Intellectual History
Franz Josef Strauß: "Realpolitiker" with a Strong Vision for Europe

Franz-Josef Strauß: "We need Europe." Election campaign poster in 1969.

ACSP, Pl S 525; Archiv für Christlich-Soziale Politik (ACSP)

Franz Josef Strauß is generally not mentioned in the same breath as the German architects of European integration such as Konrad Adenauer, whom he respected both personally and politically, and Helmut Kohl, with whom he maintained a lifelong rivalry for political influence.

Instead, his public image is often shaped as that of a Bavarian-regional power politician with ambitions at the federal level and a global political drive. What is often overlooked, however, is Strauß‘outstanding role in shaping his party‘s pro-European course since the post-war years. This was rooted in his deep conviction that Germany’s division could ultimately only be overcome through the removal of Europe’s division.

Not without reason, Markus Ferber, Chairman of the Hanns Seidel Foundation and Economic Coordinator of the EPP Group in the European Parliament, stated on the occasion of Europe Day 2021:

It is CSU politicians like Josef Müller and Franz Josef Strauß who laid the foundation for a peaceful, prosperous Europe of reconciliation to emerge from the ruins of the Second World War.”

The centrality of Europe in Strauß’ thinking and political life can be seen in several key milestones of his biography.

Biographical Background and Party Influence

Already as a 15-year-old student, Strauß felt drawn to Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europe idea, in opposition to the nationalist currents of the late Weimar Republic.

By joining the Union of European Federalists, he committed himself to the political unification of the continent on a Christian foundation. He later described the triumph of the League of Nations as well as the “harsh realities” of National Socialism over the Pan-Europe concept as a missed defining moment ("verpasste Sternstunde") for Europe.

Franz Josef Strauß (right) and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer left a lasting imprint on German and European history.

Rolf Unterberg; Bundesregierung

An exemplary case of this was that under Strauß’ leadership, the CSU was among the ten founding members of the EPP in Luxembourg in 1976 –  the party that has formed the strongest group in the European Parliament since 1999. Already 20 years earlier, as a member of the not-yet directly elected Parliament in Strasbourg, Strauß had founded the Christian Democratic Group together with eight colleagues from other nations.[1]

Strauß can also be credited with ensuring that in 1979, for the first direct election of the European Parliament, he found in Otto von Habsburg a congenial partner for the CSU in advancing European integration. With him, he shared the conviction of a holistic, undivided Europe, and he remained closely politically aligned with him. Not without reason, the campaign slogan at the time was: “Dare for Freedom – Opportunities for Europe.”

Auch in der Kampagne für seinen letzten Europawahlkampf von 1984 ließ Strauß keinen Zweifel an seinem pro-europäischen Kurs und dem seiner Partei aufkommen: 

Even in the campaign for his last European election in 1984, Strauß left no doubt about his pro-European course and that of his party: His portrait appeared on the election posters, accompanied by an unmistakable “Yes to Europe” in bold letters. A clear commitment from a party chairman and minister-president, something the CSU in more recent years has not always demonstrated. Too often, the party pursued a dual strategy: on the one hand, as a fundamental supporter of European integration, and on the other, as a critic of excessive regulation and bureaucracy from Brussels.

Strauß’ Worldview

From the perspective of intellectual history, certain constants in Strauß’ thinking, shaped by personal experiences and crystallizing political convictions, form the foundation of his foreign policy, and in particular, his European policy worldview. On the one hand, there is the deeply rooted antagonism towards a totalitarian Russia, the Soviet Union, which, as already mentioned, stems from his wartime experiences. From his perspective, a united Europe could therefore never extend beyond the western borders of the Soviet Union at that time.

In addition to ideology and the communist social system, it was the weight of Russia as a “partly Asian power” –  that is, its geographical position between Europe and Asia, as he wrote in his 1968 Programme for Europe – which posed an obstacle. For him, the question of Europe’s ultimate reach to the east is thus clearly defined.

On the other hand, Strauß was a staunch transatlanticist. Yet, Europe’s position between the world powers Moscow and Washington, particularly the economic predominance of the latter and Europe’s dependence in matters of security, pointed, in his view, to the necessity of a greater union of the European nations. Only in this way, he believed, could Europe’s emancipation be conceived.

For the practicioner of Realpolitik and strategist Strauß, communist China was to be included as a counterweight to the great power of the USSR, but also as an important partner for German economic strength – something that remains true to this day.

