You started off on the money, but then spoiled it with the Nazi Germany thing. Most people would perfectly reasonably argue that the origins of the EU lie in the desire to prevent a repeat of the experience of German expansionism by tying the German raw materials of munitions production to those of the French - the European Coal & Steel Community, so rather the opposite to a promotion of some kind of neo-Nazism.
Others argue that the origins of the EU lie in the 1930s and the theories of neoliberalism as an alternative to the failed concepts of true liberalism, as expounded by intellectuals such as Freidrich Hayek and Walter Lipmann, and the post-war reconstitution of those theories in the Mont Pelerin movement. It might be reasonable to speculate that the EU has really developed into the bastard child of neoliberalism (which decries state intervention), German ordoliberalism (which does what it says on the box), and pro-state French socialism, with the legal, governmental and constitutional systems being derived variously from both France & Germany. Germany, with its massive industrial exporting sector, has undoubtedly benefitted from, and thoroughly gamed, its advantageous position vis-a-vis the other members in regard of the Euro membership, and few would argue with the premise that Germany has been the de-facto leader of the EU for some while now, though that is being challenged in timely intervention by Jupiter himself. Whilst The Fourth Reich thing resonates quite well with some British (and perhaps with more reason, Greek) sensibilities, the militarism which it somehow signifies is conspicuously absent from any current form of reality.
