SCHUMAN AND ADENAUER

Six weeks after the French and German cabinets had, at their dramatic meetings of 9 May 1950, agreed on the essentials of the Schuman Plan for pooling the French and German coal and steel industries, Buchman was gazetted a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour for his 'contribution to better understanding between France and Germany'.1 Two years later, the German Government awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit 'in recognition of his significant work for peace and understanding between nations'.2

From the first this led to speculation in the British press. Robert Schuman, because of the decoration's special link with Germany, arranged for the French Senator, Madame Eugénie Eboué, to present it at Gelsenkirchen during Buchman's visit for the Moral Re-Armament demonstration in early June - a week before it was officially gazetted. The Evening Standard questioned on l0 June, quite reasonably, whether the honour had actually been conferred.3 It went on, however, to state that Buchman had never met Schuman. Meanwhile the New Statesman attributed the Schuman Plan as a whole to 'Buchman's pious anti-Socialism'.4 Neither report was high in accuracy. Nor were the assertions made by some enthusiasts in after years that Buchman had been almost solely responsible for the Franco-German reconciliation after the war. What was, in fact, his part?

Obviously, Buchman had nothing to do with the details of the Plan to bring the coal and steel industries of Europe under a single authority. That had been the work, over a long period, of Jean Monnet and a small team of dedicated experts who only presented it to Schuman himself in April 1950. Nor had Buchman been responsible for putting the idea of a closer European unity into the mind of either Schuman or Adenauer. Schuman had believed in the need to bring France and Germany together in some such way since the 1950s,5 while Adenauer was considering the possibility of linking the steel industries of the two countries as far back as 1923.6

Nor would it be accurate to infer, as some have, that Buchman was in any way responsible for planting in either Schuman or Adenauer the concern to rebuild Europe on a Christian basis. Both were devout Catholics and had long cherished that hope.

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