ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: UNDERSTANDING THE CLASS ENEMY: FOREIGN POLICY EXPERTISE IN EAST GERMANY Stephen J. Scala, Ph.D., 2009 Dissertation directed by: Professor Jeffrey Herf, Department of History This study makes use of reports, resolutions, analyses, and other internal documents as well as oral history interviews in order to detail the construction, functioning, and output of foreign policy expertise in the GDR. Subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the leadership of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) represented the defining feature of East German foreign policy expertise. Yet its full politicization, which was essentially complete by the late 1960s as the SED succeeded in establishing a comprehensive system of foreign policy expertise tailored to meet its particular vision, entailed the maintenance of a degree of professional and intellectual autonomy?the GDR?s Au?enpolitiker, or foreign policy professionals, were expected not only to comply with the political and ideological postulates espoused by the party leadership but also to deliver sound, specialist analysis of international relations. The persistent tension between these contrasting objectives was directly reflected in the output of East German experts, who in the conditions of diplomatic isolation prevailing until the early 1970s formulated a GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused clear identification of East Germany?s realpolitical interests with the Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as a form of class struggle. Following foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s, however, increasing specialization and professionalization matched with a dramatic increase in East German experts? exposure to the capitalist West, including integration into a transnational network of foreign policy specialists, allowed the specialist element of expertise to gain preponderance over the dogmatic-ideological element. The great challenge to the international position of the Soviet Bloc and the GDR represented by the ?second Cold War? in the first half of the 1980s then prompted East German experts to abandon simplistic adherence to Marxist-Leninist foreign policy dogma in favor of prioritization of the concrete realpolitical interests of the GDR. In the process, the GDR?s experts formulated a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought that mirrored the Soviet New Thinking without taking on its comprehensiveness or overt rejection of inherited postulates. UNDERSTANDING THE CLASS ENEMY: FOREIGN POLICY EXPERTISE IN EAST GERMANY By Stephen J. Scala Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2009 Advisory Committee: Professor Jeffrey Herf, Chair Professor John Lampe Professor Vladimir Tism?neanu Associate Professor Michael David-Fox Dr. Bernd Schaefer ? Copyright by Stephen J. Scala 2009 ii Acknowledgements Many individuals contributed in various ways to the research and writing that make up this dissertation. I deeply appreciate the support and counsel they provided me. In particular, I owe a large debt of gratitude to Hermann Wentker, head of the Institute for Contemporary History in Berlin, with which I was affiliated from September 2007 to August 2008 as I conducted research in Berlin. In addition to providing me with a venue to present my work, Dr. Wentker kindly and patiently advised me on substantive questions of my dissertation on several occasions and helped to familiarize me with academic life in Berlin. It is hard to imagine completion of this dissertation without the time I spent at Wentker?s institute. I also thank Paul Nolte of the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin. I was affiliated with Dr. Nolte?s institute as I completed the final period of my research. The comments and suggestions that he and his students at the institute?s Colloquium zur Zeitgeschichte made allowed me to refine my work at a key stage in its development. The research upon which this dissertation is based would not have been possible without the aid of numerous archivists and archival employees. I heartily thank them all for the indispensable contribution they made to the completion of this dissertation. I am particularly grateful to Ralf M?ller and Marianne Mruczek of the archive of the University of Potsdam who with their professionalism and affability made my stay at their archive both a productive and a pleasant one. I also thank Angelika Weiss of the Bundesbeauftragte f?r die Unterlagen des Sicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen iii Demokratischen Republik. Although the extent of my direct interaction with her was limited, her patience in dealing with my numerous requests for information and her diligence in seeking out files relevant to my topic were remarkable. In the process of conducting oral history interviews as part of my research, I came into contact with a number of fascinating and idiosyncratic personalities whose engrossing stories greatly enriched my work and deepened my appreciation for the human element of this and all history. I give warm thanks to all the individuals who were kind of enough to take time out to speak to me about their experiences. Particularly hearty thanks go to Joachim Kr?ger, who went above and beyond what anyone could have expected by meeting with me on several occasions to offer personal insights into my topic and by graciously facilitating interviews with other individuals. Archival research, while offering the thrill of historical discovery, can also be an isolating experience. For this reason, I was happy to get to know a number of other researchers in the various archives I visited with whom I could trade tips and experiences. My time in the archives was made both more fruitful and more enjoyable particularly by Shelley Rose, Steve Gross, Jun Fujisawa, Deborah Brown, and Mark Cole. My time in Berlin would not have gone nearly as smoothly (and certainly would not have been as enjoyable) without the support and warmth of numerous friends old and new. Filip Jirou?, Susan Eckelmann, Martin Friedek, and Lilia Nerusch particularly shaped my experience of the city. As a graduate student in the greater Washington area, I had the wonderful experience of working for two years at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. My time there was tremendously important for both my scholarly and personal iv development. As I look back wistfully at that period of my life, I think fondly of and thank all my friends and former colleagues from the GHI, particularly Christof Mauch, David Lazar, Anke Ortlepp, Uwe L?bken, Sabine Fix, Carolin Brinkmann, and Marc Landry. In September 2009 I had the good fortune to take part in a workshop at the German Historical Institute in London on new approaches to political history. The insightful discussions at the workshop enriched the conceptual and methodological aspects of my dissertation in its final stages. I thank all the participants, particularly Martina Steber and Kerstin Br?ckweh, whose superb pairing of intellectual acuity and organizational aptitude made the workshop a resounding success, and Patricia Clavin and Eckart Conze, who served as the senior scholars on my panel and offered valuable comments on my work. The Department of History of the University of Maryland provided a stimulating intellectual atmosphere for my growth as a historian. Many members of the department have contributed to the successful completion of this dissertation project through their intellectual or personal support or both. I thank members of the department past and present without whose support this dissertation would not have been possible: Katherine David-Fox, Daryle Williams, Julie Greene, Tom Zeller, Darlene King, Jodi Hall, Courtenay Lanier, Catalina Toala, Christina Morina, Nick Schlosser, Stefan Papaioannou, Tony Glocke, Dan Stotland, Rinna Kullaa, Melissa Kravetz, Jeremy Best, Jon Franklin, Megan Dwyre, and Matt Cheser. I heartily thank the members of my dissertation committee for the varying roles they have played in the completion of this study: Jeffrey Herf, Michael David-Fox, Bernd v Schaefer, John Lampe, and Vladimir Tism?neanu. Bernd Schaefer gave graciously of his time and expertise on multiple occasions. Both his substantive and practical contributions to this dissertation were immense, for which I am deeply appreciative. Michael David- Fox served as a type of second advisor to me in my time at Maryland and indelibly shaped my understanding of history and how it ought to be practiced. His great intellectual depth and probing historical mind continually pushed me forward to improve every aspect of this dissertation as well as my work as a historian in general. I am immeasurably richer for having worked with him, and I thank him humbly for all he has done for me. As my advisor, Jeffery Herf guided my development as a historian and oversaw the completion of this project. In many ways he served as an exemplar of what I would like to achieve as a historian. I express my deep gratitude to him for the valuable support and guidance he provided. Finally, with true amazement and intense appreciation for the depth of their love and support, I thank my family: my mother Judy, my father Michael, my sister Vicki, and my brother Mike. This work is dedicated to them. Washington, D.C., November 2009 vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements????????????????????????? ii Table of Contents?????????????????????????...vi Frequently Used Abbreviations????????????????????..ix Introduction????????????????????????????.1 PART I Creating a ?New Socialist Diplomacy?: The Institutional and Conceptual Beginnings of East German Foreign Policy Expertise, 1945-1958 Chapter One The Early Development of East German Foreign Policy Expertise: Incomplete Rationalization, Incomplete Synchronization ???????????????34 Chapter Two The Fruits of Underdeveloment: The Expertise that Wasn?t?????????..90 PART II Foreign Policy Expertise Behind the Wall: Formulation of a GDR-Specific Conception of International Relations, 1958-1968 Chapter Three The Institutional Development of East German Foreign Policy Expertise in the 1960s: Rationalization in Service of Synchronization?.......................................................135 Chapter Four Foreign Policy Expertise Takes Shape: The Fusion of East German Realpolitik and Marxism-Leninism?????????????????????????. 199 PART III Foreign Policy Expertise in the D?tente Era: Institutional Completion and the Zenith of the Marxist-Leninist Paradigm, 1968-1979 Chapter Five The Institutional Completion of East German Foreign Policy Expertise...................282 Chapter Six The Marxist-Leninist Paradigm Triumphant..............................................................335 vii PART IV The ?Second Cold War? and the Crisis of the Soviet Bloc: The Eclipse of the Marxist- Leninist Paradigm in East German Foreign Policy Expertise, 1979-1990 Chapter Seven East German Foreign Policy Expertise and the ?Second Cold War?: The Marxist-Leninist Paradigm under Stress????????????????????????411 Chapter Eight East German New Thinking??????????????????????. 493 Conclusion????????????????????????????..575 Sources and Bibliography.......................................................................................... 595 viii Frequently Used Abbreviations APIV Division Division f?r Au?enpolitik und Internationale Verbindungen/ Foreign Policy and International Relations Division APK Au?enpolitische Kommission/Foreign Policy Commission CC Central Committee CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union (D)ASR (Deutsche) Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft/ (German) Academy for the Study of State and Law DIZ Deutsches Institute f?r Zeitgeschichte/German Institute for Contemporary History DM Deutsche Mark DWI Deutsches Wirtschaftsinstitut/German Economic Institute DWK Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission/German Economic Commission EEC European Economic Community FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany) IIB Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen/Institute for International Relations IMEMO Institut mirovoi ekonomiki i mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii/Institute of World Economics and International Affairs IPW Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft/Institute for International Politics and Economics IV Division Division f?r Internationale Verbindungen/International Relations Division IVB Institut f?r V?lkerrecht und Internationale Beziehungen/Institute for International Law and International Relations ix KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands/Communist Party of Germany MAI Ministerium f?r Au?enhandel und Innerdeutschen Handel/Ministry for Foreign Trade and Inner-German Trade MfAA Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten/Ministry for Foreign Affairs MfS Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit/Ministry of State Security (?Stasi?) MGIMO Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi institut mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii/ Moscow State Institute of International Relations NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NOS New Economic System PAMaD Prorektorat f?r die Ausbildung von leitenden Mitarbeitern f?r den ausw?rtigen Dienst/Prorectorate for the Training of Leading Foreign Service Employees SED Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands/Socialist Unity Party of Germany SMAG Soviet Military Administration in Germany SOZ Soviet Occupation Zone SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands/Social Democratic Party of Germany SPK Staatliche Plankommission/State Planning Commission 1 Introduction In August 1989, the Institute for International Politics and Economics, East Germany?s leading research institution on the capitalist West, completed an internal study that ascertained how ?altered external and internal conditions have led to changes not only in the appearance but also in the character of [capitalism?s] development.? The report?s authors described how its continued economic dynamism matched with increasing interdependence in the international arena meant that inherited assumptions about the nature of capitalism had to be re-thought: ?The determination of our prospects and strategic goals cannot?as has become apparent?be based upon expectation of the ineluctable demise of capitalism in the sense of absolute bounds of its development.? Capitalism, in sharp contrast to the traditional Marxist-Leninist view that claimed ?imperialism? was inherently bellicose and bound to wind up in the dustbin of history, was described in the report as ?capable of peace and compatible with civilization,? which in turn required that East Germany and the Soviet Bloc abandon the notion of the fundamental incompatibility of capitalism and socialism and work for substantive and permanent rapprochement between the two opposed blocs.1 The present dissertation makes use of reports, memoranda, resolutions, analyses, and other internal documents as well as oral history interviews conducted with figures formerly active within the East German foreign policy apparatus in order to examine the development of East German foreign policy expertise during the Cold War and, starting in the late 1970s, the emergence among East German experts of a non-dogmatic current 1 Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (hereafter SAMPO- BArch) DY 30/IV 2/2.035/6. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are the author?s own. 2 of foreign policy thought that expressed ideas like those sketched above as part of a larger break with inherited Marxist-Leninist, class-based assumptions about international relations. The seeming incongruity of formulation of a body of reformist-oriented foreign policy thought under a party leadership considered?rightly so in many ways?to be the most obstinately ideological of all Soviet satellite states in Eastern and Central Europe stemmed from the specific configuration of foreign policy expertise in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). East German Au?enpolitiker, or foreign policy professionals, were expected both to comply with the political and ideological requirements of the leadership of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and to produce sound, specialist-based analysis of international relations. Their rather paradoxical task thus consisted in providing reliable expertise in order to understand and fight East Germany?s Cold War ?class enemy,? the capitalist West. The presence of these contrasting objectives resulted in a persistent tension, captured nicely by the evocative German term Spannungsverh?ltnis, between intellectual subordination and autonomy that lent foreign policy expertise in the GDR its own distinct developmental dynamic and decisively shaped its functioning and output. The critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise that would culminate in the type of reformist thought described above was kept in bounds for the first two decades of the state?s existence by the diplomatic isolation outside of the Soviet Bloc to which the GDR was subjected by West Germany?s Hallstein Doctrine. Owing to the peculiar foreign policy conditions facing East Germany into the first half of the 1970s?national division, diplomatic isolation, acute dependency on the Soviet Union, pronounced reliance on the Soviet Bloc?the GDR?s concrete foreign policy interests 3 were uniquely compatible with the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations, to a degree unmatched in other Soviet satellite states, and East German experts correspondingly formulated a GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused identification of East Germany?s geo-strategic interests with ideological precepts drawn from the Marxist-Leninist canon. Within this framework, international relations were understood essentially in ideological terms?to a significant degree, ideology became reality for East German foreign policy experts. However, foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s, which saw the GDR establish diplomatic relations with the world outside the Soviet Bloc, appeared to change all of this and unleashed the critical potential resident within East German foreign policy expertise. Following integration into the international order, the GDR no longer appeared as an artificial construct of the Cold War but rather as a ?status quo? actor on the international stage theoretically equal to any other sovereign state.2 The GDR was rid, for good or ill, of its previous insularity and became fully exposed to the vagaries of international relations?East German experts now had to analyze and illuminate the GDR?s increasingly complex foreign relations without being able to retreat to the type of ideological dogmatism that had served as the natural default under the conditions of imposed isolation. Concurrent with foreign policy normalization, experts from the Institute for International Relations and the Institute for International Politics and Economics, the GDR?s two leading foreign policy research institutes, became integrated into a transnational network of foreign policy specialists by taking up and maintaining contact with their counterparts in the capitalist West. As East German experts engaged in 2 The concept is drawn from Adam Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1973, 2nd ed. (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974). 4 a dialog with their numerous and diverse Western partners, the bonds of the rigid, dogmatic understanding of international relations as the unfolding of the class struggle on the international stage that had been inherited from the pre-normalization era perforce slackened. East German experts recognized that the complexities of contemporary international relations, of which they were now gaining first-hand knowledge, were a poor fit for that same understanding. The discrepancy between the reality of the foreign relations East German experts were charged with analyzing and the Marxist-Leninist postulates they were expected to apply began to grow steadily. East German experts? central, paradoxical task of complying with the party line while simultaneously producing accurate, specialist-based analysis of international relations remained unchanged, but the importance of the expert over the ideological element in experts? work steadily mounted until the former?s preponderance over the latter became overwhelming in the 1980s. The stage was set for East German experts? break with the prevailing Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. Domestic stagnation paired with the capitalist West?s frontal challenge to the international position of the Soviet Bloc in the form of the ?second Cold War? created a situation where the results of expert studies on the most central questions facing the GDR?arms control and East-West relations, the strength and strategy of the capitalist West, economic development and political cohesion in the Soviet Bloc, relations with the developing world?repeatedly and unambiguously pointed to the incongruence of the existing interpretive framework with the existing state of international relations and the GDR?s place therein. As Marxism-Leninism proved sorely lacking as an analytical tool, East German experts working at the foreign ministry, in G?nter Sieber?s International 5 Relations Division, at Max Schmidt?s Institute for International Politics and Economics, and at Gerhard Hahn?s Institue for International Relations prioritized pragmatic realpolitical considerations over adherence to rigid ideological postulates, which appeared woefully out-of-step with the reality of the international situation East German experts were charged with analyzing. In the process, the GDR?s experts, sometimes tacitly, sometimes openly, rejected the central principles of the dogmatic class-based understanding of international relations that had long functioned as the standard template for understanding the world, producing views like those outlined in the opening paragraph above. The result was a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought that bore remarkable resemblance to the Soviet ?New Thinking.? The case of East German experts and their striking break with a class-based understanding of international relations in the conditions of the ideologically rigid East German dictatorship addresses a set of broader questions involving ideology, professional expertise, internationalization, and dictatorship. To wit: In what way does ideology shape how dictatorial regimes perceive the outside world and in what way does it influence how such regimes formulate foreign policy? How can the place and function of ideology within dictatorial regimes change over time in response to both internal and external stimuli? How do a state?s level of integration into the international political order and involvement in transnational processes influence such changes? What, finally, is the nature of the relationship between ideology and professional expertise in dictatorial regimes, how are the often contrasting requirements and aims of the two dealt with by authorities, and how can the resulting tension potentially produce changes within dictatorial regimes? East Germany provides a rich historical case study to illuminate this 6 set of questions as the transition from diplomatic isolation to wide-ranging foreign policy engagement was particularly pronounced in the GDR, a state whose self-understanding and self-presentation were highly ideological from start to finish. East German Foreign policy expertise in particular, furthermore, represents a uniquely appropriate field for investigation of the complexities surrounding the issues of ideology, professional expertise, internationalization, and dictatorship since the potential for tension between the ideological and the expert was great in the work of East German specialists, who had to comply with the dictates of a party leadership fixated on maintenance of a ?firm Marxist- Leninist perspective? yet also in need of sound analysis of international relations that could be of value in the process of foreign policy formulation. The highly ideological orientation prevalent in East Germany has been well established. The GDR was a creation of that forty-five-year span of time in the twentieth century known as the Cold War and typified by the ?clash of systems? between socialist East, led by the Soviet Union, and capitalist West, led by the United States. The GDR arose from the condition of systemic East-West rivalry and exited the historical stage as soon as the chronic Cold War antagonism between the two rival systems of social organization had come to an end. As Hermann Wentker has put it, the Cold War was the decisive precondition for the genesis (Entstehungsbedingung) of both East and West Germany following the total defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, but only for East Germany was the Cold War also the decisive precondition of its existence (Existenzbedingung): ?In its entire forty-year history, [the GDR] remained an artifact existentially dependent upon maintenance of the East-West conflict.?3 The character of 3 Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 8. 7 East Germany as an exclusive creation of the Cold War in turn points to the fact that the GDR, for all the features it had in common with the other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of political structure, repressive apparatus, economic organization, and social policy, also represented a case apart. The primary reason for the GDR?s uniqueness within the Soviet Bloc lay in division of the German nation, both cause and effect of the Cold War, into two separate, antagonistic, and ideologically antithetical states of contrasting socio-economic organization and political order. East Germany?s resulting inability to establish its legitimacy on a national basis, as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the other states of the Soviet Bloc could, as well as the necessity to distinguish itself from its West German rival meant that the GDR was compelled to ground its legitimacy purely in non- national ideological terms?on the basis of Marxism-Leninism?and to structure its self- understanding around membership in the Soviet Bloc, which after all served as ultimate guarantor of its continued existence. Sigrid Meuschel has highlighted how this constellation of issues raised Marxist-Leninist ideology to a position of importance in East Germany unparalleled in other Soviet Bloc states: ?Due to the division of Germany, the SED did not possess a self-evident, incontestable national basis?. The ruling ideology gained the character of a raison d?etat in greater measure than in other socialist states? In light of its precarious national basis, [The SED] had a vital interest in keeping the GDR in harmony with the elementary structures and ways of functioning of the socialist bloc. Only bloc cohesion could guarantee the existence of the GDR, and it had to rest upon normative definitions that allowed the SED to make clear the distinct antithesis 8 between the constitution of its state and that of its western adversary.?4 As numerous specialized studies have shown, Marxism-Leninism in the GDR did not merely fulfill the ideological function of justifying and veiling dictatorship5?although that is one function it certainly did fulfill?but also as a template for SED authorities? understanding of politics and their formulation of concrete policy decisions. Ideological motives, for instance, exercised a significant, at times decisive, influence on SED policy in areas as diverse as education,6 religion,7 industrial relations,8 memory,9 sport,10 film,11 consumer 4 Sigrid Meuschel, Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft in der DDR. Zum Paradox von Stabilit?t und Revolution in der DDR 1945-1989 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), 20 5 Hermann Weber, ?Marxismus-Leninismus und die soziale Umgestaltung der SBZ/DDR. Die Instrumentalisierung des Marxismus-Leninismus,? in Materialien der Enquete-Kommission ?Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland? vol. 3: Rolle und Bedeutung der Ideologie, integrativer Faktoren und disziplinierender Praktiken in Staat und Gesellschaft der DDR (Baden Baden: Nomos, 1995), pt. 3, p. 18. 6 Birgit Werner, Sonderp?dagogik im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ideologie und Tradition. Zur Geschichte der Sonderp?dagogik unter besonderer Ber?cksichtigung der Hilfsschulp?dagogik in der SBZ und der DDR zwischen 1945 und 1952 (Hamburg: Kovac, 1999), Bernd John, Ideologie und P?dagogik. Zur Geschichte der Vergleichenden P?dagogik in der DDR (Cologne: B?hlau, 1998); John Rodden, Textbook Reds: Schoolbooks, Ideology, and Eastern German Identity (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006); Ralph Jessen, Akademische Elite und kommunistische Diktatur. Die ostdeutsche Hochschullehrerschaft in der Ulbricht-?ra (G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999). 7 Alfred Hoffmann, ?Mit Gott einfach fertig.? Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Praxis des Atheismus im Marxismus-Leninismus der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Leipzig: Benno, 2000); Bernd Schaefer, Staat und Katholische Kirche in der DDR (Cologne: B?hlau, 1998); Josef Schmid, Kirchen, Staat und Politik in Dresden zwischen 1975 und 1989 (Cologne: B?hlau, 1998). 8 Wolfgang Zimmermann, Die industrielle Arbeitswelt der DDR unter dem Primat der sozialistischen Ideologie, exemplarisch untersucht am Schrifttum ?ber Nacht- und Schichtarbeit (M?nster: Lit, 2000). 9 Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Josie McLellan, Antifascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the International Brigades, 1945-1989 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Christina Morina, ?Vernichtungskrieg, Kalter Krieg und politisches Ged?chtnis: Zum Umgang mit dem Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion im geteilten Deutschland,? Geschichte und Gesellschaft 34 (2008): 252-291. 10 Uta Balbier, Kalter Krieg auf der Aschenbahn. Deutsch-deutscher Sport 1950-72, eine politische Geschichte (Paderborn: Sch?ningh, 2007); Hans Joachim Teichler, ?Herrschaft und Eigensinn im DDR- Sport,? in Transformationen des deutschen Sports seit 1939, ed. Michael Kr?ger (Hamburg: Czwalina, 2001), 233-249; Hansj?rg Geiger, ?Das Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit und der Leistungssport,? in K?rper, Kultur und Ideologie. Sport und Zeitgeist im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, eds. Irene Diekmann and Hans Joachim Teichler (Bodenheim: Philo, 1997), 217-247. 11 Dorothea Becker, Zwischen Ideologie und Autonomie. Der DDR-Blick auf die deutsche Filmgeschichte (M?nster: Lit, 1999). 9 culture,12 and journalism.13 In the realm of international relations, the ideologically inspired concepts ?peaceful coexistence,? ?proletarian internationalism,? and ?anti- imperialist solidarity? similarly represented key elements in the SED?s basic understanding of the field and exercised a correspondingly significant, though variable, influence on the formulation of actual foreign policy.14 Parallel to Meuschel?s stress on the importance of ideological legitimation for domestic politics, Ulrich Pfeil has demonstrated how the same set of concerns infused East German foreign policy with a particularly sharp ideological edge: ?Only by demonstrating the superiority of socialism would [the GDR] have been in a position to buttress its right to exist and to legitimize its existence alongside the ?bourgeois? Federal Republic.?15 Yet ideology does not exist in a vacuum. Even in a highly ideological state like the GDR and with an ideology whose claim to validity was as comprehensive as that of Marxism-Leninism, any given body of ideological precepts is transformed in the course of its implementation in societal practice. Not just in East Germany, but in all the communist dictatorships of the Soviet Bloc, professional expertise was a main area where 12 Eli Rubin, Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Jonathan R. Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 13 Gunter Holzwei?ig, Die sch?rfste Waffe der Partei. Eine Mediegeschichte der DDR (Cologne: B?hlau, 2002); Gunter Holzwei?ig, Klassenfeinde und ?Entspannungsfeinde.? West-Medien im Fadenkreuz von SED und MfS (Berlin, 1995, Schriftenreihe des Berliner Landesbeauftragten f?r die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR). 14 Wentker, Au?enpolitik; Ingrid Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000); Benno-Eide Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR 1976-1989. Strategien und Grenzen (Paderborn: Sch?nigh, 1999); Ulrich Pfeil, ed., Die DDR und der Westen, Transnationale Beziehungen 1949-1989 (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001); Heike Amos, Die Westpolitik der SED 1948/49-1961. ?Arbeit nach Westdeutschland? durch die Nationale Front, das Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten und das Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit (Berlin: Akademie, 1999); Michael Lemke, Einheit oder Sozialismus? Die Deutschlandpolitik der SED 1949-1961 (Cologne: B?hlau, 2001); Daniel K?chenmeister et al., eds., ?abgegrenzte Weltoffenheit?Zur Au?en- und Deutschlandpolitik der DDR (Schkeuditz: GNN, 1999). 15 Ulrich Pfeil, ?Die DDR und der Westen 1949-1989. Eine Einf?hrung,? in Die DDR und der Westen, ed. Pfeil, 13. 10 the rigid tenets of Marxism-Leninism often had to be attenuated and reconciled with the specialized knowledge and idiosyncratic practices of expert communities. In certain fields of expertise, particularly those belonging to the humanities and social sciences closely connected in some way with the core tenets of Marxism-Leninism, nearly all traces of professional and intellectual autonomy were eliminated as their full subordination to the party?s political and ideological requirements was successfully effected. Thus, disciplines like history,16 philosophy,17 and sociology,18 were fully ?synchronized? and became little more than purveyors and enforcers of the party line in their respective field. In other fields, however, while their political subordination was essentially total, a degree of professional and intellectual autonomy was maintained, mainly because complete ideologization proved impracticable, counterproductive or both. Technical expertise and the natural sciences represent in this case the signal example, where ideological considerations and criteria played an unmistakable role in individual fields of expertise, but where expert considerations and criteria specific to a given discipline simultaneously maintained importance.19 Thus, in a complicated process of negotiation with party authorities, technical specialists and scientists in the Soviet Union, 16 Martin Sabrow, Das Diktat des Konsenses. Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR 1949-1969 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001); Stefan Ebenfeld, Geschichte nach Plan? Die Instrumentalisierung der Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR am Beispiel des Museums f?r Deutsche Gescichte in Berlin (1950- 1955) (Marburg: Tectum, 2001); Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, Legitimation eines neuen Staates. Parteiarbeiter an der historischen Front. Geschichtswissenschaft in der SBZ/DDR 1945 bis 1961 (Berlin: Ch. Links, 1997). 17 Volker Gerhardt and Hans Christoph Rau, eds., Anf?nge der DDR-Philosophie. Anspr?che, Ohnmacht, Scheitern (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001); Guntolf Herzberg, Aufbruch und Abwicklung. Neue Studien zur Philosophie in der DDR (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000); Hans-J?rgen Mende and Reinhard Mocek, eds., Gest?rte Vernunft? Gedanken zu einer Standortbestimmung der DDR-Philosophie (Berlin: Luisenstadt, 1996). 18 Bernhard Sch?fers, ed., Soziologie in Deutschland. Entwicklung, Institutionalisierung und Berufsfelder, Theoretische Kontroversen (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1995). 19 For a useful overview on questions surrounding the relationship between science, modern dictatorship, and ideology, see Mark Walker, ed., Science and Ideology: A Comparative History (New York: Routledge, 2003). 11 East Germany, and other Soviet Bloc states in fields such as physics,20 nuclear energy,21 space research,22 engineering,23 cybernetics,24 medicine,25 micro-electronics,26 and mathematics,27 were able to carve out for themselves a certain amount of professional and intellectual autonomy.28 But also in areas like law and administration29 and the economy,30 a degree of professional expertise comparatively free of excessive ideologization had to be maintained in order to ensure disciplinary cohesion and practical efficacy, where each field of specialist activity was informed by the political and ideological requirements placed upon it by party leadership, but in turn also re-shaped political practice and ideology in accord with its own particular disciplinary needs. 20 Alexei Kojevnikov, Stalin?s Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists (London: Imperial College Press, 2004). 21 Thomas Stange, Institut X. Die Anf?nge der Kern- und Hochenergiephysik in der DDR (Stuttgart: Teubner, 2001); Paul Josephson, Red Atom: Russia?s Nuclear Program from Stalin to Today (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2000); David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). 22 Katharina Hein-Weingarten, Das Institut f?r Kosmosforschung der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Ein Beitrag zur Erfassung der Wissenschaftspolitik der DDR am Beispiel der Weltraumforschung von 1957 bis 1991 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2000); Asif Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974 (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2000). 23 Dolores L. Augustine, Red Prometheus: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1945-1990 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), Loren R. Graham, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 24 Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 25 Anna-Sabine Ernst, ?Die beste Prophylaxe ist der Sozialismus?: ?rzte und medizinische Hochschullehrer in der SBZ/DDR 1945-1961 (M?nster: Waxmann, 1997). 26 Gerhard Barkleit, Mikroelektronik in der DDR (Dresden: Hannah-Arendt-Institut f?r Totalitarismusforschung, 2000). 27 Loren R. Graham, What Have We Learned About Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998). 28 For useful overviews of the topic of scientific and technical expertise in East Germany and the Soviet Union, see, respectively, Kristie Macrakis and Dieter Hoffmann, eds., Science under Socialism: East Germany in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999) and Loren R. Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 29 Ulrich Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? 1948- 1971 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1997). 30 Andr? Steiner, Die DDR-Wirtschaftsreform der sechziger Jahre. Konflikt zwischen Effizienz und Machtkalk?l (Berlin: Akademie, 1999). 12 Foreign policy expertise was one such field of professional activity that for both reasons of practicability and expediency maintained a certain level of intellectual autonomy in the midst of complete political subordination. Throughout the Soviet Bloc, the object of analysis of foreign policy expertise?international relations?served as a constant check against excessive ideologization and required a degree of intellectual autonomy since international relations themselves could not be made subordinate to Marxist-Leninist precepts. A handful of scholars have provided valuable studies on foreign policy expertise in the Soviet Union that reveal the tensions between intellectual subordination and autonomy that were intrinsic to it.31 Robert English in particular has delivered an important account that details how Soviet ?mezhdunarodniki,? or foreign policy professionals, played a key role in the articulation and promotion of New Thinking.32 Other scholars have tangentially addressed the issue in the Soviet context within a broader focus on the events of the Gorbachev era.33 Research that takes foreign 31 Gerhard Duda, Jen? Varga und die Geschichte des Instituts f?r Weltwirtschaft und Weltpolitik in Moskau, 1921-1970. Zu den M?glichkeiten und Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Auslandsanalyse in der Sowjetunion (Berlin: Akademie, 1994); Oded Aran, The Mezhdunarodniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in Soviet Foreign Policy (Tel Aviv: Turtledove Publishing, 1979); Jeffrey T. Checkel, Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). 32 Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). In a 2005 article, English takes his argument further still, asserting that the New Thinking took root not only among a farily narrow stratum of experts but among ?a large section of the critical intelligentsia? and that it ?did not merely signal a reconsideration of policy efficacy or recalculation of ends and means, but reflected instead a long-term and wholesale revision of beliefs, values, and identity.? Robert D. English, ?The Sociology of New Thinking: Elites, Identity Change, and the End of the Cold War,? Journal of Cold War Studies 7, no. 2 (2005): 43-80. 33 Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Ofira Seliktar, Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures: Why So Few Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2004); Coit D. Blacker, Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Security Policy, 1985-1991 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993); Sarah Mendelson, Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); Stephen Kull, Burying Lenin: The Revolution in Soviet Ideology and Foreign Policy (Boulder: Westview, 1992); Douglas Blum, ?The Soviet Foreign Policy Belief System: Beliefs, Politics, and Foreign Policy Outcomes,? International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (December 1993): 373- 394. 13 policy expertise as its focus, investigating how foreign policy experts fitted into the broader foreign policy apparatus and how they may have contributed to the development of new foreign policy paradigms, remains, however, rather scant for other Soviet Bloc states, including the GDR. In literature dealing specifically with East German foreign policy, which has come into its own in recent years after issues of domestic politics had dominated historians? research agenda,34 the topic of foreign policy expertise is rarely treated as a topic of importance in and of itself, but rather is typically only considered in relation to high politics in order to determine its influence on the formulation of actual foreign policy.35 Alternatively, a number of studies on individual expert institutions with diverse analytical foci and of varying chronological scope exist, but none places East German foreign policy expertise as a cohesive whole at the center of its analysis or devotes sufficient attention to the place of expertise within the broader East German foreign policy apparatus, of which it was a key component and which decisively shaped its functioning and output.36 Numerous memoirs and accounts written by ?Zeitzeugen? who worked within the East German foreign policy apparatus, in addition to being colored by each author?s personal experiences and concerns, similarly provide in most cases only a snapshot of individual issues, personalities, and facets of a much larger system without 34 For a detailed overview of the state of research on the GDR that, however, is no longer completely up-to- date given the large number of studies that have come out in the interim, see Rainer Eppelmann et al., eds., Bilanz und Perspektiven der DDR-Forschung (Paderborn: Ferdinand Sch?nigh, 2003). Less comprehensive but more streamlined and manageable is Corey Ross, The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR (London: Arnold, 2002). 35 Wentker, Au?enpolitik; Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik; Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR; Pfeil, ed., Die DDR und der Westen; Amos, Die Westpolitik der SED; Lemke, Einheit oder Sozialismus?; K?chenmeister et al., eds., ?abgegrenzte Weltoffenheit? 36 Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft; Michael B. Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft der DDR in seiner Gr?ndungsphase 1971 bis 1974 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999); Erhard Crome, ed., Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009). 14 addressing the discrete topic of foreign policy expertise in a thoroughgoing and consistently analytical manner.37 The result of the current state of research is a deficient understanding of East German foreign policy expertise as a whole and its position and role within the broader East German foreign policy apparatus. How was East German foreign policy expertise structured and how did it function? Which factors had the greatest influence on experts? output and what was expertise on the myriad and changing foreign policy issues facing the GDR like? Did East German foreign policy experts, similar to their Soviet counterparts, enunciate a type of ?East German New Thinking?? The present study seeks to close this research lacuna by investigating how the tension, the Spannungsverh?ltnis, between intellectual subordination and autonomy inherent to foreign policy expertise in the Soviet Bloc played out in the specific conditions prevailing in the GDR, where a particular set of domestic and foreign policy concerns lent Marxist-Leninist ideology a centrality unparalleled in other Soviet satellite states, yet where the transition from diplomatic isolation to foreign policy normalization, an experience in the Soviet Bloc unique to the GDR, had the potential to mitigate ideology?s centrality and to challenge the Marxist-Leninist paradigm in foreign policy thought. 37 Hermann Axen, Ich war ein Diener der Partei. Autobiographische Gepsr?che mit Harald Neubert (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1996); Manfred Uschner, Die zweite Etage. Funktionsweise eines Machtapparates (Berlin: Dietz, 1993); Horst Grunert, F?r Honecker auf glattem Parket. Erinnerungen eines DDR- Diplomaten (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1995); Egon Winkelmann, Moskau, das war?s. Erinnerungen des DDR- Botschafters in der Sowjetunion, 1981 bis 1987 (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1997); Karl Seidel, Berlin-Bonner Balance. 