Germany and Italy: the ‘odd couple’ at the heart of Europe

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the historical roots of the recent revival of the mutual prejudice between Germany and Italy in European politics. The paper seeks to explain the longevity of stereotyped representations of ‘the other’ in German-Italian relations down to the present day. To this end, both the national post-war memories and the ‘memory cultures’ of the two countries have to be taken into account. Furthermore, it argues that the resurgence of mutual prejudice between Germany and Italy can also be seen as the expression of a recurrent historical pattern in European politics after 1945. Despite the image of peaceful cooperation that has often been conveyed, the history of European integration has seen disagreements and conflict between the member states, periodically exhuming historic bones of contention and asymmetries. At points of heightened tension, one-sided or controversial post-war historical memories have tended to surface, steeped in stereotype, commonplace and prejudice. One recurrent cause of tension between Italy and Germany has been the prospect of a ‘variable-geometry’ or ‘multiple-speed’ Europe.

KEYWORDS:

• Germany
• Italy
• stereotypes
• prejudices
• national memories
• German-Italian relations
• European Integration
• ‘multiple-speed’ Europe

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the editors of this issue as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This was how the Italian-German relationship was described in the title of an Italian-German conference in 2000, hosted by the Goethe-Institut in Rome. The papers were published in Zeitschrift für Kultur Austausch, 2000, n.2 under the title ‘Italien-Deutschland. Eine besondere Beziehung’.

2. In 1994 a basement of the general military prosecutor’s office was notoriously found to contain the so-called ‘cupboard of shame’, containing 695 files on the atrocities committed by Nazis and Fascists during the war years in Italy, from 1943 to 1945 (Franzinelli 2003; Giustolisi 2004). As of 16 February 2016 the Italian Chamber of Deputies has placed on-line the thirteen thousand pages of documents declassified by the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry set up in 2003.

3. In 1990, for example, the European Social Survey found that only 48% said they were very or fairly confident with respect to the European Union, as compared with 75% of Italians.

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Notes on contributors

Gabriele D’Ottavio

Gabriele D’Ottavio is Assistant Professor at the University of Trento, where he teaches international and European history. His publications include L’età costituente. Italia 1945–1948 (co-edited with G. Bernardini, M. Cau, C. Nubola, Il Mulino 2017); Europa mit den Deutschen. Die Bundesrepublik und die europäische Integration (1949–1966) (Duncker&Humblot 2016) and Germany after the 2013 Elections: Breaking the Mould of Post-Unification Politics? (co-edited with T. Saalfeld, Ashgate 2015).