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Heike Bungert, A New Perspective on French-American Relations during the Occupation of Germany, 1945–1948: Behind-the-Scenes Diplomatic Bargaining and the Zonal Merger, Diplomatic History, Volume 18, Issue 3, July 1994, Pages 333–352, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7709.1994.tb00217.x
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The Allied occupation of Germany after the Second World War and the subsequent formation of the West German state have received a great deal of attention from historians. Most historians, however, either view the gradual evolution of the Federal Republic of Germany in terms of the Cold War or concentrate almost exclusively on the United States and Great Britain.1 American historians usually treat the French as difficult partners who obstructed the development of a German state, contributed substantially to the division of Germany by objecting to central German administrations in 1945 and 1946, and only came around in 1947 and 1948.2 Many historians omit the French almost completely from accounts of the evolution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Only recently has facilitated access to French archives sparked a more positive evaluation of the French role in the occupation of Germany. Historians like Rainer Hudemann, Alain Lattard, John Gillingham, and Klaus-Dietmar Henke have shown that France's German policy in the postwar period has to be assessed with far more differentiation than it has been and that the official shift in French policy that occurred in 1947 and 1948 was actually prepared much earlier. Although France pursued a far more contradictory policy than the other Allies, historians have proved that in their social policy, in their position on German trade unions, in their denazification policy, in the plans they proposed for the Ruhr area, and in the cultural policy they pursued in their zone of occupation the French provided many innovative initiatives, were far less restrictive toward the Germans than was previously assumed, and often had valuable suggestions to make.3 But the picture of France's German policy still remains sketchy.4 Moreover, recent discoveries about French policy have been left out of those few accounts we have of French-American relations in the crucial postwar era.5