20 Jahre deutsch-deutsche Beziehungen: Erinnerungen und Erkenntnisse eines Beteiligten (Berlin: Edition Ost, 2002); Joachim Mitdank, Berlin zwischen Ost und West. Erinnerungen eines Diplomaten (Berlin: Kai Homilius, 2004); Siegfried Bock et al., eds., Die DDR-Au?enpolitik im R?ckspiegel. Diplomaten im Gespr?ch (M?nster: Lit, 2004) and Alternative deutsche Au?enpolitik? DDR- Au?enpolitik im R?ckspiegel (II) (M?nster: Lit, 2006); Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, Deutsch-deutsche Erinnerungen (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2000); Gerhard Kegel, In den St?rmen unseres Jahrhunderts. Ein deutscher Kommunist ?ber sein ungew?hnliches Leben (Berlin: Dietz, 1983); Birgit Malchow, ed., Der Letzte macht das Licht aus. Wie DDR-Diplomaten das Jahr 1990 im Ausland erlebten (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1999). 15 Even if one were to accept Hans-Ulrich Wehler?s dismissive characterization of the GDR as little more than a footnote to history,38 a position which the author of the current study views as the result of adherence to an outmoded, overly narrow concern with social history located exclusively in the framework of the traditional nation-state, the case of East German foreign policy expertise would still possess considerable significance since it has important implications for one?s understanding of the relationship between professional expertise, ideology, internationalization, and modern dictatorship that extend well beyond the East German experience proper. Although the political subordination of East German foreign policy expertise was complete, there nevertheless existed a clear tension between intellectual autonomy and intellectual subordination which stemmed from the very raison d??tre of foreign policy expertise in the GDR. This tension allowed for the emergence of a critical tendency within expertise that was increasingly at odds with adherence to an unsophisticated, reductionist, class- based approach to international relations. Under the conditions of diplomatic isolation, this critical tendency was largely kept in check, but the internationalization of foreign policy and the transnationalization of foreign policy expertise brought about in the early 1970s by normalization facilitated its continued and steady growth until the preponderance of the expert over the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise became overwhelming by the 1980s. In this context, Marxism-Leninism continued to serve as the basic framework in which international relations were generally understood, but it was increasingly relegated to this position alone, i.e. of intellectual framing device, while the essential focus of expertise shifted emphatically toward expert 38 Wehler essentially views the GDR as a temporary detour on Germany?s otherwise inexorable forward march along a trajectory of Western Weberian modernity. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 5: Bundesrepublik und DDR 1949-1990 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2008). 16 analysis of individual issues on the basis of specialist knowledge. After engagement with the world outside the Soviet Bloc had fulfilled the necessary prerequisites for East German experts to bring their full knowledge to bear on the most pressing international relations issues facing the GDR, the West?s frontal challenge to the Soviet Bloc in the 1980s provided the concrete catalyst for them to unleash their accrued critical potential. In a situation where the reality of international relations diverged sharply from how Marxism-Leninism claimed that reality should look, East German experts engaged in a critical re-assessment of the prevailing class-based understanding of international relations and developed a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought that bore striking resemblance to the Soviet New Thinking. The GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise encompassed a network of institutions responsible for a variety of tasks, ranging from operative foreign policy such as the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Central Committee?s International Relations Division to research and education such as the Institute for International Relations and the Institute for International Politics and Economics. While each institution within the system possessed its own specific institutional profile and objectives, all shared in common in one capacity or another the task of analyzing the foreign relations of the GDR. Furthermore, the functional differentiation existing between the diverse institutions of the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise was subsumed under the unity of purpose provided by unambiguous subordination toward fulfilling the GDR?s foreign policy objectives as determined by the changing needs and priorities of the SED leadership. Operative and research foreign policy institutions were thus supposed to stand in a symbiotic relationship with one another where the so-called ?joining of theory with 17 practice? (i.e. their full political and ideological subordination to the requirements of the SED leadership) would be complete. The full political and ideological subordination of the GDR?s expert institutions?and the resulting Spannungsverh?ltnis?however, was not brought about over night. The history of East German foreign policy expertise is in large part the story of, first, the erection of an institutional framework in which this tension was established as the defining characteristic of foreign policy expertise and, then, the gradual increase in the importance of the expert over the ideological element until the former?s preponderance over the latter became overpowering in the 1980s. In the process, it was not simply a question of how foreign policy expertise was supposed to function according to ?communist visions and theories? but also how ?the contested and messy attempts to implement them within new institutions? played out.39 And it is only within the framework in which it was formulated?the changing institutional configuration of East German foreign policy expertise?that changes in expert output can be understood. The institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise proceeded in the 1950s not according to a regular, long-term plan or a cohesive vision, but rather haphazardly in response to the shifting needs and priorities of the SED leadership, which at the time accorded secondary importance to foreign policy. The result was a hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination that hardly warranted the designation ?expert.? The quality of expertise produced in the course of the 1950s was consistent with this state of institutional underdevelopment, typically possessing little analytical value and generally 39 Michael David-Fox, Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 2. 18 being characterized by a combination of shrill ideological overstatement, unfounded wishful thinking, and a shortage of information that went much beyond basic facts. Most significant was the absence among experts of a comprehensive conception of the place of the GDR in the international arena that clearly delineated the GDR?s specific foreign policy interests. By the end of the 1960s, however, East German foreign policy expertise had been subjected to a concentrated process of rationalization in the service of synchronization. The ?joining of theory with practice? was achieved in a manner where synchronization and rationalization proceeded hand in hand. A final push for the ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise in the late 1960s and early 1970s capped the process, creating a well-organized, highly professional, and efficiently functioning system of foreign policy expertise where complete subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the leadership of the SED as well as the attendant Spannungsverh?ltnis between intellectual subordination and autonomy were established as the central characteristics of East German foreign policy expertise. The basic institutional configuration and fundamental features of East German foreign policy expertise would remain essentially unchanged for the remainder of the GDR?s existence. In tandem with the institutional development of a comprehensive system of foreign policy expertise, East German experts enunciated a comprehensive, GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused identification of the GDR?s concrete geo- strategic interests with ideological precepts drawn from the Marxist-Leninist canon. Thus, the ?clash of systems? (Systemauseinandersetzung) between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations, foreign policy 19 was a direct reflection of social system and accordingly a form of the class struggle (Au?enpolitik als Klassenpolitik), all international relations developments possessed significance only insofar as they related to and impacted the so-called international constellation of forces (das internationale Kr?fteverh?ltnis), which moved inexorably in favor of socialism, and the character of the developing world was correspondingly believed to be ?objectively anti-imperialist.? Further, the foreign policy interests of the GDR were understood as one and the same with the interests of an abstractly understood ?international socialism,? which was embodied in concrete form by the Soviet Bloc. The critical tendency inherent in the Spannungsverh?ltnis between intellectual subordination and autonomy was stifled as a result of the GDR?s diplomatic isolation, which ensured a strong correlation, to a degree unmatched in other Soviet satellite states, between the actual conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations, effectively precluding any alternative understanding of international relations. East German experts? fusion in the pre-normalization era of the GDR?s realpolitical interests with Marxist-Leninist tenets to form a comprehensive conception of international relations speaks to an important, unsettled question in studies on East German foreign policy, namely, the degree to which ideological motivations versus geopolitical interests shaped the foreign policy of the GDR.40 The case of East German experts in the 1950s and 1960s reveals that the two elements, while not fully compatible, were also not fully contradictory, especially in the conditions of diplomatic isolation 40 See footnote 14. 20 prevailing at the time.41 This finding echoes Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Plehsakov?s identification of a ?revolutionary-imperial paradigm? in Soviet foreign policy, where ideologically inspired revolutionary ambitions and pragmatic geopolitical interests were amalgamated and provided the basic template for Soviet foreign policy, within which the center of gravity tacked back and forth between the two contrasting, but not contradictory, poles.42 Such an approach that views ideology and realpolitik not as antithetical and fully distinct from one another but as overlapping and capable of cross- fertilization43 is ideally suited to tracing change both within and to a given foreign policy paradigm, whether on the level of policy-analysts?the focus of the current study?or on the level of policy-makers?the focus of Zubok and Pleshakov?s study?since it construes the process of interaction between the two elements as dynamic and open- ended, not as fixed, neither in development nor in outcome. The application of such an approach to East German foreign policy expertise further recommends itself since the GDR and the USSR, despite all their obvious differences, were twins insofar as Marxism- Leninism was absolutely central to each state?s self-understanding, to a degree unmatched in other Soviet Bloc states, and was thoroughly incorporated into the very categories in which international relations were understood. And just as Marxism- Leninism occupied a similar position in the GDR and the USSR, the integration of each 41 The fusion of ideology and realpolitik was not limited to GDR foreign policy in its entirety; it also occurred in discrete sub-fields, such as in relations with the Middle East. Angelika Timm, Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern. Das gest?rte Verh?ltnis der DDR zu Zionismus und Staat Israel (Bonn: Bouvier, 1997), 24-50. 42 Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin?s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996); Zubok employs the concept again in his more recent work, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). For variously contrasting views, see John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Melvyn P. Leffler, ?The Cold War: What Do ?We Now Know??,? American Historical Review 104, no. 2 (April 1999): 501-524; Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 43 Adam Ulam was an early proponent of such a view that by no means saw ideology and realpolitik as mutually exclusive, as the very name of his magnum opus suggests. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence. 21 state into the international order would set in motion parallel structural processes that fostered new modes of analyzing foreign policy: foreign policy normalization in the early 1970s promoted the same type of non-dogmatic understanding of international relations among East German Au?enpolitiker as the USSR?s post-Stalin opening to the West did among Soviet mezhdunarodniki. When, in the wake of foreign policy normalization, East German experts established wide-ranging contact with their counterparts in the capitalist West, they became, to use Peter Haas?s definition of the term, members of a distinct epistemic community, ?a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue-area.?44 Scholarly contact with the capitalist West was intended to serve the dual goal of gaining valuable information in order to produce a more accurate, refined picture of the complexities of contemporary international relations, of which the SED leadership could make use in its formulation of foreign policy, and offensively representing and substantiating the East German position on outstanding international relations issues in order to facilitate the successful implementation of GDR foreign policy by increasing acceptance for it abroad. The attempted union of contrasting, if not contradictory, scholarly and political objectives in East German experts? contacts with the capitalist West thus became another element in the broader Spannungsverh?ltnis between the expert and the ideological in East German foreign policy expertise. While in the view of the SED leadership such contacts were supposed to function exclusively as a one-way conduit of influence from East to West, the essential politicization, to which these 44 Peter M. Haas, ?Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,? in Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination, ed. Peter M. Haas (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997). 22 contacts were unmistakably subjected, was ultimately incapable of producing this outcome since the very purpose of such contacts entailed learning from and about the West, where an accurate assessment of the situation clashed with a strict ideological approach. The simple act of engaging in a dialog with Western partners, with whom East German experts increasingly viewed themselves as linked as members of a supranational expert community on the basis of shared specialized knowledge and a discrete set of professional standards, perforce led to a broadening of perspective, a convergence with the views of their counterparts, that otherwise could not have taken place. The outcome of East German experts? integration into a transnational community of experts notably accords with Patricia Clavin?s approach to transnationalism, where the nation-state and transnational phenomena are not considered antithetical?a view which has often predominated in transnational studies completed by cultural historians45?but rather where they interact with and reciprocally shape one another. Clavin, whose approach to transnationalism centers around an attempt to bring the state ?back in,? advises that ?[i]t is better to think of a transnational community not as an enmeshed or bound network, but rather as a honeycomb, a structure which sustains and gives shape to the identities of nation-states, institutions and particular social and geographic space.?46 On this basis, Clavin urges historians to consider not only how transnational phenomena have transcended the boundaries of the traditional nation-state but also how national phenomena can be understood in new ways through the prism of transnationalism. 45 Michael Werner and B?n?dicte Zimmermann, ?Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung. Der Ansatz der Histoire crois?e und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen,? Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28, no. 4 (2002): 607-636; Kiran-Klaus Patel, ??berlegungen zu einer transnationalen Geschichte,? Zeitschrift f?r Geschichtswissenschaft 52, no. 7 (2004): 626-645. 46 Patricia Clavin, ?Defining Transnationalism,? Contemporary European History 14, no. 4 (2005): 421- 439; for quote, see 438-439. 23 Following Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane?s early, influential definition of transnational relations as ?contracts, coalitions, and interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by the central foreign policy organs of government,?47 dictatorial states have occupied a minor position in transnational studies. Yet applying a definition such as Clavin?s allows one to overcome this methodological conundrum in order to trace the reciprocal influenced exercised by transnational processes and dictatorial states on one another since representatives of the latter became increasingly involved in transnational networks devoted to diverse topics?economics, military affairs, health, sport?as globalization proceeded apace in the second half of the twentieth century. The case of foreign policy experts can be taken as more broadly valid: politicization involved a degree of subordination, but also entailed professionalization and the promotion of autonomous expertise, which allowed experts from dictatorial states like the GDR to become members of transnational epistemic communities on the basis of shared expertise and in turn allowed them to be influenced by their participation in such networks. Matthew Evangelista?s account of the impact of the transnational peace movement on Soviet policy decisions does exactly this, revealing how the influx of ideas and information from outside the Soviet Bloc fostered moderation and pragmatism over ideological intransigence among Soviet decision-makers.48 The explosive growth of East German experts? scholarly contacts with the West following foreign policy normalization proved tremendously significant as it similarly provided a check against ideological 47 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), ix. 48 Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). 24 dogmatism and insularity and in doing so fostered the growing preponderance of the expert over the ideological in East German foreign policy expertise. The twin processes of internationalization and transnationalization occurred at a time when the system of international relations into which the GDR was being integrated itself was being transformed. The emergence of new dimensions, new forms, and new institutions of international relations meant that the sovereignty of the nation-state as international actor was being impinged upon as never before. The rise of supranational institutions, non-governmental organizations, and multinational corporations and the intensification of cross-border phenomena such as migration and cultural transfer considerably broadened the meaning and content of ?international relations? beyond the traditional focus on interstate relations. In light of the rapid growth of the linked processes of internationalization, transnationalization, and globalization in the second half of the twentieth century, Eckart Conze, Ulrich Lappenk?per, and Guido M?ller have called for historians to respond accordingly, to expand the traditional focus on interstate relations to include close attention to the ?forces profondes?49 like ?space and geography, demography, economic and financial developments, social change or systems of ideas and ideologies? that shaped the states enmeshed in the changing system of international relations as the system itself changed.50 With the traditional nation-state?s monopoly on international relations in precipitous decline,51 the internal development of states was 49 Conze, Lappenk?per, and M?ller borrow the term from Pierre Renouvin and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Introduction ? l?histoire des relations internationals (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1964). 50 Eckart Conze et al., ?Einf?hrung,? in Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen. Erneuerung und Erweiterung einer historischen Disziplin, eds. Eckart Conze et al. (Cologne: B?hlau, 2004), 3. 51 Conze, like Clavin, emphasizes that the traditional nation-state and transnational phenomena should not be understood as antithetical, but rather as interactive and complementary: ?Transnational relations or transnational politics are not counter-concepts to approaches that now as before examine the role of the state in international politics. Both approaches complement one another and together make allowance for an expanded understanding of politics that identifies other political actors alongside the state and state 25 shaped that much more by the processes and phenomena occurring in the now dramatically broadened system of international relations. Internationalization and transnationalization in the GDR must be understood namely in this context, as occurring in a world that itself was caught in the throes of change. With the twin processes of internationalization and transnationalization proceeding apace in the wake of foreign policy normalization, the previously robust correlation between the objective conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations began to break down. The international relations challenges facing the new ?status quo? GDR, incomparably more varied and complex than those accompanying the single-minded focus on diplomatic recognition of the pre-normalization era, demanded the specialized skills and knowledge possessed only by foreign policy experts, who now had to analyze the GDR?s newly normalized foreign relations without the insulation previously afforded by imposed diplomatic isolation. On this backdrop, the GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused identification of East Germany?s geo-strategic interests with ideological precepts drawn from the Marxist-Leninist canon actually experienced the highpoint of its development in the immediate wake of foreign policy normalization. For the manner in which foreign policy normalization was achieved?as part and parcel of the broader gains made by ?international socialism? (i.e. the Soviet Bloc) in the d?tente era, from the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw to the Helsinki Accords? perpetuated the notion that the GDR?s interests were one and the same with the abstract cause of international socialism and reinforced experts? ideologized understanding of institutions and analyses their actions.? Eckart Conze, ?Abschied von Staat und Politik? ?berlegungen zur Geschichte der internationalen Politik,? in Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen. Erneuerung und Erweiterung einer historischen Disziplin, eds. Eckart Conze et al. (Cologne: B?hlau, 2004), 42. 26 international relations since the entire process appeared to play out in conformity with the defining feature of that same understanding, namely, the fusion of the GDR?s realpolitical interests with the Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as a form of the international class struggle. But with the foreign policy fortunes of the GDR now subject to the vacillations of international relations as never before, just as highly favorable foreign policy developments reinforced the prevailing foreign policy paradigm among experts in the 1970s, adverse developments could and almost necessarily had to elicit critical re- consideration of that same understanding, which claimed to explain not only individual international relations events but also the unfolding of international relations in their entirety. It was at this time that domestic stagnation paired with the capitalist West?s frontal challenge to the international position of the Soviet Bloc in the form of the ?second Cold War? elicited East German experts? critical re-assessment of the prevailing foreign policy paradigm. Experts often dispensed with Marxist-Leninist analysis, which seemed less and less applicable to the complex problems facing the GDR and the Soviet Bloc, and instead adopted a pragmatic approach focused on the concrete realpolitical interests of the GDR. The hallowed principles propping up the GDR-specific conception of foreign policy that fused the clearly delineated realpolitical interests of East Germany with a class-based understanding of international relations were overturned one by one? the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism no longer represented the defining characteristic of international relations; the ?international constellation of forces,? which no longer moved continuously and inexorably in favor of socialism, was 27 drained of its ideological content to refer simply to the complex constellation of forces, actors, and interests shaping the system of contemporary international relations; the concept of a monolithic ?international socialism? proceeding steadily toward certain victory lost all currency as the severity of the Soviet Bloc?s domestic and international problems was acknowledged; recognition of the strength, dynamism, and ultimate sustainability of capitalism correspondingly led to abandonment of the notion of a ?general crisis? that would in due course result in capitalism?s final exit from the historical stage; finally, the developing world was no longer viewed as ?objectively anti- imperialist? and its interests and problems were acknowledged as important in their own right, not only insofar as they related to and impacted the international constellation of forces. Mikhail Gorbachev?s enunciation in 1986 of the New Thinking in Soviet foreign policy, both by the specific example it offered and by promoting innovation in foreign policy thought in general, exercised a catalyzing effect on East German experts? ongoing critical re-assessment of the conceptual underpinnings of the prevailing understanding of international relations, but this effect in turn was significantly dampened by the SED leadership?s firm opposition to the New Thinking. East German experts? break with Marxist-Leninist axioms, a process which had already begun at the start of the 1980s, derived from specific East German concerns, dynamics, and conditions. While East German experts? development of a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought and their break with a strict class-based approach to international relations by and large realized the essential thrust of the Soviet New Thinking?the rejection of ideological dogmatism in foreign policy thought in favor of prioritization of realpolitical considerations?it largely lacked the comprehensive, cohesive character and the 28 conscious rejection of inherited foreign policy postulates characteristic of the Soviet original. Conceptually, the GDR?s subordinate position within the Soviet Bloc represented a significant barrier to the development of a full-fledged ?East German New Thinking.? In contrast to the Soviet Union, which as bloc leader was confronted with a hugely diverse set of foreign policy challenges and upon which the onus of finding innovate solutions lay, the GDR was a subordinate bloc member and the range of its foreign policy concerns was correspondingly much narrower. The formulation of bold new approaches to bloc-wide or cross-system problems was therefore much likelier to come from the superpower Soviet Union than the dependent GDR, which was in fact exactly what occurred in the 1980s. The fact that the GDR comprised one half of the divided German nation and was located at the very forefront of the clash between socialist East and capitalist West only amplified the tendency to resort to unsophisticated ideological positions. East German experts? development of a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought in the 1980s was that much more remarkable given these conditions. The main barrier to formulation of a full-fledged ?East German New Thinking,? however, lay in the internal constitution of East German foreign policy expertise itself. The dual mission of maintaining a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? and producing sound, specialist analysis of international relations?itself the result of the complete subordination of expertise to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership?led to the eventual preponderance of the expert over the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise, which in turn propelled experts? rejection of a strict class-based approach to international relations in the 1980s. Yet the 29 basic fact of subordination ultimately proved decisive in keeping this critical tendency within bounds. In the East German dictatorship, the sine qua non of employment in the foreign policy apparatus of the GDR was adherence to the given party line and submission to its will in practice. East German experts were compelled to regulate their actions and views so as not to come into conflict with the prevailing party line or to challenge the party?s authority. In contrast to the situation in the Soviet Union, where similar conditions existed but where Gorbachev enthusiastically tapped the critical potential accumulated within the Soviet system of foreign policy expertise and actively promoted its implementation in foreign policy practice, an East German version of Gorbachev was sorely lacking. Erich Honecker and the top leadership of the SED viewed maintenance of the ideologically inspired fundamental antagonism between East and West as imperative and resolutely opposed dilution of the strict Abgrenzung (demarcation) separating the two blocs from one another and East Germany from West Germany. It thus should not have come as a surprise when, soon after Gorbachev had promulgated the New Thinking, which aimed at doing exactly this, Honecker and the top SED leadership placed themselves in strict opposition to it. Given the dictatorial character of the SED and the concentration of decision-making authority on foreign policy matters in the hands of an exceedingly small number of individuals, the absence of a party leadership that was willing to countenance formulation of a new paradigm in East German foreign policy thought, let alone to carry out serious reforms, meant that the far- reaching, if incomplete, re-conceptualization of East German foreign policy carried out by experts in the 1980s found limited implementation in broader foreign policy practice. 30 Finally, these empirical conclusions are based upon an effort to take ideas, in this case ideology, seriously,52 yet to do so while locating them in the specific historical context in which they took shape and in light of the multifarious influences that molded them. Here, ideology, even while it rests upon a more-or-less fixed set of basic principles, is viewed not as monolithic but as dynamic and open to change and as but one historical phenomenon alongside others, where it both acted upon and was acted upon by other factors. The current study consequently approaches ideology within East German foreign policy expertise ?not [as] the unfolding of ideational imperatives? but rather seeks ?to understand the ideological in its deeper contexts.?53 Such an approach allows one not only to better grasp the multivalent, variable content of ?the ideological? and the complex, changing function(s) it fulfilled within a given historical matrix, but also to identify the essential interconnectedness and interdependency of ideology with other historical phenomena?an indispensable condition for understanding the development and fully comprehending the significance of East German foreign policy expertise. * * * The current study proceeds chronologically and is divided into four parts, each of which contains two chapters. In each part, the first chapter is dedicated to the multifaceted institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise in the span of time 52 On the model provided by Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006). 53 Michael David-Fox, ?On the Primacy of Ideology: Soviet Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers (In Response to Martin Malia),? Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 5, no. 1 (Winter 2004), 105. 31 under consideration and the second chapter is dedicated to examination of the output of East German experts in the same period of time. Part four, however, departs from this formula as institutional development and output are treated side by side in chapters seven and eight, which respectively cover the first and second half of the 1980s, as the study?s analytical focus is then squarely directed at elucidation of the critical re-assessment of the prevailing understanding of international relations undertaken by East German experts in the period. Placing expert output in the immediate historical context which gave rise to it and shaped it acknowledges its interconnectedness and interaction with other contemporaneous events and processes and affords a more refined understanding of the formation, development, and transformation of East German experts? conception of international relation in dialogic relation to both internal and external stimuli. The chronological breakdown of the study largely accords with the periodization of East German foreign policy applied in the most important works on the subject,54 but also diverges with it at certain points since the development and configuration of East German foreign policy expertise was shaped as much by processes internal to the GDR as by the GDR?s changing fortunes in the international arena.55 With that said, one must note that the most important benchmarks in East German domestic and foreign policy GDR largely coincide since the GDR was a state whose internal development was heavily shaped by broader Cold War developments. Nevertheless, the distinction is worth making, and the fact that internal developments possessed larger relative importance for East German foreign policy expertise in the pre-normalization era and external 54 See footnote 14. 55 The differences in periodization also accord with Clavin?s remark how attention to transnational phenomena frequently affords ?the opportunity to address a different, and frequently larger, chronological range.? Clavin, ?Defining Transnationalism,? 9. 32 developments larger relative importance in the post-normalization era?especially in terms of output?evinces the crucial role played by normalization in the broader story of foreign policy expertise in the GDR. The current study is based primarily upon archival sources?the reports, memoranda, resolutions, analyses, and other internal documents which reveal how the GDR?s system of foreign expertise was constructed and how it functioned and how East German experts fulfilled their central charge of analyzing the foreign relations of the GDR. These archival sources are supplemented by the results of oral history interviews conducted with figures?ambassadors, career diplomats, scholars?formerly active within the East German foreign policy apparatus. Making use of these two different source-types helps to avoid the pitfalls encountered when dealing with either type of source on its own: the testimony of contemporary actors helps to get at those elements of the story that are not captured in the written historical record while written documents provide a means of double-checking the veracity of statements made in oral history interviews, which, for a host of reasons, may not be completely accurate. While the results of the oral history interviews were approached with a particularly critical eye and have been used more as supplemental rather than primary sources of evidence, immense care has been taken with both source-types, which are understood in the current study as partial reflections of a larger historical reality, not as unblemished representations of absolute historical truth. Finally, this study raises no claims to comprehensiveness. It instead accentuates those central developments and features that appeared to the author as characteristic for East German foreign policy expertise in each phase of its historical development. 33 PART I Creating a ?New Socialist Diplomacy?: The Institutional and Conceptual Beginnings of East German Foreign Policy Expertise, 1945-1958 34 Chapter One The Early Development of East German Foreign Policy Expertise: Incomplete Rationalization, Incomplete Synchronization Introduction The decisive fact shaping East German foreign policy expertise throughout its existence was its position as a subordinate element within the larger East German dictatorship, within which it was molded according to the changing goals and priorities of the leadership of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The basic objectives of East German foreign policy expertise were set by the SED and the demands placed upon it by the party guided its functioning. In the earliest phase of its development, extending from the establishment of the Soviet Occupation Zone (SOZ) in 1945 through the founding of East Germany in 1949 to the consolidation of ultimate authority in the hands of SED leader Walter Ulbricht in 1958, East German foreign policy expertise, like most other aspects of state and party life in the SOZ and the young GDR, had to be built up essentially from scratch in the effort to establish a radically different political and social order on the ruins left behind by Nazi Germany?s total defeat. In this period, the primary attention of the SED was directed toward the tasks of transforming itself into a Stalinist cadre party ?of the new type? and establishing and cementing its dictatorial control over a communist East Germany, which meant that the initial institutional development of foreign policy expertise took place in a context of relative neglect. The context of relative neglect would prove decisive, as it entailed the construction of a foreign policy apparatus and attendant expert institutions not according 35 to a uniform, long-term plan or coherent vision but haphazardly in response to the shifting needs and priorities of the SED. The state and party organs created in the period were oriented toward satisfying immediate party demands and wants in the realm of international relations, consisting principally in supplying essential information to provide basic foreign policy orientation, production of propaganda for domestic and foreign consumption, the creation of ?socialist foreign policy cadres? to staff the nascent foreign policy apparatus, and managing the still-limited foreign relations of party and state. While an array of institutions was created to carry out these tasks, a state of marked institutional underdevelopment prevailed in the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus well into the 1950s, the main features of which were ineffectual leadership and deficient coordination between different bodies, unclear delineation of responsibilities and overlapping competencies, a shortage of material resources, and an acute lack of qualified personnel. The end result of the initial period of East German foreign policy apparatus?s institutional underdevelopment was a hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination. The designation ?expert? was hardly warranted. Crucially, the deficient institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise in the SOZ and the young GDR meant that, although the ultimate authority of the SED was never questioned, the ?leading role of the party? could only be partially realized?the absence of a fully rationalized institutional framework prevented the full political and ideological synchronization of expertise. The SED provided the driving force behind East German foreign policy expertise in this initial phase of its development, but complete synchronization with the goals and priorities of the party would only come 36 later, in tandem with a thoroughgoing process of rationalization that would rectify the deficiencies stemming from institutional underdevelopment. The SED and its Initial Priorities After the conclusion of the Second World War, the rapid replacement of the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom against Nazi Germany by the Cold War confrontation between socialist East and capitalist West created the conditions in which a separate East German state under the dictatorial control of the SED was established. Within the framework of the newly proclaimed ?anti-fascist democratic order? of the Soviet Occupation Zone (SOZ), the SED under the leadership of Walter Ulbricht steadily increased its political power and involvement in the administration of the zone. Despite the nominal democratic orientation of the SOZ, in which multiple political parties were active, and the SED?s avowed fealty to the development of a pluralistic political system, the party in fact aspired from the outset to gain absolute power in East Germany. Wolfgang Leonhard arrived in the SOZ from Moscow on 30 April 1945 as a member of the ?Ulbricht Group,?1 whose mission was to take the first steps in reorganizing public life and administration, and, after fleeing the SOZ for Yugoslavia in 1949 due to dissatisfaction with the dictatorial course developments were taking, described how Ulbricht portrayed the desired ?anti-fascist 1 The main task of the Ulbricht group consisted in the staffing of the new city and county administration with dependable cadres in step with goals of the Soviets and the soon-to-be-reestablished Communist Party of Germany in June 1945, whose preparation represented the second main task of the group; Gerhard Keiderling, ed., ?Gruppe Ulbricht? in Berlin April bis Juni 1945. Von den Vorbereitungen im Sommer 1944 bis zur Wiedergr?ndung der KPD im Juni 1945. Eine Dokumentation (Berlin: A. Spitz, 1993), 102. 37 democratic? transformation of the SOZ: ?It?s as clear as day: things have to look democratic, but we have to keep everything under our control.?2 The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAG), which possessed complete authority in its occupation zone in accordance with the stipulations of the Potsdam Agreement of August 1945, played the key enabling role that allowed the SED to fulfill its goal of gaining absolute power in an East Germany with communist orientation. The SMAG drove the socio-economic, political, and cultural transformation of the SOZ in a Stalinist direction3 and privileged the SED over the other political parties active in the SOZ, thereby creating the necessary preconditions for the establishment of the SED?s one-party rule and the incorporation of East Germany into the Soviet Bloc. First, local Zentralverwaltungen (central administrations), designed to aid SMAG in its administration of the SOZ, were established in July 1945 and, then, the Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission (DWK, German Economic Commission), responsible for the coordination of the individual Zentralverwaltungen as well as economic planning for the entire SOZ, was founded in June 1947.4 The establishment of the central administrations and the German Economic Commission represented not only the first steps on the path to a separate East German state but also provided the SED with a vehicle for the establishment of its political power, since the party?s members were appointed by SMAG authorities to leading positions in these organizations over members of other parties nearly without exception. Following the formal establishment of the German Democratic 2 Wolfgang Leonhard, Die Revolution entl??t ihre Kinder (Leipzig: Reclam, 1990), 406. 3 Norman Naimark in his study on the history of SMAG comes to the conclusion that ?there was no overall plan for the political development of the [Soviet Occupation Z]one, certainly nothing like JCS 1067, the American policy statement on how to conduct the occupation [?.] Soviet officers bolshevized the zone not because there was a plan to do so, but because that was the only way they knew how to organize society.? Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949 (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995), 467. 4 Hermann Weber, Geschichte der DDR, 2nd ed. (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1999) 53. 38 Republic on 07 October 1949, which saw the transformation of the German Economic Commission into the provisional administration of the GDR, the SED?s dominance of the East German political landscape was not yet total, but given the continued support of the Soviets, who still maintained final authority in the newly established GDR, the SED?s dominance of the newly formed East German polity was simply a matter of time. Both before and after the Staatsgr?ndung (the founding of the GDR), the SED devoted comparatively little attention to the construction of a functional foreign policy apparatus, instead focusing on two interconnected issues whose resolution was indispensable for realization of the central goal of establishing a communist state in East Germany under its dictatorial control: transformation of the party into a Stalinist cadre party ?of the new type? and political and economic administration of the SOZ and the young GDR.5 After the total defeat of Nazi Germany, the basic elements of a functioning administrative system and economy had to be re-established. The establishment and maintenance of political control was in turn predicated upon returning the East German economy to a normal level of performance and achieving a degree of social stabilization. The SED wanted to ensure not only that this goal was achieved, but also that SED members held the key administrative positions in the process. After this was achieved, economic concerns continued to hold priority for the SED insofar as the party, after the ?construction of socialism? had been declared the main objective for the GDR at the II Party Conference of the SED in 1952, undertook to create a socialist socio-economic order in the GDR. The success of the SED?s efforts to create a communist East Germany under its exclusive control was dependent upon the other key issue at the center of the party?s 5 Ibid., 35. 