Does the EU maintain peace?

As I write there is less than one week to go before Britain votes on whether or not to remain in the European Union.  Many years ago I read a profile of a man called Madron Seligman who at the time was a Member of the European Parliament for the evil Conservative Party.  He was also a close friend of Ted Heath, who was the Prime Minister who took Britain into what is now the European Union.

Seligman recounted how he and Heath had holidayed in Europe shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War.  They knew that war was imminent, and felt that something should be done to prevent the outbreak of another such war.  To cut a long story short, the European Union was viewed by many people as a way to ensure that there would never again be a war in Europe.  In addition, Germany passed a law banning any political party from associating itself with Hitler's regime.

I decided many years ago that the whole idea of the European Union preventing another war was absolute nonsense.  One of the main effects of the EU has been to undermine national identity.  This has had the effect of increasing what might be termed nationalist sentiment in many of the EU's member states.  This has been confirmed by a recent study by the University of Leipzig, which reports the following:

• One third of people in Germany think the country is dangerously overpopulated by foreigners.
• More than twenty percent think that Germany needs a single strong party which embodies the national community as a whole.
• Twelve percent believe that Germans are by nature superior to other people.
• Ten percent want Germany to be led by a fuhrer - the title adopted by Hitler while serving as both the president and chancellor of Germany.

None of the above implies that anyone in Germany wants another war in Europe - or does it?  I hope not, but I have been wrong before.

Related previous posts include:
Britain First and the fiction of a free country