a year or even sooner, particularly in the current stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example. As far as religion, the Abraham Accords, plus a decade of high-level interfaith negotiations and a significant shift away from Islamism by Saudi Arabia, are all paving the way on the Arab side for a religious rationale. On the Jewish side, the free rein of militancy and the injuries from Hamas assaults are making new hermeneutics harder now. Let’s not forget the completely justifiable hatred of Germany in ’45 from millions of its victims. That makes the new relations by ’55 truly shocking. We should learn from that just how quickly people can change.
Philip De Groot writes, ”
The US played a huge role. It simply forced Germany to embrace peace and forswear war. Both Germany and Japan had been regional bullies for a long time. In return for significant US aid Germany and Japan were forced to go without armed forces. The US oversaw de-Nazification of Germany. Konrad Adenaur was one of the few German’s of any stature who had not been a Nazi. The US approved of Adenaur and he became the face of the new peace loving Germany.
Germany had also been divided and the Germans were right to fear the Soviets and their Warsaw pact proxies. Germany was at the centre of the cold war and it knew that if that war turned hot West Germany would be the first casualty.
Germany was “defanged” by the US which then placed large numbers of its own forces in West Germany. In essence both East and West Germany were occupied by the Soviet Union and the US respectively.
Monnet was of the French school that believed strongly that France’s time as a world power was over and that in order to prevent another catastrophic war he had to reach out to Germany despite the fact that the French despised the Germans.
While there certainly were “forces” on the ground in both France and Germany that were pressing for institutions that would prevent another world war they might not have prevailed if the US had not been standing over them with a big stick.
While France left NATO’s command structure it never actually left NATO. NATO was the glue that made it possible for Germany and France to create institutions that bound the two countries together.
The reason why I am bringing this up is because no major power is there to force the region to abandon military options.”
I counter this trenchant argument for the essential role of a hegemon in enforcing transitions to peace with the observation that there are many places in the world where outside hegemons were unable to implement peace if it was not wanted, such as Somalia or even former Yugoslavia. We have to take seriously that German and French civilizations had already done centuries of work on building enlightened secular societies, and that totalitarianism sometimes gets the upper hand. However, the more democratic spirit of other Germans and French was given a chance to network, flourish, and reconcile. The real miracle of ’45 to ’55 is thousands and thousands of people who took back the reins of history from nationalists and fascists.
The same can happen in Israel and Palestine if and when the rest of the world gives as much support to nationalists on both sides who do not want to live in a perpetual bloodbath, and who do believe in the basic shared tenets of democracy.
Tony Judt’s Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Marc Trachtenberg’s A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963, Ulrich Krotz’s History and Foreign Policy in France and Germany, and the foundational Schuman Declaration of 1950, available through the European Union’s archives.
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