"Very well said, and finally a line of posts that can take us somewhere.
The father, or grandfather, of the EU is of course der Herr von Linz, He Who Must Not Be Named.
Father more in the Darth Vader sense, not the George Washington one, to be sure-but father nonetheless."
Yes and no - but a very interesting and insightful post in any case. Actually the idea of a European Union is older than the Third Reich, as it was first circulated in the 1920s (WWI had already been a pretty devastating experience).
But during the first half of the 20th century Europe was the very center of the world, with the British Empire, the (very short-lived) German empire and France with it's colonies in Africa and Indo-China.
So in a way, one could say that the EU is the answer to not only the longing for a third way, but also to the loss of power of the European nation states. Empires are always doomed to fall (That wouldn't be different in the case of an attempt at an American empire.), and the end of European imperialism made it necessary for the European nations to reposition themselves.
Neither Germany, France nor Great Britain alone will be able to keep up with China or India in the future, so the necessity for a trade alliance like the EU is real.
"The survivors and their children are still trying to mine something of value out of that bunker near Potsdamerplatz, and their failure is going to have longlasting and unpredictable consequences."
That's the problem with history. It's never predictable. But I see no more reason to be pessimistic in the case of Europe than in the U.S.. Every nation / region has its traumas, even the United States. Maybe there still is a longing here for "instead of competition, Gemeinschaft instead of Gesellschaft" (although I think that recent trends have proven, that this is not the sole "raison d'etre" for European citizens). One might also diagnose an "irrational desire for security" in the US these days... the thing is: you never know, how it plays out.
But I myself see no reason to be overly pessimistic. The EU won't become a superstate, neither will it fall apart, it will just drag on as always... ;-).
Just to prevent misunderstandings: I don't see the U.S. American desire for security as irrational per se. It is indeed absolutely justified. I just wanted to point out how difficult it is to apply "mass psychology" to states and societies, especially when one aims at predicting the future. Nations simply aren't persons. That's why I'm generally sceptic about cultural pessimism ("Kulturpessimismus").
BTW: An interesting read for those interested in the topic might be "De la prochaine guerre avec l'Allemagne" by Philippe Delmas (of Airbus). There's a German edition, but I'm not sure if there's also an english translation.
BTW: How does one use Italics?
Oh, of course. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise, in fact, Napoleon had a sort of proto-EU in hand before the first exile.
In any case the "philosophy" of AH was entirely derivative. What was new, what shook the foundations of Europe in the 1930s, was the emotion, the fusion of the romantic with the modern and scientific.
I lived in Europe in the 70s, and the young soi-disant Europeans who constantly repeated "we're not French, we're not Germans, we're Europaischers" were not at all convincing to me. Maybe things have changed.
There was and is, though, a deep spiritual longing to believe.
To believe in what-that's the question. To believe in Man, to believe in community, to believe in the primacy of the (greatly expanded) tribe (which still does not include God's chosen)-Arbeit macht frei.
Beware.