05/21/2026
PITT-BRADFORD HISTORIAN’S NEW BOOK TRACES ROOTS OF EUROPEAN UNITY
BRADFORD, Pa. -- As Europe reconsiders its security and trade structure amid changing American attitudes, Dr. Drew Flanagan, assistant professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, has published a book shedding light on the creation of the post–World War II order on the continent.
“From Occupation to Integration: Revitalizing the French Zone of Post-N**i Germany, 1945-1955” is now out from LSU Press and available in both hardcover and e-book formats.
Flanagan’s research traces how the French occupation zone became an early laboratory for the kind of cross-border economic and cultural integration that would eventually define the European Union. “This is one of the first places you see cross-border economic integration between France and Germany, albeit under circumstances of occupation,” he said.
The book grew out of his doctoral dissertation, completed at Brandeis University in 2018. While researching postwar Europe, Flanagan kept coming across documents in which French occupiers had a distinctive tone focused on “civilizing” the German population, drawing them back into the broader current of Western European culture after years of N**i barbarism.
The two countries had been in conflict repeatedly since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and the French had long seen Germans’ default nature as unrefined and militaristic. “It was the idea that you give Germans a minute, they’re gonna go back to being barbarians,” Flanagan said.
Following the war, the Allies divided Germany into zones to be occupied. The French zone, along France’s border with Germany, included the Rhine, one of Europe’s most important commercial waterways; the Black Forest, whose timber was critical for rebuilding; and the Saarland, which had significant coal and iron ore deposits and had long been a flashpoint between the two nations.
What set France further apart from its British, American, and Soviet counterparts was that it had itself been occupied by Germany for more than four years during the war. It had also kept its colonial empire — second only to Great Britain’s — and drew heavily on that experience: the French Army that occupied postwar Germany was roughly two-thirds North African soldiers from its Mediterranean colonies, and one-third French Resistance fighters. After France itself was decimated during the war, it had a hard time scratching up an army of any sort, Flanagan said, and resorted to using these non-professionals.
The French set about de-N**ifying and re-educating the population. They worked with pro-French Germans who shared their vision of a westernized, re-civilized Germany and launched a broad public relations campaign to instill Western European values and discourage Prussian militarism, drawing on techniques from France’s colonial administration in North Africa. Another tool was deep economic integration: the zone’s resources were woven into the French economy, making the two sides necessary trading partners as they rebuilt.
Flanagan’s book has been receiving attention. In March he spoke at both of his alma maters, Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Brandeis University in suburban Boston. Last month the New Books Network podcast interviewed him. Earlier this month, Jim Eckstrom, executive group editor of Bradford Publishing, interviewed him for an article that ran in three regional newspapers.
Flanagan has taught history at Pitt-Bradford since 2019 and is director of the History/Political Science program.
