«Un nuovo modo di pensare europeo». Mito e utopia nell’Europa di Heinrich Böll

This paper aims to investigate Heinrich Böll’s thought on the project of a peaceful, united Europe. The author, one of the few German writers to have questioned the idea of Europe in the years of the Federal Republic of Germany, has reflected on this topic on at least two occasions: in the short story Er kam als Bierfahrer (1969) and in the interview Europa – aber wo liegt es? given to Martin Buchhorn in 1979 for the magazine «Merkur. Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken». The two works, although very different, show the author’s clear perspective on the project of a united Europe through themes such as otherness and identity, approached through the lenses of myth and utopia. In this paper, the two works are compared in an attempt to shed light on Böll’s thought as regards the possibility of establishing a peaceful Europe in the near future, a thought that, still today, has not lost its foresight, clarity and relevance.