26. Postwar Western Europe, 1945 -1963
What follows here is an overview of developments in the major European democracies: Britain, France, Italy, and West Germany, in the years following World War Two. Spain is also briefly considered. Postwar constitutions in France, West Germany, and Italy made those countries multiparty parliamentary democracies. Remember that in such political systems, the head of government (prime minister, premier, chancellor, etc.) is the head of the party holding a majority of seats in the parliament. As these were multiparty systems, it was largely impossible for any one party to win a majority of seats. Therefore, parties would often join in coalitions (alliances) to create a parliamentary majority upon which to create a government. In such governments the co-aligned parties would agree on a premier (usually from the party with the most seats) who would appoint cabinet officers from the leadership of the allied parties. Such governments only held power as long as the coalition remained together. Political controversies could easily disrupt coalitions and cause governments to collapse forcing new parliamentary elections. For example, between 1946 and 1958 France had 25 changes of government. Italy, likewise, saw frequent changes of government. Spain did not experience a transition to democracy until 1975, having been under some 40 years of fascist rule.
In most countries postwar economic development in Western Europe created “mixed economies” in the setting of a “welfare state.” Mixed economies combine both private ownership (capitalism) and public – meaning state – ownership (socialism) of the means of production. Usually the state owned and operated the major heavy industries, mining, and transportation systems, while smaller businesses and industries were privately owned. All land (except for that of government-owned businesses) remained privately owned. As most postwar governments consisted of liberal and socialist majorities, laws were passed whereby the state provided many social services such as medical care, unemployment insurance, pensions, and other forms of public welfare. This concept of the “welfare state” would remain characteristic of the Western democracies until the 1980s when conservative governments tended to “privatize” former state-run industries and cut back spending on welfare-related entitlements.
Britain (to 1963)
In July 1945 parliamentary elections in Britain reflected voter concern for the British future. Despite Winston Churchill’s brilliant leadership, the war had severely exhausted British industrial productivity and weakened its ties with its former empire. There was real fear that peace would lead to renewed economic depression. The elections rejected Churchill’s Conservative Party and returned a Labour Party majority to Parliament. Churchill, who had been at the Postdam Conference, returned home, his place then taken by the new Prime Minister Clement Atlee. Atlee, a relatively nondescript figure of slight appearance, would oversee the implementation of economic and social reforms that would transform Britain to a “welfare state.”
Over the next five years, through an extensive but gradual program of economic nationalization, the Labour government removed numerous enterprises from private ownership to government ownership and control. Among these were the British coal, iron, steel, gas, and electric industries. Air and railroad transportation systems were likewise nationalized as was the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank. Among Labour’s social reforms were the establishment of unemployment insurance and a national health care system whereby all Britons would receive medical care and hospitalization free of cost.
In spite of Labour’s economic and social reforms, the immediate postwar years were hard on Britain. The US Lend-Lease program was ended, resulting in a loss of capital and supplies vital to economic recovery. Parliament voted to continue for another five years the government’s wartime emergency powers which meant continued rationing of foodstuffs, fuel, and other essential commodities. After difficult negotiations, the US in early 1946 agreed to lend Britain $3.75 billion at 2% interest payable over 50 years. (The final payment was made in 2006.) The Marshall Plan eventually provided for further assistance, but full recovery was relatively slow in coming.
Britain significantly reduced its role in world affairs and reluctantly bowed to nationalist pressures within its empire. In 1947 London informed the US that Britain could no longer provide assistance to the royalist government resisting a growing communist insurgency in Greece. The US would have to take over protection of the Greek government.[1] In 1947 Britain granted independence to India, which led to the establishment of two new states – India and Pakistan. Armed nationalist resistance to British control in Burma led in 1948 to that country’s independence. Armed Jewish resistance to the British control of Palestine caused Britain to end its mandate and turn the Palestinian “problem” over to the United Nations. (The result would be the creation of Israel in 1948.) In 1949 Britain recognized the independence of Ireland, but continued to affirm its sovereignty over Northern Ireland.
In parliamentary elections in 1951 Atlee’s government lost its majority, and Churchill and the Conservatives returned to power. By this time, however, the public controls and welfare programs initiated by Labour seemed to be working and were acceptable to the British people. The rationing had ended and life overall seemed to be improving. Though they did make some minor revisions, the Conservatives did not undo the welfare state. While Churchill would retire from active politics in 1955, the Conservatives would retain their control of Parliament until 1964.
In 1952 the world’s attention was focused on Britain when 25-year old Princess Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on the death of her father King George VI. Her coronation in 1953 was a spectacular demonstration of British pageantry and pride.
In spite of its domestic problems, Britain still considered itself (and was considered by others) a major world power. It held a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. It still remained the respected “senior partner” of the Commonwealth of Nations, which included India and Pakistan as well as numerous other states of its former empire, foremost of which were Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It took an active role in the Cold War, participating in the Berlin Airlift and working with the US and France in the creation of West Germany. In 1949 it was one of the original members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 1950 it committed ground and naval forces in support of the United Nations in the Korean War. Britain became a nuclear power by successfully testing an atomic bomb in 1952 and enhanced its nuclear status with a hydrogen bomb test in 1957. In 1956, however, Britain suffered a significant loss of prestige.
