For some 100 years, France and Germany had been bitter enemies. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussian Army toppled the monarchy of Napoleon III and proclaimed the German Empire in the great Hall of Versailles. They also permanently occupied the strategic French region of Alsace-Lorraine.
In 1914, the smoldering enmity between the nations quickly erupted in a full-scale European war when Germany, having made a Declaration of War to FranceΓÇÖs ally Russia, launched a pre-emptive strike that brought it within cannon range of Paris. World War I lasted four more years, but after the Armistice of 1918, it was FranceΓÇÖs turn to humiliate its beaten foe.
In the same Hall of Versailles where the German Empire had been born some 50 years before, France and its Allies now imposed such harsh reparation terms on the crippled German state that a future clash of arms was almost unavoidable. After Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had come to power in 1933, h eordered the German Army to prepare for a new European War -- ΓÇ£by 1942 at the latest.ΓÇ¥
In fact, it was in 1940 that German army columns once again raced across the French border -- this time occupying the French capital and much of Northern France besides. When at last, the German forces were driven back by British, Canadian and American troops after the Normandy landings of 1944, Paris narrowly escaped wholesale destruction.
Such a long history of bloodshed and betrayal is difficult to forget, even harder to forgive. Yet the first postwar German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, worked hard on building a new bridge of understanding and cooperation between the two nations -- leading up to the emotionally charged Treaty of Reconciliation in 1963.
French President De Gaulle had hoped to use German friendship in his bid to create a non-aligned powerblock in Europe under French leadership. This did not come to pass; Germany remained a strong ally of the U.S. while De Gaulle split off from NATO to pursue an independent course. Today, however, the economic and political bonds between France and Germany are as strong as ever.
