Yes, I did leave my ego at the door, so if you're willing to tell me that all my knowledge of WWII is wrong, do it without hesitation. Am ready to accept the humiliation.
"Popular knowledge" says WWII was caused by Hitler's hate against racial minorities and German will of revenge after the humiliation of the Versailles treaty, while WWI was caused by the Kaiser's willingness to conquer territory and the assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary.
But in 1950, Schumann said literally:
It proposes that Franco-German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common High Authority [...]
The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.
His vision differs so much from the popularly known version that it really spiked my curiosity.
Edit: I realize my question can be easily misunderstood so I'd like to clarify that I believe the Holocaust was real and this post is not an attempt to deny it. Could it be that Schumann had it wrong? Or could it be that there were multiple contemporary causes?
Not sure if I am understanding you correctly. This wasn't about taking reasons to go to war of the table, but making sure that France and Germany play nice together in the future.
Fusing their coal and steel production was one way of making sure of that. This also lead to the creation of the Ecu to facilitate trade across borders and currencies, which later turned into the Euro.
It's not that Schumann thought that the French and German coal and steel industries were the cause of the World Wars, as much as France and Germany's economies (and specifically their war efforts) were heavily dependent on the coal and steel industries, and so having those two sectors merged as much as possible under one market controlled by a common authority would reduce the possibilities of both states moving to competitive war footings as easily in the future.
It's worth noting that coal and steel were contentious issues between France and Germany, especially in the interwar period. The Saar Region was detached from Germany and placed under French control essentially because of its steel industries and coal deposits (it was returned to Germany after a plebiscite in 1935, and then placed under French control again after the Second World War, and finally returned to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957).
Similarly, the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr (which had major coal mines and steel factories) in 1923 was to enforce reparations payments by Weimar Germany, and part of these reparations payments were in kind, notably including coal deliveries to France for use in French steel production.
You posit two truthful things, causes for the war(s) , and a subsequent plant to make war economically unviable for the belligerents by fusing the (war) material industry. I'm not sure what the question is?