In July 1956 Egypt’s ambitious president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. The canal had been under international British and French ownership and operation since 1869. In response, Britain and France joined with Israel in a punitive military invasion of Egypt. Their invasion successfully destroyed the Egyptian defenses, but the Soviet Union threatened to intervene. Sharply rebuked by the United States (which had not been consulted by its allies) and condemned in the UN for unwarranted aggression, Britain, France, and Israel were compelled to withdraw their forces from Egypt. The canal would remain Egyptian. The Anglo-French-Israeli military victory, thus, ended in diplomatic defeat and humiliation.
Prime Minister Anthony Eden, having misjudged the American response to the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, resigned in 1957. His successor, Harold MacMillan struggled to uphold British prestige as a world power, but was unable assert meaningful influence as the Cold War between US and Soviet Union became increasingly tense.
Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022. She was 96 years old and had reigned for 70 years. Her successor is her son Prince Charles, now King Charles III.
France (to 1969): The Fourth and Fifth Republics
“Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” Charles de Gaulle
When France surrendered to the Germans in 1940, the Third Republic, upon which France had been governed since 1875, came to an end. The war years saw France under three governments. The German surrender terms partitioned France. Paris, northern France, and the lands along the western coasts were under German military occupation and were governed by German military authorities in Paris. The areas outside of the occupation zones were under a French government centered in Vichy in southern France. Supposedly sovereign and neutral, the government at Vichy was headed by the aged General Henri Philippe Pétain, a hero of the First World War much respected by the French people. The real power in Vichy, however, was exercised by Premier Pierre Laval, who readily collaborated with the Germans.
The third government was that of “Free France,” a body of French exiles who fled to London on the German victory in 1940. Militarily, Free France was represented in the field by the commanders of loyal units of the former French army still active in French colonies in Africa. The leader of Free France was General Charles de Gaulle. Charismatic and temperamental, de Gaulle became the guiding spirit and “voice” of France at war. De Gaulle’s radio broadcasts from London urged the French people not to lose hope: liberation and victory would come. It was on behalf of Free France that the armed French partisans and civilians undertook a dangerous war of resistance against the German occupation.
Born of middle class parents in 1890, de Gaulle made the military his career. He was a graduate of Saint Cyr, the prestigious French military academy, and entered active military service in 1912. During World War One he was wounded at Verdun and later captured by the Germans. After the war he remained in the army and served as an advisor to the Polish army in the brief war between Poland and Soviet Russia. Returning to France he wrote his controversial and prophetic book Towards the Army of the Future (1931) in which he called for France to develop an offensive strategy based on air, armor (tank), and infantry assault. When the war broke out in 1939 he was a colonel in the tank corps and served with distinction in resistance to the German invasion in 1940. As the French resistance collapsed he was promoted to general and appointed as an undersecretary to the ministry of defense. He was briefly sent to Britain to meet with Churchill to coordinate French resistance with the British, but it was too late. Plans for coordination collapsed when France surrendered. Disobeying the new government’s orders to remain in France, de Gaulle fled to Britain where he would become the leader of “Free France.”
With the Allied Liberation of Paris in August 1944, de Gaulle established a provisional government. In addition to directing the reconstruction of civil authority in France, de Gaulle ordered the election (the first in which women could vote) of a consultant assembly to provide popular legitimacy to his government. A French tribunal convicted the Vichy leadership of treason. Pétain and Laval were both sentenced to death, but de Gaulle commuted Pétain’s sentence to life imprisonment. Laval was executed. Thousands of known and suspected collaborators were accused and brutally punished, many being beaten and murdered, by extralegal mob justice that raged across the country.
In October 1945 nationwide elections were held for a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. That assembly unanimously named de Gaulle as president of France. Constitution-making proved anything but easy as France’s numerous political parties could agree on nothing more than not remaking government in the image of the disgraced Third Republic. Communists, socialists, and the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (a Catholic progressive party) polled well in the elections and they bitterly contested the views of the parties of the center. De Gaulle’s vision was for a revived France with a strong government that could play a meaningful role in the postwar world. Political factionalism and partisanship so frustrated de Gaulle that he resigned and retired to his country estate. A constitutional draft was submitted to the electorate in February and was rejected. A revised Constitution, that of a Fourth Republic, was narrowly approved in a second referendum in October 1946.
Controversial and ineffective at best, the government of the Fourth Republic would consist of a National Assembly with wide-ranging powers and a weak ceremonial presidency. Government would be through a premier and cabinet representative of a parliamentary majority. Because of France’s many political parties, it was impossible for one party to win a parliamentary majority. Government, therefore, was by coalition and unstable at best. Between 1946 and 1958 France had 25 changes of government.
