Franco-German Study Committee
The Franco-German Study Committee (French: Comité Franco-Allemand d'Information et de Documentation ; also: Mayrisch Committee ) was founded in 1926 by the Luxembourg steel industrialist Emil Mayrisch and the publicist and politician Pierre Viénot. It served the understanding between Germany and France . More than half of the members were industrialists and business leaders, mainly in the chemical and electrical industries . The heavy industry remained in the minority. 30% belonged to the nobility . The remainder were dominated by university professors, senior state officials and intellectuals.
The Paris- based committee had two information offices in Berlin and Paris, headed by Gustav Krukenberg (Paris) and Pierre Viénot (Berlin), and organized meetings and discussions. The committee consisted exclusively of men. Politicians were not accepted, with a few exceptions such as Franz von Papen .
As a result of the global economic crisis , activity came to a standstill from 1930, but in 1932/33 another attempt was made to reach an agreement on a Franco-German customs union and an agreement on Southeast European market shares for steel.
At the end of 1938 the study committee disbanded voluntarily.
It is to be separated from the Cercle de Colpach , to which Émile Mayrisch's wife Aline has regularly invited since the 1920s and to which philosophical, scientific, ideological and cultural questions, especially between Germany and France and their neighboring countries Belgium and Luxembourg, were devoted.
Chairperson
- Emil Mayrisch until his death in 1928
- Alfred von Nostitz-Wallwitz ( former Saxon Minister)
- Charles-François Laurent (former French ambassador in Berlin)
Business members
German
- Bruno Bruhn (board member at Krupp )
- Hermann Books ( AEG )
- Felix German ( AEG )
- August Diehn (General Director of the Potash Advisory Board )
- Abraham Frowein
- Karl Haniel
- Louis Hagen (banker of A. Levy in Cologne)
- Franz von Mendelssohn (banker)
- Ernst Poensgen
- Walter Simons
- Ernst von Simson (member of the IG Farben supervisory board )
- Emil Georg von Stauß (General Director of Deutsche Bank )
- Max Warburg
- Tilo Freiherr von Wilmowsky ( Krupp )
- Edgar Schlubach (Hamburg Consul General and shipping company owner)
Fritz Thyssen , who joined at the suggestion of the Foreign Office , left the committee after a few months and made this public in a press release.
French
- René Duchemin (Kuhlmann-Chemiewerke, President of the Confédération générale de la production française )
- Étienne Fougère (silk industrialist)
- Théodore Laurent (Vice-President of the Comité des Forges )
- Pierre Lyautey (Director of the Association de l'Agriculture et de l'Industrie )
- Louis Marlio (Chairman of the Pechiney Group, the French and international aluminum cartel and the Chambre syndicale des Forces hydrauliques )
- Henry Peyerimhoff de Fontenelle (President of the Comité central des houillères de France )
- Lucien Romier (President of the Société d'économie nationale )
- John dal Piaz ( owner of the shipping company, President of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique , died in 1928)
- Edmé Sommier (sugar industrialist)
- René Debrix (General Manager of the Société Alsacienne de banque )
- Jacques Seydoux (Ambassador)
The steel industrialists Schneider-Creusot and François de Wendel withdrew their promised membership.
Other members
- Christian Schreiber (Catholic Bishop of Berlin)
literature
- Guido Müller: European social relations after the First World War, The German-French Study Committee and the European Cultural Association , Munich 2005 ISBN 9783486577365
- Reinhard Frommelt: Paneuropa or Central Europe, Unification efforts in the calculation of German economy and politics 1925-1933 , Stuttgart 1977, p. 101 f.
- Gaby Sonnabend: Pierre Viénot 1897-1944. An intellectual in politics , Munich 2005
- Peter Schöttler : "Three kinds of collaboration. European concepts and Franco-German understanding, using the example of the career of SS-Brigadführer Gustav Krukenberg ", in: Zeithistorische Forschungen. Studies in Contemporary History , 9, 2012, 3, pp. 365–386 (pp. 367–373) full text (there also information on Viénot, including further references)