‘Conradin von Adenau: One day, my dear, you will hear me!’ On 17 March 1950, the cartoonist for the German daily newspaper Der Mittag illustrates the flat refusal of the French government authorities to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s plan for a union between France and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). At the entrance to the ‘France’ castle with raised drawbridge, Federal Chancellor Adenauer, depicted as a knight in armour, cannot join his maiden, Marianne, shown wearing a Phrygian cap.