As did Britain, the French government nationalized such key industries as coal, gas, steel, electricity, the larger banks, airlines, and the Renault automobile company. Social security programs were also expanded. These reforms, however, did not have immediate benefits and the economy suffered continued setbacks. So disillusioned had many workers become that by 1947 the Communist Party was the second largest party in the National Assembly. When the Communists called for a series of strikes, they were expelled from the cabinet. Subsequent coalitions formed by the socialists and MRP failed to resolve the economic crisis, although there was some slight movement towards recovery when France joined the Marshall Plan in 1948.
In 1947 de Gaulle reentered French politics by founding a party called the “Rally of the French People” (known by its French initials RPF). Politically conservative, the RPF would seek constitutional revision for a strong executive and a revitalization of French power and prestige. Although de Gaulle himself would not seek political office, he gave direction, voice, and prestige to the RPF, which did well in both national and regional elections.
Abroad, France faced disturbing challenges. In 1945 Lebanon and Syria, French mandates since 1920, had declared their independence. French efforts to suppress their independence by force were ineffective. In 1945 Communist nationalist rebels calling themselves the Viet Minh and led by Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam independent. Subsequent negotiations between Ho and de Gaulle’s government failed to reach accommodation, and by 1947 France had found itself engaged in an ever-widening conflict in Indochina. That war would last until 1954 and would eventually see over 500,000 French combat troops committed to a conflict they could not and would not be able to win.
The Constitution of the Fourth Republic attempted to mollify nationalist feelings across the French empire by forming the French Union. The French Union was presented as a federation of states sharing French civilization and through which they would meet their mutual needs. In reality, it was simply a means of preserving France’s imperial control over its diverse possessions in Africa and Asia. The “Union’s” non-French territories would be allowed some degree of internal self-government through elected assemblies, but the composition and powers of those assemblies would be determined by France. The President of France would be the President of the Union and govern from Paris though a union assembly wherein half the members would be from France and half from France’s colonies. France would continue to “protect” Union members with its armed forces in their territories.
Membership in the French Union was accepted by the governments all of the territorial possessions with the exception of Vietnam. France denounced Ho Chi Minh’s claim to Vietnamese independence as a Communist attempt to seize control of the region. In 1950, ever more embroiled in its losing war in Indochina, France created a new “native” government for Vietnam that did join the Union. The French Vietnamese government then became the enemy of Ho’s forces. Nationalist forces in French Union countries denounced and resisted their government’s subservience to French interests. France responded by labeling nationalist opposition as “Communist.”
As France entered the 1950s its economy began to stabilize and grow. Recovery was due largely to the policies of the economist Jean Monnet who headed an Office of Planning. Monnet encouraged and oversaw the implementation of voluntary plans for modernization of business and agriculture that utilized technocratic expertise and coordinated government, management, and labor. In 1952 Monnet and Premier Robert Schuman were responsible for the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community, an international organization that provided for the free trade of coal and steel between France and five other member states, including West Germany – a significant early step towards European economic integration.
In 1954 an international conference meeting in Geneva “ended” the Indochina war. France, soundly defeated, agreed to end its political presence in and remove its armies from Indochina. The former French colony was broken up into three independent states: Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Vietnam itself would be temporarily divided north-south pending UN-supervised elections to unite the country to be held in 1956.
Seemingly no sooner was the Indochina issue resolved than France faced a similar crisis in Algeria. Algeria had been part of the French empire since the 1830s. Its northern coasts had been highly attractive to settlement and French planters and merchants had made the region economically profitable and wealthy. Algeria’s northern cities – Algiers and Oran – were French cities with Parisian-like sophistication and glamour. French Algerians were called pieds-noir (“black feet” – the color of French military boots). In 1900 the entire Algerian north from the Mediterranean coast inland to the Atlas Mountains was annexed and politically integrated as part of France itself. Below the French veneer, however, lay the millions of native Arabic-speaking Muslim Algerians. They provided the labor that made the pieds-noir so wealthy and comfortable. Nationalist feelings had been long evident among the native Algerians, but it was not until the mid-1950s that they surfaced in open rebellion.
The Algerian revolution for independence began in the fall of 1954, several months after the French defeat in Vietnam. Leading the revolution was the Algerian National Liberation Front (known by its French initials as the FLN), a coalition of nationalists ranging from French-educated Algerians from the cities to tribal Bedouins from the desert interior. French armies returning home from Indochina were sent to Algeria as the resistance intensified. Fearing the rebellion might spread beyond Algeria, France granted independence in 1956 to Algeria’s neighbors, Morocco and Tunisia, both of which had long been under French “protection.” This alarmed the pieds-noir, who feared that the French government might abandon them and ultimately grant Algeria independence. French Algeria seethed with fear and unrest while in France itself, critics of the government’s Algeria policy became increasingly vocal. The war was going badly for the forces in Algeria and dividing the population at home. French public opinion ranged across the political spectrum. On the left were voices calling for withdrawal from Algeria and independence. The right called for government resolve and military commitment to a victory that would uphold French honor and assert France’s rightful place in the world.
