European Enlargement across Rounds and Beyond Borders

Ikonomou, Haakon A.; Andry, Aurélie; Byberg, Rebecca

doi:10.4324/9781315460017

Cited by 14 publications

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Helmut Schmidt and British-German Relations

Haeussler¹

2019

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The almost thirty years between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and Helmut Schmidt's election as West German chancellor in 1974 saw profound shifts in the relative power balance between Britain and Germany. In 1945, Britain was a victorious power with still global reach; its dominions and colonial possessions stretched across Africa, Asia and Australia, and it still counted over 700 million people as citizens of the British Empire and Commonwealth. 1 The scope of Britain's geostrategic reach was matched by its financial and economic dominance: in 1950, Britain produced almost one-third of Western Europe's industrial output, and half of the world's trade was conducted in pounds sterling. 2 Germany, by contrast, was a comprehensively defeated, divided and occupied country, shouldering the unique historical burden of the Holocaust and the Second World War. 3 Less than thirty years later, however, the situation looked very different indeed. By 1970, the FRG had become Western Europe's undisputed economic powerhouse, with its share of world exports of manufactures amounting to almost 20 per cent. 4 The FRG's economic power had also become increasingly reflected in the political realm, with the country taking on prominent roles inside the multilateral alliances of the EC and NATO. Britain, by contrast, was suffering from a profound loss of military, political and economic strength caused by its transition to a medium-sized post-imperial power. By the mid 1960s, Britain's share

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