Focusing on the time span from the 1960s to the late 1980s, that is, on the period during which Airbus established itself as a serious competitor on the world market, this article analyses the German aircraft industry’s interests, its representation within the transnational Airbus project, and the relevance of what might be called ‘Europeanness’. Occasionally also touching upon the situation in its partner countries, the central question is whether the respective political strategies of collaboration in the German aircraft industry were motivated by self-serving national interests or broader European ones. The article is divided into three sections. It begins by scrutinizing the motivations of German politics in the establishment and promotion of the Airbus project. Second, it deals with the representation of national interests in the allocation of production shares and the organization of cooperation, and, finally, with the European aspects of the massive subsidization of national manufacturers. It comes to the conclusion that the German case in particular illustrates that European collaboration in the aircraft sector was appreciated as an instrument to facilitate the survival of national industries pursuing their own business interests. The establishment of Airbus was supported as a European project to ensure the survival of the German aircraft industry and sometimes even as an instrument of business concentration. Nevertheless, notions about European integration or Franco-German friendship certainly increased the willingness to spend a lot of money on the Airbus project as the flagship of entanglement and interconnectedness in a ‘future industry’.

中文翻译：

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成为欧洲人的重要性：1960 年代至 1980 年代的空中客车和西德产业政策

本文着眼于 1960 年代至 1980 年代后期的时间跨度，即空中客车公司在世界市场上确立其重要竞争对手的时期，分析了德国飞机工业的利益及其在跨国空中客车公司项目中的表现，以及可能被称为“欧洲性”的相关性。偶尔也会触及其伙伴国家的情况，核心问题是德国飞机工业各自的政治合作战略是出于自私的国家利益还是更广泛的欧洲利益。文章分为三个部分。它首先审查了德国政治在空中客车项目的建立和推广中的动机。第二，它涉及在生产份额分配和合作组织中代表国家利益，最后涉及国家制造商大规模补贴的欧洲方面。得出的结论是，德国的案例特别说明了欧洲在飞机领域的合作被视为一种工具，以促进追求自身商业利益的民族工业的生存。空中客车公司的成立作为欧洲项目得到支持，以确保德国飞机工业的生存，有时甚至作为业务集中的工具。尽管如此，