ABSTRACT
As the cessation of fighting in May 1945 brought the bloodiest and most devastating of Europe's modern wars to a close, the general idea of integrating the European nations was being considered by a number of different influential individuals and groups. Visionary federalist politicians and the political elite of some extremely vulnerable countries argued for a secure, integrated political structure of Western Europe, based on the bitter lessons of World War II. In short, from the passionate federalist advocacy of hundreds of federalist resistance movements, politicians, and organizations, nothing tangible came into being. The US Government, particularly the military, calculated from assumptions that a World War III was entirely likely. Policy making among the Allies, under the best of circumstances, could be a notoriously convoluted business, never more so than when the German Question lay on the negotiating table. The Cold War, a political, economic, military, and diplomatic confrontation, pitted Western capitalist democracy against Soviet communism in its Stalinist form.