In 1958 the Algerian war provoked a political crisis that would end the Fourth Republic. Frustrations in the army were rising. Its honor was at stake. France had been militarily defeated in 1940 and again in 1954. In spite of the war in Algeria, the government cut military salaries and stopped publishing citations for bravery and even of lists of soldiers killed or wounded in combat. In May 1958 a group of French generals seized power from the civilian government in Algiers and proclaimed themselves a “Committee of Public Safety.” Fearing a rebellion by the army at home, the French President appointed as premier the one man he believed the army would respect – Charles de Gaulle. The army and the parties of the right were delighted. When the National Assembly approved his appointment, de Gaulle accepted, but only on the condition that he would hold full emergency powers for a period of six months during which he would oversee the creation of a new constitution. This was granted.
In September 1958 the French people overwhelmingly approved de Gaulle’s Constitution of the Fifth Republic. The new constitution provided for a powerful president elected for a seven year term. The President’s powers included the appointment of premiers and cabinets, the exercise of foreign policy, and dissolution of the parliament. The National Assembly and Senate would continue to serve as the nation’s legislature. The French Union of overseas territories was reorganized as the French Community and offered the choice of integration with France or independence. National elections in November gave de Gaulle the presidency. In parliamentary elections a “Gaullist” majority of moderate parties was returned to the National Assembly. France was now de Gaulle’s.
Addressing himself to the crisis in Algeria, de Gaulle traveled to Algiers and assured the French Algerians that he understood them and would stand by them. Yet he had already accepted the reality that Algeria must receive its independence. The war was too costly. If it were to continue, it would continue to divide the nation. In a surprise to the army, he fired the generals who had taken over the city. Nonetheless, he took no immediate action to open negotiations with the FLN. In September 1958 the FLN established a provisional Algerian government in exile in Egypt which secretly indicated a willingness to negotiate with de Gaulle. A year later in September 1959 de Gaulle announced that he would permit a referendum in Algeria wherein the Algerians might vote for independence but only four years after the FLN agreed to a cease-fire. The FLN expressed interest in the proposal. Secret negotiations began in 1960.
In 1961 ultranationalist army officers opposed to any accommodation with the Algerians attempted to seize power in Algiers but were defeated by military forces loyal to de Gaulle. The fighting now became more confused as reactionary pieds-noirs took up arms against the French forces in the city. General Raoul Salan, a long-time veteran of the Algerian conflict, founded the Secret Army Organization (known by its French initials as the OAS). The OAS announced that it would fight for a French Algeria and called upon patriotic Frenchmen to resist de Gaulle’s government. The OAS would use terrorist tactics such as bombings and assassination (in both Algeria and France) as means to its end. De Gaulle continued negotiations with the FLN and in March 1962 an agreement for a cease-fire was reached. Now at peace with the FLN, de Gaulle ordered the French army to destroy the OAS. Salan was captured, but sporadic OAS resistance continued into the summer before being suppressed. The referendum on Algeria’s future was held on July 1, 1962. In a vote of 6 million in favor to 16,000 opposed, the Algerians approved independence. On July 3 France recognized Algeria as an independent country. Seven years of bloody conflict were over.
While certainly weakened by its experience in World War Two and its long military conflicts in Vietnam and Algeria, France, as did Britain, continued to consider itself (and be considered by others) a major world power. It held a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. It took an active role in the Cold War, participating in the Berlin Airlift and working with the US and Britain in the creation of West Germany. In 1949 it was one of the original members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). As mentioned above, in 1952 it was instrumental in forming the European Coal and Steel Community. In the Suez crisis of 1956 France suffered a humiliating loss of international prestige. (The Suez Crisis is explained above in the context of Britain.) Some prestige was regained in 1957 when France was instrumental in the formation of the European Economic Community (the Common Market).
Under de Gaulle, France became much more assertive in international affairs. De Gaulle resented the power of the United States and saw Britain as too much under American influence. It was France’s destiny, he believed, to revitalize its traditional role as the great power of Europe. In 1960 France became a nuclear power by successfully testing an atomic bomb in the Pacific. De Gaulle made it clear that France would follow its own program in the development of nuclear weapons and would not be affected by international efforts to limit nuclear armaments. In 1963 France refused to join the US, Britain, and the USSR in the international Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Earlier in 1963 de Gaulle blocked Britain’s attempt to join the Common Market. De Gaulle set aside traditional hostilities and successfully cultivated closer relations between France and West Germany, hoping to reduce the German closeness with the US. In 1964 in further demonstration of independence in foreign policy, he extended diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China. This was not received well in the US, which had attempted to keep its allies from recognizing the Communist regime, especially as in that same year China tested an atomic bomb. In 1966 de Gaulle ended France’s military participation in NATO.[2] All foreign military forces (primarily American) in France were to be withdrawn. NATO was compelled to relocate its headquarters from Paris to Brussels.
Outside of Europe, France presented itself as sympathetic to the aspirations of Third World peoples and as a champion of anti-imperialism. In 1960 France allowed its African colonies to claim independence. The political map of Africa changed dramatically as some 13 new sovereign states came into existence.
