French poster from 1954 in favour of the European Defence Community (EDC). The EDC is represented as a shield, a defensive alliance ‘for peace’ against the fascist and Soviet threats.

Mit diesem Plakat, ruft die Nationale Vereinigung der Deportierten und Internierten Widerstandskämpfer und Patrioten, die Franzosen auf, die Verträge zur Gründung einer Europäischen Verteidigungsgemeinschaft abzulehnen, da diese Verträge für viele die schmerzhafte Erinnerung an die Greueltaten der deutschen Truppen im Zweiten Weltkrieg wieder zum Leben erweckt.

‘Refused!’ In 1954, Pierre Mendès France, French Prime Minister, refuses any form of participation by German forces in a European Defence Community (EDC), despite pleas from the US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, and the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.

On 16 April 1954, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower makes a statement on future relations between the United States, the European Defence Community (EDC) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

French poster in support of the European Defence Community (EDC).

On 30 August 1954, Sennep sketches the love story between ‘Robert Schuman and the EDC’.

In September 1954, the French Section of the European Movement publishes a communiqué in which it criticises the National Assembly’s rejection, on 30 August, of the Treaty establishing a European Defence Community (EDC).

In January 1953, the Dutch cartoonist, Opland, takes a critical look at the future organisation of the European Defence Community (EDC).

On 25 February 1953, the Foreign Ministers of the Six meet in Rome during the negotiations on the implementation of the European Defence Community (EDC).