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Publicist Alfred Grosser is dead
Alfred Grosser died at the age of 99. photo
© picture alliance / Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa
The political scientist Alfred Grosser made understanding between Germany and France his life’s work. Now the critical observer, advisor and mediator has died at the age of 99.
The specialist for German-French issues Alfred Grosser is dead. The political scientist and journalist died in Paris at the age of 99, as his son Pierre Grosser announced. Alfred Grosser was one of the intellectual pioneers of the Franco-German friendship treaty known as the Élysée Treaty.
Grosser has written numerous books in which he helped the Germans understand the French – and, conversely, explained the Germans to the French. He received many awards for his role as a mediator, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Grand Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon, and the French Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.
Reactions from Steinmeier and Scholz
“For us Germans, the name Alfred Grosser will forever be associated with the great work of German-French reconciliation – after the eras of hostility and great wars,” said a letter of condolence from Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“Hardly anyone in recent decades has been as knowledgeable, as passionate and as convincing for mutual understanding between France and Germany as Alfred Grosser.” For his “life’s work of critical and honest understanding between peoples,” Steinmeier wrote, Grosser was able to rely on “his sharp intellect, his immense education and, ultimately, his great life experience.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wrote on the platform miss.”
Pioneer of the Élysée Treaty
Grosser was born on February 1, 1925 in Frankfurt. In 1933 he emigrated to France with his family of Jewish origins, and four years later he took on French citizenship. He later converted to Catholicism.
The German-French journalist studied political science and German in Paris. From 1955 he taught at the renowned Institut d’études politiques de Paris and wrote political columns for numerous newspapers. He once said about his relationship with Germany and France: He belongs in France, he supports Germany from outside.
Grosser was a keen observer. He never kept his criticisms quiet. The German-French relationship is not a love affair, he once said in an interview with the German Press Agency in Paris. And added: When French President Charles de Gaulle signed the Élysée Treaty in 1963, he was not primarily interested in rapprochement, but rather in using the treaty to get Germany out of the USA’s sphere of influence.