39 attention: transformation of the party into one ?of the new type,? i.e. a Stalinist cadre party following the example of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Starting with the creation of the SED in April 1946 through the forced unification of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) of the SOZ, the leadership of the former KPD, centered around Walter Ulbricht, Franz Dahlem, Wilhelm Pieck, and Anton Ackermann and distinguished by slavish loyalty to the person of Soviet leader Josef Stalin, continually expanded its influence within the party at the expense of the former SPD and successfully implemented the Leninist organizational principle of ?democratic centralism,? which in practice amounted to an authoritarian chain of command within the party.6 The year 1948 saw the accelerated Stalinist transformation of the party,7 so that by the time of the formal creation of the GDR in 1949, the SED in its structure and decision-making process was well on its way to becoming a carbon copy of the Soviet exemplar.8 With the convening of the III Party Congress of the SED in July 1950, the development of the SED into a party of the new type was formalized and pursued with renewed vigor. At the congress, the party leadership expressed the belief that the SED could by virtue of its adherence to Marxism- Leninism discern the laws of history, in agreement with which the SED would guide the 6 Heike Amos, Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale 1949-1963. Struktur und Arbeitsweise von Politb?ro, Sekretariat und ZK-Apparat (M?nster; Lit, 2003), 21-22. 7 Andreas Malycha, Die SED. Geschichte ihrer Stalinisierung 1946-1953 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 2000), 300. Malycha views the summer months of 1948, which coincided with a spike in the early Cold War conflict as well as the introduction of a planned economy in the SOZ, as the temporary culmination of a process of ?schleichende Staliniserung? (creeping Stalinization) that hat begun with the very creation of the party in April 1946. 8 Malycha enumerates the main features: ?A leader cult, restricted or non-existent opportunity for members to influence the party?s fundamental decisions, disciplinary action or expulsion of irksome members, intraparty power struggles, abuse of power, cliquism, bureaucratic and centralistic structures as well as disrespect of the will of members were from 1946 on deep-rooted traits that justified the label ?Stalinist? and that dominated the party until fall 1989.? Ibid., 514. 40 process of societal transformation.9 In accord with this sentiment as well as its aspirations for total control, the SED sought to transform the East German party system into a compliant tool completely subordinate to its wishes. The four non-SED parties active in the SOZ/GDR?the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD), the National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD), and the Democratic Farmers? Party of Germany (DBD)? did not share the fate of oppositional parties in the Soviet Union (i.e. criminalization and dissolution), but were stripped of all real power and made to fulfill several indispensable functions that sustained the hegemony of the SED in East Germany: an ?alibi function? by maintaining the fiction that the East German political system was actually a pluralistic democracy; an ?all- German? function by maintaining contact with parties and organizations in West Germany (the CDU and LDPD, for instance, were the ?East versions? of the CDU and LDP active in West Germany); and a ?transmission function? by diffusing the views of the SED among groups of the population that would otherwise be unreachable or unreceptive to the party?s overtures.10 The non-SED parties were bullied and co-opted in what was an unfair fight from the start as a result of SMAG?s preferential treatment of the SED until they lost every semblance of independence and became a tractable instrument of SED rule within the GDR?a process that was already relatively advanced at the founding of the state and then essentially complete by the middle of the 1950s.11 The establishment and cementing of the SED?s dictatorial control over East Germany advanced in tandem with the SED?s transformation into a Stalinist cadre party. 9 Weber, Geschichte der DDR, 133. 10 Ibid., 140. 11 J?rgen Winkler, ?Zum Verh?ltnis von Partei und Staat in der DDR,? in Die SED. Geschichte Organisation Politik. Ein Handbuch, eds. Andreas Herbst et al. (Berlin: Dietz, 1997), 159-176, esp. 162- 164. 41 While the SED?s attention was directed primarily at the interrelated tasks of political and economic administration and creation of a strict party hierarchy capable of imposing its will both within its own ranks and upon East German politics and society, one other crucial element shaped the context in which East German foreign policy expertise began to take shape: the GDR?s near total dependency on the Soviet Union in the realm of foreign policy. Both before and after the formal founding of the GDR, essentially all significant foreign policy decisions that emanated from East Germany in the period were either made in Moscow or at the behest of the Soviets and were subordinated to the broader goals of Soviet Deutschlandpolitik (policy on Germany) in the framework of the nascent Cold War.12 East German leaders not only possessed negligible latitude in the formulation of the GDR?s foreign relations but also exercised minimal influence on the decisions of Soviet leaders pertaining to Germany. In this opening phase of the Cold War, when the continued existence of the GDR itself was anything but certain, the SED leadership had no option but to accede to Soviet foreign policy decisions whether they appeared beneficial to the SED leadership?s vision of a separate communist East German state or not. The most outstanding example of the SED leadership?s powerlessness to influence Soviet decision-making on the German question was provided in 1952, when the notorious ?Stalin note? sent from the USSR to the Western powers seemed to signal the Soviet leader?s readiness to assent to a peace treaty that would bring about the reunification of Germany as a neutral state and thereby fatally 12 Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 27. Wentker describes the situation in the following manner: ?Soviet supremacy in the foreign policy of the GDR was unmistakable in the first years after its founding. If East Berlin wanted to engage in international politics at all, at the time it could only do so as an appendage of Moscow. In these years, the GDR served the eastern superpower above all as the base and instrument of its policy on Germany. The leadership of the GDR in turn bound itself to the Soviet hegemon because they knew they had no chance to survive without its support.? 42 undermine the SED?s rule in East Germany. While assessments on the seriousness and ultimate purpose of the note diverge, 13 it is clear that Ulbricht was extremely displeased with the entire process and, what is more telling, wielded no influence on the formulation of the note itself, which was rejected by the Western powers. As a result of the SED?s focus on domestic issues and its acute dependency on the Soviet Union in all matters relating to foreign policy, international relations in their concrete, day-to-day sense were of secondary importance for the SED during the SOZ period and in the young GDR. Despite this situation, however, international relations developments in themselves nevertheless possessed immense significance for the SED leadership?the fate of socialism in Germany, or, more concretely, the SOZ/GDR, was after all to be decided by how the ?German question?, i.e. the final settlement among the four powers on the postwar status of Germany, would be resolved in the context of the conflict between East and West that had flared up after the Second World War and had since only gained in intensity. The SED?s self-understanding and its vision for East Germany starting from the state?s very inception were in fact intrinsically connected with consideration of the German question and the place of both East and West Germany in the broader international system. It could not have been otherwise considering that the creation in 1949 of separate German states with opposing social and political systems was the direct result of the broader clash between socialist East and capitalist West that 13 The numerous works written on the topic do not come to a unanimous conclusion on how seriously the Stalin note ought to be taken; some dismiss the note as pure propaganda intended solely to hinder the FRG?s integration into the West, some argue in favor of Soviet earnestness, while still others claim the Soviets themselves were unclear on what the intended effect of the note was. Peter Ruggenthaler, Stalins gro?er Bluff: die Geschichte der Stalin-Note in Dokumenten der sowjetischen F?hrung (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007); J?rgen Zarusky, ed., Die Stalin-Note vom 10. M?rz 1952. Neue Quellen und Analysen (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002), particularly Wilfried Loth, ?Die Entstehung der Stalin-Note,? 19-115, and Gerhard Wettig, ?Die Note vom 10. M?rz 1952 im Kontext von Stalins Deutschland-Politik seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg,? 139-196; Stein Bj?rnstad, ?Soviet German Policy and the Stalin Note of 10 March 1952? (diss. phil., University of Oslo, 1996). 43 would represent the defining characteristic of international relations for the duration of the Cold War. The inaugural governmental address held on 12 October 1949 by Otto Grotewohl, prime minister of the newly founded GDR, revealed how the SED?s basic self-understanding of East Germany was inseparable from the international context in which it was created. He attributed the division of Germany to the ?systematic policy of division? pursued by the ?imperialistic Western powers? in collaboration with the ruling circles of West Germany: ?In Germany?s western zones the foundations of German imperialism have been re-established. West Germany has become a playground for foreign and German imperialists and militarists. These are the elements that have once again erected reactionary rule in the separatist state based in Bonn and that are now setting out to lead the German people down the fateful path of capitalist economic crises and imperialist military adventures a third time.? Only in this context, Grotewohl continued, was the founding of the GDR to be understood: ?The impending danger of an imperialistic war has pressed upon us the urgent necessity to form effective and strong leadership for the struggle to reunify Germany, for the process of democratic reconstruction, and for peace. To this end, we have constituted the German Democratic Republic and have formed the provisional administration.?14 In the eyes of its leaders, East Germany was not simply a state like any other, but one component of a broader international drama defined by the clash of two antithetical forms of socio-economic organization, socialism and capitalism. With this understanding shaping its views of East Germany and its place in the international system, the SED began constructing a foreign policy apparatus not only to underline its claim to legitimate statehood vis-?-vis West 14 Dokumente zur Au?enpolitik der Regierung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, vol. 1: Von der Gr?ndung der DDR am 7. Oktober 1949 bis zur Souver?nit?tserkl?rung am 25. M?rz 1954 (Berlin: R?tten & Loening, 1954), 21-22. 44 Germany in the context of the unresolved German question, but also in order to gain at least some of the capabilities of a normal state actor on the international stage.15 It was on this backdrop that the SED leadership went about constructing a foreign policy apparatus, essentially from scratch, to meet its needs as the ruling party of the SOZ and the young GDR. Foreign Policy Expertise in Embryo before the Staatsgr?ndung Even in the period before the founding of the GDR in October 1949, the secondary importance of foreign policy for the SED did not prevent the party from taking steps toward increasing its engagement with international relations issues. In the period of the SOZ, several initiatives aimed at creating an organizational infrastructure within the party capable of addressing international relations issues in accord with the party?s needs were introduced at the highest levels of the SED. The initiatives were limited in scope and revolved mainly around information-gathering and rudimentary analysis as well as internal and external propaganda, yet their importance should not be overlooked since they represented the SED?s first attempt to address the questions of how its foreign policy apparatus should be organized and how its foreign relations should be handled. The ways in which these early initiatives conceived of the role and function of foreign policy expertise within the SED established some of the key features that would subsequently be 15 Lemke underlines SED leaders? desire for East Germany to serve as the basis of a reunified socialist Germany (a ?German Piedmont?), but also notes that if the goal of reunification could not be achieved, the SED?s efforts could just as easily be employed in facilitating the development of East Germany as a separate German state. Michael Lemke, ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen der Au?enbeziehungen der DDR in der Konstituierungsphase des DDR-Au?enministeriums 1949-1951,? in Sowjetisierung und Eigenst?ndigkeit in der SBZ/DDR (1945-1953), ed. Michael Lemke (Cologne: B?hlau, 1999), 233-274, 251. 45 regularized and implemented throughout the East German foreign policy apparatus following the Staatsgr?ndung. In January 1947, Franz Dahlem, second-in-command in the SED behind Ulbricht until his neutralization in 1953, proposed to the SED?s Central Secretariat (the forerunner of the Politburo) that a daily newspaper dealing with foreign policy issues be created.16 His proposal was rejected, but a suggestion going significantly further was presented just a month later to the Central Secretariat by Albert Norden, editor-in-chief of the communist weekly Deutschlands Stimme. Norden was among those German socialist ?migr?s who had spent time in France during the Nazi period and recognized the importance of shaping international public opinion in the SED?s favor.17 He accordingly called for the immediate creation of an Au?enpolitisches B?ro (foreign policy bureau) that would have two main tasks: ?The systematic acquisition and evaluation of all information and articles appearing abroad dealing with the German question and Germany [as well as] collection and continual compilation of documentation for the party leadership and other party bodies? and ?organized opposition to the smear campaigns abroad against the German left and the Soviet zone and aid for international clarification of the situation and problems in Germany as well as for the creation of movements and activities sympathetic toward German democracy.?18 These complimentary tasks, which 16 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.1/57. 17 In his letter to the Central Secretariat, Norden offers his assessment of the SED?s ability to shape foreign public opinion based on his experiences in exile: ?If relatively substantial success in terms of influencing the foreign press and foreign politicians could be achieved by German antifascists in the emigration?even when they were numerically weak and had no organizational apparatus at their disposal?then under the current circumstances we can on a much larger scale and with far better prospects set out to turn broad segments of the international population from potential to active allies of German democracy and to bring them into the correct position between the fronts.? SAPMO-BArch, NY 4217/14. See also Ulrich Pfeil, Die ?anderen? deutsch-franz?sischen Beziehungen. Die DDR und Frankreich 1949-1990 (Cologne: B?hlau, 2004), 195. 18 SAPMO-BArch, NY 4217/14. 46 encompassed ?the establishment of all types of contacts of both a personal and organizational nature,? were directed at generating sympathy and support abroad, particularly in the US, the UK, and France, for ?the democratic solution of the German problem, i.e. for our work of democratic construction in the eastern zone and against the growth of the reaction in western and southern Germany.?19 Otto Meier, formerly a member of the SPD and now responsible alongside Anton Ackermann for culture, education, and the press, followed with a suggestion in April 1947 that a sub-division for foreign policy questions be created in the Publicity, Press, and Radio Division of the Central Secretariat. The sub-division was to perform two main tasks: publication of material in French and English to influence international public opinion and maintenance of an archive consisting of information gathered from abroad, principally press clippings, to serve as a foundation for the division?s foreign relations work.20 Norden?s proposal was not taken up for discussion by the Central Secretariat, and it remains unclear to what extent Meier?s proposal was implemented, if at all. The formal creation of a division within the SED party apparatus whose main focus was foreign relations issues would not take place until early 1948, after the SED had established first contact with the communist ?fraternal parties? in late 1947, but the two proposals already made explicit the close connection between the domestic situation in East Germany and developments in the international arena in the minds of East German Au?enpolitiker. In January 1948, the Central Secretariat passed a resolution creating a B?ro f?r Internationale Fragen, or Bureau for International Questions, under the leadership of Grete Keilson, a high-ranking SED functionary who had been part of the Ulbricht Group 19 Ibid. 20 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.1/78. 47 in charge of the SED?s Personnel Policy Division. The main tasks of the bureau lay in ?evaluating and solidifying the numerous relations that have developed in increasing measure since the II Party Congress [of the SED, in September 1947]. In particular, the mission [of the bureau] should consist on the one hand in satisfying the requests of the fraternal parties und friendly circles abroad for concrete information on the policy of the SED and the situation in Germany and on the other in guaranteeing that the evaluation of incoming materials received from various parties is utilized for the internal orientation of the Central Secretariat and for the knowledge of the party as well as the public, the latter through the apparatus of the Press Service.?21 The bureau was additionally to serve as the basis for a future, expanded division of the Central Secretariat focusing on the tasks enumerated above following fusion with the party?s Foreign Press Service, which presumably occurred in March 1948 and resulted in the formation of the Abteilung Internationale Zusammenarbeit (International Liaison Division), under Keilson?s leadership.22 The division was renamed Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen (International Relations Division)23 in October 194924 as the focus of its activities 21 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.1/168. 22 It is namely at this time that the International Liaison Division first appears on the party?s internal accounting sheets tracking the number of persons employed in each division of the Central Secretariat; SAPMO-BArch, DY 30 IV 2/22/12. See also Lemke, ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen,? 250. 23 Use of the word Verbindungen, which can also be translated as ?contacts,? instead of the standard term for ?relations? in the context of foreign policy?Beziehungen?highlights the extremely limited range of foreign policy activities available to this body in particular as well as the SED/SOZ in general at this point in time. 24 The archival finding aid on the division maintains that its renaming resulted from its fusion with an Au?enpolitische Abteilung (Foreign Policy Division) whose existence as a discrete division within the Central Secretariat, however, this claim is questioned by Muth on the basis of an interview with Peter Florin, deputy head of the International Relations Division at its founding and division head from its re- founding in 1953. Muth relates that one may have mistakenly believed that Leo Zuckermann, who held the title of division head in his capacity as secretary of the Commission for Foreign Policy Questions (discussed below), Florin, his deputy, and a secretary, who worked outside the International Relations Division, as a discrete division. Sylvia Gr?fe, Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen im ZK der SED, DY 30, 1946-1990 (Berlin: Stiftung der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv, 2008), 3; Ingrid Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000), 61n22. 48 solidified around maintaining relations with foreign political parties, both Marxist- Leninist and non-communist leftist parties, all of which, however, fell within the general category ?socialist and workers? parties.?25 The division was also made responsible for attending to ?migr?s in the GDR, principally from Spain and Greece,26 where civil wars between leftist and rightist forces in each country had produced a significant number of socialist refugees, which drew the interest of an SED eager to establish its socialist bona fides.27 Before the official founding of the GDR, however, the SED?s preoccupation with domestic issues and the exceedingly modest progress made in establishing relations of any sort with both other political parties and foreign countries meant that the activities of the division,28 which in the years to follow would become the party?s most important foreign policy organ, remained for the time being extremely limited29 and its size small.30 While the responsibilities of the International Relations Division, revolving around relations with other communist parties, were narrow in scope, the Kommission f?r Au?enpolitische Fragen (Commission for Foreign Policy Questions) of the Party 25 Lemke, based on an interview with Peter Florin, underscores that the early work of the division was overwhelmingly focused on relations with other parties; ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen,? 250. 26 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 31. 27 In September 1948, for instance, the Central Secretariat, passed a resolution on the establishment of aid committees for political refugees from the two countries. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.1/230. 28 Both before and after the founding of the division, decision-making power over the party?s foreign relations remained with a few select leaders, principally Walter Ulbricht. Keilson, for instance, was merely designated secretary of an SED delegation to Prague comprised of Ulbricht, Josef Orlopp, Bruno Leuschner, and Willi Stoph in September 1948 to discuss the coordination of economic plans for 1949 and to study methods of state and economic administration. Ibid. 29 Even more than half a year after the official founding of the GDR?in June 1950?the division only encompassed a single sub-division (sector) at a time when other divisions of the Party Executive (dealing with the economy, agitation, cadres, etc.) already encompassed a number of sub-divisions and were rapidly increasing in size. The main task of the International Relations Division?s Sektor f?r Information (Sector for Information) continued to consist in responsibility for relations with and the flow of information to and from the ?fraternal parties;? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/1/81. 30 The number of persons employed in the division is listed at two in its first documented mention in March 1948, at which level it remains until increasing to three in March 1949; SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/22/12. In 1950, the Central Party Control Commission?s accounting sheet identifies five employees, all of whom were female, but one can presume that this figure is incomplete since Florin, the deputy director, is missing, which suggests that only the division head and the technical employees were accounted for; SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/4/147. 49 Executive of the SED, created in April 1949,31 represented the first party organ meant to deal with the full range of foreign policy issues with which the SED as ruling party of a nascent communist dictatorship in East Germany was confronted.32 The commission, which was headed by the jurist Leo Zuckermann and which comprised ten members drawn from the leading ranks of the SED, including Walter Ulbricht, Otto Grotewohl, Wilhelm Pieck, and Franz Dahlem, had a clear propagandistic function to fulfill, as the announcement of the commission?s creation placed in the SED?s daily newspaper Neues Deutschland made patent: ?In connection with the intensification of the struggle for the unity of Germany33 and the conclusion of a democratic peace treaty with Germany, the Politburo has approved the formation of a Commission for Foreign Policy Questions?. The goal of the commission consists in observing the relations of foreign countries with Germany, arousing greater interest in Germany-related questions in international public opinion, particularly among democratic movements abroad, and systematically informing the German public about various powers? policy toward Germany.?34 While the public announcement emphasized the outward role the commission was intended to play by shaping public opinion in favor of a ?democratic? solution to the German problem and thereby demonstrating the autonomy of the SED and the SOZ just as an independent West German state was being established,35 internal documentation 31 The impetus for the creation of the commission appears to stem from a letter written in March 1949 by Georg Krausz, a longtime member of the KPD/SED with a background in journalism and foreign policy who would go on to head the Verband der Journalisten der DDR (Association of Journalists in the GDR), to Wilhelm Pieck, in which he proposed the creation of an international relations division under his own direction; SAPMO-BArch, NY 4182/896. 32 Relations with the ?fraternal parties,? however, remained the responsibility of the International Relations Division (still called the International Liaison Division at this point). Ibid. 33 The original draft contained in this spot the alternative phrase ?against the imperialistic occupation statute.? Ibid. 34 ?Au?enpolitische Kommission beim Parteivorstand der SED,? Neues Deutschland, 23 April 1949. 35 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 31. 50 highlighted the complementary analytical role within the party apparatus the Commission on Foreign Policy Questions was supposed to fulfill. The resolution of the Small Secretariat (predecessor of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the SED) on the commission?s founding listed ahead of its propagandistic functions ?the continual observation and analysis of Germany?s relations with foreign states?both those of the Soviet Occupation Zone and of the western zones? and ?continual observation, analysis, and evaluation of the position of foreign countries and foreign public opinion on questions pertaining to Germany.?36 SED leaders could see the writing on the wall in relation to developments in the German question and accordingly recognized the need to expand the party?s foreign policy activities both outward and inward on the way to the establishment of a separate, communist East German state. The very first reason listed for the creation of the Commission on Foreign Policy Questions reflected this understanding: ?As developments increasingly tend toward the division of Germany for an extended length of time, it can only be expected that at a given point the administrative organs of the Soviet Zone of Occupation will be entrusted with responsibility for maintaining relations with foreign countries. The foreign trade relations which have already been initiated and which are growing steadily will be completed by political relations after a certain stage of development has been reached.?37 Underlying and linking the commission?s complementary propagandistic and analytical functions was the task of overseeing ?the organized education and training of 36 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/19. 37 SAPMO-BArch, NY 4182/896. An early example illustrating the still rudimentary state of the SED?s ability to acquire and evaluate information relevant to the party?s activities is provided by an information packet provided to members of the Politburo and other political functionaries in August 1949 consisting exclusively in articles published ?in the most important bourgeois and progressive newspapers and magazines of capitalist countries on issues related to Germany.? 51 cadres for foreign activity.?38 Even at this early point in time, the SED leadership recognized the importance of dedicated cadres for the goal of establishing a foreign policy apparatus tailored to meet its needs as ruling party in a communist East Germany. Foreshadowing the combination of ideological schooling and specialist training that would come to characterize the training of East German foreign policy cadres, the resolution laid out the SED?s early orientation on the issue: ?These new future administrative tasks make it necessary that the Politburo immediately creates prerequisites ensuring that the coming administration will be staffed in decisive measure by professionally and politically qualified comrades who are superior to their partners from the bourgeois parties [meaning the non-SED parties in the SOZ] in every respect. The issue of training is a task of urgent importance even if an administrative apparatus dealing with foreign relations does not yet exist.?39 At this time, however, the training of foreign policy cadres was still in its infancy and a considerable amount of time would pass before the SED was in possession of the type of cadres that matched its expectations. In light of the secondary importance attributed to foreign policy in this period by the SED and the still extremely limited scope of the foreign relations of the SED/SOZ, which before the official founding of the GDR did not extend beyond contact with a handful of communist parties, the Commission on Foreign Policy Questions, similar to the International Relations Division, could only develop a significant level of activity in the course of the 1950s. Its main importance at this very early stage in the development of East German foreign policy expertise lay rather in providing a vehicle for the SED to 38 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/19. 39 SAPMO-BArch, NY 4182/896. 52 hash out its approach toward the organization its foreign policy apparatus and the handling of its foreign relations. Indeed, the first tentative steps within the SED party apparatus expanding the party?s foreign policy activities prior to the founding of East Germany?not only the establishment of the Commission on Foreign Policy Questions, but also the establishment of the International Relations Division as well as the initiatives that had preceded them? make clear the limits of what was possible as well as which areas were most important in this period characterized by highly circumscribed foreign policy activity and preoccupation with other concerns: maintenance of basic contact with other communist parties, elementary propaganda for foreign and domestic consumption (focused above all on shaping public opinion on the German question and the relations of the SOZ/SED with the Soviet Union), the institutional beginnings of a system of foreign policy training, and the acquisition and evaluation of information on the world beyond the borders of the SOZ in order to provide the party with basic footing on foreign policy-related issues. The informational function fulfilled by these earliest foreign policy-oriented organs of the SED represented the nucleus of what would subsequently become a comprehensive system of foreign policy expertise, which, however, still unambiguously remained at a rudimentary level of development. In the few documented instances when informational activities went beyond simple fact-gathering to what one might actually call analysis, the output remained extremely limited in scope and rigid in outlook. Reports on the United Kingdom and the United States held before high-ranking party members at the SED?s Central House of Unity in the Soviet sector of Berlin in October 1948, for example, represented an early instance of the application of class-based 53 Marxist-Leninist analysis to foreign policy questions relevant to the SED. Hermann Budzislawski, who had joined the SED in 1948 after nearly two decades as a member of the SPD and had spent the years 1940-1947 in the United States after escaping prison in France,40 conceded in his oral report on the US that ?the essence of the American party system is extraordinarily difficult for us to understand,? but nevertheless proceeded to characterize ?American militarism? as ?a genuine, completely true-blue Prussian militarism.?41 Budzislawki described the campaign preceding the 1948 presidential election as a serious battle between incumbent Harry Truman and challenger Thomas Dewey, the former taking up the role of insider and the latter that of outsider, while noting that the election, ?when viewed from our perspective as a party is a farce since both parties in terms of class represent more or less the same thing, albeit with slight nuances.?42 Budzislawski, however, while maintaining the applicability of class analysis, did not disallow the possibility of potentially significant differences between the two candidates and their respective parties in their tactical approach to dealing with the Soviet Union, stating that ?it is certainly not the case that Dewey and his supporters behind the scenes want a fresh start with the Soviet Union, but it is certainly conceivable and can even been seen as in the interest of American high finance that a modus vivendi for certain territories be reached [with the Soviet Union].?43 Budzislawki?s report on the American presidential election in 1948 displayed two features, still in an embryonic state, that would subsequently typify the analytical output of East German foreign policy experts: the application of class-based analysis centered on 40 A resolution of the Central Secretariat from January 1948 approved the granting of an entry permit to Budzislawski; SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.1/168. 41 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/16. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 54 the notion that social system determines foreign policy and a clear orientation toward illuminating the most pressing international relations facing the SED leadership, in this case how further developments in the relationship between the US and the USSR might affect the situation in Germany. Also noteworthy is the unmistakable compatibility between, on the one hand, the application of Marxist-Leninist categories to foreign policy and, on the other, the basic geo-strategic situation with which the SED was confronted in this rather hot phase of the early Cold War, when the fate of socialism in Germany remained fully dependent on the further course of developments between socialist East and capitalist West, with the SED itself essentially powerless to shape events. Wilhelm Pieck, longtime member of the KPD/SED and future president of East Germany, highlighted the fundamental interconnectedness of these issues as viewed from the perspective of the SED when he thanked the speakers at the conclusion of the meeting ?for their valuable comments that will help us to better see and judge many things in the context of the German question.?44 The German question in fact gained a significant degree of clarity in 1949, when East Germany was founded in October following the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) in May of the same year, representing a temporary climax in the formation of mutually hostile blocs led by the respective superpowers following the steady dissolution of the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States. The formalized existence of two German states?one unambiguously oriented toward the capitalist West under the leadership of the US, the other oriented just as unambiguously toward the socialist East under the leadership of the USSR? represented a decisive step on the path to the enduring Cold War division of Germany. 44 Ibid. 55 More proximately, it signaled the Soviet Union?s fall-back to its minimal goal in the competition over Germany of maintaining a communist state encompassing part of the German nation and firmly under its control as a bulwark in Central Europe after the establishment of a unified Germany either communist or neutral in orientation had proved untenable. However Stalin may have envisioned a final resolution of the German question and/or no matter what tactical value he assigned to East Germany in relation to broader Soviet strategic goals in the Cold War confrontation with the US, the SED leadership now found itself in control of a state and, having no intention of giving it up, proceeded apace in the establishment of corresponding institutions, all the while still highly dependent on Soviet authorities. Expertise in the Nascent Foreign Policy Apparatus of the GDR Following the founding of the GDR in October 1949, East German foreign policy expertise developed as one component within the larger East German foreign policy apparatus. And the starting position of the East German foreign policy apparatus was not very promising. There existed an acute lack of material and human resources, which were that much more difficult to come by given the relatively low priority foreign policy in East Germany in general possessed in the period. Complicating the situation further was the absence of any sort of cohesive plan for the development of a foreign policy apparatus in East Germany.45 While the Soviet foreign policy apparatus provided a general model around which development in the GDR could be oriented (though with some significant differences), the process was not approached in a systematic fashion due 45 Ingrid Muth highlights the prevailing vagueness of mission: ?In the fall of 1949 at the just-founded Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it was still largely unclear what the new foreign policy of the German Democratic Republic was supposed to look like in practice.? Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 16. 56 to the near total subordination of the SOZ/GDR to broader Soviet policy on the German question and the resulting uncertainty that continually hung over East German statehood in the opening stages of the Cold War paired with the SED?s preoccupation with other, more pressing tasks. East German leaders were often only in a position to react passively and haphazardly to the faits accomplis and frequent interventions of the Soviets, and were thus restricted in the active formulation of far-sighted policy on questions of foreign policy, which remained circumscribed and over which the exigencies stemming from the construction and maintenance of the party?s dictatorial power took priority. The overall result was an extremely underdeveloped foreign policy apparatus in the first postwar decade whose growth only proceeded in fits and starts. The persistent state of flux present in the East German foreign policy apparatus in its earliest years hindered the creation of a cohesive institutional structure with clearly delineated areas of competence. The profile and responsibilities of individual institutions within the East German foreign policy apparatus were poorly defined and clear hierarchies between them were often lacking, a situation which was only complicated by the frequent duplication of state institutions with corresponding party institutions. With the absence of a systematic approach to the development of a foreign policy apparatus, priority was given to fulfilling the most pressing immediate tasks by whichever institution was capable of doing so or by creating one that appeared fit to do so. As a result of the prevailing institutional muddle, foreign policy expertise focusing on the analysis and conceptualization of the GDR?s foreign relations did not yet exist as a discrete activity, but rather took shape in various forms at various institutions as the haphazard development of the nascent East German foreign policy apparatus unfolded. 57 The most important state institution of the emergent East German foreign policy apparatus was the Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten (MfAA), or Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which was created simultaneously with the GDR itself.46 As Soviet authorities envisioned it, the creation of a foreign ministry long before it was able to function effectively or make any sort of substantive contribution to East German foreign policy?insofar as such an activity existed at this point?would lend the newly founded GDR an increased air of legitimacy vis-?-vis the FRG by demonstrating that the Soviets were prepared to grant the GDR more autonomy than the Western powers the FRG.47 The MfAA was thus also envisioned as the basis of the future foreign ministry of a reunified, communist Germany oriented toward the Soviet Union.48 The institutional structure of the MfAA throughout the 1950s clearly reflected the ambiguous position imposed upon the GDR by the unsettled nature of the German question and the equivocal position of the Soviets on the issue. On the one hand, an attempt was made to maintain the fa?ade that the GDR was a democratic state deriving its legitimacy from the will of the people and, therefore, capable of representing the entire German nation; on the other, the SED leadership was determined to establish and maintain a one-party communist dictatorship in the part of Germany bequeathed to it by the USSR and had absolutely no illusions or reservations regarding the necessity of the GDR?s thoroughgoing integration into the Soviet Bloc. This tension, which would only gradually be resolved in the course of the 46 The MfAA was listed as the first of 14 ministries in the law of 07 October 1949 on the establishment of a provisional administration. Gesetzblatt der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: B?ro des Ministerrats der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1949), 2. 47 Some critical contemporaneous observers in the FRG clearly saw through the ploy, such as Gerold Rummler, who recognized the independent East German foreign ministry as the fa?ade it was: ?The Soviets, who cannot emphasize often enough the autonomy of the administration of the ?GDR,? in reality have the administrative apparatus in Pankow firmly in their grip.? Gerold Rummler, ?Der au?enpolitische Apparat der Sowjetzone,? SBZ-Archiv 3 (1952): 183-184. 48 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 36-37. 58 1950s, became evident even at the highest levels of the MfAA, where a revealing practice became firmly established: appointing a member of the ?block parties? (i.e. the non-SED parties active in the GDR that were nominally independent but in fact subservient to the SED) as foreign minister in order to maintain the democratic veneer while naming a reliable member of the SED as Staatssekret?r, or secretary of state,49 to ensure the ministry functioned in accord with the party?s wishes.50 Georg Dertinger, a member of the East German CDU, was foreign minister from 1949-1953 while Anton Ackermann, a longtime member of the KPD/SED with proven loyalty and significant weight within the party, served as secretary of state in the same time period. From 1953 until 1965, Lothar Bolz, a member of the NDPD, held the post of foreign minister and was joined by a number of different loyal party men in the position of secretary of state or deputy minister, including Otto Winzer, who would succeed Bolz as foreign minister in 1965. More telling in this respect, however, was the organizational structure itself of the MfAA, which was initially modeled upon the foreign office of the Weimar Republic, not the Soviet foreign ministry.51 Wentker and Lemke both attribute this fact to prevailing Soviet disinterest in East German foreign policy and the desire to bolster East Germany?s claim to represent the entire German nation, which would clearly be undermined by 49 The designation Staatssekret?r (secretary of state), common in German-speaking countries even today, denotes a type of deputy minister, although the position of Stellvertretender Minister (deputy minister) exists and existed in the GDR as well. The position, despite the seeming similarity, is thus not related to the position of secretary of state as found in the US. 50 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 44. 51 Ibid., 37. The institutional orientation toward the Weimar foreign office went well beyond the surface level: it included the structure in terms of divisions (Abteilungen) as well as staff employment schemas, budget plans, and salary guidelines and even included adoption of guidelines for foreign language education. See also Politisches Archiv des Ausw?rtigen Amts (hereafter PA AA), Bestand Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheitn (hereafter MfAA), A 15560. 59 wholesale adoption of the Soviet model.52 However, as the division of Germany increasingly hardened in the course of the 1950s and reunification of any sort became less and less likely, the institutional structure of the MfAA, following the broader trend within the GDR, gravitated toward its natural point of orientation, the Soviet Union, and came increasingly to resemble the Soviet foreign ministry. A total of seven plans for the reorganization of the MfAA were implemented in the course of the decade; while adaptation to the various foreign policy challenges and institutional imperatives faced by the GDR played an important role in these transformations, the Soviet foreign ministry clearly served as a model. In October 1957, secretary of state Georg Handke headed an East German delegation to Moscow to study how the Soviet foreign ministry functioned and how it was organized. Based partly on the observations of the delegation, a plan for the reorganization of the MfAA was worked out and by December 1959 the structural organization of the ministry had been fully ?Sovietized.?53 After a decade of groping its way forward, the East German foreign ministry possessed by the end of the 1950s a hierarchy and organizational structure, including both geographic and thematic divisions, that mirrored the Soviet foreign ministry and that was oriented toward fulfilling East Germany?s primary foreign policy goal of the period? obtaining diplomatic recognition?with ?all-German? considerations increasingly relegated to a position of secondary importance.54 Despite attaining a degree of stability, 52 Soviet ?advisors? in the MfAA were also conspicuously absent. Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 37. Lemke, ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen,? 251. 