The Schuman Plan and German Revival
| Author | Lionel Gelber |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205100600303 |
| Published date | 01 September 1951 |
| Date | 01 September 1951 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
SCHUMAN
PLAN
AND
GERMAN
REVIVAL
Lionel
Gelber*
W
OULD
THE UNITY
of
Europe
add
to
the
unity
of
the
West
or
detract
from
it
?
To
answer
that
question
is
not
as
easy
as
we
might
at
first
imagine.
For
there
are
all
kinds
of
unity,
some
good,
some
bad.
The
free
world
has
been
unanimous
in welcoming a
political
innovation
such as
the
Council
of
Europe;
the
impetus given
to
European
economic
co-operation
by
the
European
Recovery
Pro-
gramme;
the
common
action
in
defence
which
the
Atlantic
Alliance
envisages.
Yet
British
diffidence
towards
the
Schuman
Plan
indicates
that
a
semi-continental
unity
which
is
overdone
may
serve only
to
undo
the
wider
unity
of
the
Atlantic
region.
Which
would
be
better
for
the
West-a
European
union
of
which
a
Franco-German industrial
combine
is
the
economic
core,
or
a
per-
petuation
of
that
Atlantic
partnership
which
was twice
an
agent
of
victory
and
whose
rble
is
not
yet
finished?
For
we
cannot
have
both;
it
must
be
the
one
or
the other.
The
recalcitrance
of
the
British,
when
the
Schuman
Plan
was
announced,
drew
more
fire
from
the
United
States than
from
France
herself.
Yet
without
promptings
from
Washing-
ton
the
French
might never
have
put the
Entente
under
so
unexpected
a
strain. Franco-British
disaccord
over
the
Schuman plan
was
thus,
at
bottom,
an
Anglo-American
quarrel. Yet
the
friendship
of
the
English-speaking
peoples,
with
their
many
household
rifts,
is
tested
and
tried.
A
Franco-German
industrial
pool,
to
absorb
the
impact
of
a
German productivity
which
postwar
Allied
policy itself
has
fostered,
would
be
a
gamble
of hope
against
experience.
How
is
it
that
the
United
States
was
eager,
so
soon
after
VE
Day,
to
take
that
risk?
Americans
bicker
over
where
they
went
amiss
in
East
Asia.
But
towards
Western
Europe,
as
passage
of
the
European
Recovery
Programme
and the
Atlantic
Alliance
generally
attest,
there
has
been
a
larger
degree
of
bi-partisan
agreement.
Nor
has
the
cultiva-
tion
of
West
Germans or the
establishment
of
the
West
German
State
been
a
subject
of
serious
discord
within
the
Congress.
Yet,
as
the
two
world
wars
of
the
twentieth century
ought
to
have
demonstrated,
no
Administration
policy
needed
a
closer
or
more
minute
scrutiny.
And
this
it
did
not
get.
*Lionel
Gelber,
Canadian
scholar
now
residing
in
New
York
is
the
author
of
The Rise
of
Anglo-American
Friendship
(1938);
Peace
by
Power
(1942);
Reprieve
from
War
(1950).
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