Memory Politics Across the AtlanticHistory 337 / March 28, 2012

François Mitterrand – a pragmatic socialistelected president of France (May 1981)

With Mitterrand’s blessing, Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy nationalizes French banks and industry in 1981-82

Jacques Delors, Mitterrand’s budget czar;later EC Commission president from 1985-1994

Beirut, Lebanon,October 1983:

US Marines and French

paratroopers perish together

Reagan’s speech at Pointe du hoc, Normandy (June 6, 1984)

Reagan greets former rangers at Normandy

Mitterrand and Kohl at Verdun, September 1984

Coalition politics in Germany:

a weakened FDP helps Kohl

(CDU) reach the chancellorship

Kohl addresses the German expellees, June 1985:from “Silesia remains ours” to

“Silesian remains our future in a Europe of free peoples”

Reagan and Kohl at the Bitburg military cemetery

Voices against Reagan’s Bitburg visit

Reagan lays a wreath at the Bergen-Belsen camp memorial(May 5, 1985)

An SED (East German) delegation received by the SPD, 1986

Honecker visits Bonn, October 1987

April 1986: The bomb in the Berlin disco

Reagan and Gorbachev at the Reykjavik Summit, October 1986

Reagan at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate,

June 1987