53 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 116-118. 54 Jochen Staadt has even argued that an inversely proportional relationship existed between an ?all- German? orientation and diplomatic recognition: ?The closer the GDR came to reaching the interim goal of diplomatic recognition, that much more energetically the SED tried to hinder and undermine the East German population?s cultural, scientific, familial, and political relations and ties to the West.? Jochen Staadt, Die geheime Westpolitik der SED 1960-1970. Von der gesamtdeutschen Orientierung zur sozialistischen Nation (Berlin: Akademie, 1993), 13. 60 however, the MfAA was clearly still a work in progress and the ministry had a long way to go before becoming a well-organized, professional, and efficiently functioning organ capable of administering the foreign relations of the GDR in their entirety. Key deficiencies remained in the areas of leadership, internal coordination and coordination with other organs of party and state, personnel, and material resources55?all areas where significant progress would first be made in the 1960s. Peter Florin, a division head at the ministry at the time, held a meeting with GDR diplomats in 1951 at which he hammered home the sorry state of affairs at the MfAA: ?By no means are we at the point that we could say we can address our problems?in an exemplary way?we can?t. We?re all still learning. We?re still making too many mistakes. I?ll say that?openly.?56 The institutional underdevelopment of the MfAA stemming from the SED?s relative neglect of foreign policy in the young GDR, more importantly, also prevented the creation of a foreign ministry that fully accorded with the political and ideological requirements of the SED, partly because the SED itself did not possess or did not articulate a uniform vision for systematic development of the MfAA. While the initial impetus for creation of the MfAA was above all propagandistic and it remained unclear exactly what the mission of the ministry was supposed to be given the extremely narrow scope of the GDR?s foreign relations at the time, the MfAA quickly became engaged in a host of different tasks, ranging from the day-to-day execution of foreign policy directives to informational and analytical work, all within the broader context of Soviet supremacy in the formulation of East German foreign policy 55 Wentker describes the MfAA as lacking not only the necessary technical infrastructure like telephone installations, transmitters, and a functioning courier and postal service, but also the most basic equipment like office furniture, type writers, and paper. Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 49. 56 Cited in Lemke, ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen,? 274. 61 and the ongoing haphazard construction of a foreign policy apparatus in a GDR more concerned with immediate domestic exigencies than foreign relations. The MfAA in fact occupied a unique position among East German foreign policy institutions insofar as its primary field of activity was operative foreign policy but was also significantly involved in analytical work. The two elements were closely related as foreign policy estimates and reports produced within the MfAA itself, while also being made available to leading party organs, provided the informational basis for operative decisions made within the ministry. The interconnectedness of operative foreign policy and expertise as practiced in its embryonic form at the MfAA was not exceptional; on the contrary, an orientation toward overcoming the divide between operative foreign policy and foreign policy expertise would come to characterize the GDR?s entire system of foreign policy expertise. The functional differentiation between institutions dealing mainly with operative foreign policy and institutions dealing mainly with research and training was supposed to be subsumed under the unity of purpose provided by unambiguous subordination to advancing the GDR?s centrally dictated foreign policy goals. Operative institutions and expert institutions were thus supposed to stand in a symbiotic relationship with one another where the so-called ?joining of theory with practice? would be complete. In this context, the MfAA was soon joined by a number of other party and state institutions, each of which began to acquire a distinct profile of its own in the institutional flux characteristic of the earliest years of the GDR?s formal existence.57 Since the MfAA 57 While by the conclusion of the East German foreign policy apparatus?s initial phase of development in end of the 1950s a relatively large number of institutions had emerged whose work touched on foreign policy either directly or indirectly in one way or another, the focus of this section is on those institutions that comprised important parts of the emergent East German system of foreign policy expertise as well as 62 was prevented from taking the initiative on foreign policy issues by its subordinate status as a state institution and thus operated essentially as an executor of policy formulated by the SED leadership in collaboration with their Soviet patrons, a party institution was needed to take on the position of authoritative party organ on foreign policy issues. The creation of such a division within the Central Committee of the SED was already discussed in a meeting of the Small Secretariat in October 1949. In addition to taking over responsibility for the party?s foreign relations from the International Liaison Division, the division as envisioned would also be charged with ?deliberating on, coordinating, and supervising the activities of all organs that deal with international relations? and ?overseeing and directing the party organizations in all German missions abroad.?58 The discussion in the Small Secretariat, however, did not result in the creation of the division.59 It was only following an up-tick in the foreign relations of the GDR in 1952/1953 (including intensification of relations with Poland and Czechoslovakia, establishment of trade representations in Helsinki and Cairo, and continued attempts to establish contact with countries outside the Soviet Bloc) and in response to appeals coming from the MfAA for a contact within the party apparatus60 that the party leadership once again institutions dealing principally with operative foreign policy but frequently employing the output of the GDR?s experts. The Ministerium f?r Au?enhandel und Innerdeutschen Handel (MAI), or Ministry for Foreign Trade and Inner-German Trade, represented, for instance, a key institution of GDR foreign policy, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, when the ministry was employed as a central instrument in the struggle for diplomatic recognition, but will not be addressed here in detail as the expertise which it produced and which it drew on from other institutions was narrow in focus and falls outside of the bounds of the current study. The same is true for many of East Germany?s ?mass organizations,? such as the Free German Trade Union Federation and the Free German Youth, which maintained their own international relations divisions. 58 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/58. 59 Wentker speculates that this was due to a Soviet veto. Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 33. 60 A note from the MfAA illustrates the need for a party organ responsible for coordination of foreign policy, while the conspicuous absence of such a party organ again highlights the secondary importance attached to foreign relations at the time: ?The only gap in the approval of the guidelines [for participation in 63 addressed the issue. A Secretariat resolution from 19 January 195361 delineated the profile of an Abteilung Au?enpolitische Fragen (Division for Foreign Policy Questions) that would fill the vacant the position of authoritative party organ on foreign policy issues. The division would be responsible for coordinating the activities of the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus (principally the MfAA at this point)62 and presenting the Politburo, which maintained final decision-making authority within the GDR, with reports and proposals pertaining to foreign policy. The division?s concrete responsibilities represented an expanded version of the competencies envisioned for such a division by the Small Secretariat in October 1949 that would lend it far-ranging authority within the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus, including: ?Oversight of the implementation of resolutions of the CC as well as important resolutions of the state administration on foreign policy questions, the preparation of proposals on foreign policy questions to the Politburo and the Secretariat of the CC as well as the review of incoming proposals, [and] supervision of the selection, development, and assignment of cadres in the realm of foreign policy.?63 The division?s further responsibilities would include ?monitoring and supervising the GDR?s foreign propaganda as well as handling foreign policy questions in the press and radio of the GDR [and] oversight and direction of party organizations in international conferences] that still might be closed would be coordination in the CC itself. As is known, the current situation is such that we do not have a partner in the CC and therefore have to send our reports to the respective relevant divisions [of the CC]? In the CC, however, a uniform political line absolutely must be reached before the time of submission and it must largely be avoided that proposals from two different divisions dealing with the same matter reach the Secretariat or the Politburo one shortly after the other.? Cited in Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 62. 61 The resolution was apparently in response to an earlier Politburo resolution (SAPMO-BArch, DY 30 IV 2/2/244, from 11 November 1952) that called for the creation of such a division. 62 A former OibE (Offizier im besonderen Einsatz, i.e. a MfS agent working covertly at another party or state organ to gather information) who was placed at the MfAA has even called the division the ?Oberabteilung? of the foreign ministry, highlighting its subordination to the division. Rudolf Nitsche, Diplomat im besonderen Einsatz. Eine DDR-Biographie (Schkeuditz: GNN, 1994), 92. 63 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30 J IV 2/3/356. 64 the diplomatic missions and trade missions of the GDR.?64 The resolution also viewed it as essential for quality work that the division?s employees ?closely observe and study the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, the people?s democracies, and capitalist countries, especially the US, England, and France, both in general and in particular toward Germany as well as the foreign relations of West Germany.?65 Instead of creating a completely new institution to take over responsibility for these tasks, however, the International Relations Division, which had been created before the Staatsgr?ndung and whose activities had not amounted to much, was re-founded and reorganized to match the profile laid out in the Secretariat resolution. Peter Florin, son of the leading Weimar-era KPD functionary Wilhelm Florin who had already gained foreign policy experience through involvement in both party and state institutions, including a stint as deputy head of the International Relations Division, took over leadership of the reconstituted division from his former superior Grete Keilson. The retooled division was in fact initially given the name Division for Foreign Policy Questions, as had been laid out in the original Secretariat resolution. However, since the division, alongside its new role as authoritative party organ responsible for the coordination of the East German foreign policy apparatus (including transmission of foreign policy-related proposals to and from the party?s two highest decision-making bodies, the Politburo and the Secretariat), was to retain responsibility for maintaining relations with other communist parties and movements, which had been its main task in its earlier incarnation as the International Relations Division, it was given the name Abteilung Au?enpolitik und 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 65 Internationale Verbindungen beim Zentralkomitee, or Foreign Policy and International Relations Division of the Central Committee (APIV Division), in September 1953.66 The reconstituted division under Florin?s direction initially comprised three sectors (general questions of foreign policy, international social organizations, cultural foreign relations) and was staffed by a total of 23 political and six technical employees67?a significant increase over the two employees staffing the division at its founding in 1948. In 1956, an additional deputy director post was created and the division was reorganized into four sectors: socialist abroad, capitalist abroad, foreign propaganda and information, and supervision of political visitors to the GDR and emigration.68 A leader headed each sector, whose members held the designation Instrukteur (instructor). In addition to its already existing tasks, the division was made responsible for fundamental questions in teaching and research in the area of international law and international relations (discussed below), reviewing political directives on the GDR?s involvement in international organizations, and cooperating with the relevant divisions of the CC to prepare East German delegations for their assignments. With the assumption of these new responsibilities, the APIV Division by the end of the 1950s69 played a central 66 Wentker notes that the assertions of Lemke (?Prinzipien und Grundlagen,? 251) and Muth (Die DDR- Au?enpolitik, 64) that two separate divisions?Au?enpolitik (foreign policy) and Internationale Verbindungen (international relations)?existed and were then fused to form the Foreign Policy and International Relations Division (in September 1953 or March 1956, respectively) have been shown to be unfounded by Amos?s research. Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 33n37. 67 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/356. 68 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/505. 69 Amos puts the number of political and technical employees active in the division at decade?s end at 38 and ten respectively, but these figures, which are drawn from a 1959 structural plan presented to the Secretariat (SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/648), appear inaccurate in light of a statistical break-down provided by the division itself in autumn of the same year (SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/683), which listed 21 active political employees. The discrepancy is likely due to the fact that the structural plan, which was in the process of being altered, listed all open positions in the division, while the division?s own break- down only listed actual employees. An inability to staff all open positions due to a shortage of qualified foreign policy cadres was after all one of the main issues facing the APIV Division in particular and the 66 role in the conduct, if not formulation, of East Germany foreign policy, analogous to the powerful International Division of the Central Committee of the CPSU.70 As was the case with most other party and state institutions in the East German foreign policy apparatus, the APIV Division would experience further reorganization in the years to come alongside considerable growth, which would lead to the continual expansion and intensification of the division?s now already extensive activities. While the principal emphasis of the division?s activities in both its main areas of responsibility?the coordination of the actions of the state foreign policy apparatus by virtue of its position as highest party authority on foreign policy and as intermediary on foreign policy issues between the Politburo and the Secretariat on the one hand and all other party and state organs on the other and the maintenance of relations with other communist parties and movements?lay on the operative side of the foreign policy spectrum, informational and analytical activity also played a central role in its work. In a situation bearing considerable similarity to the state of affairs at the MfAA, foreign policy research made up an indispensable element of the division?s work even while its main focus lay in operative activity?the division continually drew on analysis completed by its own sub- units, the MfAA, or other institutions. Here too the East German attempt to bring about a symbiotic relationship between operative foreign policy and expertise was in evidence, a characteristic that would remain a key feature of the East German foreign policy apparatus far beyond the initial period of flux and haphazard development. East German foreign policy apparatus in general at the time. Amos, Politik und Organisation der SED- Zentrale 1949-1963, 398. 70 The International Division of the CPSU, although headed by the ideologue Boris Ponomarev from 1955 to 1986, nevertheless served as a breeding ground for pragmatic foreign policy thought that would make a key contribution to the emergence of Soviet New Thinking. Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 19-20. The APIV Division, like its Soviet role model, would become a source of pragmatic, non-dogmatic foreign policy thought in the GDR. 67 The impetus for the founding of another major party organ dealing with foreign policy issues, like that of the APIV Division, can be attributed in part to the increase in the GDR?s foreign policy activities in 1952/53 and the SED?s corresponding efforts to create an effective set of party institutions capable of addressing the new challenges stemming expanded foreign policy activity.71 The Au?enpolitische Kommission beim Politb?ro (APK), or Foreign Policy Commission of the Politburo, was the successor of the Commission for Foreign Policy Questions from the pre-Staatsgr?ndung era, which never took on a substantive role due to the priority enjoyed by domestic concerns and the atrophied state of the GDR?s foreign relations at the time.72 In contrast to the APIV Division, the APK did not dealt with operative, day-to-day foreign policy, but functioned as a deliberative, advisory body that also possessed some control and coordination functions. Within this context, the APK could deal with the full range of issues pertaining to GDR foreign policy, from trade relations and participation in international conferences to strategic orientation and the internal functioning of the East German foreign policy apparatus, with one notable exception: relations to other communist parties and movements remained the exclusive preserve of the APIV Division. The first meeting of the APK in September 1953 laid out in detail the main functions the commission was supposed to fulfill: ?Discussion of the foreign policy, the foreign trade policy, and other foreign relations of the GDR and presentation of corresponding suggestions to the Politburo of the CC;73 oversight and evaluation for the Politburo of the CC of all treaties, 71 The creation of the APK, like that of the APIV Division, was ratified in the Politburo resolution of 11 November 1952. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30 IV 2/2/244. 72 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 58. 73 The Politburo resolution from 17 February 1953 enumerating the responsibilities of the newly created commission indeterminately framed the creation of the APK, which was missing in the APK?s own protocol, as ?[the] result of international events, particularly the struggle of the USSR for the maintenance 68 agreements, and arrangements of fundamental importance that are to be concluded by the government of the GDR and its organs; clarification of the principal questions of the foreign propaganda of the GDR and the handling of foreign policy questions in the press and radio of the GDR; quarterly reporting to the Politburo on the state of fulfillment of the obligations that the GDR has taken on in treaties, trade agreements, etc.; oversight of argumentation on the handling of important foreign policy questions.?74 In the 1950s, the APK indeed dealt with a broad, if eclectic, range of topics, including the establishment and expansion of official and unofficial relations with foreign countries, agitation and propaganda, organization of events such as the Leipzig Trade Fair and the Baltic Sea Week, issues relating to the internal organization and administration of the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus (including the training of cadres) as well as numerous analyses on the general international situation as well as reports on specific countries or discrete topics (e.g. European integration, the non-aligned movement).75 Anton Ackermann was initially tapped as chairman of the APK, but he was removed from all his posts for aligning himself with Wilhelm Zaisser?s challenge to Ulbricht?s authority in the wake of the June Uprising of 1953 before the commission met for the first time in September 1953.76 In Ackermann?s stead, Ulbricht chaired the APK for a time himself before handing over the chairmanship in 1955 to Heinrich Rau, minister for Foreign Trade and Inner German Trade and member of the Politburo. The number of APK members at any given time varied, hovering around 10, and encompassed leading figures drawn from both party and state institutions? Peter Florin of peace and the strengthening of friendship among peace-loving peoples.? SAPMO-BArch, DY/30/J IV 2/2A/246. 74 SAPMO-BArch, DY/30/IV 2/2.115/1. 75 See, e.g., SAPMO-BArch, DY/30/IV 2/2.115/1; DY 30/IV 2/20/1-4. 76 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/300. 69 (head of the APIV Division), Paul Wandel (Secretary of the Central Committee), Paul Verner (head of the Central Committee?s Division for All-German Questions), Kurt Helbig (head of the Free German Trade Union Federation) and Wolfgang Steinke (secretary of the central council of the Free German Youth) were among the members of the commission in its original incarnation.77 The APK did not possess decision-making authority itself, but rather was conceived of as a body where leading representatives of the most important party and state institutions involved in the foreign relations of the GDR would come together every three weeks78 to discuss outstanding foreign policy questions, coordinate their actions, and present proposals to the SED leadership for approval. The influence of the commission with the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus rested just as much upon the weight of its individual members as formal hierarchical relations. As was the case with the MfAA and the APIV Division, informational and analytical activity represented an important component of the APK?s work. The commission was simultaneously a producer and a consumer of foreign policy expertise as it, in deliberating on foreign policy questions, employed expertise created specifically for its own use as well as that produced by and for other institutions. One such expertise-producing institution was the Deutsches Wirtschaftsinstitut (DWI), or German Economic Institute. The DWI was created on 01 June 194979 by 77 Ibid. 78 This was the expectation expressed at the first meeting of the APK: SAPMO-BArch, DY/30/IV 2/2.115/1. In reality, the frequency of meetings varied considerably. 79 The resolution approving the official creation of the DWI was passed July 1949, but preparations for its creation began as early as March of the same year, when Siegbert Kahn, first director of the DWI, oversaw the institute?s take-over of the materials of the economics department of I.G. Farben in Berlin. The entire process was subject to the approval and supervision of SMAG. Bundesarchiv (hereafter BArch), DC 202/56. 70 resolution of the Secretariat of the German Economic Commission (DWK)80 and was headed by the leadership duo of J?rgen Kuczynski as president and Siegbert Kahn as director. Kuczynski and Kahn were longtime members of the KPD/SED with strong antifascist credentials and both were specialists in economics (Kuczynski received his doctorate from the University of Erlangen in 1925 and Kahn completed a correspondence course in economics while employed at the DWK before coming to the DWI).81 Kahn took over sole leadership of the DWI when the position of president was left vacant after Kuczynski departed in 1953, and in the same year Willi Kling, who up to this point had been actively involved in the transformation of the East German economy82 and who like Kuczynski and Kahn possessed solid antifascist credentials, was appointed deputy director of the DWI. In 1950 the DWI already counted 90 employees83 and by 1952 would increase to 13084 (the proportion of scientific employees at the institute at any given time totaled between one-third and one-half of the total number of employees; the remaining employees were either technical specialists or administrative personnel). While the DWK resolution sealing the creation of the DWI defined the central tasks of the new institute rather generally as ?the promotion and development of democratic Germany?s economy of peace, investigation and analysis of the economic situation in Germany and all other countries, and the theoretical elaboration of individual economic problems,?85 the Politburo resolution on the founding of the institute, which actually preceded the DWK resolution by a month, presented a more detailed picture of 80 Bundesarchiv (hereafter BArch), DC 15/994. Bruno Leuschner, deputy chairman of the DWK, was charged with overseeing the initial development of the DWI. 81 Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR, s. vv. ?J?rgen Kuczynski,? ?Siegbert Kahn,? in Enzyklop?die der DDR, CD-ROM (Berlin: Directmedia, 2004). 82 Ibid., s.v. ?Willi Kling.? 83 BArch, DC 202/56. 84 BArch, DC 202/3. 85 BArch, DC 15/994. 71 the role the DWI was supposed to play. The DWI?s ?fundamental task? consisted in ?research on the economy in a unified, democratic Germany? and ?examination of the political-economic benefits of a united Germany versus a Germany divided into zones,? whereby no doubt was left as to what had caused the division of Germany: ?The goal is clarification of the economic policy conducted by the Western occupation powers aimed at the division of Germany and the transformation of the Western zones into a colonial territory.? 86 The main themes to be addressed within this research agenda included ?the conquest of the economy by Anglo-American monopolies and their role in the re- emergence of German monopolies,? ?the worsening of the situation of the working population in the Western zones,? ?the policies of the Western occupation powers aimed at the destruction of German competitiveness on world markets,? and ?the reconstruction of the armaments industry in West Germany.?87 While these orientation points for the DWI?s research portrayed West Germany more as a passive victim than an active participant in the ?imperialistic? division of Germany and even struck certain nationalistic tones in the context of the SED?s efforts to appear ?all-German,? the institute?s initial orientation also clearly evinced the priority given to establishing and maintaining the SOZ as a separate, communist state under the dictatorial control of the SED and thoroughly integrated into the Soviet Bloc. Providing research to serve the establishment of economic relations advantageous to the SOZ, for example, numbered among the DWI?s main responsibilities. Two key topics were ?the expedient organization of the economic relations of the Soviet Occupation Zone with [capitalist countries]? and ?examination of means of strengthening the economic relations of the Soviet Occupation 86 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ IV 2/2/20. 87 Ibid. 72 Zone with the USSR and the people?s democracies, particularly a) strengthening the exchange of goods [and] b) experience in economic planning.?88 Walter Ulbricht?s comments at the opening ceremony of the institute, finally, highlighted how the scholarly work of the institute was not meant to be ?value-free,? but to serve the broader political and ideological goals of East Germany as defined by the SED. Ulbricht declared: ?The German Economic Institute cannot be a neutral institute. The purpose of your research demands that you approach the issues in a partisan fashion from the point of view of progressive science (Wissenschaft),89 that you let the interests of the people guide you in a partisan fashion, and that you wage an unforgiving battle against the camp of the enemies of the people and war-mongers.?90 Although the exact political and ideological orientation of the SED supposed to be guiding the work of the DWI still contained a certain ambiguity, vacillating between an ?all-German? position centered around the creation of a unified, communist Germany and the striving to transform the SOZ into a one-party communist dictatorship firmly incorporated into the Soviet Bloc, the principle that would lay at the heart of expertise at the DWI as well as the rest of the GDR?s expert institutions was unmistakable: the scientific work of the institute was to be conducted in accord with the political-ideological goals and requirements of the SED leadership. With the founding of East Germany in October 1949, the profile of the DWI gained further clarity. Following the transformation of the DWK, the organ previously responsible for the DWI, into the provisional administration of the young GDR, the 88 Ibid. 89 The German term Wissenschaft (adjective: wissenschaftlich), like its English counterpart ?science,? encompasses the hard sciences, but, unlike ?science,? also connotes academic or scholarly work in general, including the social sciences and humanities. Wissenschaft and wissenschaftlich are translated throughout the current work as ?science? and ?scientific? respectively. 90 Lexikon der Organisationen und Institutionen, s. v. ?Deutsches Wirtschaftsinstitut,? in Enzyklop?die der DDR, CD-ROM (Berlin: Directmedia, 2004). 73 Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the GDR and the Central Committee?s Division for All-German Questions Division were made the respective state and party organs responsible for the institute. By 1952, the DWI?s rather broad initial research profile, covering economic developments in both East and West, was narrowed to focus only on the West, West Germany in particular, 91 and it was in this capacity that the institute came into more substantial contact with foreign policy issues. The scope of research conducted by the DWI in the 1950s was much more narrowly concerned with economics than that of other East German institutions dealing with foreign policy, which lent the institute?s work a ?scientific? sheen, yet the DWI was subjected just as much as all the other institutions of the East German foreign policy apparatus to the basic fact of life in the SED state: subordination to the specific political and ideological requirements of the SED within the broader framework of its foreign policy objectives. Within this framework, the DWI?with its work now more tightly focused on West Germany?took on both propagandistic and informational responsibilities. The propagandistic function consisted in influencing foreign and domestic opinion from a Marxist-Leninist perspective and in accord with the prevailing line of the SED. The main vehicle of DWI propaganda was the biweekly bulletin DWI-Berichte (DWI-Reports), which was joined by a number of other, irregularly appearing publications dedicated to specific issues. In the first decade of the GDR?s existence, the DWI also frequently penned articles dealing with topical issues for publication in East German newspapers.92 91 In that year, the divisions Marktforschung (research on the market) and L?nder des Friedenslagers (countries of the peace camp) were detached from the DWI and re-organized to form the independent Institut f?r Marktforschung (Institut for Research on the Market). SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/677. 92 See, for instance, BArch, DC 202/97 and 98. 74 The DWI was an extremely valuable vehicle for disseminating the SED?s perspective on important economic issues and for scoring points against the West since, with Kuczynski and Kahn at the helm, it could legitimately claim to have assembled a staff of economics experts, some of whom enjoyed a degree of esteem in the West. The DWI could and did make clever use of the opportunities afforded by this situation as, for example, when President Kuczynski and Director Kahn on 12 February 1952 presented a DWI volume on foreign investments in West German enterprises to great fanfare at a press conference attended by a large number of foreign news correspondents, including representatives of the BBC, the New York Times, and the Associated Press.93 Yet however ?scientific? the propagandistic work of the DWI might have appeared, it was premised at all times on a Marxist-Leninist understanding of economics, at times less pronounced, at times more pronounced, as the volume on foreign investments in West German enterprises demonstrates, which was intended to lay bare capitalism?s take-over of the FRG and its incorporation into the ?imperialist? bloc. A letter to Director Kahn requesting an article on the West German economy and containing specifications for its content revealed how far the pendulum could swing in the direction of crude ideologization: ?The article must in particular demonstrate that the West German economy is overloaded with contradictions and has no future (particularly for the workers), rather [sic] that the economic development in our republic is healthier. It has to refute the notion that the boom in the West German economy is proof that the general crisis of capitalism, its economic fall, and its putrescence are no longer valid.?94 93 BArch, DC 202/56. 94 BArch, DC 202/70. 75 While adherence to a basic Marxist-Leninist interpretive framework underlay both the propagandistic and informational functions of the DWI, important differences existed in the output produced for each purpose. The work of the DWI created for internal use typically dealt with much narrower, technical questions than the work created for public consumption and for this reason had a much more practical orientation and was largely free of the imperative for constant ideologization. As a result, the DWI?s informational work did in fact have a rather ?wissenschaftlich? character, though was no less affected by the basic fact of subordination to the larger goals of the SED. The institute served as a sort of clearinghouse for economic data from abroad, processing requests from various state and party institutions for information on a given issue and receiving reports from other institutions, which it would in turn incorporate into its own work. As a result of its focus on economics and West Germany/the West, the DWI worked particularly closely with the State Planning Commission (the organ in charge of the East German economy), the Ministry for Foreign Trade and Inner-German Trade and the MfAA. In addition to regular reports on the economy of West Germany and West Berlin, the DWI completed studies on the armaments industry in the West, the economic situation in Indonesia, Iran, Romania, and other countries, the prices of various commodities on the world market, the mining industry, and West German exports to the US in addition to a host of other topics.95 The differences in the DWI?s work produced for external and internal consumption underline the partially contradictory nature of the dual mission assigned to the institute. It was to engage in ?scientific? examination of the economy and its relevance for foreign policy in and toward West Germany and the West, but was to do so 95 See, for example, BArch, DC 202/1 and 2. 76 on the basis of Marxist-Leninism and to serve the specific political goals of the party. The obligation to provide sound analysis of international economic developments and foreign relations within a framework of strict compliance with the ideological tenets of Marxism- Leninism contained the seeds of tension between intellectual subordination and intellectual autonomy that would come to characterize East German foreign policy expertise in its entirety. However, at this very early stage in the development of East German foreign policy expertise, this tension was still very much latent, particularly considering that the key prerequisite for its emergence?the full political and ideological and subordination of the DWI?had not yet been fulfilled as the haphazard development of the East German foreign policy expertise had yet to bring about a fully rationalized institutional structure. The principal orientation of the DWI toward West Germany was shared by the Deutsches Institut f?r Zeitgeschichte (DIZ), or German Institute for Contemporary History, which was on its way to becoming a key expertise-producing institution in the course of the early development of East German foreign policy expertise. The forerunner institution to the DIZ was the Zentralstelle f?r Zeitgeschichte, or Central Office for Contemporary History, created by decree of SMAD on 1 March 1946 to take over ?defeated fascism?s collection and documentation of sources and literature.?96 In July 1947, the Central Office for Contemporary History, which appears to have served primarily as a collection and documentation center, merged with the Institut f?r Zeitungskunde, or Institute for Newspaper Studies, and the fused institution was renamed the German Institute for Contemporary History in October 1949, the same month the 96 BArch, DC 201/13 77 GDR was founded.97 The DIZ was headed from 1951 by Director Karl Bittel, a longtime member of the KPD/SED who received his doctorate in 1915 after studying history, law, and economics and who had immigrated from the Western occupation zones to the SOZ in 1948.98 The Press Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Agitation Division of the SED?s Central Committee were made the respective state and party organs responsible for the DIZ.99 The initial mission of the institute, whose name was in fact slightly misleading, was to serve as a documentation center for current events in the capitalist West, particularly the FRG. As the DIZ?s 1957 labor plan put it: The institute has the function of a central documentation site for contemporary history in the German Democratic Republic. Archive, library and collections, and the informational activity as well as the publications of the DIZ serve to document questions and problems related to current events for the practical work of the most varied institutions and interested parties ?. The basic orientation of the DIZ lies in development of a new, democratic economic and social order in Germany as set forth in the principles of the Potsdam Agreement and realized in exemplary fashion in the GDR through the construction of socialism; [the establishment of a democratic economic and social order] in West Germany, however, has been hindered by the politics of imperialistic restoration. The re-emergence of German imperialism in West Germany brought about the division of Germany, as a result of which two completely different, sovereign German states have emerged. The problems of national re-unification are therefore of fundamental significance in the work of the DIZ. Further, important international problems that are related to the development of Germany in its entirety and to re-unification, particularly questions of European security, belong to the institute?s specific thematic profile?. 97 Lexikon der Institutionen und Organisationen, s. v. ?Deutsches Institut f?r Zeitgeschichte.? 98 Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR, s. v. ?Karl Bittel.? 99 The Press Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers as state organ responsible for the DIZ was preceded by, first, the Education Office of the Magistracy of Berlin and, then, the Central Administration for Education during the SOZ period. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/9.01/145. 78 Through its efforts, the institute contributes to the development and strengthening of socialist consciousness.100 Thus the DIZ, like the DWI, was not simply supposed to document current events falling within its designated thematic rubric in a passive, ?value-free? fashion, but actively to interpret and re-package them in accord with the political goals and ideological requirements of East Germany as determined by the SED. What this orientation entailed in practice was division of the DIZ?s activities into two broad areas, both stemming from its status as a documentation center: propagandistic and informational responsibilities, although this was a functional differentiation above all since the same underlying political-ideological objective motivated both activities. The propagandistic function was fulfilled by publication of, among other works, the biweekly Dokumentation der Zeit (Documentation of Current Events), which had a wide distribution in both the FRG and the GDR (later reaching a peak circulation of 10,000).101 In its early years, Dokumentation der Zeit offered little more than a collection of clippings taken predominantly from West German news outlets and accompanied by commentary written by DIZ staffers, but production of the periodical would become increasingly refined over the years. In terms of its internal, informational function, the DIZ was responsible for following current events in the capitalist West, documenting them (particularly by compiling printed documents, which it maintained in its sizable archive), and making that information available, after processing it through the specific East German Marxist-Leninist perspective, to the organs of party and state in the GDR. Here the DIZ fulfilled a role parallel to the DWI?s role for economics?it served as the 100 BArch, DC 201/16. 101 Lexikon der Institutionen und Organisationen, s. v. ?Deutsches Institut f?r Zeitgeschichte.? 79 GDR?s authoritative clearinghouse for information on general current events in the capitalist West, which included responsibility for teaching and research on contemporary history, though both these, particularly the latter, were not very advanced in their development at the time. The DIZ?s initial offerings in the informational realm were rather modest, but they would grow rapidly, eventually including daily information roundups made available exclusively to high-ranking members of the SED nomenklatura on seven separate topics (the states of the Federal Republic, the West?s preparations for war, the parliamentary representations of the FRG, unity and peace, the economy, coverage of Western countries in the foreign press, and miscellanea).102 The result was that the DIZ by the mid-1950s was already well on its way to becoming the GDR?s most important center for information on currents events in the capitalist West. Ideological fidelity enjoyed particularly high priority among those foreign policy cadres that came into regular contact with material from the West, sometimes referred to as Giftbl?tter, or poisonous pages. The DIZ, as a documentation center responsible for gleaning information from the Western press for both internal and foreign consumption, was one such institution that could not tolerate any ideological ambiguity: ?Our employees need to have a steadfast political worldview in order to carry out their work responsibly. The scientific employees must be familiar with the daily, practical application of Marxism-Leninism in order to match the hostile ideologies that influence them as they process material from the West. Since forward-striding science rejects objectivism and demands allegiance to our progressive cause, active involvement in the struggle against imperialism-militarism and for the comprehensive consolidation and 102 Ibid. 80 strengthening of socialist construction in the GDR and the reunification of Germany must be a matter of course.?103 The fundamental mission of the DIZ, like that of the DWI, was based on an attempt to combine ?scientific? evaluation of materials from the West with an unambiguous political and ideological purpose. Whether the DIZ was engaged in external, propagandistic work or internal, informational work, its superordinate goal remained ?making the progressive forces under the leadership of the party of the working class aware of the great power of the people through historical portrayal of their struggle, their achievements, and their experiences and conveying to them substantiated knowledge for the conscious fulfillment of their historical task.?104 The basis for tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy was in place at the DIZ, but it would not become manifest for still some time. The full political and ideological subordination of the institute would have to take place before it would be possible for the incongruity of achieving a realistic assessment of international relations on the basis of Marxism- Leninism to become apparent. What is more, the DIZ had very little to assess at the time. Its narrow mission as a documentation and information center excluded the type of thoroughgoing going analysis that could potentially arouse the embryonic tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy at the DIZ. The subordination of the DIZ and its involvement in analytical research, however, were on the verge of increasing dramatically in what was, not coincidentally, a linked process. In July 1955, the Politburo issued a resolution on ?improving historical research 103 BArch, DC 201/16. 104 BArch, DC 201/1. 81 and instruction in the GDR?105 that aimed to increase the utility of East German history- writing in accord with the requirements of the SED, which required its thoroughgoing politicization and ideologization. The resolution stipulated that ?progressive German history-writing? in the GDR was to become ?a sharp ideological weapon,? particularly ?in the struggle against reactionary West German history-writing? and against its ?falsification? of German history.106 East German history-writing, further, was required to take an unequivocal ideological position: ?The discipline of history in the GDR can only fulfill its national mission if it rests on the foundation of the single scientific theory and method for understanding social development?historical materialism, which was developed by the greatest sons of our nation, Marx and Engels?and if it creatively applies historical materialism in its investigation and depiction of all the problems and processes of our nation?s history.?107 The Politburo?s 1955 ?history resolution? applied to history-writing in the GDR in general, but it had particular relevance and patent urgency in the realm of contemporary history (understood as beginning with the end of the Second World War and particularly emphasizing current events), which in turn directly implicated the DIZ as the GDR?s authoritative center on contemporary history. Following passage of the resolution in July 1955, the DIZ and the Central Committee?s Abteilung Wissenschaften (Sciences Division) worked in close cooperation in a series of meetings and consultations from 1955 until 1957 to assess the state of contemporary history at the DIZ and to ensure that the DIZ conformed to the vision of history promulgated in the Politburo?s resolution. The results of the assessment were not good. Research and instruction on contemporary 105 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/434. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 82 history were described as ?extremely undervalued and neglected? and their place in fulfilling the goals designated in the resolution as ?wholly unsatisfactory.?108 Given the political function ascribed by the SED to history-writing in the GDR, it was no surprise that the purported shortcomings of contemporary history in the GDR as practiced at the DIZ and elsewhere were viewed not as a scholarly but a political failing: ?This neglect is that much more politically consequential since contemporary history is pursued very intensively in West Germany and its systematic falsification of history produces an incorrect understanding of history in broad segments of the population there as well as in the GDR through radio and [print] journalism.?109 The SED saw itself compelled to respond by ensuring the creation of ?a well-grounded understanding of contemporary history with the help of our historians? through the establishment of a ?guiding hand that is responsible for the planning and coordination of research, instruction, and publishing activity in contemporary history.?110 The 1955 Politburo resolution had actually foreseen the creation of a new Contemporary History Division within the Historical Institute of the East German Academy of Sciences to fulfill this role,111 but in the end it was decided to overhaul the DIZ in order to match these new expectations rather than to create a new institute from scratch seeing as the DIZ could draw on an existing stock of human and material resources. In the envisioned transformation, great emphasis was placed on the importance of researching contemporary history in order to demonstrate ?why our path in the GDR is the only correct path and what great danger developments in West Germany 108 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/9.04/113. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/434. Planning for the division began in December 1953. 83 represent.?112 Yet the task of practitioners of contemporary history in the GDR lay not in simply asserting the superiority of the socialist path of development but also in demonstrating its superiority through investigation of specific developments and topics113 from the a Marxist-Leninist point of view. The study of current events and the recent past was thus unmistakably oriented toward the present. The DIZ, newly designated as ?the center of scientific research on contemporary history in the GDR?114 was to be key institution driving the desired transformation of contemporary history. While the DIZ maintained its responsibilities in the realms of internal information and external propaganda, it took up this new research function, which was to be bound organically with its existing activities. The DIZ?s profile, thusly modified, subsequently became codified in a Secretariat resolution from August 1957.115 The resolution underscored the new status of the DIZ as ?the leading contemporary history institution in the GDR? as well as the new importance attached to contemporary history: ?The scientific investigation and depiction of German contemporary history, i.e. developments since 1945, is of extraordinary significance for the socialist enlightenment of the workers, for the struggle against German militarism, and for the peaceful, democratic reunification of Germany.?116 Several far-reaching changes were implemented in order to ensure that the institute would function in accord 112 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/9.04/113. 113 Topics that needed to be addressed included: the struggle of the working class and workers for a new, democratic path for Germany in the first years after 1945; the stages of the re-emergence of imperialism in West Germany in the economic, political, ideological, and military realm; and the reactionary domestic and foreign policy of the Adenauer state; the national struggle and the struggle for peace of the workers. Ibid. 114 Ibid. 115 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/579. The resolution dealt with ?the organization of research and instruction in the GDR? in its entirety and thus contained measures aimed at bringing about the politicization and ideologization of contemporary history as enunciated in the 1955 Politburo resolution at all East German institutions, including institutes and university departments, connected with the discipline in some capacity, not just the DIZ. 116 Ibid. 84 with its overhauled profile. Foremost among these was the replacement of Director Karl Bittel with Walter Bartel, a long-time KPD/SED functionary with pristine antifascist credentials,117 personal assistant to Wilhelm Pieck from 1946 to 1953, and professor of history at the University of Leipzig from 1953 to 1957.118 The nominal reason for Bittel?s dismissal was poor health, which may have played a (limited) role since Bittel was 65 years old and had previously complained about the physical toll exacted by his work as the DIZ, but more important was the fact that Bittel had dragged his feet on the transformation of the DIZ ever since passage of the Politburo resolution in 1955.119 Bittel appeared incapable, even if not necessarily purposefully, of providing the leadership required to reorganize the DIZ in accord with the political and ideological demands of the SED, having been criticized for ?insufficient guidance of employees? and ?suppression of criticism,?120 and was dismissed. Other key changes inaugurated by the 1957 Secretariat resolution included: replacing the Press Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Agitation Commission with, respectively, the State Secretariat for Higher Education and the Central Committee?s Sciences Division as the state and party organs responsible for the DIZ; increasing coordination and cooperation between different institutions dealing with contemporary history, which was to be facilitated by the fact that they were all (including the DIZ) placed under the umbrella authority of the State Secretariat for Higher Education; making the substantial material collections of the DIZ accessible to other contemporary history institutions; creating a commission to 117 Bartel was one of the leaders of the inmate uprising that liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp from the inside on 11 April 1945 as advancing US forces liberated it from the outside. 118 Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR, s. v. ?Walter Bartel.? 119 In a personal letter from 5 July 1956 to Walter Ulbricht, with whom he apparently cultivated an amicable relationship, Bittel expressed his disapproval of the position of the Sciences Division, which by this time supported the DIZ fully taking over all the responsibilities originally envisioned for a separate contemporary history institute. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/9.04/113. 120 Ibid. 85 measure the DIZ?s progress in complying with the stipulations of the resolution; and establishing a Scientific Research Division.121 This last measure was particularly important as it represented the key step in movement of the institute?s work beyond simple documentation to systematic study and analysis. The focus of research, in line with earlier determinations on the issue, was to lie on ?problems of the historical development of all of Germany since 1945,? particularly ?examination of the revolutionary upheaval in the east of Germany and the emergence and development of the GDR? and the results of research were ?to be published in the form of scientific analyses, essays, and monographs.? The Scientific Research Division was to pay close attention to works of contemporary history from West Germany in order ?to wage an active struggle against attempts made in West German publications to falsify contemporary history.?122 From this point on, the research activities of the DIZ began to grow, although rather slowly at first.123 The expanded scope of the institute?s work also led to an increase in the number of persons employed at the DIZ, which reached 166 (including scientific employees, technical specialists, and administrative personnel) by 1960.124 Finally, the resolution more clearly defined the specific responsibilities of all the individual sub-units of the DIZ (documentation, library and archive, publishing and editing, etc.), not just those of the new research division, in order to guarantee that the DIZ would function in a more efficient and streamlined manner. In sum, the re-orientation of the DIZ undertaken following the Politburo?s 1955 ?history resolution? and culminating in the 1957 Secretariat resolution marked a major 121 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/579. 122 Ibid. 123 The research division?s 1962 report on its own activities goes into exhaustive detail, but in the end attests to relatively limited growth. BArch, DC 201/155. 124 BArch, DC 201/72. 86 step in the development of the DIZ. The institute was now responsible for research on current events in the capitalist West alongside its previously existing propagandistic and informational functions. The output of the DIZ?s new research division would remain modest in the following years, but with time the DIZ would become one of the GDR?s most important centers for research on the FRG and the capitalist West. The overhaul of the DIZ?s was inseparably connected with a process of rationalization, in which the responsibilities of its respective divisions were streamlined and more clearly defined, so that the institute could meet the demands of its new profile. The linked process of re- orientation and rationalization at the DIZ, it is important to note, was implemented from above with a single, unmistakable goal in mind: subordination to the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership. The attempted transformation of the DIZ in 1955-1957 was undertaken because the institute stood at the center of the SED?s efforts to build up contemporary history in the GDR to consistently enunciate a thoroughgoing Marxist-Leninist view of current events, particularly in respect to the German question, in accord with the political and ideological demands of the party. The linked process of re-orientation and rationalization at the DIZ thus was inseparable from the process of political and ideological synchronization. Both the rationalization and the subordination of the DIZ in fact remained far from complete, but the process had been begun and with it the basis for permanent tension between intellectual autonomy and subordination at the DIZ had been established. Once the dual process of rationalization and synchronization would be completed, the conditions in which the incongruity of producing sound analysis on the basis of strict adherence to Marxist-Leninist tenets could become manifest would be in place. 87 Conclusion The construction of a foreign policy apparatus in the GDR?and attendant expert institutions?proceeded in the 1950s in fits and starts. The SED?s preoccupation with the interrelated tasks of transforming itself into a party ?of the new type? and cementing its dictatorial control over a communist East Germany meant that the GDR?s nascent foreign policy apparatus did not develop according to a systematic plan, but haphazardly in response to the party?s frequently shifting needs and priorities. In this context, foreign policy expertise did not develop as a discrete activity centered around analyzing the GDR?s foreign relations, but rather took shape in various forms at various institutions. There was not a single type of default ?expert institution,? but rather a patchwork of various institutions, both those located more on the operative side and those located more on the analytical side of the foreign policy spectrum, that dealt in foreign policy expertise. Thus as state and party organs such as the MfAA, the APIV Division, the APK, the DWI, and the DIZ emerged and took on responsibility for a range of differing tasks, each one became involved with foreign policy expertise in its own peculiar way within the framework of its specific responsibilities. The designation ?expert,? however, was hardly warranted in most cases. The emergent East German foreign policy apparatus?and with it the development of foreign policy expertise?was marred by ineffectual leadership and deficient coordination between different bodies, unclear delineation of responsibilities and overlapping competencies, a shortage of material resources, and an acute lack of qualified personnel?the fruits of the SED?s relative neglect of foreign policy in the initial years of the GDR?s existence. This did not mean, however, that the essential features that would 88 come to typify foreign policy expertise in East Germany had not yet begun to take shape. On the contrary, the SED?s understanding of foreign policy expertise and the role it ought to play began to crystallize even before the Staatsgr?ndung in October 1949 and was subsequently worked out in the first years of the GDR?s formal existence. In the eyes of the SED, foreign policy expertise was to deliver sound analysis of international relations developments, but was required to do so on the basis of Marxism-Leninism?the ?joining of theory with practice,? in which operative institutions and expert institutions would stand in a symbiotic relationship with one another, was to be brought about. While these principles characterized the SED?s understanding of the place and function of foreign policy expertise, practical implementation of this vision remained incomplete in the earliest years of the GDR?s existence. Given the deficient institutional development of the East Germany foreign policy apparatus in the period, itself a result of the SED?s relative neglect, the ?leading role of the party? (i.e. complete subordination) could only be partially realized. Although the ultimate authority of the party was never questioned, the absence of a fully rationalized institutional framework prevented the full political and ideological subordination of expertise in full agreement with the SED?s wishes. In a word, incomplete rationalization equaled incomplete synchronization. From this point onward, the two processes would proceed hand in hand, as was the case with the attempted transformation of the DIZ in 1955-1957. Starting in the late 1950s and continuing throughout the 1960s, the SED would make a systematic attempt to bring about the complete subordination of expertise to the party?s practical needs and political- ideological requirements. The process would encounter a surprising number of obstacles and setbacks, but, in the end, would indeed bring about its goal by linking 89 synchronization with rationalization, both of which would become more or less total. The successful implementation of the SED?s conception of foreign policy expertise, however, would also have the unforeseen outcome of creating the basis for permanent tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy, between the imperative to produce sound analysis of international relations on the basis of specialist knowledge and the imperative to conduct that analysis in strict accord with Marxist-Leninist foreign policy tenets. This moment, however, was still far off and the tension that would later become endemic remained, for the time being, dormant. 90 Chapter Two The Fruits of Underdevelopment: The Expertise that Wasn?t Introduction The failure of the SED to shape the initial development of East German foreign policy expertise in accord with a uniform, long-term plan resulted in a hastily created patchwork of institutions operating not according to single, coherent vision but rather arbitrarily in response to momentary exigencies and without consistent coordination. The absence of a fully rationalized structure meant that the full subordination of East German foreign policy expertise in line with the practical requirements and political-ideological demands of the SED remained incomplete. The SED?s exact understanding of the role and function of foreign policy expertise was still in the process of being worked, but it was already oriented unambiguously toward the complete political and ideological subordination of expertise?it was above all a question of working out the fine points. Owing to the haphazard institutional development of the East German foreign policy apparatus, however, the full subordination of expertise in practice remained incomplete, even while the ultimate authority of the SED was never questioned. The SED had already begun to address this problematic situation by initiating a linked process of rationalization and synchronization, notably at the DIZ, but the process would proceed only gradually, lasting well into the 1960s before the SED?s vision of the role and function of foreign policy expertise was fully realized in expert practice. In the meantime, the panoply of institutions that had arisen in the 1950s whose responsibilities 91 in some capacity included analysis of international relations began to produce the first examples of expert output, or rather what would become expert output. Foreign policy expertise as a discrete activity centered around analyzing and conceptualizing the foreign relations of the GDR still did not exist; rather, the various institutions of the nascent East German foreign policy apparatus engaged in analytical activity each within the framework of its specific responsibilities. As a result, for most of the 1950s, analytical activity mainly took place incidentally as institutions engaged in their primary responsibilities, which at the time remained quite rudimentary in most cases: gathering and processing information to establish a basic footing in foreign policy, maintenance of contact with other communist parties and states and efforts to further expand the GDR?s foreign relations, and the production of propaganda in various forms for domestic and foreign consumption. The content of the analytical output that was produced depended decisively on two factors, both of which would maintain long-term relevance for East German foreign policy expertise: the foreign relations themselves that were being analyzed and the institutional framework in which analysis was carried out. The institutional framework set the parameters for analysis and the GDR?s actual foreign relations supplied the object of analysis, which represented the basic dynamic that would influence the output of East German foreign policy for the entirety of its existence. And in the first years of its formal existence, the foreign relations of the GDR remained highly circumscribed. The absence of diplomatic recognition from states outside the Soviet Bloc had a doubly restrictive effect on the range of foreign policy activities available to the GDR, not only by reducing the options available to the GDR but also by deepening the GDR?s existential dependency on the USSR and its reliance 92 upon the Soviet Bloc?s unity of action. This situation in turn severely restricted the potential range of analysis conducted by East German institutions in the period. In a word, the combined effect of the highly circumscribed foreign relations of the GDR and the indispensable necessity of thoroughgoing integration and coordination with the Soviet Bloc did not create a great need for insightful foreign policy analysis. Added to this was the institutional underdevelopment plaguing East German foreign policy expertise in the earliest phase of its growth. No standardized procedure or set of expectations had been worked out for how exactly foreign policy analysis was to be conducted. Since analytical activity typically occurred in this period incidentally as the institutions of the East German foreign policy apparatus engaged in their primary tasks, analysis displayed none of the uniformity and regularity it would later acquire. As the patchwork of institutions that emerged within the East German foreign policy apparatus in the 1950s began engaging in analytical activity, the results of analysis depended much more upon the individual cadres populating the East German foreign policy apparatus at the time than the formal division of labor or uniformly acknowledged expectations, since these remained underdeveloped and imprecise. The quality of those cadres populating the East German foreign policy apparatus matched the state of underdevelopment prevalent in East German foreign policy expertise at the time. The training of foreign policy cadres in fact represented a key component of the development of the East German foreign policy apparatus as a whole in the earliest years of the GDR?s existence and a concerted effort was made to produce a new type of ?socialist foreign policy cadre? in agreement with the practical needs and political- ideological requirements of the SED. While the exact characteristics of the SED?s ideal 93 foreign policy cadre and how that could best be achieved were being worked out in the course of the 1950s, a clear orientation toward combining specialist knowledge with strict adherence to Marxism-Leninism started to take shape that mirrored the SED?s orientation toward the function and role of foreign policy expertise more generally, although the importance of basic political-ideological compliance still far outweighed concern with specialist knowledge. Yet the SED?s attempt to establish a new model ?socialist foreign policy cadre? suffered a fate similar to that of foreign policy expertise more broadly in the 1950s and for similar reasons. The absence of a uniform, long-term plan and a fully cohesive vision for the training of foreign policy cadres, given existing organizational and material obstacles, which were daunting, hindered the creation of a system capable of producing cadres that corresponded to the SED?s ideal?by the end of the 1950s, the foreign policy cadre situation in the GDR was marked by personnel shortages, unfamiliarity with the field, a lack of practical experience and professionalism, a climate of extreme distrust and constant suspicion of political-ideological deviation, and, perhaps most serious, substantial deficiencies in specialist knowledge and true expertise. Here too, the SED?s cadre problem would only be resolved in time through a linked process of synchronization and rationalization imposed from above. On the backdrop of the highly circumscribed foreign relations of the GDR and in the context of a haphazardly organized, poorly coordinated, and underdeveloped institutional structure within which the results of foreign policy analysis depended much more upon individual cadres than standardized working procedures, the quality of expert output in this period was correspondingly low. Marxist-Leninist ideological hyperbole in its most insubstantial, crassest form paired with unfounded wishful thinking regarding the 94 respective prospects of each side in the Cold War (typically inspired by a na?ve and/or cynical belief in the certain victory of socialism), bound together by a severe lack of reliable information and/or misinformation about events outside the borders of the GDR, were par for the course. However, beyond the shortcomings of analysis in individual areas, the most striking feature of East German foreign policy expertise in its earliest phase of development was the failure to articulate a comprehensive conception of international relations within which the place and interests of the GDR were clearly identified and which could provide a cohesive framework for all analytical activity. The basis geo-strategic facts upon which such a comprehensive conception could?and would?be articulated were in place, but the underdeveloped institutional structure of expertise prevented this from occurring. The SED and the Establishment of a New ?Socialist? Diplomacy Following the founding of the GDR in October 1949, the leadership of the SED consciously sought to break with past German traditions of diplomacy and to establish in their place a qualitatively new, ?socialist? foreign policy. The definition of socialist in this case was largely tautological?anything that served to advance the international interests of the working class, which was led by the SED, whose nominal raison d??tre was advancement of the interests of the working class, was ?socialist??yet, in line with notion that foreign policy was nothing more than the class struggle transferred to the international arena, the SED earnestly believed in a real, qualitative difference between ?bourgeois? and ?socialist? diplomacy. Wilhelm Pieck, first president of the GDR, emphasized this point to a gathering of high-ranking figures from the MfAA on 21 95 October 1949, shortly after the founding of the GDR and its foreign ministry: ?You should not be diplomats of the old bourgeois style?. We need socialist diplomats who have proven themselves in the workers? movement and who are capable of representing the new German state, the GDR, with dignity and who give their all in order to gain the confidence of the peoples of the world in our state.?1 When transferred from the realm of theory into practice, socialist diplomacy in the GDR entailed the creation of a subordinate foreign policy apparatus tailored to meet the specific needs of the SED. In line with its declared intention to create a new socialist diplomacy, the SED, in seeking individuals to be trained and to staff the emergent East German foreign policy apparatus, largely passed over diplomatic personnel that had served in the foreign office of Weimar or under the National Socialists.2 In fact, the SED was so consistent in its rejection of ?bourgeois? individuals with diplomatic experience that only one case of a higher-ranking official has been documented: Gerhard Kegel, who worked in the German embassy in Warsaw from 1935-1939, in Moscow from 1939-1941, and in the German foreign ministry from 1941-1943, headed the Grundsatzfragen (Fundamental Questions) department of the MfAA in 1949 and thereafter served in a number of foreign policy- related positions, including permanent observer of the GDR at the UN in Geneva. The MfAA thus felt confident in its claim that it had prevented the social roots of fascism from re-establishing themselves in the young foreign ministry of the GDR, which stood in marked contrast to the personnel policy of the Ausw?rtiges Amt (Foreign Office) of the FRG following its founding in 1951. The SED leadership instead looked to party 1 Cited in Ingrid Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000), 147. 2 Upwards of 95 percent of public servants were removed from service in the SOZ 1945-1948. Ulrich Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? 1948-1971 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1997), 5. 96 members with proven loyalty, many of whom had actively opposed the Nazis and/or been imprisoned or in emigration during the Third Reich, as well as individuals drawn from the Worker-Peasant Faculties.3 Although a career in foreign service in the GDR in the 1950s did not necessarily possess the allure and prestige typically associated with the occupation,4 a sufficient number of enthusiastic individuals, most quite young, set out on a foreign policy career path. Indeed, many participants in the earliest organized foreign policy instruction in the GDR shared the desire of the SED leadership to create a qualitatively new type of foreign policy. One former participant has remarked: Even before the founding of the GDR in 1949, there were individuals in the Soviet Occupation Zone who were prepared to take part in a new beginning of Germany?s international activity that was to be a rigorous break with the old diplomacy. Often still under the sway of their experiences under the despotism of National Socialism and during the Second World War, they were filled by a deep need to give voice to their anti- fascist convictions. They were champions of reparations, reconciliation, and friendship, particularly with the USSR and the GDR?s neighbors through earnest rejection of national arrogance and of disparagement of the achievements and abilities of other peoples. Their social background, their experiences were the decisive guarantees for the immutability of this position and their steadfast bond with their people.5 3 For a discussion of Worker-Peasant Faculties and ?worker-peasant? students, see John Connelly, Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945-1956 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 40-45, 226-231. 4 Wentker, while noting a series of exceptions, attributes this above all to the lack of influence wielded by diplomatic personnel in the 1950s, who, having been re-trained, usually came from other, more important areas of administration and who found the prospect of a diplomatic posting, given the possible sites of assignment, the challenging material conditions, and the relatively meager compensation, less than attractive. Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949- 1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 47-48. 5 Joachim Kr?ger, ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 45. 97 The sentiments expressed here displayed significant overlap with the those of the SED leadership and their adherents provided willing human material for the SED in its efforts to establish a qualitatively new socialist foreign policy. The SED in turn viewed the social composition of the individuals selected to undergo foreign policy training?party members with proven loyalty and persons drawn from the working class?as the guarantee for the creation of the type of socialist cadres it desired, namely individuals thoroughly schooled in the tenets of Marxism-Leninism and unswervingly loyal to the SED. The envisaged break with bourgeois diplomatic traditions and the establishment of a new socialist diplomacy in their place, in full accord with Stalin?s dictum that ?cadres decide everything,? was to be realized in the GDR through formation of a pool of foreign policy cadres willing and capable of bringing about that goal. Even before the formal founding of the GDR?and therefore before a state foreign policy apparatus existed?the SED leadership was acutely aware of the pressing need for loyal cadres in order to realize its vision. A proposal on the issue submitted to the Politburo in April 1949 emphasized: ?If we only begin to train comrades for foreign policy work after the corresponding administrative structures have been erected, then we will be faced with deficiencies that we in large part have already overcome in other branches of the state administration. Additionally, foreign policy more than any other administrative branch has always been the exclusive domain not just of the bourgeoisie but even of a certain caste within it, which even during the Weimar Republic neither the SPD nor progressive bourgeois democrats were able to penetrate.?6 Ingrid Muth has made the important distinction that the SED?s stance toward the training of foreign policy personnel did not 6 SAPMO-BArch, NY 4182/896. 98 represent simply a general personnel policy (Personalpolitik) but was a form of specific communist cadre policy (Kaderpolitik), which aimed at the production of capable cadres completely devoted to fulfillment of the will of the party in every area of administration and which represented ?an essential element for the stabilization of the political system and one of the main instruments with which the SED realized its leading role and guaranteed the implementation of its policies.?7 Vital importance within the emerging East German foreign policy apparatus thus fell to the training of foreign policy cadres. The Early Development of Foreign Policy Training The first instance of organized foreign policy instruction in East Germany actually began in 1947 with a series of lectures on the history of German foreign policy from an ?antifascist perspective? held at the University of Leipzig by the communist historian Albert Schreiner.8 The lectures, however, only lasted until 1949 and, in 1950, foreign policy as a field of study at the University of Leipzig was discontinued, at which point sole responsibility for the training of foreign policy cadres fell to the young Deutsche Verwaltungsakademie (DVA), or German Academy for Administration. The DVA had been founded in 1948 in Forst Zinna in Brandenburg when SMAG issued a directive9 based on a resolution drafted by the Central Secretariat of the SED.10 The mission of the DVA consisted in the advancement of ?the scientific vocational training of leading employees of all branches of the new democratic administration and economy? as well as 7 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 150. 8 Joachim Kr?ger, ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? 46. 9 Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft, 8-11. 10 For the draft of the resolution as originally worked out by the Central Secretariat, see Bundesbeauftragte f?r die Unterlagen des Sicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (hereafter BStU), Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit (hereafter MfS), HA XX Nr. 8038. 99 ?research on problems of the new democratic administration and preparation of educational materials in the area of administrative studies and administrative teaching,?11 in short, to train cadres loyal to the SED and the Soviets for employment in administrative positions. Initially, foreign policy instruction at the DVA was not provided in a stand-alone course, but as an add-on to its standard course on administration, as was the case from March to July 1949, when a separate mini-course in foreign policy was taught for 18 students already studying at the academy.12 Following the appointment on 1 September 1949 of G?nther Juhre, later head of the Building Academy of the GDR, to the position of vice-dean of a discrete International Law and International Relations unit at the academy, foreign policy instruction at the DVA began to take on more concrete shape. A condensed course of study (Kurzlehrgang) in foreign policy at the DVA took place from 12 September 1949 to 12 January 195013 (i.e. overlapping with the founding of the GDR) and included 12 participants14 and, between 1950 and 1953, a further six condensed courses of study providing a crash course on the basics of foreign policy and international law followed, typically lasting about five months and including 30 participants on average.15 These courses, especially the earliest ones, were conducted with little of the standardization and organization that would subsequently characterize foreign policy instruction in the GDR. The very first course, for instance, ?did not achieve the desired results,? which made preparations for a subsequent course ?urgently necessary.?16 Nevertheless, some of the graduates of the 11 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.1/81. 12 Kr?ger, ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? 46. 13 What appears to be an early draft of the course?s curriculum can be found in SAPMO-BArch, NY 4182/896. 14 Kr?ger, ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? 46. 15 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 186. 16 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/13/463. 100 early condensed courses would go on to occupy important positions within the East German foreign policy apparatus, including Rudolf Helmer and Werner Wennig (future division heads at the MfAA and then ambassadors), G?nther Kohrt (future secretary of state at the MfAA), Harry W?nsche (future division head at the MfAA and head of the international law division of the successor institution of the International Law and International Relations unit of the DVA), Manfred Feist (future head of the Foreign Propaganda Division of the CC), and Werner H?nisch (future deputy director of the successor institution of the International Law and International Relations unit of the DVA).17 As the DVA gradually gained experience in organizing foreign policy instruction and as the MfAA recognized that ?existing demands could only be met with longer-term and more extensive training,? the DVA began to offer full-length courses of study alongside the condensed courses. The first of three two-year courses of study began on 15 May 1950,18 which marked the DVA?s first steps toward establishing a standardized form of foreign policy instruction. The process, however, was far from complete and many significant organizational changes affecting foreign policy training in the GDR were still to come. The first of these was the appointment of Leo Zuckermann, a trained jurist who was co-author of the East German constitution and who had been head of the short-lived Commission for Foreign Policy Questions, as dean of International Law and Foreign Relations, which was now recognized as a discrete Fakult?t (school or department) at the DVA. Zuckermann?s fate epitomized the extremely turbulent early development of East German foreign policy expertise. A longtime member of the KPD/SED of Jewish extraction who had spent the 17 Kr?ger, ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? 47-48. 18 Ibid., 48-49. 101 years of exile during the Nazi period in emigration in Mexico City with Paul Merker, Zuckermann was appointed dean after falling out of favor with the top SED leadership in the course of the ?anti-cosmopolitan? campaign in the GDR for his earlier support of restitution for Jews and for creation of Israel. Forced out of his position as chief of staff in the office of East German President Wilhelm Pieck, Zuckermann was now supposed to oversee the steady growth and improvement of foreign policy instruction at the DVA and was eminently qualified to do so. But in December 1952, in the wake of the Slansky Trial in Czechoslovakia,19 Zuckermann was accused of being a ?Zionist agent?, at which point he fled the GDR and the certain punishment that awaited him. The Zuckermann case was of a piece with the larger anti-cosmopolitan campaign taking place throughout the Soviet Bloc, which culminated in the GDR in the arrest of Paul Merker, a non-Jew who like Zuckermann vocally supported restitution and creation of Israel, as well as the flight of Julius Meyer, likewise an ardent advocate of Jewish interests in East Germany.20 The anti-cosmopolitan campaign itself demonstrated the SED?s determination to use ?state power?to enforce political conformity,? where all those who had extensive knowledge of the world outside the GDR?s borders and who had demonstrated a capacity for critical thought (by voicing positions that did not fully conform with party orthodoxy) immediately became suspect.21 Groundless and irrational accusations motivated exclusively by a drive to ensure complete political-ideological adherence had robbed the DVA of a highly qualified leadership figure and disrupted the continued development and 19 For an account of the Slansky trial within the broader context of the Stalinist ?anti-cosmopolitan? purges, see Georg Hermann Hodos, Schauprozesse. Stalinistische S?uberungen in Osteuropa 1948-1954 (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 1988). 20 Jeffrey Herf, ?East German Communists and the Jewish Question: The Case of Paul Merker,? Journal of Contemporary History 29, no. 4 (October 1994): 627-661. 21 Ibid., 640. 102 tentative standardization of foreign policy training in the GDR?basic, unquestioning compliance with designated party orthodoxy clearly held priority over specialist knowledge and professional competency in East German foreign policy expertise in its earliest phase of development. Nor was the central importance of basic political-ideological conformity lost on foreign policy cadres themselves, who realized advancement within the young East German foreign policy apparatus was dependent upon demonstrating unquestioning allegiance to the party line. During the investigation of Paul Merker, Otto Winzer, who had succeeded Merker as chief of staff in Pieck?s office, wrote a damning letter to Hermann Matern, head of the powerful Central Party Control Commission that was chiefly responsible for the investigation and subsequent secret trial against Merker, describing Merker?s deviations from the now-orthodox SED stance on ?the Jewish question.?22 As Merker wallowed in prison and dealt with the consequences of his purge even after being rehabilitated, Winzer rose in the ranks of the East German foreign policy apparatus to become foreign minister in 1965. Days before Zuckermann fled the GDR, the GDR?s Council of Ministers passed a resolution (on 11 December 1952) stipulating that the DVA, which in June 1952 had relocated from Forst Zinna to Potsdam-Babelsberg just outside of Berlin, be merged with the Hochschule f?r Justiz, or College of Justice, to form the Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? (DASR), or German Academy for the Study of State and Law (the appellation ?Walter Ulbricht? had been added to the name of 22 Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 130-132. 103 the DVA before the fusion).23 In Zuckermann?s absence, Heinz Tillmann, a lecturer at the DVA and later prorector and professor of history at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, was named acting director of the newly created Institut f?r V?lkerrecht und Internationale Beziehungen (IVB), or Institute for International Law and International Relations, which replaced the International Law and Foreign Relations unit of the now-defunct DVA. The IVB, which made up a component part of the new DASR, but as a discrete institute possessed greater autonomy than its predecessor institution, was made solely responsible for foreign policy instruction, and the drive to expand and standardize instruction was now intensified. The two-year course of study was replaced by a three-year course, which was modeled on the curriculum of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and was held three times between 1952 and 1957.24 The first year of the three-year course covered the fundamentals of Marxism- Leninism while the second two years saw application of the knowledge gained in the first year of study to actual foreign policy topics (including foreign policy of the USSR, diplomatic history, German history and the history of German foreign policy, and questions of international law). At this point, language instruction covered only Russian and English, both of which were obligatory.25 The three-year course of study, however, was soon replaced by a four-year course,26 convened for the first time on 05 September 1955 with 40 participants. The four-year course would subsequently become the main 23 BArch, DC 20/I/3/159. 24 Kr?ger, ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? 50. 25 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 188. 26 For an account of the four-year course from a participant who would go on to become an important figure in East German foreign policy expertise, see Otto Pfeiffer, ?Erfahrungen im 1. Vierjahreslehrgang,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 57-63. 104 vehicle of foreign policy instruction in the GDR and would remain so until the seventh and final four-year course was convened in September 1967. In addition to the soon-to-be standard four-year course of study, several other forms of foreign policy instruction were established in the early 1950s. Most prominent among these was a six-year course of study held at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).27 Each year, an average of 15 students from the GDR, along with students from a host of other communist countries, took part in such courses, which included country- or region-specific specialization and a one-year internship to gain practical experience. Students were selected and their areas of specialization chosen based on the projected needs of the MfAA, whereby students studying areas and/or languages unavailable for specialized study in the GDR were given priority.28 The first group of East German students to undergo foreign policy training in Moscow, numbering 14 total (12 of whom would graduate in 1959), arrived in the Soviet capital in September 1953. Some had trouble adapting to their new environment, particularly due to difficulties with the language, with which a number of the East Germans had no prior experience. East German students in Moscow also struggled under difficult material conditions (even going so far as to contact the MfAA to request the shoes they had been promised upon departure as well as a guitar and an accordion to entertain their Russian colleagues).29 However, they generally expressed enthusiasm for life in the Soviet Union.30 27 A small number of students also studied in Beijing in 1951/1952, but information on this and other courses of study conducted in the People?s Republic of China is scarce. PA AA, MfAA, B 3509. 28 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 190. 29 PA AA, MfAA, B 3537. 30 For a former participant?s account of studying at MGIMO, although from a later period, see Klaus Kapr, ?Exkurs: Studium der internationalen Beziehungen in Moskau (1973-1978),? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 89-95. 105 Other forms of foreign policy training in the GDR, all conducted by the IVB, included: irregular special courses of study (Sonderlehrg?nge) of varying length (usually from 6 to 10 months) offered as needed to provide rapid, basic orientation in foreign policy for employees from other areas of the state apparatus who were to be transferred to the MfAA;31 the continuing education (Weiterbildung) of middle and leading cadres already active in the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus in courses typically lasting several weeks; and five-year correspondence courses of study (Fernstudium), whose importance decreased as foreign policy education in the GDR attained an increasing degree of standardization in the course of the 1950s.32 The practical implementation of a system of foreign policy training at the DVA/IVB that would produce cadres capable of establishing a ?new socialist diplomacy? in line with the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the SED encountered a number of obstacles. There were not nearly enough qualified instructors to handle existing teaching demands. A 1951 report drafted by the DVA itself noted that, ?given the current number of instructors [in the International Law and International Relations unit], required tasks can only be completed with great difficulty.?33 The MfAA put it even more dramatically when it complained of an ?extremely deficient supply of suitable instructors? at the DVA,34 which sometime resulted in changing instructors in the middle of a course as well as keeping back graduates to teach at the DVA/IVB, to the 31 The Sonderlehrgang was particularly common in the 1950s as the SED struggled to staff its foreign policy apparatus with professionally and politically qualified cadres. To cite a single example, in 1956/57 a 10-month Sonderlehrgang comprising 50 students was held to qualify leading cadres from the economic realm for foreign policy work. The stated goal of the course was to provide participants with knowledge of ?the fundaments of the foreign policy and foreign trade of the GDR, international relations, questions of international civil law, the organization and practices of diplomatic work, and scientific-technical and other forms of economic cooperation.