Within the framework of the nation state and Europe, however, his chief concern was the Franco-German reconciliation, the establishment of a close partnership with the western neighbor, and the creation of a stable Franco-German axis.

1984 campaign poster by the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria with Strauß's unequivocally committing himself to the European project: "Yes to Europe."

Archiv für Christlich-Soziale Politik (ACSP); ACSP, PL S 104

Strauß’s Vision of Europe

So what does Strauß’s vision of Europe look like? He set it out primarily in two writings from the 1960s, thus long before German reunification and the later steps toward the European Union: “Draft for Europe” (1966) and “Challenge and Response – A Programme for Europe” (1968). Although these texts must be read as historical documents against the backdrop of the political developments of their time, they nonetheless contain clear and still valid statements on the future shaping of Europe.

Strauß’s visionary model was the United States of Europe, a pan-European federation representing the culmination of his gradual political unification of all the peoples of Western and Central Eastern Europe. As a convinced transatlanticist, Strauß foresaw that the protective shield of the United States over Europe could not remain in place indefinitely, given America’s growing military engagement in the Pacific. 

Consequently, it was above all Europe’s security interests that, in his view, made the continent’s integration through a common foreign and defense policy, including nuclear deterrence, necessary. Only in this way, he argued, could the “internal growth of the Economic Union be shielded.” Only a federally organized “Europe of the peoples” would be capable of effectively asserting the interests of the European nations vis-à-vis the world powers of continental scale. [2]

In Strauß’s conception, Europe becomes a greater fatherland through the overcoming of state fragmentation, in which selfishly pursued national interests are dissolved in favor of a policy of solidarity. For Strauß, the following held true:

“A Europe of fatherlands would be a group of fatherlands without Europe.” [3]

Nevertheless, Strauß’s call for a broad transfer of state sovereignty and for a European federal state should not be equated with a complete rejection of the nation-state concept; he assigns it a specific, albeit limited, importance. For Strauß, it is absolutely essential that the economically and politically integrated European state is organized federatively, thus combining unity and diversity. In his view, preserving the cultural heritage of individual peoples, along with their identity and autonomy, is the task of the nation-state. In his words, “only a pronounced federalism can do justice to the true significance of the nations in a united Europe.” [4] 

In this respect, Strauß felt committed to a Europe of regions and adhered to the principle of subsidiarity. It is thus this tension between the recognition of the necessity of a sovereign European federal state on the one hand, and the emotional attachment to national identity on the other, that characterizes Strauß’s thinking. He never expressed it more aptly than in his own three-dimensional statement:

“Bavaria is our homeland, Germany our fatherland, Europe our future.”

Concept and Current Reality

How does Strauß’s vision relate to today’s reality? The current EU of 27 member states, following the successive accession of the Central and Eastern European countries in the 2000s and the Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties, has taken shape as a comprehensive political union very much in line with Strauß’s vision. Nevertheless, the “final form” of complete political unification, which Strauß envisaged, has by no means been achieved.

Franz Josef Strauß, statesman of "Realpolitik" and committed European with a strong vision for the continent.

HSS Europa-Büro Brüssel; AI-generated Content, 2025

Defined as a „union of sovereign states“ by the German Constitutional Court, the EU, with its strong role of the member states in the Council and the often prevailing requirement for unanimity, is far from the globally significant, federally organized United States of Europe envisioned by Strauß.

Forward-looking, by contrast, is his demand that Europe must assume a high degree of shared responsibility for its own security, including maintaining its own European army - a demand that is also reflected in the CSU’s 2023 party platform. [5]

In his reasoning, he already took into account the possibility of a shift in the United States’ security interests away from Europe, as we see today, alongside the threat posed by the Soviet Union, which today finds its equivalent in Russia’s expansionist ambitions.

To the desire for an expanded independent security and defense policy is added the demand for a common foreign policy as a prerequisite for “co-determination at the global level.” Here too, the nationalistic self-interest that Strauß criticized has often prevented progress. Likewise, on economic questions concerning technological advancement and competitiveness, Strauß called for greater European action. As the Draghi Report from last year shows, these issues remain just as relevant and decisive today for Europe’s position in the world.

All of these issues remain highly relevant today. They form key priorities of European policy, as emphasized a few weeks ago by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address. Strauß incorporated them into his conception of Europe and established important guiding principles for his party, as well as for Europe’s future. They continue to resonate through his vision.