This is a cross-posting, but I thought that a few of you who don't visit the non-English forums would find these images interesting.
A long time ago, in the 'Where in the world' topic, there was a discussion about the cathedral of Reims, and an incidental mention was made of the memorial-stone in front of the building that marks the 1962 meeting and handgrasp that took place there between Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, to symbolise the rapprochement of France and Germany after a long period of conflict.
The mutual embrace was thereafter formalised in the Treaty Élysée, signed in Paris on January 22, 1963, in which the two countries agreed to seek a common foreign policy and to coördinate all their future undertakings wherever possible. Naturally this resulted in shock, alarm and dismay among those European states who were habited to rely on Franco-Allemagnian hostility as an advantage to themselves.
This is a picture of a monument to the meeting, located in the Tiergarten in Berlin.
Above is a photo from the actual event, The man seen standing on the step immediately behind De Gaulle and Adenauer is Édouard Daladier, who was France's negotiator at the 1938 Munich Agreement / Münchner Abkommen.
Frederick the Great, Bonaparte, and Count von Bismarck are looking down, and saying "Who would have imagined it?"
Belgian cartoon above shows the bridal couple, DeGaulle dressed as a Bavarian farmer and Adenauer is wearing Marianne's cap.
The Russians were also their usual tasteful and subtle selves, seen in the three images below:
The last one is the most insightful and trenchant of the lot IMHO, in contrast to the fear-mongering of the others. The caption says, "There, now we will be twice as fast!"
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(ed. for the usual ... spelling and grammar)
A long time ago, in the 'Where in the world' topic, there was a discussion about the cathedral of Reims, and an incidental mention was made of the memorial-stone in front of the building that marks the 1962 meeting and handgrasp that took place there between Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, to symbolise the rapprochement of France and Germany after a long period of conflict.
The mutual embrace was thereafter formalised in the Treaty Élysée, signed in Paris on January 22, 1963, in which the two countries agreed to seek a common foreign policy and to coördinate all their future undertakings wherever possible. Naturally this resulted in shock, alarm and dismay among those European states who were habited to rely on Franco-Allemagnian hostility as an advantage to themselves.
This is a picture of a monument to the meeting, located in the Tiergarten in Berlin.
Above is a photo from the actual event, The man seen standing on the step immediately behind De Gaulle and Adenauer is Édouard Daladier, who was France's negotiator at the 1938 Munich Agreement / Münchner Abkommen.
Frederick the Great, Bonaparte, and Count von Bismarck are looking down, and saying "Who would have imagined it?"
Belgian cartoon above shows the bridal couple, DeGaulle dressed as a Bavarian farmer and Adenauer is wearing Marianne's cap.
The Russians were also their usual tasteful and subtle selves, seen in the three images below:
The last one is the most insightful and trenchant of the lot IMHO, in contrast to the fear-mongering of the others. The caption says, "There, now we will be twice as fast!"
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(ed. for the usual ... spelling and grammar)