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ J IV 2/3/505. 32 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 189-191. 33 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/3/467. 34 PA AA, MfAA, A 15550. 106 great chagrin of the MfAA.35 A 1960 graduate and former employee of the successor institution of the IVB has noted how most instructors at the DVA/IVB only possessed only ?a slight advance in knowledge? over their students.36 Added to this, the latitude of DVA/IVB instructors to make modifications in style and content was extremely limited by an irrational atmosphere of suspicion and ?ubiquitous fear of subversion, the activities of Western agents, and ideological infiltration.?37 The case of Leo Zuckermann was just the most blatant example of the stultifying effect on scholarship an atmosphere of supercharged distrust and suspicion could have where unquestioning compliance to the party line enjoyed top priority. Developments at the MfAA paralleled those at the DVA/IVB as a figure no less prominent than Foreign Minister Georg Dertinger himself was arrested in January 1953 by the Ministry of State Security and subsequently convicted to 15 years in prison for ?espionage.?38 Coordination between the DVA/IVB, the GDR?s main site of foreign policy training, and the MfAA and the APIV,39 the GDR?s two most important operative foreign policy institutions, was another area key that was key to the success of the DVA/IVB?s mission, and was another area was marked by deficiencies. A 1951 report from the DVA noted how the lack of supervision from relevant state organs over the academy?s respective departments, including the International Law and International Relations unit, 35 PA AA, MfAA, B 3519. 36 Joachim Kr?ger, ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? 52. 37 In reference to the MfAA, Muth has labeled the obsessive concern with security a comprehensive ?security syndrome.? Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 161. 38 Dertinger belonged to the East CDU, a number of whose members were arrested and tried together with Dertinger. Heike Amos, Die Westpolitik der SED 1948/49-1961. ?Arbeit nach Westdeutschland? durch die Nationale Front, das Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten und das Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit (Berlin: Akademie, 1999), 159-173. 39 Upon its creation in 1953, the APIV division was assigned responsibility for overseeing ?the selection, development, and assignment of cadres in the realm of foreign policy?particularly the training and composition? of students at the IVB. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/356. 107 hindered the efficacy and value of their work since they lacked input from the institutions for whose needs they were supposed to be working. Specifically in relation to the International Law and International Relations unit, the report asserted: ?The establishment of a close connection with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is necessary.?40 In 1954, in an attempt to address exactly this situation, the Politburo passed a resolution stipulating that a member of the Collegium of the MfAA would be made responsible for the IVB as well as that the leadership of the institute would communicate directly with the MfAA and be ?informed of all important operations? so that ?theoretical problems might be more closely bound with practice.?41 The position of director of the IVB was also taken up into the nomenklatura at this time. Complaints over a lack of coordination and communication between the IVB and the MfAA and APIV Division, however, remained endemic for the duration of the 1950s,42 and this would represent just one of many attempts to increase coordination between the GDR?s most important institutions of operative foreign policy and most important institution of foreign policy training. Last but not least, the DVA/IVB had a clear problem with continuity of leadership. Aside from the spectacular mark of failure that the Zuckermann case represented, the DVA/IVB was impaired by lack of a coherent vision on how to train foreign policy cadres who were not only ?politically qualified? (i.e. politically and ideologically in step with the party) but also professionally qualified. The frequently changing leadership of the DVA/IVB, however, was not so much responsible for this failure as it was a symptom of the broader ad hoc development of foreign policy expertise in the period and the SED?s patent demand at the time for little more than politically qualified cadres unquestioningly loyal 40 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/3/467. 41 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/363. 42 PA AA, MfAA, A 18071. 108 to the changing party line. Yet the fluctuations in leadership also created favorable conditions for imposing party orthodoxy at the institute since only those who demonstrated ?the requisite conformity? with the party line had a chance to move into the vacant positions.43 Despite all these difficulties, the IVB, offering its standard four-year course of study as well as a host of supplementary courses, became by the mid-1950s ?the most important site for the training of cadres in the area of foreign policy,? as it was designated in the Politburo?s 1954 resolution.44 While clearly still displaying many features characteristic of the broader underdeveloped state of East German foreign policy expertise at the time, the IVB would only continue to grow larger and more professional and to standardize and streamline its instruction in accord with the wishes of the SED, for which professional qualification was gradually gaining in importance alongside political qualification. With time, the IVB would also become one of the GDR?s leading sites of foreign policy research, but the IVB?s main task for the entirety of the 1950s remained training the socialist cadres so urgently needed to staff the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus?a task it strained to fulfill given the numerous obstacles it faced. As a result, research at the IVB in any significant measure would only begin in the 1960s. The content of the earliest courses of study in foreign policy directly reflected the prevailing political and ideological hothouse atmosphere of the period, which witnessed the widespread persecution by the SED of purported enemies in the ranks of party and state in the context of the ongoing Stalinization of the GDR?s social, political, and 43 Michael Lemke, ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen der Au?enbeziehungen der DDR in der Konstituierungsphase des DDR-Au?enministeriums 1949-1951,? in Sowjetisierung und Eigenst?ndigkeit in der SBZ/DDR (1945-1953), ed. Michael Lemke (Cologne: B?hlau, 1999), 274. 44 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/363. 109 intellectual life. The ad hoc nature of the development of foreign policy expertise in the period only facilitated the tendency of extreme ideologization in instruction since, in an environment where pressure from above was ubiquitous but clear directives were few in number, it was easiest to fall back onto default maximalist positions. The central feature of instruction at the DVA/IVB was application of Marxist-Leninist categories to foreign policy and the history of international relations (beginning with the ?Great Socialist October Revolution?the start of a new epoch in the history of international relations?45). Students were first thoroughly schooled in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, including dialectical and historical materialism, theory of state and of law, the political economy of capitalism and socialism, and economic geography. Then, once a solid Marxist-Leninist foundation had been established, instruction moved on to cover international relations issues in earnest, all while never leaving the framework of a class- based understanding of foreign policy. The foreign policy curriculum, particularly in the first half of the 1950s, was frequently subject to revision in order to remain current in light of frequent changes to the party line on a given issue promulgated by Soviet leaders or the SED leadership in response to signals coming out of the USSR. Until (and in some cases even after) his death in March 1953, Stalin?s works (e.g. on economics, on linguistics) were binding for the entire DASR, and the IVB, comprising a component part of the larger academy, accordingly did not represent an exception.46 Lectures on international law and the history of international relations were rewritten according to positions voiced by Stalin and an employee of the institute was assigned to scour Soviet 45 PA AA, MfAA, B 3516. 46 Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie, 76. 110 newspapers and journals for references to Stalin?s works to ensure that the institute?s curriculum was up-to-date.47 In brief, foreign policy training in the GDR in its earliest stages emphasized the Marxist-Leninist element of instruction and blind obedience much more strongly over the specialist element, which was marginalized nearly to the point of irrelevance. Given the numerous obstacles in place at the DVA/IVB to training cadres who were both politically and professionally qualified, instruction took the fall-back position of conveying a strict, class-based understanding of international relations to students. Capitalism and socialism were portrayed as contradictory social systems whose foreign policy activities directly reflected the class character of each system. The GDR was presented therein as not just another state, but one component part of the broader world-historical clash between socialism and capitalism, which represented the defining characteristic of international relations, around which all other developments revolved. Overlying this content was the atmosphere of extreme ideologization and politicization that touched nearly every aspect of life in the GDR in the 1950s, seeing in the slightest deviation from the existing party line a sign of potential opposition to the SED and its efforts for the construction of socialism in East Germany. The result was a rigid dogmatism in foreign policy training that was clearly oriented more toward ensuring ideological compliance and political allegiance than conveying in-depth knowledge of the object of study. In the course of the 1950s, the stress on blind obedience abated somewhat. It became increasingly common that the curriculum was modified and updated to link instruction more closely with the practical foreign policy challenges facing the GDR. A plan of study from 1959, for example, contained an extensive section devoted to ?the 47 Ibid., 77. 111 economic tasks outlined by the V Party Congress and their significance in the struggle for peace, the strengthening of the worker-and-peasant power, and the victory of socialism in the GDR,? going into exhaustive detail on what exactly these tasks consisted in and how they were to be achieved.48 While seemingly minor, continual efforts to link foreign policy instruction more closely with the outstanding practical foreign challenges facing the GDR provided an avenue for more and more expert elements to enter instruction. The more instruction dealt with practical issues of foreign policy, the less useful rigid adherence to Marxist-Leninist dogma and blind obedience to the SED were and the greater the need for specialist knowledge became. While the Marxist-Leninist orientation of foreign policy instruction predominated throughout the 1950s, particularly in the first half of the decade, linking up instruction with outstanding issues of practical foreign policy slowly but steadily gained in importance. As East German foreign policy expertise would leave its most tumultuous and chaotic period of development behind, the balance between the two elements in foreign policy instruction?the ideological and the expert?would become more even, eventually bringing about a situation where a rough equilibrium between the Marxist- Leninist understanding of international relations and expert analysis based on specialist knowledge would become the hallmark of East German foreign policy expertise. Essential in this was the growing recognition of SED leaders that they actually needed cadres who were not only politically qualified but also professionally qualified. At the II Party Conference of the SED in June 1952, at which the goal of constructing socialism in the GDR was declared, Hermann Axen, head of the Central Committee Division for Agitation at the time and future head of the Foreign Policy Commission of 48 PA AA, MfAA, B 3516. 112 the Politburo, noted the need to approach cadre-related questions from a longer-term perspective: ?We [can] no longer approach the training, selection, and assignment of cadres solely from the point of view of current goals, of the immediate need for cadres, but rather from the point of view of the great goal of the creation of the foundations of socialism.?49 Alluding to Ulbricht?s comments at the same conference, who in his turn had made reference to Stalin?s position on the issue, Axen went on to reiterate the appeal to replace ?the so-called allwissender Funktion?r (omniscient functionary) type with the type of comrade who is politically educated and an expert in his field.?50 Such appeals, however, represented at the time little more than empty rhetoric, as Axen himself made rather clear with his slavish characterization of Stalin as ?the greatest genius of our epoch? and by highlighting the continued primacy of Marxism-Leninism in cadre education: ?We stand before the dual task of raising the ideological-political schooling (Schulung) and the scientific-technical training (Ausbildung) of our cadres. In this question, Marxist-Leninist education (Erziehung) of course enjoys priority.?51 Appeals for a greater emphasis of the fachlich (expert)52 element of cadre education thus remained for most of the 1950s a dead letter as the GDR lacked the resources, organizational ability, and will required to train truly expert cadres in most fields, including foreign policy. Although the profile of the socialist foreign policy cadres desired by the SED leadership was fairly clear, even if not completely unambiguous, particularly in respect to 49 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/7. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 The German term fachlich?whose meaning is very important in the development of East German foreign policy expertise? is derived from the noun Fach, meaning subject or area of expertise, and carries the connotation of specialist, expert, or professional in a given field. 113 the relationship between the ideological and the expert element, the results of the DVA/IVB?s initial efforts in the instruction of foreign policy cadres were disappointing no matter how one cared to measure them. To begin with, the DVA/IVB could not train cadres quickly enough to meet the needs of the MfAA. The number of IVB graduates in 1953 who went on to work at the MfAA were described as ?a drop in the bucket,? hardly easing the strained employment situation at the ministry.53 In the midst of a shortage of qualified personnel affecting the entire governing apparatus of the GDR, acute underemployment at the ministry only began to ease in 1956,54 seven years after it had been created, and the problem was not fully resolved until the mid-1960s. The most glaring shortcomings of the GDR?s young foreign policy cadres, however, were of a qualitative nature. Many were wanting in practical experience and contact with the world beyond the GDR?s borders, lacked professionalism, and possessed a deficient expert (fachlich) education. These failings were self-inflicted to a certain degree since the SED leadership refused to employ qualified personnel from the Weimar and Nazi eras and placed wholly exaggerated importance on ideological compliance and political obedience, as the Zuckermann episode made clear. Some cadres even lacked the most basic competency and aptitude for employment in the realm of foreign relations, as a report from the MfAA on the first condensed course of study conducted at the DVA bemoaned: ?At the conclusion of this course of study, it must once again be noted that the fears we had expressed in the interim were justified. The course in its final result did not yield the cadres that our ministry so urgently needs. Only a few were above average?. This first course was convened in a very hasty manner and poor decisions were already 53 PA AA, MfAA, G-A 58. 54 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 166. 114 made the process of selecting participants. At least a third do not appear capable of further development or possess certain romantic notions regarding diplomatic service that are difficult to bring into accord with existing realities [italics in original].?55 The situation did not improve much with time. Another MfAA report, this time from 1958, condemned the appearance of ?petit-bourgeois behavior, philistinification (Verspiesserung), and objectivism? and made it clear that these were recurring problems.56 The language abilities of the GDR?s foreign policy cadres were also a constant source of concern in the 1950s. The ability to speak or at least read a foreign language was logically viewed as an indispensable skill for a foreign policy professional, so the failure of the majority of the MfAA?s employees to gain the ability to conduct basic conversations and to evaluate the press in two foreign languages (typically either Russian and English or Russian and French) was described in 1956 as one of the ministry?s ?main deficiencies.?57 Even a contemporaneous West German observer noted not without a sharp polemical edge the shortcomings of the GDR?s earliest foreign policy cadres: ?The diplomats trained in this fashion are characterized by a fully deficient level [of knowledge] even for the standards of the Soviet zone. They completely lack deeper knowledge of foreign policy. Yet they are good Stalinists and as such are perfectly qualified to ?make? Moscow?s policy in the foreign ministry of the Soviet zone.?58 Responsibility for the unsatisfactory state of East Germany?s foreign policy cadres in the 1950s was frequently attributed to the institution that had trained them: the DVA/IVB. A report for the Secretariat prepared in 1955 by the Department of Organs of 55 PA AA, MfAA, A 15560. 56 PA AA, MfAA, G-A 58. 57 Ibid. 58 Gerold Rummler, ?Der au?enpolitische Apparat der Sowjetzone,? SBZ-Archiv 3 (1952), 183. 115 State, the highest party authority on cadres at the time, painted a negative picture of the state of teaching and research at the DASR, where the IVB was housed, noting the continued existence of ?serious deficiencies and weaknesses in the work of the academy in its entirety,? which ?is exhibited above all by the fact that the academy has not yet sufficiently instilled in the mass of students the necessary attributes of the state functionary, who must fulfill his mission as class warrior (Klassenk?mpfer) independently, and that the graduates have not always been up to the challenges faced in their practical work.?59 The report went on to describe the political-ideological and expert training of the institute?s scholarly employees as ?unsatisfactory? and characterized the scholarly administration of the academy as a whole as well as the administration of the individual institutes, including the IVB, as ?inadequate,? criticizing ?a liberal, lax attitude toward implementation of the tasks identified as correct, both in teaching, research, and educational activity and in publication activity.?60 The political-ideological content of instruction at the IVB specifically was described as ?still insufficient.?61 All of this, however, did not mean that the experience of students at the IVB was any easier. Apparently emboldened by announcement of the ?New Course? in June 1953 and strangely not discouraged by the violent suppression of the Uprising of 17 June, foreign policy students at the DASR banded together in July to draft a letter to Neues Deutschland, the official newspaper of the SED, in which they denounced numerous facets of life and instruction at the academy, including broken promises made by the administration, suppression of criticism, indifference to student concerns, the cancellation 59 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/J 36. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 116 of internships, ?steamrollers tactics,? and the administration?s general authoritarian disposition.62 By the end of the 1950s, the overall cadre situation had improved very little. Examples of the failure of training at the DVA/IVB to produce cadres who were politically and ideologically reliable and professionally competent were in fact legion.63 Just how far these cadres, many of whom were extremely young, still had to go to match the SED?s ideals of a ?new socialist diplomacy? was perhaps best expressed by Karl Seidel, who graduated from the IVB in 1956 and later became ambassador to the Soviet Union as well as head of the FRG Division of the MfAA: When I started, the ministry was made up of a handful of old comrades, that is, communists and social democrats who had spent time in jail, concentration camps or emigration and who now held leadership posts.... Then there was us, the big horde of twenty-five year-olds. Thirty was already considered old back then. And for twenty years we stayed the ?young comrades.? Basically, there was no middle stratum, no middle layer, aside from a few exceptions. We couldn?t fall back on the old Nazi diplomats. And in the middle years there was almost no one who had any idea how a foreign ministry worked.64 And the leadership of the SED and the MfAA was fully aware of the situation. Following the V Party Congress in 1958, the MfAA made clear its displeasure with the state of foreign policy cadre training at the IVB: ?In order to fulfill the weighty foreign policy goals set by the V Party Congress of the SED, a fundamental change in the training and 62 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/13/470. 63 See in particular PA AA, MfAA, G-A 58, G-A 59, and G-A 60, which include annual reports spanning 1953-1961 on the state of cadres in the MfAA prepared by the ministry?s Cadre Department. The report from 1959, for instance, underlines the need, repeated throughout the 1950s, ?to fundamentally improve cadre work in the realm of our ministry? in order to close the gap between the GDR?s current foreign policy opportunities and the existing cadre situation. 64 Cited in Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 166. 117 education of the republic?s foreign policy cadres must occur. The course of cadre development in foreign policy to date corresponds to the necessary requirements in respect neither to content nor to methodology.?65 The main shortcomings of East German foreign policy cadres that existed at the start of the 1950s?insufficient numbers, unfamiliarity with the field, a lack of practical experience and professionalism, and substantial deficiencies in expert knowledge?had only let up slightly by the end of the decade. These issues would only be resolved through a series of far-reaching initiatives pushed through by the SED as it shifted its attention in the 1960s toward rationalization of its foreign policy apparatus. The Expertise that Wasn?t The first instances of analytical activity conducted by institutions within the East German foreign policy apparatus thus occurred in the context of a haphazardly organized, poorly coordinated, and underdeveloped institutional structure populated by a set of cadres who often lacked much more than basic competency in the field, let alone true specialist knowledge. The various institutions of the nascent East German foreign policy apparatus engaged, moreover, in analytical activity not as a primary task but rather incidentally as they went about pursuing their main responsibilities?analytical activity had little of the uniformity and regularity it would later acquire. The absence of a well-established formal division of labor and uniformly acknowledged expectations within the GDR?s underdeveloped foreign policy apparatus meant, furthermore, that analysis was shaped much more by the individual cadres populating the foreign policy apparatus than a set of standard working procedures, which remained imprecisely formulated and incompletely 65 PA AA, MfAA, A 18071. 118 implemented. The initial framework within which the first instances of analytical output took place was thus not particularly promising. The institutional configuration of East German foreign policy expertise, however, only made up one of the factors that decisively shaped the content of analytical output. The other was the international relations that were actually being analyzed. The institutional configuration set the parameters in which analysis was conducted and the GDR?s actual foreign relations supplied the object of analysis, and the interplay of these two factors produced the basic dynamic that molded the output of analytical activity, not only in this earliest phase of the development of foreign policy expertise but also throughout its entire existence. As the specific content of each of these elements changed, so too did the output of East German foreign policy experts. In the first years of its formal existence, the foreign relations of the GDR?and in turn their analysis?were inseparable from the specific Cold War context which had led to the creation of a separate East German state in the first place. Occasioned by West Germany?s claim to be the sole legitimate state representing the German nation (the Hallstein Doctrine, as it would be known from 1955),66 no state outside of the Soviet sphere of influence established diplomatic relations with the young GDR. The basic fact of non-recognition of the GDR by the West and the vast majority of the non-communist world remained the central feature of the geo-strategic situation faced by the GDR into the 1970s and created the basic framework within which the foreign policy prospects and limits of GDR foreign policy took shape. Diplomatic recognition of the GDR from states within the Soviet sphere of influence, in contrast, issued promptly following the creation 66 For an in-depth account of the doctrine, Werner Kilian, Die Hallstein-Doktrin. Der diplomatische Krieg zwischen der BRD und der DDR 1955-1973. Aus den Akten der beiden deutschen Aussenministerien. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001). 119 of the GDR in 194967 and the viability of East German statehood rested entirely upon their support, particularly that of the bloc leader, the Soviet Union. Diplomatic recognition from states within the Soviet sphere of influence represented the counterpart of diplomatic non-recognition from the rest of the world, and the upshot of this situation was extreme dependency for the GDR upon the Soviet Union and pronounced reliance upon the ability of the entire Soviet Bloc to act in concert to champion the international interests of its weakest member, the GDR. The orientation of the GDR, simply by virtue of the international context in which it had come to exist, fully corresponded to the division of the world into two antagonistic blocs on the basis of ideology contrasting forms of socio-economic organization that characterized the Cold War conflict between socialist East and capitalist West. What diplomatic recognition/non-recognition meant in more immediate, practical terms was an extremely limited range of foreign policy action for the young GDR. Lacking official diplomatic relations with the world outside the Soviet sphere of influence, the GDR had no basis to become active there. In light of the hostility directed at East Germany by the capitalist West, the GDR became that much more dependent upon its superpower patron, the USSR. Thus also in respect to relations within the Soviet Bloc, the GDR in the 1950s possessed minimal autonomy in the formulation of its foreign policy?the GDR was obligated to follow the foreign policy course set out for it by Moscow. Even after East Germany was nominally granted full sovereignty by the Soviet Union in the declaration from 25 March 1954 and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made clear the USSR?s support for a separate, socialist GDR with 67 By early 1950, eleven states had taken up diplomatic relations with the GDR: the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, China, North Korea, Albania, North Vietnam, and Mongolia. Diplomatic recognition from Yugoslavia would follow in 1957. 120 promulgation of the ?two-state theory? in 1955 and as the foreign policy activity of the GDR slowly but steadily increased in the course of the decade, final authority on questions of fundamental importance unambiguously remained with the Soviets.68 The role of the GDR was largely limited to implementing the concrete measures required to establish diplomatic relations with those states that were willing to do so and working on their subsequent expansion as well as steps aimed at the establishment of official diplomatic relations with states outside the Soviet sphere of influence (e.g. exchange of cultural delegations or the founding of trade representations). Propaganda, particularly aimed at resolution of the German question in the GDR?s favor, also represented a major foreign policy-related activity, or rather foreign policy ersatz activity,69 in this period of acutest dependency on the Soviets. Lemke has described the orientation of the MfAA in its earliest years in the following manner: ?Concrete international tasks did not stand in the center of the MfAA?s attention, but rather portrayal of the GDR and its ?alternative? foreign policy, whose touchstone was supposed to be the friendship with the USSR.?70 The GDR?s strong orientation toward the Soviet Union in practical foreign policy brought with it a strong orientation toward the starkly dichotomous understanding of international relations articulated by the Soviet Union in the opening phase of the Cold War. The ?two camps theory? in particular, promulgated by Andrei Zhdanov at the founding congress of the Cominform in September 1947 in Szklarska Por?ba, provided the basic categories within which international relations were understood in East 68 Wentker, in assessing the GDR?s prospects for independent foreign policy activity in the mid-1950s, after Nikita Khrushchev had advanced the ?two-state theory? in regard to Germany, underscores East German dependency on the Soviet Union and asserts that, ?by 1955, the GDR?s freedom of action from the Soviet Union was negligible.? Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 119. 69 Indeed, foreign propaganda remained one of the most important weapons in the GDR?s foreign policy arsenal in the pre-normalization era, when it could only make limited use of the conventional instruments and canals of diplomacy. Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 53. 70 Lemke, ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen,? 254. 121 Germany. Zhdanov?s theory, which reflected the dynamic of fundamental tension between socialist East and capitalist West characteristic of the Cold War, viewed the world as divided into two hostile camps: an ?anti-imperialist, democratic? camp led by the Soviet Union and an ?imperialist, anti-democratic? camp led by the United States. The clash between the two camps was not incidental or transient but rather inevitable and permanent since it stemmed from the fundamental antithesis between the socialist and capitalist forms of socio-economic organization, which in fact represented the essential forces driving the formation of two antagonistic camps. Foreign policy was not simply a question of states asserting their varied and changing interests on the international stage but rather an outgrowth of the class struggle, in which one group of states was a force for the working class and socialism and the other group of states a force for the bourgeoisie and capitalism. The two camps theory and the presuppositions it rested upon were taken up in the GDR and provided the basic categories within which international relations were understood, yet the theory?s importance should also not be overestimated since its generalized nature left much room for its tenets to be adapted and shaped to fit the peculiarities of a given instance of practical foreign policy. The highly circumscribed range of foreign policy activities available to the GDR in the 1950s within the context of a haphazardly organized, poorly coordinated, and underdeveloped set of foreign policy institutions in turn created conditions that did not particularly necessitate and that were not particularly conducive to the production of insightful analysis capable of expertly illuminating the various strategic and tactical choices and conundrums faced by the GDR since these hardly existed, something the GDR?s inexperienced foreign policy cadres were incapable of producing in most cases 122 anyway. On this backdrop, expert output displayed a level of quality that matched the conditions in which it was created. For most of the 1950s, ?expertise? consisted mainly in the rather simple compilation of information and basic evaluation of international relations developments. A general lack of reliable information and the capacity to process it was most acute in the earliest years, when ?analysis? often consisted in the compilation of statements made by leading foreign policy actors or the gathering of press clippings on important events, which were then accompanied by a brief commentary of negligible value that essentially re-stated the perspective of the GDR. A MfAA report on a communiqu? issued by the Western allies in September 1950, for instance, was principally concerned with recapitulating the basic terms of the Yalta Declaration and the Potsdam Agreement, after which its author reached the conclusion that the creation and development of the GDR had proceeded in accord with the terms of the two treaties while the activities of the Western allies represented a violation of the agreements.71 A series of theses on West Germany?s entrance to the Council of Europe from the same year followed a similar pattern, providing a basic chronology of the steps that led to the FRG joining the Council of Europe followed by enunciation of the East German/Soviet position on the issue. The curt conclusion of the report stated: ?The GDR is therefore justified in characterizing Bonn?s entry into the Council of Europe as not binding for the German people, in branding the ruling circles of West Germany as guilty of high treason, and in lodging energetic protest against the incorporation of the German people resident in West Germany into the Atlantic war system.?72 Alongside a general lack of 71 PA AA, MfAA, A 14852. 72 PA AA, MfAA, A 14865. 123 information, one of the most outstanding features of the earliest examples of analytical activity was the interpretation of events in extremely overstated ideological fashion. Thus an analysis completed by the MfAA in July 1951 on the international peace movement, with quotes from Stalin and Zhdanov interspersed throughout, offered the following characterization of the Western allies? intentions: ?The imperialists? preparations for war have become increasingly broad and intensive in the last few months?. The American imperialists seek a new war, this time against the Soviet Union, the people?s democracies, and the German Democratic Republic, in order to draw new, even greater profits from the armaments industry and ultimately to conquer the areas lost in two world wars as markets and cheap sources of raw materials for the capitalist system, which they have brought under their hegemony.?73 The complete lack of analytical value found in this report, which did little more than re-state what could be found in official propaganda of the time, was representative in particular of the period before Stalin?s death in March 1953, when the East German foreign policy apparatus was still in its earliest, most trying phase of development and a supercharged atmosphere of ideological suspicion prevailed. Given the extremely limited capacities of the East German foreign policy apparatus, early analytical attention was overwhelmingly directed at issues deemed most pressing or most important for the foreign policy situation of the GDR. Since it represented the basic fact shaping the GDR?s foreign policy situation and would determine whether or not East Germany would continue to exist as a separate German state, the German question naturally numbered first and foremost among these, which in turn included concern not only with the actions of West Germany itself, but also with the general course of developments between East and West as well as with West-internal 73 PA AA, MfAA, A 14848. 124 processes (e.g. NATO, European integration). The flip side of the coin was represented by East Germany?s concern with thoroughgoing integration into the Soviet Bloc and gaining diplomatic recognition from as many states as possible in order to bolster its unstable position in the international arena. Since the GDR wielded so little influence over both facets of the German question and was essentially reduced to the status of passive observer for the greater part of the 1950s, earliest analysis on these topics displayed a tendency toward unbending ideological maximalism borne of a lack of substantive involvement in the most important international processes affecting the GDR. This ideological maximalism manifested itself, on the one hand, in portrayal of international relations developments in the most unsophisticated, dogmatic manner and, on the other, in unfoundedly optimistic prognosis of future developments that bore little relation to the reality of the situation, a type of ideologically inspired wishful thinking,74 where the Marxist-Leninist notion of capitalism?s sure demise provided an easy fall-back position for a GDR powerless to control its own fate. Both of these traits were present in a report completed by the MfAA in 1953 and circulated in the APIV Division entitled ?The Demands of the German Imperialists toward their ?Allies.?? The first section of the report depicted the situation in the rigid reductionist manner typical of the time: In most flagrant violation of the Potsdam Agreement, the imperialistic Western powers have hindered the annihilation of the foundations of German imperialism in Germany. The American monopolists have re-established German imperialism in West Germany in order to realize, with its help, their aggressive plans. West Germany is not only supposed to serve as the main deployment area for the North Atlantic bloc?s armies of aggression, 74 Muth also highlights how the ardent, ideologically derived belief in the superiority of communism contributed to ?Wunschvorstellungen? in foreign policy analysis. Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 50. 125 but also as the main ally of American imperialism in Europe and is simultaneously supposed to contribute to the complete subjugation of the remaining capitalist states of Western Europe under the dominance of American monopoly capital. The German imperialists without compunction deliver West Germany to the American dictate because they view this as the only way of maintaining the regime in Bonn and expanding their imperialistic position in Western Europe.75 The second section of the report in turn engaged in baseless, ideologically inspired prognosis quite distant from the reality of the situation: ?The program of the German monopoly capitalists unequivocally characterizes the aggressive, antinational, antidemocratic, und criminal character of German imperialism. Its existence represents a patent threat not only to the German people but to all European peoples. The deep political crisis of the Adenauer regime and the prevention of the ratification of the war treaties [i.e. Treaties of Paris] demonstrate the weak position of German imperialism, its hopelessness, and the growing strength of the patriotic movement in West Germany whose victory over the Adenauer administration, which stands in opposition to the interests of the people, is the prerequisite for the elimination of imperialism in West Germany.?76 In October 1956, the MfAA completed a report for the APK on the proposal of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer ?for the integration of Western Europe?77 that followed the same model of dogmatic depiction of the situation paired with ideologically inspired, baselessly optimistic prognosis: ?The West German plan for the subjugation of Western Europe to the dominance of German imperialism is a plan that 75 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/223. 76 Ibid. 77 Although the report did not specify in which context Adneuaer?s proposal was made, it was presumably in the negotiations leading up to the creation of the European Economic Community in 1957. 126 must be taken seriously. This aggressive grouping is directed against the socialist camp and is further intended to serve the coordination of the efforts of the capitalist countries of Europe against the national and colonial liberation movement in Asia and Africa?. Adenauer?s new plan for Europe faces growing resistance. Both the increasing activity of the masses for peace, security, and comprehensive peaceful cooperation in Europe in all areas on the basis of peaceful coexistence and the imperialistic contradictions among the main partners of the planned European Federation (England-West Germany, France-West Germany, England-France, etc.) will hamper the realization of the plan or even call it into question altogether.?78 While ideological hyperbole and groundless wishful thinking in analysis on developments relating to the German question thus fulfilled a compensatory role of sorts for the powerlessness of East Germany in bringing about a solution to the issue and, more broadly, in determining its own fate, these features were joined by a scarcity of reliable information and general knowledge about the world outside the GDR?s borders. The situation in this regard in the first half of the 1950s, as demonstrated above, was abominable. The most frequent sources of outside information were official statements of leading foreign policy actors as well as press clippings. Even at the Ministry for State Security (Mfs, ?Stasi?), in the 1950s employees? principal activities consisted in evaluating press clippings and building up an effective information system, according to a former employee of the ministry?s Hauptverwaltung Aufkl?rung Division (responsible for foreign intelligence).79 The situation began to improve in the second half of the decade, but change was slow. A report drafted by the MfAA and submitted to the APIV 78 PA AA, MfAA, A 17702. 79 Rudolf Nitsche, Diplomat im besonderen Einsatz. Eine DDR-Biographie (Schkeuditz: GNN, 1994), 39. 127 Division in 1956 on the position of several neutral states (India, Yugoslavia, Sweden) on the German question consisted in little more than brief, quite superficial summaries of the position of each country (or rather of the head of state of each country), supported chiefly by citations gleaned from official press outlets.80 A report for the APK from the same year specifically dealing with the Yugoslav position on the German question was likewise just a collection of clippings from official press outlets accompanied by sparse commentary providing the East German perspective.81 Indeed, nearly regardless of which question was being addressed (Egypt?s relations to the two German states,82 documentation on the creation of the European Common Market and EURATOM,83 the status of the GDR and Berlin in international law,84 East German recognition of the Kassem regime in Iraq,85 the GDR?s position on the conference of foreign ministers in Geneva in 1959,86 etc.), accumulation of the most basic facts to provide simple orientation on the issue at hand comprised the main element of analytical work. The glaring limitations of analytical activity conducted within the East German foreign policy apparatus throughout the 1950s?ideological dogmatism and hyperbole, completed unfounded prognosis inspired by Marxist-Leninist tenets, a lack of reliable information and general knowledge about the outside world, the near total absence of analytical value?were the natural outcome of a context within which foreign policy expertise as a discrete activity still remain rather inchoately defined and poorly understood by its practitioners and lacked solid institutional anchoring. The SED 80 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/18. 81 PA AA, MfAA, A 17227. 82 Ibid. 83 PA AA, MfAA, A 17225. 84 PA AA, MfAA, LS-A 35, LS-A 39, A 14877. 85 PA AA, MfAA, A 17305. 86 Ibid. 128 leadership was becoming increasingly aware of this state of affairs as well as the need to rectify it. In May 1957, Walter Ulbricht himself wrote a letter to Sepp Schwab, deputy foreign minister and a main party confidant at the MfAA, that demonstrated the party leadership?s growing cognizance of the problem and its increasing interest in addressing it. In the letter, Ulbricht was compelled to ask Schwab to ensure that ?the responsible employees of the ministry complete a scientific analysis for the members of the Politburo on international events that pertain to Germany, declarations by the administration in Bonn, NATO resolutions, declarations by the administration of the US, etc.? I request that you now take the necessary measures for the introduction of such a procedure.?87 The party leadership?s need for specialist analysis of international relations was growing, but a set of far-reaching changes to the East German foreign policy apparatus was first required before that goal could be achieved. A telling contrast to the alternately barren ideological bombast and dearth of useful information characteristic of a large part of analysis conducted in the 1950s was provided by the MfAA?s coverage of East German rapprochement with Poland and Czechoslovakia. In this, the first concrete larger-scale foreign policy activity undertaken by the GDR, active participation in the process had a moderating effect on analysis and led to assessments of the situation that were less distant from reality than those found in other analyses of the time, even while a strong ideological tint remained.88 Yet this example represented the exception that proved the rule, particularly in light of the fact that the GDR maintained far more intensive bilateral relations with Poland and Czechoslovakia than with any other state except the Soviet Union (GDR-USSR relations, 87 PA AA, MfAA, A 17208. 