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Introduction to the Special Issue: Confronting Memories: European “Bitter Experiences” and the Constitutionalization Process: Constructing Europe in the Shadow of its Pasts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Christian Joerges

Extract

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The contributions to this Special Issue of the German Law Journal originate from a meeting in July 2004 at the European University Institute, which was convened following a disappointing experience. The participants – lawyers, historians, political scientists – had co-operated intensively in the preparation of a project on “The Shadows of the Past(s) over the Construction of Europe” which they had submitted to the Volkswagen Stiftung. Although the foundation acknowledged the core aspirations and importance of its individual components, our application was, however, criticized for its overly broad scope and alleged lack of coherence. Should we, however, retain our loose multi-disciplinary, multi-issue and multi-national exploratory approach? Or, should we instead seek to tighten up the whole enterprise and explain what form of common result we would like to deliver? What was planned as a debate on these alternatives developed into enormously interesting, sometimes breath-taking discussions. At the end, we felt that we were able to articulate what we had more intuitively sought for, namely, a formula that would link our concern about European past(s) with our concern for Europe's present and future.

Type
Articles: Special Issue: Confronting Memories – Introduction
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2: Article: Special Issue - Confronting Memories: European „Bitter Experiences“ and the Constitutionalization Process , 01 February 2005 , pp. 245 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “Das heutige Europa ist durch die Erfahrungen der totalitären Regime des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts und durch den Holocaust – die Verfolgung und Vernichtung der europäischen Juden, in die das NS-Regime auch die Gesellschaften der eroberten Länder verstrickt hat – gezeichnet… Eine bellizistische Vergangenheit hat einst alle europäischen Nationen in blutige Auseinandersetzungen verstrickt. Aus den Erfahrungen der militärischen und geistigen Mobilisierung gegeneinander haben sie nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg die Konsequenz gezogen, neue supranationale Formen der Kooperation zu entwickeln (“Today's Europe is marked by the experiences of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century and by the Holocaust – the persecution and extermination of the European Jews, in which the Nazi regime also involved the societies of the countries they had conquered….A belligerent past formerly involved all the European nations in bloody conflicts. It was from the experience of the military and intellectual mobilization against each other that, after the Second World War, they drew the conclusion that they had to develop new supranational forms of co-operation.” Translation by Iain Fraser).Google Scholar

2 See Darker Legacies of Law in Europe: The Shadow of National Socialism and Fascism over Europe and its Legal Traditions (Christian Joerges / Navraj S. Ghaleigh, eds., 2003) and The Darker Side of a Pluralist Heritage: Anti-liberal Traditions in European Social Theory and Legal Thought, special issue of 14 Law and Critique 14: 3 (Christian Joerges, guest ed., 2003).Google Scholar

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6 In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.Google Scholar

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