The Larrouse "Chronicle of the XX Century" is found in libraries all over the francophone world. Here is a verbatim translation of an entry from 1953, jut above a picture of Humphrey Bogart and the late Katherine Hepburn in the film of that year "The African Queen". Showing this article to many Westerners nurtured on Cold War ideology and they’ll say that they don’t know this, but that it was a Stalinist plot to take over Europe.
Dick Piper
March 19, 1953
"After receiving a Soviet note, proposing the reunion of the two Germany’s, confusion reigns in the Western Camp. Certainly, at first glance, the six principal points suggested by the Soviet Union’s note, could only not but be unanimously adopted by the USA, Britain and France.
Germany will form a unified state
All foreign forces will evacuate the country
Democratic rights will be guaranteed
Political parties of all tendencies will be authorized
Only organizations of an anti-democratic character will be prohibited
War veterans will not be discriminated against
The USSR accepted the principal of the postwar national German Army, but they refused it the right to adhere to any pact against any country having defeated German Nazism. This fact was the trial balloon by the Soviets to try to discourage Germany from entering NATO or any defensive community, be it the West or the East.
Of course, Chancellor Adenauer of West Germany refused this proposition outright, since he demanded the revision of the Eastern German-Polish border that was unanimously put in place by the victorious Allies – Britain, USA, France and the USSR."
I remember being in Germany, in Bonn in 1983 and seeing a West German map that showed the German Democratic Republic-Poland boundary with a dotted line – meaning that West Germany Government did not recognize the boundary as agreed upon by the WWII Allies. This West German attitude was supported by France, England and USA when the Cold War was at its peak.
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