88 PA AA, MfAA, A 17227. 129 however, remained in a class of their own due to the demonstrably peculiar relationship between the two) and that establishment and intensification of relations between the three states was clearly driven by the hegemonic influence of the USSR.89 In the second half of the 1950s, however, tentative steps were in fact made in the direction of greater analytical nuance. In tandem with greater recognition of the GDR?s own specific foreign policy interests, an attempt at clearer identification of the unique prospects and challenges facing the GDR and at more thoroughgoing differentiation of foreign policy actors and their particular interests in place of blanket denunciations. Even while the GDR remained essentially powerless to shape the course of international events in the second half of the 1950s, cognizance of differences between and within Western states slowly began to take hold. For instance, a report from the APK provided a summary of the international situation after the crisis year of 1956 (Suez Crisis, Hungarian Uprising, disturbances in Poland), in which it ascertained: ?One can now speak of the possibility of attaining a lessening of tension in the world. In this question one can point to contradictions between the imperialistic powers and even between groups in the individual imperialistic countries, e.g. in the US. The groups that come close to a real assessment of the international situation demand a policy which possesses different nuances than the official policy currently being pursued and whose utilization seems not to exclude the possibility of coming to terms in specific questions [with the Soviet Union].?90 The willingness of the report?s authors to stray too far from a sterile ideological interpretive framework, however, was limited as the report proceeded to discuss the unaltered aggressive course of the US and West Germany: ?Of particular 89 Beate Ihme-Tuchel, Das ?n?rdliche Dreieck.? Die Beziehungen zwischen der DDR, der Tschechoslowakei und Polen in den Jahren 1954 bis 1962 (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1994), 8. 90 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/1. 130 significance is the aggressive behavior of German imperialism, which was rapidly able to attain economic predominance in Western Europe and is now making claims to obtain the corresponding instruments of military power. The policy of the German imperialists? state leaves nothing to be desired in terms of openness in regard to its imperialistic objectives. German imperialism is closely connected with American imperialism; it has become the main threat to peace in Europe.? The extensive agreement between the political interests of German and American imperialism is grounded in the fact that they are most interested in dividing up the world anew and thus are currently the most aggressive powers of the imperialist camp.?91 As the APK report demonstrated, in the rare cases when analytical activity in the 1950s went beyond simple information- gathering, crass ideological overstatement continued to predominate, so much so that it actually interfered with the clear identification of the specific foreign policy interests and challenges faced by the GDR. For Heike Amos, the centrality of ideology in fact represented the main obstacle to quality analysis in the 1950s: ??the ubiquitous communist ideology hindered realistic (sachlich) analysis of foreign policy issues.?92 As East German foreign policy expertise would continue to develop, the ideological element so conspicuous in analysis in the 1950s would naturally not disappear?Marxism- Leninism would continue to provide the basic understanding within which international relations were approach and would even do so in a more consistent, standardized manner?but analysis would become much more nuanced and refined and would strike a 91 Ibid. 92 Heike Amos, Die Westpolitik der SED 1948/49-1961. ?Arbeit nach Westdeutschland? durch die Nationale Front, das Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten und das Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit (Berlin: Akademie, 1999), 180. 131 more even balance between ideological and expert concerns in analysis of international relations and the specific place of the GDR therein. Conclusion The gradual ascent of the expert to a position of preponderance over the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise, however, still remained far off at the end of the 1950s. Given East Germany?s continuing powerlessness to shape its own fate and near total dependence on the Kremlin in the international arena as well as the deficient institutional and cadre-related development of the East German foreign policy apparatus, analytical output could hardly be categorized as ?expert.? As the GDR?s inexperienced foreign policy cadres gropingly attempted to orient themselves in the first decade of the GDR?s formal existence, they dealt with the most pressing issues the GDR faced as they arose and without any type of longer-term, cohesive plan or vision around which to orient their work. The result in terms of analysis was a series of ad hoc responses that typically bore little relation to the reality of a given situation. Marxist- Leninist ideological hyperbole in its most insubstantial, crassest form paired with unfounded wishful thinking regarding the respective prospects of each side in the Cold War bound together by a severe lack of reliable information and/or misinformation about events outside the borders of the GDR were par for the course. Despite the glaring shortcomings of analysis in individual areas, however, the most striking feature of East German foreign policy expertise in its earliest phase of development was the failure to articulate a comprehensive conception of international relations within which the place and interests of the GDR were clearly identified. Periodically, the GDR?s specific 132 interests on individual interests were identified clearly enough, yet a solidly established, comprehensive conception of the place of the GDR in the international arena that could provide an analytical framework extending beyond immediate considerations into the middle and longer term was clearly absent among the cadres of the GDR?s young foreign policy apparatus. While full enunciation of a comprehensive analytical foreign policy framework among East German experts would first take place in the 1960s, this should not obscure the critical fact that the fundamental features which defined the GDR?s basic geo- strategic situation and upon the basis of which a comprehensive framework would subsequently emerge were in already in place, having been established in the course of the 1950s: erection in East Germany of a one-party communist dictatorship under the control of the SED, which, since the forced fusion with the SPD of the SOZ in 1946, had moved steadily in the direction of a party ?of a new type?; diplomatic recognition by the Soviet-led socialist camp (and parallel non-recognition by states outside the Soviet sphere of influence); reconciliation and establishment of close relations with Poland and Czechoslovakia; membership in the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA); strict demarcation from West Germany in the context of the ?clash of systems? being played out on the inner German border; and the still decisive if slightly diminished dependency on the Soviet Union not only as patron in the international arena but also as essential guarantor of the continued existence of a separate East German state. The institutional and cadre-related underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus that existed throughout the 1950s, however, did not yet permit for the fusion of the GDR?s peculiar foreign policy interests deriving from this constellation of issues with 133 the Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations to form a comprehensive foreign policy paradigm. In short, East German foreign policy expertise first had to learn to crawl before it could learn to walk. The tumultuous, slapdash development of the East German foreign policy apparatus in the 1950s, a period marked by a supercharged concern with basic compliance to party orthodoxy, had created a haphazardly organized, poorly coordinated, and underdeveloped institutional structure within which analytical activity mainly took place incidentally as institutions engaged in their primary responsibilities. Within this context, the results of analysis depended much more upon the individual cadres populating the East German foreign policy apparatus at the time than the formal division of labor, uniformly acknowledged expectations or standard working procedures, since these remained underdeveloped and imprecise. Themselves a product of the underdeveloped foreign policy apparatus, however, foreign policy cadres were relatively few in number, lacked practical experience and professionalism, were largely unfamiliar with the field, did not possess much knowledge of the world outside the GDR?s borders aside from ideological platitudes, often lacked basic competency, and possessed substantial deficiencies in specialist knowledge. The analytical output produced by such cadres in the context of the GDR?s underdeveloped, dysfunctional foreign policy apparatus and on the backdrop of the GDR?s highly circumscribed foreign policy activities was characterized by ideological dogmatism and hyperbole, completely unfounded optimistic prognoses inspired by Marxist-Leninist tenets, a lack of reliable information and general knowledge about the outside world, and the near total absence of analytical value. Only after the institutional inadequacies of the East German foreign 134 policy apparatus were overcome through a linked process of synchronization and rationalization imposed from above, would East German foreign policy expertise as a discrete activity take shape and would the glaring deficiencies in analytical output be surmounted, paving the way for experts? formulation of a comprehensive conception of international relations based upon fusion of the GDR?s specific foreign policy interests with the dichotomous, class-based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. 135 PART II Foreign Policy Expertise Behind the Wall: Formulation of a GDR-Specific Conception of International Relations, 1958-1968 136 Chapter Three The Institutional Development of East German Foreign Policy Expertise in the 1960s: Rationalization in Service of Synchronization Introduction At the end of the 1950s, foreign policy expertise in the GDR had already begun to emerge from its most tumultuous period of development. Beginning essentially from scratch, the development of the East German foreign policy apparatus had proceeded in fits and starts?not according to a systematic plan, but rather haphazardly in response to the shifting needs and priorities of the SED. The end result was a foreign policy apparatus?and attendant expert institutions?marred by ineffectual leadership and deficient coordination between different bodies, unclear delineation of responsibilities and overlapping competencies, a shortage of material resources, and an acute lack of qualified personnel. The abysmal qualifications of East German foreign policy cadres, who lacked practical experience and professionalism, were largely unfamiliar with the field, did not possess much knowledge of the world outside the GDR?s borders aside from ideological platitudes, often lacked basic competency, and possessed substantial deficiencies in specialist knowledge, possessed particular significance since, given the existing imprecise formal division of labor and the lack of uniformly acknowledged expectations or standard working procedures, responsibility for analytical activity principally fell to the individual cadres populating the foreign policy apparatus. Within the context of the GDR?s underdeveloped, dysfunctional foreign policy apparatus and on the backdrop of the highly circumscribed foreign policy activities, the results of the 137 earliest analytical activity were, unsurprisingly, substandard. Output typically possessed little analytical value and was generally characterized by a combination of shrill ideological overstatement, baselessly optimistic prognoses inspired by Marxist-Leninist tenets, and a lack of reliable information and general knowledge about the outside world. Most striking, however, was the failure to articulate a comprehensive conception of international relations within which the place and interests of the GDR were clearly identified. The deficient institutional development of the East Germany foreign policy apparatus in the 1950s, itself a result of the SED?s relative neglect, meant that the ?leading role of the party? (i.e. full subordination) had been only partially realized. Although the ultimate authority of the party was never in question, the absence of a fully rationalized institutional framework prevented the full synchronization of expertise in accord with the practical requirements and political-ideological demands of the SED. Incomplete rationalization equaled incomplete synchronization, the combined impact of which accounted for the poor results of analytical activity in the period. Starting in the late 1950s, the SED would steer a different course. Prompted by the partial stabilization of party and state as well as the growth of the GDR?s foreign relations activities, the SED directed its undivided attention toward establishing a foreign policy apparatus, of which foreign policy expertise was a component part, tailored to meet its needs as ruling party. The party endeavored to overcome the existing state of underdevelopment through a process of far-reaching rationalization. The rationalization of the East German foreign policy apparatus, however, was carried out with a single goal in mind: achieving full synchronization. 138 The process of rationalization in service of synchronization carried out in the 1960s would engender the most radical transformation of East German foreign policy expertise in its history. By the end of the decade, a well-organized, increasingly professional, and efficiently functioning system of foreign policy expertise would be in place, having supplanted the hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination that had taken shape in the 1950s. The rationalization-cum-synchronization of East German foreign policy expertise was not total?its institutional completion would only come in the 1970s?but the scope of the transformation which expertise underwent in the period would remain unmatched. The underdevelopment of the 1950s was all but dispelled and the institutional basis was in place that would give rise to experts? formulation of a comprehensive conception of international relations based upon fusion of the GDR?s specific foreign policy interests with the dichotomous, class-based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. The successful rationalization-cum-synchronization of East German foreign policy expertise, however, also established the dynamic of permanent tension between intellectual subordination and intellectual autonomy in foreign policy expertise. For the time being, the tension remained latent, but the GDR?s integration into the international order in the first half of the 1970s would create the conditions for it to become actualized. The Changing Priorities of the SED At the end of the 1950s and in the course of the 1960s, a series of internal and external events established the conditions in which the SED leadership would attempt to bring 139 about the synchronization of East German foreign policy expertise through a process of rationalization. Central among these was the stabilization of the SED itself as a Stalinist- cadre party under the uncontested leadership of Walter Ulbricht and in possession of an unambiguous chain of command both within the party and between party and state organs in the GDR. This outcome represented the culmination of a decade of development punctuated by power struggles among leading SED figures stemming from disagreements over the party?s leadership, character, and policies. By the mid-1950s, Ulbricht had gradually but systematically sidelined all serious intra-party rivals?Anton Ackermann, Franz Dahlem, Wilhelm Zaisser, Rudolf Herrnstadt?in the course of establishing his personal rule over the SED.1 Following the renewed outbreak of dissension in the top ranks of the party in the wake of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev?s secret speech denouncing Stalin and Stalinism at the XX Party Congress of the CPSU in February 1956, Ulbricht successfully weathered what would be the final challenge to his authority until his ultimate removal as head of the SED in 1971 presented by the ?Schirdewan group? and was triumphantly confirmed as First Secretary and undisputed leader of the SED at the V Party Congress in July 1958. The settlement of the leadership question within the SED created by Ulbricht?s accession to total authority provided a stability and uniformity of will within the party that would allow for a more systematic approach in the party?s cognizance and handling of the continued development of East German foreign policy expertise, something which had been conspicuously absent up to that point. 1 For an extremely thoroughgoing account of the power struggles in the top echelons of the SED in the 1950s, see Heike Amos, Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale 1949-1963. Stuktur und Arbeitsweise von Politb?ro, Sekretariat, Zentralkommittee und ZK-Apparat (M?nster: Lit, 2003). 140 As the SED?s leadership question was solved in this way in the course of the 1950s, the existence of the GDR as a state remained extremely precarious. A restive population chafed under the dictatorial rule of the SED and the material hardships created by the party?s effort to establish a socialist socio-economic order in East Germany?a situation which brought the GDR to the brink of collapse when country-wide demonstrations and strikes in the summer of 1953 exposed the severe vulnerability of SED rule. The Uprising of 17 June rendered the SED leadership temporarily powerless and was only put down through the mass intervention of Soviet forces. After SED authority was re-established and the country returned to a normal state of affairs, the GDR faced a less immediate but no less perilous threat to its existence in the form of the open sectoral border in Berlin. The porous border allowed East Germans dissatisfied with SED rule, many of whom were highly educated and thus indispensable to the East German economy, to flee the country for West Germany. SED and Soviet leaders were acutely aware that the continued hemorrhaging of the GDR?s most valuable human resources would in time bleed the country dry and lead to its economic collapse.2 These considerations played a crucial role in the Second Berlin Crisis,3 which was provoked by Nikita Khrushchev?s ultimatum to the West. After a three-year diplomatic stand-off between the Soviet Union and the United States, the construction of the Berlin Wall, sealing the last border crossing allowing free transit from East Germany to West Germany via West Berlin, signaled the end of the crisis and secured the continued existence of a separate, socialist East German state for the next 28 years. With the threat 2 Hope Harrison, Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 99-102. 3 For a detailed discussion of both Soviet motivations and East German influence on the ultimatum, see ibid., 96-105 and Michael Lemke, Die Berlinkrise 1958 bis 1963. Interessen und Handlungsspielr?ume der SED im Ost-West-Konflikt (Berlin: Akademie, 1995), 96-119. 141 of internal collapse removed, the GDR?s existential basis became more certain, but, significantly, East Germany still remained dependent on Soviet support. It was not just in the view of the SED but increasingly in existing reality that the GDR was becoming a normal state actor, however slowly. The GDR?s gradual attainment of a degree of stability as well as semi-normalcy correspondingly promoted the further development of all the competencies and structures of a normal state actor, including a uniform foreign policy apparatus. It simultaneously allowed a broadening of attention from issues relating directly to the immediate survival of the GDR to areas that had thus far received comparatively less attention, such as the foreign policy goals of a GDR that, fortified by the erection of the Berlin Wall and having firmly left behind any remaining ?all-German? leanings,4 was becoming increasingly self-confident and assertive in the expansion of its international relations. The slow but steady growth of the GDR?s foreign policy activities, an area which likewise gained in importance as conditions within the GDR stabilized, also lent new urgency to rationalizing the East German foreign policy apparatus in accord with the notions of the SED. The GDR?s relations with other states in the Soviet sphere of influence were becoming more and more extensive, serious efforts were being made to ?break through? the hated Hallstein Doctrine, which typically involved the establishment of all types of relations below the official diplomatic level (e.g. trade agreements, cultural exchanges), and general engagement in foreign policy activities beneficial to the interests of the GDR wherever the opportunity presented itself all required an efficient foreign 4 Amos has put it in blunt terms: ?13 August 1961 marked, also outwardly, the conclusive ende of an all- German option in the West policies of the SED/GDR.? Heike Amos, Die Westpolitik der SED 1948/49- 1961. ?Arbeit nach Westdeutschland? durch die Nationale Front, das Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten und das Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit (Berlin: Akademie, 1999), 335. 142 policy apparatus staffed by competent specialists in order to bring the GDR maximum benefit. Prompted by this need and in the context of partial stabilization of party and state, the SED directed its attention toward creating a more rationalized and effective foreign policy apparatus in line with its needs as ruling party in a period that saw the general expansion and differentiation of foreign policy institutions. In the realm of training and personnel, a corresponding process of professionalization and specialization was begun that was intended to produce the type of foreign policy cadres who were both ?politically qualified? and professionally qualified in order to satisfy the demands of the GDR?s increasingly complex foreign policy apparatus. The orientation toward greater professionalization and specialization that would become the hallmark of the development of the East German foreign policy apparatus in the 1960s already began to emerge in earnest at the end of the 1950s. Although appeals for Rationalisierung (rationalization) and Verfachlichung (?expertification?) in the training of foreign policy cadres and in the orientation of foreign policy analysis in general surfaced periodically starting with the founding of the GDR, the political and institutional prerequisites necessary for their thoroughgoing implementation remained wanting, particularly since a consequent will and sustained efforts on the part of the SED leadership in this area were conspicuously absent. As conditions in party and state stabilized in the late 1950s/early 1960s and foreign policy grew in importance, the goal of the party?s more systematic approach to the issue became adding an emphasis on specialist knowledge to the centrality of ideological compliance and political subservience that had been the outstanding feature of East German foreign policy expertise throughout the 1950s. The latter aspect by no means disappeared?on the 143 contrary, political-ideological subordination retained its centrality?but was joined by deliberate promotion of expert knowledge and professional competency, based on recognition of the need to train foreign policy cadres who were not only politically and ideologically but also expertly (fachlich) qualified. The SED leadership did not view these two elements as contradictory, but rather as compatible since Marxism-Leninism remained the ?scientific? basis of which expert knowledge merely represented an appendage, not an autonomous body of knowledge functioning independently of and in opposition to Marxist-Leninist theory and analysis. The Babelsberg Conference and the Continued Importance of Political-Ideological Compliance Just as East German foreign policy expertise was emerging from its stormiest period of development and expert knowledge and professional competency were gaining in significance, the notorious Babelsberg Conference of April 1958 provided unmistakable evidence of the unaltered centrality that ideological compliance and strict adherence to the party line would continue to possess despite countervailing trends. Taking place at the German Academy for the Study of State and Law (DASR), where the Institute for International Law and International Relations (IVB) formed a discrete, semi-autonomous sub-unit, the conference represented a key element in the neo-Stalinist counter-offensive against the ?revisionist? tendencies that had purportedly run rampant in the GDR since Khrushchev?s secret speech at the XX Party Congress of the CPSU. The broader context for the conference was provided by Ulbricht?s securing undisputed authority as head of the SED and the linked reestablishment of neo-Stalinist orthodoxy. The content of the 144 conference, at which Ulbricht held the key note address and clearly set the tone, was principally directed at institutionalizing the SED leadership?s conception of law, which consisted in its subordination to the ongoing ?construction of socialism? in the GDR. Ulbricht denounced ?narrow bourgeois legal horizons? and ?abstract-normative approaches to law? and called for acknowledgment of the resolutions passed by the SED as the sole valid basis for legal norms in the GDR and as the point of orientation for the practical work of jurists at the DASR, which was on its way to becoming the leading site of legal training and research in the GDR.5 While the substance of the conference dealt above all with juridical issues?the area where its impact would be most lasting6?its effects were felt in every unit of the DASR, including the IVB, which by this time was established as the GDR?s main foreign policy Kaderschmiede, or cadre forge. A letter sent in May 1958, just one month after the conference, by Georg Handke, Secretary of State in the MfAA, which was the responsible state organ for the IVB, to the office of Deputy Foreign Minister Sepp Schwab highlighted the need to bring training at the IVB into step with the conference?s injunctions: ?Assessment of the conference?demonstrates [the need for a] thoroughgoing re-evaluation of the pedagogical objectives, the methods of training, and the curriculum [not only of the DASR] but also of [the IVB]. Within this framework, the ministry, in assessing training as it has been conducted thus far, faces the task of formulating anew its basic position on the requirements and areas of emphasis in the training of our cadres and submitting corresponding recommendations to the institute on 5 Cited in Ulrich Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? 1948-1971 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1997), 124. 6 Ibid., 128-144. 145 the basis of the conference?and the resolutions it passed.?7 A new curriculum drafted for the existing four-year course of study at the IVB complied with this injunction and lent expression to the post-Babelsberg orientation of foreign policy training in the GDR: [The Babelsberg Conference and the subsequent conference of party delegates at the DASR] emphatically and vigorously highlighted that the content of the future training of state functionaries at the academy is to be dictated by the demands placed on the quality of state work by the conditions of the struggle for socialism in the German Democratic Republic and the conscious, systematic administration and organization of the socialist transformation. The construction of socialism demands today the type of state functionary who is proficient in the essential features of the worldview of the working class, Marxism-Leninism; who is capable of creatively applying it to the development of society in the German Democratic Republic, in all of Germany, and in the class struggle in the international arena; who is loyally devoted to the cause of the working class and infused to the core with the certitude of socialism?s victory; and who can win over the working class and the remaining masses of the people for socialism and consciously lead them down the path of socialist development. Proceeding from this point of departure, comprehensive study of the fundamental questions of Marxism-Leninism and their application to the concrete conditions of social development in the German Democratic Republic and in all of Germany will stand in the center of the future training of state functionaries. The foundations of the training of employees in the foreign service of our republic must be the same as those of all other branches of our worker-and-peasant power. Building upon this foundation, a specialized form of training (Spezialausbildung) corresponding to the requirements of the foreign policy of the GDR will be introduced.8 While particulars of instruction may not have necessarily changed dramatically in order to meet the far-reaching vision presented here, a new statute for the DASR went into 7 PA AA, MfAA, A 17269. 8 Ibid. The document is also contained in the files of the APIV Division that deal with the matter: SAPMO- BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/22. 146 effect in March 1959 that brought important changes. The new statute mainly dealt with redefinition of the structure and goals of the academy?s law faculties to ensure their compliance with the results of the Babelsberg Conference, it also created a Prorektorat f?r die Ausbildung von leitenden Mitarbeitern f?r den ausw?rtigen Dienst (PAMaD), or Prorectorate for the Training of Leading Foreign Service Employees, which took over the responsibilities of the IVB9 and comprised four ?institutes?: general history, the history of international relations, international law, economic geography, plus a division for language instruction.10 Faculty and students at the overhauled PAMaD were acutely aware that the Babelsberg Conference?s slogan of linking Wissenschaft (science) with Praxis (practice) signaled an attempt to suppress any traces of autonomous scholarship at the prorectorate: its work was to be fully subordinated to the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership. Klaus Bollinger, a graduate of one of the DVA?s early condensed courses of study in foreign policy who was employed as wissenschaftlicher Asisstent at the IVB/PAMaD at the time of the Babelsberg Conference, later to become head of the USA division of the prorectorate?s successor institution, experienced the fallout from the conference first hand. According to Bollinger?s account, Herbert Kr?ger, rector of the DASR at the time, offered him up as a scapegoat to Ulbricht?s ?anti-revisionist? offensive on the grounds that his dissertation on race relations in the US was not sufficiently practice-bound (i.e. in lock-step with the 9 Universit?t Potsdam (hereafter UP), Universit?tsarchiv (hereafter UA), Bestand ASR, 2817. 10 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13235. 147 perspective of the SED); as a result, Bollinger was compelled to accept a demotion in status and to re-work the dissertation project.11 The stifling impact of the Babelsberg Conference on the IVB/PAMaD was also felt by a group of students who completed the IVB?s three-year course of study in 1957. Before graduating, the students agreed to form an informal association and, upon conclusion of their studies, to aid one another in their professional careers as circumstances allowed. The members of the association were to meet once a year. When party authorities in the MfAA and the DASR learned of the pact, they condemned it as being fully at odds with ?the political and legal principles and the political directives of our party,? at which point it was publicly denounced at the Babelsberg Conference as ?the work of the class enemy.?12 Once discovered, the students? initiative, which was the last of its kind among foreign policy students in the GDR, clearly had no chance for success in light of the SED?s newly demonstrated zeal to enforce its monopoly claim on East German political and social life since the envisioned association was organized independently of the party. Nevertheless, the ideological deep freeze and heightened climate of suspicion which set upon the entire DASR in the wake of the Babelsberg Conference did not have as long-lasting or damaging effect on the work of the PAMaD as that of the academy?s legal faculties due to East German foreign policy expertise?s link with international relations practice, which was gaining in importance at the time and which would continually provide a counterweight of sorts against the SED leadership?s penchant for ideological insulation and dogmatism. The Babelsberg Conference did, however, clearly demonstrate that the emergent orientation toward greater emphasis on 11 Klaus Bollinger, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 28 April 2008. 12 Kr?ger, ?Die erste Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 55-56. 148 specialist knowledge and professional competency in the training of foreign policy cadres would not be accompanied by a corresponding downgrading of the importance of political-ideological subordination. Rather, the former element was to adapt to the latter element, which was supposed to retain its supremacy?a relationship which in practice, however, would not always function in accordance with the suppositions of the SED leadership. Indeed, an unresolved?and ultimately irresolvable?tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy would gradually come the defining characteristic of East German foreign policy expertise, a feature which began to emerge in the late 1950s/early 1960s as the SED leadership initiated a concentrated effort to produce cadres who were professionally qualified in addition to being politically qualified. Practical Needs, Rationalization, and Cadres The growing importance of specialist knowledge and professional competency in East German foreign policy expertise was driven by the needs of the GDR?s two main operative foreign policy institutions, the MfAA and the Central Committee?s Foreign Policy and International Relations (APIV) Division. As foreign and domestic conditions toward the end of the 1950s had ripened to allow the GDR to expand its foreign policy activities, the prevailing underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus and the enduring shortage of the qualified ?socialist foreign policy cadres? desired by the SED leadership, however, represented a brake on the ability of the MfAA and the APIV Division to meet the new challenges associated with the GDR?s expanded foreign policy activities. Reports completed by the MfAA and the APIV Division in 1959 on each institution?s cadre situation provided the specific catalyst for a series of far-reaching 149 measures aimed at remedying the situation. These measures, implementing at the opening of the 1960s, in turn marked just the start of a broader process of rationalization and professionalization that would transform the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus in the course of the decade. The concrete impetus for the entire process lay in an idiosyncratic and easily overlooked episode which provided no indication of the far-reaching processes it would set in motion, but which clearly highlighted the central issues at play in the continued development of the East German foreign policy apparatus. In January 1959, the APIV Division sought approval from the Secretariat for the transfer of Otto Becker, who was active at the time in the mid-level position of L?nderreferent, or regional expert, for Yugoslavia at the MfAA, to the division, where he would work as Instrukteur for Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. Becker epitomized the type of socialist foreign policy cadre so zealously desired by SED leadership and so hotly sought by the institutions of East Germany?s growing foreign policy apparatus?he was proficient in Russian, Albanian, and Romanian and in his previous work had demonstrated that he possessed the necessary ?political prerequisites? to ?correctly assess? questions connected to an area as politically sensitive as Yugoslavia.13 In fact, Becker was considered so politically reliable that the Secretariat and the APIV Division both agreed to make a rare exception to the rule that required employees of the Central Committee, of which the APIV Division was a part, to have been members of the SED for at least eight years (Becker had been a member of the SED for only seven years while being considered for employment in the APIV Division). The APIV Division?s proposal to the 13 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV/2/3A/643. Becker also completed a five-year correspondence course at the DASR in early 1958, presumably specializing in foreign policy at the IVB/PAMaD. 150 Secretariat, signed off on by division head Peter Florin, made the case for employing Becker in unequivocal terms: ?[The APIV Division] is of the opinion that the assignment of Comrade Becker as an employee in the CC should be approved since there exists a serious dearth of cadres in the area of foreign policy that simultaneously possess such political and linguistic qualities.?14 The division?s request was approved by the Secretariat, but the leadership of the MfAA in turn heftily protested the decision to deprive the ministry of such a valuable employee. In a letter sent to Paul Verner, member of the Central Committee responsible for ?all-German questions,? Otto Winzer, deputy foreign minister and future foreign minister, decried the move, arguing that ?demands on the MfAA have demonstrably increased in recent times and, in light of developments in the international situation and the policies of party and state, will continue to grow. In this situation, it is wrong to draw off from, of all places, the ministry?s mid-level cadres who demonstrate good political development and who have experience abroad and knowledge of foreign languages. On the contrary, if in the coming months the ministry is to live up to its goals even in part, a substantial strengthening of personnel must take place.?15 On the very next day, 30 January 1959, Florin followed Winzer?s letter to Verner with one of his own, countering that ?it is right to demand that the party apparatus be staffed with qualified personnel; [the APIV Division] all the more ought to be staffed with much better-qualified comrades than is currently the case.?16 In the tug-of-war between the MfAA and the APIV Division over the employment of Becker, the Secretariat, presumably at the continued urging of Winzer and the foreign ministry, ultimately sided with the MfAA, overturning its earlier 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 151 decision to approve Becker?s transfer to the APIV Division. The need to address the increasingly acute problem of foreign policy cadres, however, had been impressed upon the SED leadership: the Secretariat resolution annulling its earlier decision also instructed both the MfAA and the APIV Division to draw up plans on ?how the cadre questions of [the MfAA] and [the APIV Division] can be resolved in light of the anticipated increase in demands.?17 The subsequent reports of the MfAA and the APIV division identified in broad terms a twofold problem?a general shortage of cadres and the under-qualification of existing cadres. The MfAA?s report firmly located the problem in the context of the GDR?s expanding foreign relations: ?The rapid development of the international authority and the consolidation and expansion of the interstate relations of the GDR require a [larger] number of leading and mid-level cadres in order to fulfill our foreign policy goals. The training of suitable foreign policy cadres has not matched the pace of development of the international relations of the GDR. At present, a contradiction exists between the foreign policy opportunities available to the GDR to rapidly increase its international standing and to expand its international relations and the cadre situation at the MfAA, which is manifested in a shortage of cadres and in the partially insufficient qualifications of existing cadres.?18 The report went on to reveal just what the insufficient qualifications of existing cadres consisted in: ?While a satisfactory situation exists in terms of the political constitution as well as the theoretical qualifications of our employees, a large segment of current employees does not yet match the heightened requirements in practical foreign policy activity?. Alongside the still-insufficient 17 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV/2/3A/654. 18 PA AA, MfAA, G-A 58. 152 qualifications of a large segment of our employees in respect to language abilities [described as ?unsatisfactory? with just over a quarter of cadres proficient in at least one foreign language] as well as party and work experience, we lack a great number of employees who possess the specialist (fachlich) and linguistic knowledge necessary to orient themselves confidently and independently in complex questions of foreign policy and who have the capability to perform wide-ranging, creative (sch?pferisch) work.?19 The report further indicated that the ministry was also suffering from a severe shortage of personnel?a total of 62 positions that needed to be filled immediately or in the near future remained vacant. The MfAA?s twofold cadre problem, according to the report?s authors, was attributable above all to a nonchalant attitude on the part of the ministry?s leadership toward cadre training, manifested particularly in the MfAA?s relationship with the PAMaD: ?[The MfAA] has only insufficiently concerned itself with [the IVB],20 the most important source of new cadres for foreign policy activity. The curriculum, the faculty, and the graduates lack a concrete connection with practical foreign policy activity.?21 The APIV Division?s report echoed the findings of the MfAA report, highlighting in particular the lack of practical experience among its cadres: ?There are comrades active in the division, particularly in the country sectors, who in their work in the area of foreign policy have acquired relatively good theoretical knowledge. A segment of the comrades still possesses relatively little experience in practical party work. The international experiences that have been obtained so far result from lengthy sojourns 19 Ibid. 20 The report, although completed in mid-1959, referred to the PAMaD by its pre-March 1959 title, unwittingly providing an outstanding example of just how little the MfAA concerned itself with the PAMaD at the time. 21 PA AA, MfAA, G-A 58. 153 abroad (emigration, study, etc.) as well as occasional trips abroad. None of the comrades has yet been active in diplomatic service.?22 The report noted that the division was under- staffed?with a total of 13 out of approximately 35 positions vacant?and emphasized the need for determined action in order to remedy the situation: ?The facts presented here and especially the number of vacant positions impede the efforts of the division to fundamentally improve its work. The leadership of the division and the leadership of the party organization [i.e. the SED cell in the division] did not devote sufficient attention to cadre work in the past?. Further decisive measures are necessary in order to bring about a rapid change of direction.?23 The 1959 cadre reports from the MfAA and the Foreign Policy and International Relations Division?the GDR?s two main operative foreign policy institutions whose needs and requests for this reason enjoyed priority within the dictatorially administered East German foreign policy apparatus?both highlighted how the existing shortage of qualified foreign policy cadres and the unsatisfactory qualifications of existing cadres impaired efforts to meet the new associated with expansion of the GDR?s foreign policy activities. The necessary improvement in qualifications, when approached from the operative perspective of the MfAA and the APIV Division, would consist not so much in augmenting cadres? knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, which was attested to be at a satisfactory level, as in providing cadres, the vast majority of whom underwent a rigorous theoretical-cum-ideological education at the IVB/PAMaD, with greater practical foreign policy experience, often encapsulated by the pithy slogan ?joining theory with practice.? 22 PA AA, MfAA, A 17749. 23 Ibid. 154 The markedly greater significance assigned at the end of the 1950s by the SED to foreign policy in general and the establishment of a well-functioning foreign policy apparatus tailored to the party?s needs in particular found unambiguous expression in the sustained attention and efforts of the party?s two highest organs, the Politburo and the Secretariat, to resolve the deficiencies brought to light in the cadre reports of the MfAA and the APIV Division. The reports, in whose formulation and realization the Foreign Policy Commission (APK)24 and the Central Committee?s Division for Cadre Questions also took part, were presented in August 1959 along with proposed plans of action to the Politburo, which approved them and in turn passed them on to the Secretariat,25 where they received exhaustive treatment in October before being sent on in December to the Council of Ministers to receive its stamp of approval in what made up the final stage in the initiative?s passage.26 The proposed measures displayed a clear awareness of the outstanding problems that required attention, but aimed above all at providing immediate relief rather than long-term solutions. In the two separate plans of action submitted by the MfAA and the APIV Division, which, however, proposed several joint or overlapping measures, the most attention was devoted by far simply to filling the ranks of each institution without much regard for the quality of cadres. Testament to the urgency attached to the problem of under-staffing, particularly at the MfAA and the GDR?s representations abroad, was provided by approval of a measure stipulating the immediate release of 70 cadres from their positions in other areas of the state and party apparatus (e.g. the Ministries of the Interior, Culture, and Justice, the State Planning Commission, 24 The APK actually confirmed the resolution on the reports on 24 August 1959, two days before it received final approval from the Politburo. