17 - War, Peace and Memory: Franco-German Reconciliation

Summary

In ‘Göttingen’, the French singer Barbara, who as a Jewish child hid in German-occupied France during the Second World War, celebrated Franco-German reconciliation after the bloodshed and hatred that had marked bilateral relations in the past. The song, recorded in 1964 first in French and later in German, was hailed as a hymn to Franco-German reconciliation and credited for improving post-war Franco-German relations. The song’s melancholic tunes certainly captured the Zeitgeist of an era: it was recorded roughly a year after the signature of the Élysée ‘friendship’ treaty on 22 January 1963. The treaty was instrumental in forging a narrative of how the two countries overcame a shared history of conflict and rivalry to become a driving force of European integration.