Leseprobe

89 eventualities, Churchill had invited his opponent Attlee to join the British delegation there. Ultimately, Britain’s policy was based on its inter-war experi- ences. On the one hand, the focus was on the structural errors of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which, according to widespread perception, had facilitated the rise of National Socialism. The fear of a reinvigor- ated expansionist and revanchist German nationalism spawned the fear that a peace agreement would remain an isolated event. For this reason, the Potsdam Conference, in the eyes of its participants, was not to be a classic peace conference but rather the start of a permanent peace conference embodied by the Council of Foreign Ministers. 20 On the other hand, “Munich 1938” was turned into an increasingly stylised shibboleth and conjured up as a political-peda- gogical narrative. The more this pre-war memory was exaggerated, the more powerful its impact became in a country where an anti-appeasement stance was mandatory. Since past ties change when the perspective is oriented to the future, memory assumed agenda-setting power and was to prove the ability and willingness to learn. It was impossible, however, to overlook the potential conflict between the various historical narratives. Attlee and Bevin arriving at Cecilienhof Palace, 28 July 1945