Infrastructures, infrastructural cooperation and the continuity of European Integration: The European Postal and Telecommunication Union

传统的历史研究将第二次世界大战视为欧洲一体化历史的一个休止符。尽管人们倾向于将一体化进程视为从19世纪开始的长期连续性的一部分，但战争时期仍然被视为一个决定性的切口。虽然在1920年代后半期欧洲经济和政治一体化的趋势很强，但1939年至1945年期间却充满了冲突。该项目旨在挑战这种说法。欧洲邮政和电信联盟（Europäischer Post- und Fernmeldeverein）是一个国际组织，成立于1942年，由德国和意大利领导。它涵盖了广泛的欧洲国家（轴心国和中立国），并顺利运作了两年。除此之外，从1920年代到1950年代，有很强的机构和个人连续性。本项目的出发点是，尽管第二次世界大战发生了根本性的意识形态、政治和军事冲突，但基础设施框架内的欧洲一体化进程并没有完全中断。相反，第二次世界大战似乎加速了这一特定部门的跨国合作。法德关系在这一背景下发挥了关键作用，因为协作、合作和竞争的相互作用成为欧洲邮政和电信发展一体化的决定性推动力之一。为了探讨这些复杂的问题，一般项目将分为三个部分：第一个将致力于Europäischer Post- und Fernmeldeverein迄今未知的制度历史，第二个将涉及欧洲一体化在这一特定领域的长期结构，涵盖20世纪20年代至30年代，第三部分将比较邮政和电信一体化与同期其他基础设施（如内陆航运）的情况。这样做，该项目将揭示新的光在战争期间的法德关系，一方面和欧洲一体化的历史。从机构角度来看，该项目将促进法国和德国领先的历史研究团体在邮电部门跨国合作领域的合作，并将联合法德史学，历史基础设施研究和欧洲一体化史等研究领域。该项目的设计使人们能够从多个角度分析这一专题，并就复杂的相互依存关系重新构建针对具体国家的多元视角。它还将加强德国和法国之间以及不同跨国研究网络之间的机构合作。因此，该项目将为法德合作开辟新的主题和机构联系。

Traditional historical research regards the Second World War as a caesura for the history of European integration. Despite a tendency to view the integration process as part of a long-term continuity beginning in the 19th century, the war period is still characterized as a decisive incision. While there was a strong movement towards the economic and political integration of Europe in the second half of the 1920s, the years between 1939 and 1945 were dominated by conflict. The project intends to challenge this narrative. It is centred around the Europäischer Post- und Fernmeldeverein (European Postal and Telecommunication Union), an international organisation founded in 1942 under German and Italian leadership. It covered a wide range of European States (axis and neutral) and worked smoothly for two years. Apart from that, there are strong institutional and personal continuities from the 1920s to the 1950s. The starting point of this project is that - in spite of the fundamental ideological, political and military conflicts of the Second World War - European Integration processes in the framework of infrastructures were not completely interrupted. On the contrary, World War II seems to have accelerated transnational cooperation in this particular sector. Franco-German relations played a key role in this context because the interplay of collaboration, cooperation and competition became one of the decisive driving forces for the integration in the Europäischer Post- und Fernmeldeverein. In order to explore these complex problems the general project will be split into three parts: The first will be dedicated to the so far unknown institutional history of the Europäischer Post- und Fernmeldeverein, the second will deal with the long term structures of European Integration in this particular field covering the period from the 1920s to the 1930s, whereas a third part will compare postal and telecommunication integration with other infrastructures in the same period (e.g. inland navigation). Doing this, the project will shed new light on Franco-German relations during the war on the one hand and European Integration history on the other. From an institutional perspective, the project will foster the cooperation between leading historical research groups in France and Germany in the fields of transnational cooperation in the post and telecommunications sector, and it will unite research areas like Franco-German historiography, historical infrastructure research and European Integration History. The project design enables a multi perspective analysis of the topic and the reconstruction of plural country-specific perspectives on the complex interdependencies. It will also strengthen institutional cooperation between Germany and France as well as between different transnational research networks. Thus, the project will open up new topics and institutional connections for Franco-German cooperation.