A Part of European History? Narrating the Age of the World Wars after 1945

Undoubtedly, the years between 1914 and 1945 were of crucial importance for the history of Europe. Historians concerned with the history of the European idea after World War II immediately seized upon the epoch and faced a difficult task. In trying to make sense of the violence and destructiveness of these years, scholars such as Geoffrey Barraclough, Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Carlo Curcio or Heinz Gollwitzer also had to find ways to incorporate them into their often teleological narrative of European history which culminated in the European integration process. Not surprisingly, many of them struggled to meet this challenge, generating a variety of contrasting interpretations. In more recent years the evaluation of the age of the world wars was further complicated by methodical innovations and the emergence of social and cultural history. I will trace different narratives of European history between 1914 and 1945 produced by the historiography on the European idea. Where did these historians locate the relevance of the epoch? Did they interpret the latter as a dark age of nationalism, during which only a handful of intellectual utopians concerned themselves with Europe, let alone European unity, or rather as a time that witnessed important steps towards the construction of a European identity? This paper aims to answer these questions by giving an overview of the research and identifying disparate interpretations of the Europeanness of the First World War, the interbellum and the Second World War. Finally, I will outline an own approach towards narrating European history between 1914 and1945.