The Historical Archives has recently received the personal archives of François Bondy, thanks to a deposit agreement concluded between Francois Bondy’s daughters Dominique and Beatrice and the Director of the Historical Archives, Dieter Schlenker.
The deposit consists in correspondence relating to his journalistic and literary production from 1940 onwards and includes a rich collection of his essays and newspaper articles. Among the materials are photos, correspondence, and originals or cuttings of his published works.
Born in 1915 in Berlin, François Bondy grew up in Switzerland and France. A journalist and political writer, in 1940 he was arrested in Paris and briefly interned at the concentration camp in Vernet. He would later report on the conditions that he found there.
Bondy was part of federalist circles in the first decade after WWII, and was a member of the Union of European Federalists. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Bondy remained a free intellectual over the course of his career, playing an informal role in the creation of a unified Europe.
As a journalist, public intellectual and cultural critic, Bondy published essays and articles in the foremost newspapers, magazines and journals of the day, in both Europe and North America. In 1950 he founded and edited his own political and cultural journal, Preuves, in Paris, and managed it until 1969. In an edited collection of Bondy’s articles, European Notebooks, Melvin J. Lasky, Bondy’s good friend and intellectual contemporary, described Bondy as “a liberal and humane democrat from the center of the Western heartland free of every totalitarian temptation, sturdy and unfailing in his devotion to the liberties and civilities of a humane social order.”
In the coming months, the Bondy papers will be processed and made available for consultation in Spring 2022.
The papers will enhance research to describe more closely the role and influence Francois Bondy exercised in intellectual circles and to trace the impact of his ideas through his journalistic activities.
The Historical Archives of the European Union collects the private papers of key European politicians, high-ranking EU officials and individuals involved in the process of European integration. Browse our holdings from individuals, here.