durch einen friedlichen Staatsstreich zurück an die Macht. In den folgenden elf Jahren war de Gaulle Staatspräsident eines Frankreichs, dessen politische Gestalt er nach seinen Vorstellungen formte. Diese Biographie setzt den Schwerpunkt auf de Gaulles Streben und Streiten, Tragik und Triumph im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Denn im Krieg war er ganz er selbst wie später nie wieder. De Gaulles historische Bedeutung liegt darin begründet, die Bedeutung als Staatspräsident war davon abgeleitet. *** Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) was the most significant French statesman since Napoleon. His - originally military - career and his status as an outsider both personally and politically did not predict this. It took the defeat of France by Hitler's Germany in 1940 to set de Gaulle on the path of historical destiny in which he had always believed. In exile he proclaimed himself the representative of the 'true' France. He managed to live up to that claim with military and political substance and to prevail against the Vichy regime. De Gaulle became the dominant force in the saved nation - in peacetime he lost the French. In early 1946 he went into political exile in his own land and returned to power in 1958 in a peaceful coup. Over the next eleven years de Gaulle was President of a France whose political form he developed according to his own ideas. This biography places the focus on de Gaulle's aspirations and conflicts, tragedies and triumphs in the Second World War. For during the war he was more completely himself than ever before or afterwards. De Gaulle's historical significance is founded in those years, his significance as President was derived from them.