Reconciling in the first two decades following the Nazi Occupation of France, these countries’ leaders understood that their security and economic ties were far too important to their citizens’ wellbeing to allow the old hatreds to fester. They knew that the unimaginable violence of WWII was a direct result of the antagonisms that had festered since the Napoleonic Wars and that were allowed to persist after 1918.
有人说，日本和韩国应该效仿法国和德国的例子。在纳粹占领法国后的第一个二十年里，两国领导人互相妥协，他们明白，对于公民福祉来说，安全和经济合作远比放任旧恨发酵更重要。他们知道，二战的难以想象的暴力乃是对抗的直接后果，而对抗的源头是拿破仑战争，并且在1918年后放任其不断壮大。