The Europeanization of Honour: Wehrmacht Veterans and European Integration in the 1950s

Abstract

This article analyses the Europeanization of West German associations of Wehrmacht veterans in the 1950s. Using archival sources concerning the foundation of a European veterans’ umbrella organisation, the article argues that the veterans’ attempts at political reassertion in the post-war decades cannot be understood without accounting for their European dimension. Indeed, the veterans considered their European outreach to be a core pillar of their ‘politics of honour’, which manifested itself mainly in the agitation for the war criminals in Allied custody. Thus, aiming to establish themselves as effective and legitimate interest representatives, the veterans Europeanized. This process was consciously modelled after the ongoing process of integration while simultaneously exhibiting distinct characteristics stemming from the veterans themselves. The article tracks the veterans’ transnational interactions, their competitive dynamics in West German associational politics and the veterans’ associational interests to explain their specific form of an alternative Europeanization.