De Gaulle would be reelected to another seven year term as president in 1965. His presidency ended four years later in 1969.
In May 1968 Paris experienced an outbreak of student protest against the university system. The students demanded that the universities expand enrollment and make curricular changes to accommodate more “relevant” social and political concerns. Much on the line of student protests in the United States, radical elements of the French student leadership condemned the establishment, the status quo, the American war in Vietnam, and loudly proclaimed the coming of “The Revolution.” Riot police and students battled in the streets. Adding to the distress was a massive strike that took some ten million workers off their jobs. While most workers’ interests were unrelated to student concerns, the combination of worker and student protest alarmed de Gaulle. The President secured assurances from the army that it would support him should he need to take more forceful action. De Gaulle then dissolved the National Assembly and set new elections for late June. The strikes abated as businesses negotiated new contracts raising workers’ wages. The ongoing student unrest was alarming to the general public and failed to win popular sympathy. Massive counter-demonstrations saw well-dressed middle class citizens marching in the streets of Paris condemning the students. On the eve of the elections, de Gaulle warned of communism and anarchy. As a result, his party won an overwhelming majority. The student protest abated and melted away. Seeing the need for a stronger popular mandate, de Gaulle in 1969 presented to the country a referendum on a set of constitutional reforms granting greater regional autonomy. When his reforms failed to win a majority, he saw the defeat as a rejection of his leadership. Now 79 years old, bitter and dejected, de Gaulle resigned and retired to his country estate. There, he died in 1970.
With de Gaulle’s passing, an era came to an end. Under his leadership France had emerged from the humiliation of its wartime defeat and the constitutional stagnation of the Fourth Republic. With the Fifth Republic France de Gaulle’s France achieved constitutional stability. The French economy continued to grow and living standards continued to improve. While ending its role as a colonial power, de Gaulle’s France asserted itself as a major player in international affairs. Throughout, “The General,” as de Gaulle was popularly known, asserted the revival of French “grandeur.” As were Louis XIV and Napoleon, de Gaulle was France.
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What happened in Vietnam?
Vietnam would not be reunited in 1956. The northern portion of the country, named the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, ruled by Ho Chi Minh’s Communists in Hanoi would justifiably claim sovereignty over the whole of the country. Ho’s Viet Minh forces had defeated the French and he was highly popular among the Vietnamese people in both north and south. This state was known simply as North Vietnam. In the south the Vietnamese government established by France in 1950, ruling from Saigon, likewise claimed sovereignty over the whole country as the Republic of Vietnam. It became known as South Vietnam.
In 1955 a military coup in South Vietnam brought to power a conservative Catholic regime that sought close ties with the US as a cold war ally against the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. Heading this new government was Ngo Dinh Diem. When the UN attempted to hold the 1956 elections, the South Vietnamese government, with US approval, refused. Anti-government opposition in South Vietnam was repressed as Diem’s government became increasingly dictatorial. By 1960 Communist-led guerrilla resistance, supported by North Vietnam, had broken out across South Vietnam. Seeing the insurrection in South Vietnam as a deliberate effort by the Communists to suppress “democracy” in South Vietnam, the US began to increase its military assistance to South Vietnam. American weapons and military advisors were sent to South Vietnam as the war escalated. In May 1961, only five months after the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, de Gaulle, reflecting on the French experience in Vietnam, told the new American President: “I predict to you that you will step by step be sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire despite the losses and expenditures you may squander.” By 1968 there would be some 500,000 American combat troops in Vietnam engaged in a war they could not and would not be able to win.
Italy (to 1960)
Italy had been ravaged by the war. The Allied campaign that began with the invasion of Sicily in 1943 had been stubbornly resisted by the Germans. As the Allies fought their way northward to Naples and Rome, anti-Fascist partisans led by the Italian Communist Party waged a guerrilla war against the Germans in northern Italy. From 1943 through the end of the war in 1945, there were two governments claiming sovereignty over Italy. The legitimate government, led by Badoglio, had surrendered and joined the Allies. The other was the puppet regime the Germans had established for Mussolini in Milan. Because Italy had joined the Allies, it was spared the large-scale bombing attacks on its major cities.
In 1946 a new constitution formally made Italy a republic, ending the Savoyard monarchy that had reigned since1860. The constitution established a ceremonial presidency under which executive power would be exercised by a premier to be chosen from the leadership of the party holding a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian parliament. Because Italy, as did France, had numerous political parties, it would prove difficult for any one party to win an absolute majority. Italy’s political future, consequently, would be government by coalition ministries.
As the result of the country’s first peacetime elections in late 1946, the leading Christian Democratic Party (known by its Italian initials DC) formed a coalition to form a government. The DC was a center-right Catholic party led by Alcide De Gasperi who was appointed premier. So turbulent were Italian politics that De Gasperi would serve as premier for eight new governments between 1946 and 1953. De Gasperi was a long-time veteran of Italian politics. Born in 1881 he was a native of the Trentino (Tyrol), then part of the Austrian – Hungarian Empire. He had represented the Trentino in the Austrian parliament and after the Trentino’s cessation to Italy in 1919 served as a Catholic deputy in the Italian parliament. His anti-Fascist views led to his arrest and a 16-month imprisonment, after which he received a position as a Vatican librarian. Following Mussolini’s dismissal and the end of Fascist rule in 1943, De Gasperi returned to Italian politics as a founder of the Christian Democrats.
