Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Troublesome heroes: the post-war treatment of resistance veterans
- Part II Repatriating displaced populations from Germany
- Part III The legacy of forced economic migration
- Part IV Martyrs and other victims of Nazi persecution
- 11 Plural persecutions
- 12 National martyrdom
- 13 Patriotic memories and the genocide
- 14 Remembering the war and legitimising the post-war international order
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - Remembering the war and legitimising the post-war international order
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Troublesome heroes: the post-war treatment of resistance veterans
- Part II Repatriating displaced populations from Germany
- Part III The legacy of forced economic migration
- Part IV Martyrs and other victims of Nazi persecution
- 11 Plural persecutions
- 12 National martyrdom
- 13 Patriotic memories and the genocide
- 14 Remembering the war and legitimising the post-war international order
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In strong contrast to the endless controversies over the resistance contribution to post-war domestic politics – restoration or renewal – is the apparent consensus over its contribution to international politics. According to this consensus, European integration is the most enduring ideological heritage that can be credited to the resistance movements. United in their revolt against war, oppression and nationalism, these movements were very early protagonists in the global conflict, in total unanimity after the defeat of Nazism, on the need to build a new Europe based on co-operation between the peoples that had suffered so cruelly in this internecine struggle. The plans elaborated during the war by the underground movement were gradually implemented after the war, and gave birth to the Treaties of Rome and Maastricht. This consensus was of course primarily promoted by pro-European militants, for whom the resistance heroes were a very convenient, noble and consensual set of founding fathers. After all, any new nation-building requires some sort of historical legitimisation, and in this respect European federalists are no different from pan-Hellenic enthusiasts 2,500 years earlier, from the heralds of the nineteenth-century nation-states or the apologists of the colonial order.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Legacy of Nazi OccupationPatriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945–1965, pp. 262 - 291Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999