Germany and European Integration

Abstract

Since 1945, Germany’s role in the project of European integration has been central for the continent’s economic and political development. The fourth volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History, edited by Mark Gilbert (Johns Hopkins University Bologna), Eva Oberloskamp and Thomas Raithel (both Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History), assembles articles, which have been published previously in the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, and specially commissioned contributions. The chapters cover a wide range of topics. The theories and visions of European integration that were articulated after World War II are the starting point for the volume. The period embraced by the book stretches to the earliest stages of European Economic and Monetary Union, which received substantial momentum from German unifi cation in 1989/90.