De Gasperi’s primary objective was Italian economic recovery and restoration of Italy’s reputation as a democratic and honorable nation. To this end he oversaw programs that sought to revitalize Italian industry. The postwar center of Italian industry was the “triangle” of northeastern cities, Genoa, Turin, and Milan. The DC government provided generous subsidies to key industries such as the Fiat automobile company. Italian membership in the Marshall Plan likewise accelerated recovery and by 1950 Italy’s productivity was twice that of its prewar levels. While benefiting from the recovery, Italy’s industrialists were opposed to any social legislation that could undermine their traditional political influence. When the DC attempted to make land reforms to relieve the poverty of millions of peasants in the rural south, the industrialists joined with the big landowners to oppose the changes. The break-up of large landed estates would, De Gasperi argued, enable peasants to become independent farmers free to produce and market their goods, generating wealth by which they could buy manufactured goods from the industrial north. Still, the conservative elements remained resistant to land reform.
Because of continued unemployment and rural poverty, the greatest challenge to the Christian Democrats came from the parties of the left, the Communists and Socialists. The Communists were popular because of their patriotic resistance to the Germans during the war and because of their revolutionary ideology calling for reforms for workers and peasants. The Communists polled well in the 1946 elections and received seats in the new cabinet. Encouraged by their electoral support, the Communists sought to undermine the new government by calling for a series of strikes. De Gasperi, seeing the Communists as a threat to Italy’s recovery, expelled them from the cabinet in 1947. In alarmed response to the popularity of the left-wing parties, the United States actively intervened in a European election campaign by publicly endorsing the DC. With a DC victory in parliamentary elections in 1948, De Gasperi actively pursued close relations with the US. The Communists polled better than other minority parties but were still denied a role in the government. Seeing themselves shut out of the national government, the Communists would redirect their attention to local and regional politics.
In 1953 the DC suffered an ideological schism, dividing over land reform. Conservative Christian Democrats were willing to ally themselves with former Fascists and monarchists to prevent change in the traditional Italian social structure. Liberals wanted to push ahead with reforms and were willing cooperate with the Socialists and other left wing parties. In the parliamentary elections of that year, the DC split caused the party to lose its majority. De Gasperi was compelled to resign. The DC would continue to be the dominant party in Italian political life, but it would never regain its unity and, without leadership of De Gasperi’s caliber, became committed to the status quo. In the mid-1960s the DC did “open” government to the Left by permitting the Socialists participation in the cabinet, but the status quo persisted.
De Gasperi’s legacy was a revitalized and dynamic Italy. In international affairs and prestige, Italy experienced an impressive resurgence. De Gasperi had realized the value of active cooperation with Italy’s former enemies. Such cooperation would restore Italy’s standing as a major power. In 1947 Italy accepted a final Treaty restructuring its boundaries and stripping it of its former colonies. In 1948 it joined the Marshall Plan. In 1949 it was one of the original members of NATO. In 1952 it joined the European Coal and Steel Community and later, in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, the Common Market. In 1955 Italy joined the United Nations. Meanwhile, Italy’s industrial growth rivaled that of France and West Germany. Italian fashions and cinema dominated the arts. A new fleet of spectacular ocean liners, inaugurated with the 1953 launching of the Andrea Doria, dazzled international tourism. In 1960 Rome hosted the summer Olympic Games.
Excluded from a role in national government, the Italian Communist Party reinvented itself. Following the death of Stalin (1953) the new Soviet leadership rejected confrontation with the West in favor of peaceful coexistence. With Moscow’s changing direction, European Communist parties, especially in France and Italy, followed suit by freeing themselves entirely from Soviet influence. “Eurocommunism,” as the new Western Communist identity came to be called, would seek its ends through “parliamentary democracy and national consensus” (Palmer et al., 862). By abandoning its condemnation of religion and its revolutionary rhetoric, the Italian Communists moved from the far left to a more centrist position. Asserting its independence from Moscow, the Italian Communist Party condemned the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and even supported Italy’s membership in NATO. Appealing to a largely urban working class popular base, Communists did well in regional and local politics and were elected as mayors and to the municipal councils of several major cities. The Communists did well in parliamentary elections, reaching as high as 35 % of the vote by the mid-1970s, yet they were still denied cabinet positions in the DC-dominated national government.
Thus, Italy advanced into the latter half of the Twentieth Century. Italy remained fractured politically, its governments dependent upon fragile coalitions, but economic recovery and expansion provided stability.
