The FINANCIAL — "It was an absolution, a liberation," recalls Charles de Gaulle's interpreter, of a seminal speech delivered by the former French president to youngsters in 1962 in what was then West Germany.
As EUbusiness reported, without notes, he addressed more than 7,000 people in German, Hermann Kusterer, told AFP, ahead of celebrations to mark de Gaulle's symbolic trip to the western half of the divided country which opened a new chapter in relations between the former foes.
French and German leaders will this month take part in events celebrating 50 years of post-war reconciliation as the heads of Europe's two biggest economies now battle to bridge differences over the euro crisis.
"It was an exceptional performance. He had just crossed Germany over six days and had given several speeches, learned off by heart, in German. It was terribly testing," Kusterer, now 85, said of the September 9, 1962 speech in the southwestern city of Ludwigsburg.
It was the last stop on a seven-city tour by the former French soldier who had partly learned German as a prisoner-of-war during World War I, and which had also seen him address steel workers and the army.
To mark the occasion, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande are due to meet in Ludwigsburg on September 22 — later than the original date due to scheduling reasons.
After Merkel's close working relationship with Nicolas Sarkozy, her partnership with Socialist Hollande, who is of a different political stripe to the chancellor, got off to a rocky start, amid high expectations for the Franco-German alliance at the heart of Europe.
"On a common European base that is quite solid, they quarrel over the best way to resolve the crisis," said Henrik Uterwedde from the German-French Institute in Ludwigsburg.
The two countries' foreign ministers will meet in Bonn, the former West German capital, on Wednesday, and a ceremony is also planned for January in Berlin to mark the signing of the Elysee treaty that formalised Franco-German bilateral cooperation.
Some 17 years after the defeat of the Nazi regime, de Gaulle told his young and enthusiastic audience in Ludwigsburg they were "children of a great nation who… in the course of its history, has made great errors".
"Some politicians tried to play down the impact of his trip. But he enthused the Germans," said Kusterer, who has published a book entitled "The General and The Chancellor".
"He had internalised these speeches, like an actor would do for a role… the one in Ludwigsburg was really rich… a sort of philosophical speech which was a bit hard to digest," he said.
He added that de Gaulle had used German words that can be tricky to pronounce and had at times stumbled but did not lose his train of thought and managed to get around the mistakes using other words.
However the stumbles upset him and he told his interpreter afterwards that he thought he had failed to get his point across, although Kusterer said, in fact, he did not believe anyone had noticed.
While Kusterer's help was not needed for the speeches, he did interpret during all of de Gaulle's talks with West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who spoke basic French, and with whom, according to Kusterer, he quickly developed a close rapport.
The two would always however address each other formally as "Mr Chancellor" and "Mr General".
Their present-day successors have been much less marked by the country of the other, and Hollande does not speak German, while Merkel, who grew up in ex-communist East Germany, learned Russian and English.
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