Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955

From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955

Flanagan, Drew

Hardcover

French HistoryGerman HistoryInternational Relations

ISBN10: 0807186783
ISBN13: 9780807186787
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: Apr 20 2026
Pages: 264
Weight: 1.12
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

After the collapse of the National Socialist regime in May 1945, France became one of four principal occupying powers in a defeated Germany. Within their zone of occupation along the Upper and Middle Rhine, French occupiers participated in the Allied project to remake German society. In the process, they confronted the long history of Franco-German rivalry in the region and their country's diminished power in the wake of World War II.

From Occupation to Integration explores how French ideas about civilization and the civilizing process shaped the practice of occupation in the French Zone and the early stages of European integration. The French Zone was set apart from the other Allied zones by the occupiers' belief that Nazi barbarism was deeply rooted in German culture and history. In seeking to transform the Germans along their border into acceptable partners for France within a united western Europe, the French occupiers applied aspects of France's universal civilizing mission, adapting strategies and practices developed in the country's overseas colonies to fit a European population.

Whether implementing counterinsurgency methods developed in French North Africa in the pacification and control of their zone or attempting to address what they perceived as the deep-rooted flaws of German culture through reeducation and propaganda, the French applied their civilizational thinking, using that vision to justify and guide the first postwar attempts at cross-border economic integration. Through both conflicts and cooperation with the German population, the French in occupied Germany negotiated a shared vision of western European civilization that they hoped would ensure French leadership in Europe.

In this engaging study, Drew Flanagan deftly details and analyzes the entanglement between the Europeanization of the French Zone and decolonization in France's empire, prompting readers to consider the continued impact of colonial and imperial ideas and practices on contemporary Europe and the European Union.

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