West Germany (to 1975)
The new West German state established in 1949 was officially named the Federal Republic of Germany. For easier recognition, this reading will identify the Federal Republic as West Germany. West Germany would be autonomous in the making of its internal and domestic policies. The Western Allies, however, would retain control over West German military and foreign policy. Parliamentary elections returned a majority for the Christian Democratic Union, and its leader, 73-year old Konrad Adenauer became West Germany’s first Chancellor. Known as Der Alte (the “Old Man”), Adenauer would hold the chancellorship until 1963.
Born to Catholic parents in 1876, Adenauer studied law and politics at several universities whereat he was also active in Catholic student organizations. He practiced law in the Rhineland city of Cologne, his hometown. He became active in the Center Party and in 1917 was elected mayor of Cologne in which office he served until the Nazis came to power in 1933. He was briefly imprisoned in 1934 but spent most of the Nazi period in quiet retirement. At the end of the war American occupation authorities temporarily restored him as mayor of Cologne. As Cologne would later be assigned to British occupation, he was dismissed as mayor but soon became active in the formation and leadership of the Christian Democratic Union, a new Catholic party. In 1948 he served as president of the constitutional convention called by the Allies to create a new government for the three Western Zones. It was from this position that he would pass to the Chancellorship of the government he was instrumental in creating.
The West German political system, established in 1949, remains in place today. The West German constitution, known as the “Basic Law,” called for a parliamentary democracy. Legislation would be by a bicameral parliament consisting of a Bundestag representative of the German people and a Bundesrat representing the ten German states. Executive authority would be held by the Chancellor (prime minister) and a cabinet. The Chancellor would be the leader of the party or coalition of parties that held a majority in the Bundestag. A ceremonial presidency would serve as head of state. The German states would hold a limited degree of political autonomy, much as do the American states.
In October 1949 the Soviet Union established the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as an autonomous state with its capital in East Berlin. There were no elections. With Soviet direction the East German leadership was appointed from the zone’s Communist central committee. East Germany was self-governing except for matters of foreign and military policy. Parliamentary elections in 1950 predictably returned a majority of the Socialist Unity Party (the official name of the East German Communist Party).
For the next four decades the two Germanys would remain at the center of the Cold War in Europe. A divided Germany was very much in the interests of the Soviet Union. Twice in the first half of the twentieth century Germany had invaded Russia with devastating consequences. A reunited Germany free of foreign control could once again threaten Soviet security. Even though the Soviets publicly subscribed to the wartime Allied goal of future German reunification, Soviet policy did all it could to keep Germany divided and sought to prevent the western Allies from making West Germany strong and powerful.
The western presence in Berlin, some 110 miles inside East Germany, was galling to both the Soviets and East Germany. The western Allies had made West Berlin a showplace of prosperity and progress. East Berliners who held jobs in West Berlin or had relatives living in the West could see firsthand the accomplishments of capitalism and democracy. It was from West Berlin that western spies could easily slip into Communist Eastern Europe. All one had to do was cross a street to go from West Berlin into East Germany. Western radio broadcast centers in West Berlin directed their propaganda programming to the east. As the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev once remarked, West Berlin was as a “bone stuck in the Soviet throat.” It is not the place here to present the Cold War crises centering on Berlin. The Soviets acted twice more, in 1958 and again in 1961, to compel the western Allies to withdraw from Berlin. Suffice it to say, Berlin was a serious Cold War hotspot.
In 1955 the Western Allies granted full sovereignty to West Germany. To Soviet concern, the Western Allies allowed West Berlin to be put under West German civil authority. West Germany was permitted to rearm and join NATO. The West Germans perceived the Soviet threat as real and, as a NATO partner, permitted Western military forces to remain in West Germany.
The Soviet Union responded to West Germany's joining NATO by founding the Warsaw Pact, a mutually defensive military alliance of Communist countries. East Germany joined the Warsaw Pact. Moscow, however, did extend low-level diplomatic recognition to West Germany, thus giving its sanction to the possible permanence of German division. It would not be until 1960 that the Soviets would recognize East Germany as a sovereign state. East German Communist Party chief Walter Ulbricht took control of the government and followed a hard-line anti-Western foreign policy.
Adenauer (R) and de Gaulle (L)
Stable, motivated, and with determined resolution, the West Germans addressed themselves to economic reconstruction. In 1949 it joined the Marshall Plan. By 1950 West Germany’s economic productivity surpassed its prewar levels. By 1958 it had become the leading industrial country in postwar Europe. The West Germans, justifiably, had a word for their economic accomplishment – Wirtschaftswunder (“economic miracle”). A member of the European Coal and Steel Community since 1952, West Germany was likewise committed to European economic integration. In 1957 it became a charter member of the European Economic Community, the Common Market. These memberships testified to the German desire to belong to a Europe that was economically strong and prosperous. Chancellor Adenauer believed that West Germany had a moral obligation to demonstrate to the world that it had rejected Nazism and sought active cooperation with Germany’s former enemies, Britain, France, the US, and even the USSR. In 1955 he traveled to Moscow to secure release of German prisoners of war and discuss Soviet diplomatic recognition. In the late 1950s he established a lasting and close personal working relationship with French President de Gaulle. The two met frequently, Adenauer shrewdly deferring to de Gaulle’s sense of grandeur.
In 1958 the Soviets heated up the Berlin issue by demanding that the Western Allies withdraw from the city. US President Eisenhower responded that the Allies would stand firm in Berlin and demanded that the USSR honor its wartime agreements. The crisis passed as the US and Soviets enjoyed a short period of improved relations highlighted by Khrushchev’s visit to the US in 1959. In 1960 US – Soviet relations deteriorated in the international repercussions of the U-2 Affair, wherein an American spy plane was shot down deep inside the USSR. Believing the new American president Kennedy to be politically naïve and weak, Soviet Premier Khrushchev again made Berlin an issue in 1961. Khrushchev attempted to force Western withdrawal from Berlin by threatening to make a separate peace treaty with East Germany. Fearing access might be closed, thousands of East Germans fled into West Berlin, seeking asylum in the West. To stem the flow of refugees, Soviet and East German officials ordered the erection of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. In the months that followed American and Soviet tanks faced each other in the center of Berlin. This Berlin crisis passed, but tensions between the two superpowers were heightened to dangerous levels. In 1962 Kennedy traveled to Berlin and, standing with Adenauer and West Berlin’s Mayor Willi Brandt within sight of the Wall, assured continued Allied protection of the city and proclaimed that “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”).
Adenauer resigned as Chancellor in 1963. He was then 87 years old. He died in 1967. He is still regarded by Germans today as the most respected political figure of their 20th century history.
Willi Brandt
And What of Spain?
At the end of World War Two in 1945 Spain was still a fascist dictatorship and still under the rule of Francisco Franco. Franco came to power in 1936 on the background of the Spanish Civil War. He was the leader (El Caudillo) of the Falangist Party, a fascist movement similar to those in Italy and Germany.
Having kept Spain neutral throughout the war, Franco seemed content to separate Spain’s ideological identity from that of Germany and Italy. After all, Spain had recently undergone a bitter civil war and he did not want to see his country become another battlefield. There was no way the Axis powers could guarantee the protection of Spain’s island territories (the Balearics in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands in the Atlantic). Ever the opportunist, he would wait and watch the course of the war. This was smart. Gibraltar, a major British naval base at Spain’s southern tip, was key to Allied access to the Mediterranean. A Spanish attempt to seize Gibraltar would certainly provoke Allied declarations of war and military retaliation.
Though Spain was neutral, there were, of course, active efforts of foreign espionage, secret negotiations with both sides, even Spanish “volunteers” fighting on both sides. Franco’s primary objective was to keep his country at peace because that would keep him in power.
Spanish neutrality meant that Jews who were able to escape Nazi persecution elsewehere in Europe could find refuge there. This presents a remarkable contrast to the brutal persecution of Spain's Jewish and Muslim populations in the 15th century.
With the end of the war, Spain, like much of Europe, experienced economic depression. Because of its fascist government, Spain was the only European country denied Marshall Plan assistance. But in 1947 a relaxation of the Falangist Party’s control of the economy saw the beginning of recovery.
Also in 1947, Franco called for the restoration of the monarchy, announcing that once he died, the Bourbon prince Juan Carlos would succeed him as head of state. Juan Carlos was a grandson of Alfonso XIII, deposed by the republican revolution in 1931. Franco died in 1975.
Under Juan Carlos's guidance, Spain then made a remarkable transition from dictatorship to democracy. The Constitution of 1978 created a constitutional monarchy. As king, Juan Carlos would reign with ceremonial responsibilities. The actual governing of the country would be through the Cortes Generales, an elected bicameral (Assembly and Senate) parliamentary system with a prime minister as head of government. All adult citizens held the right to vote. In 2014 Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son Filipe VI, Spain’s present monarch.
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Image of Queen Elizabeth II is from the Dorothy Wilding Studio on the Mutual Art Website.
Images of Churchill, Eden, and MacMillan are from Wikipedia.
Images of DeGaulle are from Wikipedia and Prospect Magazine
Image of De Gasperi is from Wikipedia.
Images of Adenauer and Brandt are from Wikipedia.
Images of Franco and Juan Carlos are from Wikipedia.
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Sources for Postwar Western Europe
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War. New York: Penguin, 2005.
Ganley, Albert et al. After Hiroshima: America since 1945. New York: Longman, 1985.
Gilbert, Felix. The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present. New York: Norton, 1970.
Langer, William L. et al. An Encyclopedia of World History. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: Norton, 1996.
Palmer, Robert R. et al. A History of the Modern World. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Paterson, Thomas et al. American Foreign Policy. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1991.
Sebestyen, Victor. 1946: The Making of the Modern World. New York: Pantheon, 2014.
Wetterau, Bruce. Macmillan Concise Dictionary of World History. New York: Macmillan, 1983.
[1] The result of the British withdrawal from Greece was the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine whereby the US could commit its resources to contain the further spread of Communism.
[2] In 2009 France resumed its military participation in NATO.