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/3. 25 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/716. 26 BArch, DC 20/I/4/355. 155 the Central Committee?s Agitation and Propaganda Division and Finance Division) for employment in the MfAA by the end of the year (the resolution was passed in late October 1959).27 Another 200 cadres were to be released in subsequent years to ensure fulfillment of the MfAA?s long-term employment targets (to 1965).28 In light of the personnel shortages afflicting both institutions, a means of improving the qualifications of existing cadres without taking them away from their current work was sought in the establishment of a Betriebsakademie 29 offering evening courses at the MfAA as well as increased independent study (Selbststudium), which, alongside the formation of conversations groups (Sprachzirkel), were also meant to improve the largely deficient foreign language skills of foreign policy cadres.30 The original resolution for the Politburo also highlighted the possibility of sending cadres from the APIV Division to gain experience in the international divisions of the communist ?fraternal parties,? i.e., the institutional counterparts of the APIV Division in other Soviet Bloc sates, but the passage was stricken from the later Secretariat resolution.31 The creation of a Kaderreserve (cadre reserve) for each institution was also decided upon, which entailed both the qualification of mid-level cadres for higher-level positions in each institution and the qualification of cadres of all levels from other areas of the party and state apparatus to take over positions in the MfAA if the need were to 27 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/683. However, the Council of Ministers resolution from December (SAPMO-BArch, DC 20/I/4 355), pushed the date back to 30 May 1960. 28 Ibid. The projected figures, however, would prove to be overly optimistic while the MfAA would simultaneously encounter difficulties in filling existing vacancies (discussed in greater detail below). 29 The Betriebsakademie began operating on 18 January 1960. PA AA, MfAA, LS-A 381. 30 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/683. 31 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/716. No reason, whether refusal of the fraternal parties, reservations on the part of the SED leadership, or the undesirability of temporarily creating more vacancies in the division, was given for the absence of the passage in the Secretariat resolution. 156 arise.32 The envisioned influx of new cadres and the improved qualifications of existing cadres were to be guaranteed by a more conscientious and systematic approach to the cadre situation in the MfAA and the APIV Division. The leadership of each institution was expected to take charge of efforts aimed at remedying the cadre problem, which had emerged as a result of past neglect: ?The leading comrades of the ministry must address the unsatisfactory cadre situation and lead an energetic struggle for the implementation of socialist cadre principles?. The responsibility of leading comrades for the realization of socialist cadre policy has to be increased. Work with cadres, their selection, raising their qualifications to the level of our constantly increasing foreign policy demands, and assigning them correctly are inseparable components of socialist leadership activity.?33 In the resolution, little attention was paid to another one of the East German foreign policy apparatus?s main problem areas?coordination between individual institutions. The MfAA and the APIV Division were simply obligated ?immediately to draw up a plan that provides for a systematic exchange of employees of the division and the ministry as well as the temporary assignment of employees of the division in the GDR?s representations abroad,?34 but genuine improvements in this area were slow in coming. One of the few areas where the plans of the MfAA and the APIV Division extended much beyond consideration of immediate steps to address the cadre problem was the training of new foreign policy personnel. In order to guarantee a qualified and continual flow of new cadres, it was deemed necessary for the MfAA to increase its involvement in the PAMaD?s training of cadres: ?The cooperation of the MfAA with 32 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/683. The MfAA cadre reserve overlapped with the cadres who were to be designated for release from their current positions in other areas of the state and party apparatus. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 157 sites of foreign policy training, especially [the PAMaD], is to be improved and a close connection between theory and practice established.?35 In this case, a closer connection between theory and practice consisted above all in charging a joint MfAA-PAMaD commission36 with revamping the PAMaD?s foreign policy curriculum to ensure graduates of the prorectorate met the specific needs of the MfAA.37 The success of the plans to improve foreign policy training depended in large part on simply finding a number of students sufficient to meet the increased demand in a climate where cadres were urgently needed to staff nearly all areas of the state and party apparatus, including such vital areas as economic planning and production. To meet this goal, the Secretariat passed quotas for students to be delegated each year from the administrations of the GDR?s 14 districts plus East Berlin (ranging from 1 to 4) as well as the Free German Trade Union Federation (10) and the Ministry for National Defense and the Ministry of the Interior (10-15) for study at the PAMaD.38 In sum, the energetic steps proposed in the cadre reports of the MfAA and the APIV Division and approved by the Politburo and Secretariat showed that the SED leadership now considered the state of the East German foreign policy apparatus an area of crucial importance where outstanding problems had to be addressed. They set in motion a concentrated effort to ensure the East German foreign policy apparatus could meet the opportunities and challenges facing the GDR centered on ?joining theory with practice,? or fostering close cooperation and coordination between the main operative foreign policy institutions of the GDR among themselves as well as with the PAMaD. 35 Ibid. 36 PA AA, MfAA, A 18071. 37 The commission?s output was to be submitted to the APK for approval. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/683. 38 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/683. 158 The effort did not get off to an auspicious start. In a case indicative of the poor institutional cooperation and general dysfunction still afflicting the East German foreign policy apparatus, Fritz Geyer, head of the IVB/PAMaD since taking over from Acting Director Heinz Tillmann in 1956, was not directly informed by the MfAA or the APIV Division of the resolution, which of course directly affected the PAMaD, but only learned of it coincidentally at an unrelated party meeting.39 The MfAA likewise neglected to include Geyer in the session of the MfAA Collegium that worked out the ministry?s initial response to the resolution.40 Geyer voiced his dissatisfaction with the situation and criticized the MfAA?s approach to cadre training, stating that ?currently, the ministry?s ideas for the improvement of cadre training at the academy revolve almost exclusively around learning foreign languages? and ?it has once again shown itself to be true that there still exists no fundamental clarity at the ministry on how cadre training at the academy is supposed to be improved.?41 In this, the very earliest phase of the implementation of the foreign policy cadre resolution, the MfAA?s conspicuous failure in what was supposed to be the central thrust of the project?cooperation between the ministry and the PAMaD?took place in an atmosphere of already strained relations between the two institutions. While the MfAA was the responsible state organ for the PAMaD, the prorectorate was not fully subordinate to the ministry because it also answered to the APIV Division and had to respond to any directives coming from higher party organs such as the Secretariat or Politburo. Two main issues complicated relations between the MfAA and PAMaD. The first was assignment of cadres; the two institutions, since they drew upon 39 SAMPO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/22. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 159 the same, limited personnel pool, were in constant competition with one another to gain and keep qualified individuals, and this in a situation where personnel shortages affected the entire state and party apparatus. The PAMaD would keep on graduates who were supposed to take up positions at the MfAA to be instructors at the prorectorate; the MfAA would respond in kind by attempting to enlist for employment PAMaD students who were completing an internship at the ministry.42 There were no official channels to address the situation, which meant that grievances on both sides were often left to fester. The second issue complicating the relationship between the MfAA and the PAMaD was the ministry?s sometimes haughty attitude toward the prorectorate. The leadership of the MfAA, despite official rhetoric on the ?joining of theory and practice,? oftentimes displayed an unmistakable disregard for the input of the PAMaD, even neglecting to consult the prorectorate on issues that directly affected it (the episode with Geyer being by no means the first time PAMaD officials had been excluded from MfAA consultations bearing directly on the work of the prorectorate).43 Furthermore, Geyer?s allusion to a lack of clarity at the MfAA on how exactly training at the PAMaD was to be improved was clearly an exaggeration, but nevertheless contained a kernel of truth since neither the MfAA nor the steps proposed in the foreign policy cadre resolution offered a vision for change that went much beyond a general desire for greater cooperation between the two institutions as encapsulated in the slogan ?joining theory with practice.? This lack of clarity and vision combined with the patent difficulties inherent in the relationship between the PAMaD, the GDR?s most important site of foreign policy training, and the 42 Such practices were extremely common in the 1950s and continued into the 1960s. PA AA, MfAA, A 15824. 43 Ibid. 160 MfAA, the main state operative foreign policy institution, did not bode well for the ultimate success of the efforts outlined in the foreign policy cadre resolution. The joint MfAA-PAMaD commission44 charged with revamping foreign policy training at the PAMaD, in addition to following the steps explicitly outlined in the Politburo resolution, could also draw on the work it had conducted since its formation in June 1959.45 Building on this foundation, the commission in the course of its deliberations produced a series of suggestions that demonstrated it took seriously the injunction to create a closer bond between theory and practice, particularly by greatly increasing the involvement of the MfAA in the work of the PAMaD. Indeed, the MfAA?s lack of involvement in the process of foreign policy training was portrayed as the main reason for the unsatisfactory cadre situation: ?The continual growth of the international authority and the foreign policy tasks of the GDR demands the improvement of the training of our cadres at the DASR. The main deficiencies in the training conducted thus far consist in the insufficient connection between theory and foreign policy practice, in the ministry?s inadequate exercise of influence on educational work, the formulation of curriculum, and the systematic qualification of scientific employees. Scientific employees, with few exceptions, possess no foreign policy experience whatsoever.?46 In order to remedy this situation, the commission in early 1960 proposed to the Collegium of the MfAA a broad range of measures aimed at increasing cooperation between the 44 The formation of the commission was decided upon in a meeting of the Central Party Direction of the MfAA on 12 June 1959, which proposed for membership in the commission nine MfAA employees, including Siegfried Bock (as head), Werner Praetorius, Wolfgang Kiesewetter, Horst Grunert, and August Klobes, and three PAMaD employees, Prorector Fritz Geyer, Harry W?nsche, and Werner H?nisch. At the suggestion of Deputy Foreign Minister Sepp Schwab, PAMaD students, preferably those who were advanced in their studies and had already completed an internship, were also to take part in the work of the commission. PA AA, MfAA, A 18071. 45 Ibid.; PA AA, MfAA, A 17400 and A 15824; SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/22. 46 PA AA, MfAA, A 15824. An earlier version of this document, comprising just one of the drafts worked out by the commission, is contained in the files of the APIV Division: SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/22. 161 ministry and the PAMaD at all levels. Close cooperation was to begin at the top, where the heads of each institute and their deputies were to carry out regular consultations with one another and to take part in the meetings of the highest decision-making bodies of the respective other institution.47 Regular contact was to take place among mid-level employees as well?MfAA representatives would take part in meetings of the prorectorate?s individual institutes while PAMaD representatives would be included in the consultations of MfAA organs relevant to their area of specialization.48 Collaboration between mid-level personnel, however, was to extend beyond inclusion in the relevant deliberations of the other respective institution to include longer-term exchanges of personnel between the MfAA and the PAMaD.49 The envisaged intensification of relations between the two institutes logically revolved around the training conducted at the PAMaD. The prorectorate?s curriculum in foreign policy was reworked with the input of the MfAA and from this point on would always be formulated in close cooperation with the ministry. New emphasis was placed on forging a balance between the Grundlagenstudium (the study of fundamental theoretical-ideological (i.e. Marxist-Leninist) issues comprising the first two years of training) and the intensive study of specific foreign policy issues (au?enpolitische Problematik). The commission advocated more thorough integration of specific foreign policy issues into the Grundlagenstudium and proposed that the relevant divisions or individuals from the MfAA be consulted on the content of specific lectures.50 Continuing in the same vein, MfAA employees were to hold occasional lectures and periodically lead 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 162 seminars at the PAMaD and high-ranking MfAA officials were to supervise the general progress of annual cohorts at the prorectorate?according to the commission, this would be ?an essential contribution to the political-ideological education (Erziehung) of the students,? would secure for the MfAA ?a direct, constant overview of the political- ideological and expert (fachlich) conditions of work? at the prorectorate, and would provide students ?from their first semester on with continual contact with the MfAA, which will help to clear up a number of problems among the students because these students, except for isolated exceptions, do not have a clear conception of the ministry?s work.?51 In respect to another aspect of the PAMaD?s curriculum, the commission noted with concern that ?in the past, training did not provide students with any specialization whatsoever, as is the case at the training sites of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.?52 This shortcoming was to be remedied in two main ways. First, students were to begin a specialization in a certain geographical area at the start of the second year of study in accordance with the projected needs of the MfAA?the specialization, however, remained fairly broad since it would focus on a certain territory (e.g. Far East, Western Europe) rather than a specific country. Second, a student?s course of foreign language study would be determined, again, in accordance with the projected needs of the MfAA (the study of two languages?Russian and either English, French, or Spanish?was required, but the commission, in a move that broke with existing practice, suggested allowing specialization in one of the two).53 In another move that broke with existing practice, the commission advocated that students carry out their internships exclusively at the MfAA?one in the ministry itself and another in one of the GDR?s representations 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 163 abroad. An even more radical suggestion on the part of the commission called for the phasing out of the existing four-year course of study at the PAMaD (the last one would be convened in 1962) and its gradual replacement (starting in September 1963) with a two-year postgraduate course of study encompassing 15-20 participants every year54 ? the rationale was that participating students, since they had already completed a degree at an East German institution of higher education, which included the standard Grundlagenstudium and foreign language study, would complete the program more quickly without sacrificing quality due to their preexisting qualifications.55 The commission in its recommendations did not address the GDR?s other main source of foreign policy cadres?the Institute for International Relations in Moscow, which continued to produce 15-20 cadres for the East German foreign policy apparatus each year.56 The commission actually expressed the desire to establish the PAMaD as an institution completely independent of the DASR, but since this was impossible ?for economic and cadre-related reasons,? it recognized the necessity of ?making use of all the opportunities available at the DASR for a better und more qualified training of foreign policy cadres.?57 The leadership of the PAMaD itself recognized that, in light of the increased foreign policy activity of the GDR and the resulting greater demand for well- trained foreign policy cadres, the conditions at the prorectorate were not ideal and drew the logical consequences: ?The current form and position of the prorectorate appear 54 The first two-year course of study did indeed begin as planned in September 1963, but was not conducted each year as envisioned?the fourth and final two-year course of study began in March 1972. Further, the four-year course of study was not eliminated until September 1967, when it was convened for the last time. ?Zeittafel IIB,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 218-231. 55 PA AA, MfAA, A 15824. 56 The files of the MfAA housed in the Political Archive of the Foreign Office contain rather extensive documentation of the annual cohorts of East German students at the Institute for International Relations in Moscow. PA AA, MfAA, B 3537-B 3549. 57 PA AA, MfAA, A 15824. 164 insufficient for the fulfillment of this task. Therefore, we should aim for the creation of an independent scientific institution by 1965 in place of the current prorectorate.?58 As it would turn out, however, the further development of the PAMaD would not quite conform to the wishes of its leadership. The commission focused its attention on one other, increasingly important aspect of the PAMaD?s work?foreign policy research. The significance of this field of activity, which to this point had received very little attention in light of the pressing cadre problem plaguing the East German foreign policy apparatus, was clearly on the rise. In accordance with the weight assigned to joining theory with practice, research at the PAMaD was not to be conducted for research?s sake, but rather to play a central in the improvement of foreign policy training: ?In the prorectorate, research must take on an essential position since it is only on the basis of the results of research that instruction (Lehrarbeit) and thereby education (Erziehung) of qualified cadres can be guaranteed.?59 With research acknowledged as ?the most important foundation of all scientific instructional and educational activity,? it was to produce ?the greatest possible benefit for the foreign policy of the GDR.?60 The commission?s treatment of the question of research at the PAMaD signaled growing recognition of the important function foreign policy research could fulfill not only in the context of cadre education but also in the East German foreign policy apparatus in its entirety?and likewise bespoke the subordinate position of foreign policy research in the GDR. As the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus would both expand and become rationalized in the course of the 1960s, the importance of foreign policy research would grow as well. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 165 This development, however, unfolded only gradually, and the issue of cadre training remained for the time being the most pressing problem within the East German foreign policy apparatus. While the importance placed on specialization and professional competency was unmistakably on the rise at the turn of the 1950s?seen particularly in the work of the joint MfAA-PAMaD commission?this fact should not overshadow the continued centrality of Marxism-Leninism in East German foreign policy training as it provided the essential framework structuring East German foreign policy expertise. The most important trait demanded of PAMaD graduates remained ?comprehensive knowledge of the fundamental questions of Marxism-Leninism,? which was to enable them ?to approach all social phenomena from the perspective of the working class?s interests and to discern what is necessary for realization of developments whose course is determined by the laws of history development (gesetzm??ig). The complexity, diversity, and rapid variability of the social phenomena that employees of the MfAA continually face demand particular aptitude in the application of the material dialectic.?61 The increasing stress placed on familiarity with concrete foreign policy practice and problems and on specialization in a specific geographical area was viewed not as a challenge to but rather an extension of Marxist-Leninist knowledge. Indeed, since Marxism-Leninism was held to represent a body of scientific knowledge that provided the sole valid understanding of society and social development, greater expert knowledge would facilitate a deeper, more refined, and more effective application of Marxist-Leninist analysis to international relations, which, ultimately, would only contribute to fulfillment of the GDR?s foreign policy goals: ?Knowledge of the specialized branches of foreign policy science (history of international relations, general history, economic geography, 61 Ibid. 166 international law, etc.) is to enable graduates to discern the historically determined laws of development (Gesetzm??igkeiten) of the international class struggle and of international relations in their historical development, in their current phase and in their future development, and to take the necessary steps in their own activity to aid in the realization of these historically determined laws of development.?62 Specialist knowledge and professional competency therefore were supposed to complement, not contradict Marxism-Leninism, whose conception of society and social development and whose suppositions on international relations continued to form the foundations of how international relations were understood at the PAMaD and throughout the East German foreign policy apparatus. These expectations were not unfounded at a time when the expert element in foreign policy education remained of secondary importance and when international relations developments, when considered from the perspective of the GDR, could plausibly be seen as in agreement with the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations as defined by the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism. With time, however, these two poles of foreign policy training in the GDR, as the expert element became more pronounced, would produce a lasting tension between ideology and specialist knowledge that would manifest itself directly in the output of East German foreign policy cadres. The efforts to improve foreign policy training at the end of the 1950s marked the start of this process, which then gained significant momentum in the course of the 1960s. However, the immediate results of the 1959 resolution on foreign policy training, which had been prompted by the greater demand on the part of the MfAA and the APIV Division for qualified cadres as a result of the growth in the GDR?s foreign policy 62 PA AA, MfAA, A 15824. 167 activities, turned out mixed. An interim report, from mid-1960, highlighted some of the difficulties continuing to impede fulfillment of the resolution. While the resolution had designated that 70 new leading and mid-level foreign policy cadres were to be gained from other areas of the state and party apparatus, only 34 suitable individuals (plus 12 for lower-level positions) had been hired by this point.63 This unsatisfactory result, however, was not so much due to a shortage of individuals put forward by other state and party organs (134)64 as the large number that were rejected by the MfAA as unfit (70, with 12 recommendations still being processed as the report was completed).65 The reasons named as most important for the rejections were ?a) inadequate prerequisites for employment in the area of foreign policy; b) inadequate physical condition and/or too old; c) the unwillingness of the comrades who had been recommended to take on employment at the MfAA for familial reasons or issues relating to their living situation; d) unrealistic recommendations.?66 In light of the large number of unsuitable candidates, the report came to the determination that ?the tendency prevailed to recommend comrades who would not be difficult to replace.?67 By the end of the year, a total of 41 leading and mid-level cadres had been hired while five had already left the MfAA in that time.68 In contrast to the cadre situation at the MfAA, the report related, the APIV Division, which with approximately 35 employees was significantly smaller than the 63 PA AA, MfAA, LS-A 381. 64 Muth names several likely factors that prevented the original pool of candidates from being larger, including a relatively low salary in comparison to the qualifications necessary for employment in the MfAA, stringent security, and the necessity of strict compliance with party directives. Ingrid Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000), 173. 65 PA AA, MfAA, LS-A 381. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 173. 168 MfAA, had an easier time finding and keeping qualified cadres, five of whom had been hired in the time period covered by the report.69 Outside of the framework of the 1959 resolution, the Secretariat in May 1961 approved the formation of a brigade to inspect conditions at the MfAA and to issue a report on leadership, the cadre situation, and party-educational (parteierzieherisch) work at the ministry. The report offered piercing insight into the situation at the MfAA, particularly in respect to cadres? conformity to political and ideological requirements, at a time when the efforts of both the ministry and the APIV Division to meet the goals set forth in the cadre resolution were proceeding at full steam. The report of the four-person brigade, which with one exception only included individuals working outside the MfAA70 and which based its findings on discussions with the ministry?s employees and evaluation of meeting protocols and other written materials, came to a rather positive assessment of the overall political-ideological situation at the MfAA, noting that ?taken on the whole, the work of the ministry in the last few years has clearly become more qualified and more active? and that ?the [MfAA] has at its disposal numerous qualified cadres. Many of them are comrades who possess much party and life experience and who came to foreign policy work after working in other areas. The majority of employees, however, consists of young cadres of the next generation who were trained at institutions of higher education, particularly [the PAMaD], and who possess relatively good specialist knowledge (Fachkenntnisse) and general knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, yet still have 69 PA AA, MfAA, LS-A 381. 70 The brigade was headed by G?nter Kohrt, deputy sectoral head in the APIV Division, who was joined by a certain Wieland, deputy head of the Central Committee?s Division for Cadre Questions, a certain Palm, Second Secretary of the district direction Mitte, and a certain Demel, secretary of the MfAA?s party organization. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/776. 169 little party and life experience.?71 As these comments indicated, thorough familiarity with Marxism-Leninism and possession of specialist knowledge, which was reported to have improved, did not alone make up the desired profile of East German foreign policy cadres; theoretical qualification was to be put into practice effectively, but also in a manner that matched the SED?s politically and ideologically colored expectations for cadres? work on an everyday level. And it was precisely in the field of practical activity that the MfAA?s young cadres were failing to live up to expectations. The brigade?s report discussed just what these shortcomings consisted in: ?A general underestimation of questions relating to the domestic development of the GDR,? which prevented MfAA employees from ?contributing through foreign policy to the solution of domestic policy objectives;? a widespread ?liberal attitude toward [the implementation of] resolutions;? manifestations of ?petite-bourgeois behavior,? including ?arrogance among many young employees of the ministry,? ?garrulousness and pompousness,? which represented a serious security risk; ?a striving for material benefit, particularly while on assignment abroad;? and ?the continual and often one-sided study of materials from the West,? which ?often leads to manifestations of bourgeois objectivism? and ?the use of Western terms in place of a clear Marxist-Leninist assessment.?72 Moreover, the report continued, ?such serious deficiencies in the political-ideological situation and inadequate educational work (Erziehungsarbeit) are also manifested in the fact that 22 party [disciplinary] proceedings were conducted between April 1960 and the present [June 1961].?73 Based on the criticism contained in the brigade?s report, the leadership of the MfAA initiated a series 71 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/788. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 170 of far-reaching measures to remedy the situation, which in turn made up a significant part of the ministry?s efforts to meet the goals laid out in the 1959 cadre resolution. As the report demonstrated, the GDR?s young foreign policy cadres still had a ways to go to translate the theoretical training provided at the PAMaD into a form of practical foreign policy work that was entirely in line with the political and ideological requirements of the SED, fully integrated into a smoothly functioning, dictatorially controlled East German foreign policy apparatus, and working single-mindedly toward fulfillment of the foreign policy goals set by the SED leadership. The final report on implementation of the measures contained in the 1959 foreign policy cadre resolution was presented to the Secretariat in July 1962.74 The report, which actually consisted of two separate reports, one completed by the APIV Division and one by the MfAA, revealed that the initiative succeeded in alleviating the two most pressing issues facing the East German foreign policy apparatus?an acute shortage of qualified cadres and a lack of basic qualifications among existing cadres. While making clear the importance of the very different role and size of each institution, the reports portrayed the respective cadre situations as having significantly improved since the original resolution had been passed three years prior. Serious progress had been made in the number of vacant positions, though more so in the APIV Division, which with 32 political functionaries was fully staffed, than the MfAA, which with approximately 500 employees (not including cleaning staff, drivers, etc.) had come closer to filling all its vacant positions, but still fell short of this goal, with the staffing of high-ranking positions in North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Indonesia, Ceylon, Mali, Cambodia, and Guinea particularly 74 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/883. 171 problematic.75 The MfAA reported success in its efforts to gain experienced cadres from other areas of the state and party apparatus to fill leading and mid-level positions, hiring 102 in all, 24 of whom had left the ministry in the meantime.76 ?However,? the report continued, repeating nearly word-for-word one of the points of criticism from the assessment of the brigade commissioned by the Secretariat in 1961, ?the majority of employees are young cadres of the next generation who were trained at institutions of higher education, particularly in Babelsberg [at the PAMaD] or Moscow [the Institute for International Relations]? and who ?possess relatively good specialist knowledge and general knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, yet still have little party and life experience.?77 Despite this, both the MfAA and the APIV Division reported significant improvement in the area of qualifications in general while simultaneously highlighting shortcomings in specific areas. The report of the APIV Division affirmed that ?the political and expert knowledge of our employees is with few exceptions good? (graduates of the Institute for International Relations in Moscow were particularly praised), while knowledge of economics among the division?s employees as well as those of the MfAA was characterized as insufficient. While the MfAA report on the question of qualifications did not extend its consideration much beyond basic issues, the desired specialization in the training of foreign policy cadres at the time of the report was lagging behind expectations. The comments of Klaus Willerding, head of the protocol division at the time and later deputy foreign minister of the MfAA, made this particularly clear: ?In my opinion, we ought to be past the point where the development of our cadres is more or less left to spontaneity. In my opinion, it is essential to set for all employees of the 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 172 ministry at least the geographical region where they are later supposed to work.?78 While the MfAA?s approach to cadre and educational work was reported to have become better, more systematic, and more effective, it was also reported that ?manifestations of petite- bourgeois are still present in large numbers? (evidenced particularly by the fact that 16 party disciplinary proceedings had been conducted since the brigade report of June 1961).79 The reports of both institutions similarly attested to a shortage of cadres with significant experience abroad; the foreign language knowledge of the APIV Division?s employees, however, was exceptional, with 29 of the division?s 32 employees (91 percent) proficient in at least one foreign language, including less-common languages like Danish, Chinese, and Norwegian, which stood in stark contrast to the situation at the MfAA, where ?despite all efforts on the part of the ministry? only 21 percent of the ministry?s employees had passed a language proficiency test (the target figure for 1962 had been 70 percent).80 Both institutions, furthermore, encountered difficulties in creating a cadre reserve, particularly the MfAA due to its size and already strained personnel situation. Connected with this was the failure to carry out personnel exchanges in any significant measure between the MfAA and the APIV Division (a total of two individuals from the MfAA had been given an assignment in the division), principally because ?the few comrades of the MfAA who are suitable for an assignment in the division cannot be released due to the constantly increasing demands on the ministry and, on the part of the division, cadres have not purposefully been prepared for foreign service in sufficient measure.?81 Personnel exchanges between the two institutions, however, would gradually 78 PA AA, MfAA, A 17957. 79 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/883. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 173 grow throughout the 1960s82 to become an established feature in the East German foreign policy apparatus, creating a close link between the institutions that ensured familiarity with one another?s work and facilitated greater operational coordination and, in turn, efficacy. By mid-1962, when the measures enumerated in the 1959 foreign policy cadre resolution had been implemented, the MfAA and APIV Division had thus made serious headway in addressing the chief problem areas identified in the resolution. The APIV Division was fully staffed, the MfAA had moved closer to achieving this goal, and, while shortcomings in training remained (foreign language proficiency, knowledge of economics, extensive practical experience, geographical specialization and deepening of expert knowledge), the basic qualifications of both institutions? employees had improved significantly and extensive efforts to provide a more practice-bound program of foreign policy training at the PAMaD through establishment of a close connection between the prorectorate and the MfAA were underway. Furthermore, basic awareness of the ?cadre problem? had been established, which facilitated continual efforts to rectify the problem along the lines established by the 1959-1962 initiative. Indeed, the MfAA?s Perspektivplan for cadres for the period 1965-1970 attested to sweeping progress in the cadre situation made since the late 1950s. The report, itself testament to increased awareness of the relevant issues and greater coordination to address them as numerous institutions contributed to its formulation, particularly the APK,83 showed considerable 82 Evidence of the growth of personnel exchanges is mainly anecdotal, but points to a significant increase in the second half of the 1960s at the latest. See Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 65; Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 193. 83 The plan had initially been submitted to the APK in December 1964 and, with its approval, would have gone into effect, but the APK suggested that the proposal be submitted to the Secretariat for final approval after the MfAA had made several changes and consulted with other relevant institutions, including the IV 174 advancement in every category highlighted in earlier reports. Quantitative progress had been made as the number of political functionaries employed at the MfAA had grown from 507 in mid-1963 to 572 (not including the approximately 338 persons employed in representations abroad).84 More importantly, significant progress had been made in the ideological-political and expert qualifications of the ministry?s employees: The cadres have become more mature in ideological-political terms. The work of the MfAA has become more qualified and politically more effective. The cadres possess greater party and life experience. They strive earnestly and successfully to carry out their responsibilities in accord with the directives of party and state. In general, they are well- informed about our national policies. As a result of their qualifications, the political functionaries are for the most part able to depict the foreign policy of the GDR in conversations, gatherings, and forums. In the main, they correctly assess the domestic and foreign policy of the countries for which they are responsible and, based on their assessments, draw the correct conclusions for the foreign policy of the GDR.85 The situation in respect to foreign language had also improved?66 percent of MfAA employees were now proficient in at least one foreign language, although the MfAA leadership still saw room for improvement, particularly in the area of active language use. The foreign policy cadre problem, however, had not been completely rectified. The MfAA?s overview tempered its positive depiction of the cadre situation by identifying several shortcomings: Despite the improvements that have been made in the political-ideological development of cadres, there are still weaknesses. The political functionaries, in general, possess good theoretical knowledge, yet sometimes they are unable to apply it correctly. In particular, Division, the State Planning Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry for Foreign Trade and Inner-German Trade. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/6. 84 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1184. 85 Ibid. 175 concrete conclusions for one?s own work or further course of action are not always drawn from analyses. Some employees of the [region- or country-based] divisions do not address unclear or false views on the GDR and its policies that exist in their respective areas of expertise?. Deficiencies also exist in compliance with and timely fulfillment of resolutions and tasks?. A considerable number of political functionaries, as a result of their relatively young age, do not yet possess sufficient party and life experience.?86 Such shortcomings, however, were portrayed as relatively minor given the overall amount of progress that had been achievement in the political-ideological and expert qualifications of foreign policy cadres. By the mid-1960s, the specific East German type of Au?enpolitiker, who was professionally qualified in addition to being politically qualified, no longer existed only on paper but increasingly in reality as well. Despite the general trend toward improvement in the cadre situation, in the first half of the 1960s the East German foreign policy apparatus, and with it foreign policy expertise, had only begun to emerge from the state of institutional dysfunction engendered by its haphazard development in the 1950s. Several deeper-lying, thornier thorny issues remained partially or fully unaddressed as attention was focused on resolving the immediate issues related to the twofold problem of a shortage of qualified foreign policy cadres and the unsatisfactory qualifications of existing cadres. Central among these larger issues were: coordination between institutions, unambiguous delineation of institutional responsibilities, standardization of work routines, a clearly formulated and consequently applied conception of the functional purpose and goals of the foreign policy apparatus in general and foreign policy expertise in particular as well as a shortage of cadres with advanced qualifications and extensive practical experience. The attention given by the Politburo and the Secretariat to the state of foreign policy 86 Ibid. 176 training in the GDR clearly evinced the markedly greater significance attached to the state of the East German foreign policy foreign policy apparatus in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but the steps taken so far represented above all a stop-gap solution, leaving central problems largely unaddressed and unresolved. Their rectification awaited further concentrated efforts on the part of the SED leadership to transform the East German foreign policy apparatus into a smoothly functioning, well-integrated network of institutions fully compliant with its political and ideological requirements and working toward the exclusive goal of fulfilling its centrally prescribed foreign policy goals. Rationalization and Operative Foreign Policy Institutions The efforts to improve the foreign policy cadre situation in the late 1950s and early 1960s accordingly represented just one half of the ongoing transformation of the East German foreign policy apparatus to meet the new challenges stemming from the GDR?s more active foreign policy in the period in accord with the needs of the SED as ruling party; institutional expansion and rationalization represented the other. The uneven attention devoted to the development of the East German foreign policy apparatus in the 1950s meant that much work remained to be done to ensure the effective, coordinated functioning of a network of institutions that were growing in both size and scope. The central features of this process were institutional differentiation, clarification of each institution?s profile and objectives, and standardization of work routines within and between different institutions, which, taken together, formed a the key aspects of the 177 continuing move toward greater professionalization and specialization in the 1960s carried out for the larger purpose of synchronization.87 The positions of the APIV and the MfAA as, respectively, the GDR?s main operative foreign policy organs of party and state became cemented in this period. The leading role of the APIV Division in the conduct, if not formulation, of SED foreign policy had already been established in the second half of the 1950s on the basis of its two main areas of responsibility: (1) the coordination of the actions of the state foreign policy apparatus by virtue of its position as highest party authority on foreign policy and in its capacity as intermediary on foreign policy issues between the Politburo and the Secretariat on the one hand and all other party and state organs on the other and (2) the maintenance of relations with other communist parties and movements. As the scope and intensity of the GDR?s foreign policy grew in the early 1960s, the institutional make-up of the APIV Division was refined to better reflect the changing reality of the GDR?s foreign relations and the resulting new, more complex challenges facing the division. In 1960, the individual sectors comprising the division were re-named and their activities more clearly delineated: the Sector Socialist Abroad became the Sector Socialist Countries and Yugoslavia, the Sector Capitalist Abroad was renamed Sector Non- socialist Countries and was sub-divided into the working groups Europe-America and Asia-Africa, and a special Working Group (Re-)emigration was added to the sector that handled the supervision of political visitors to the GDR and emigration.88 In the course of 87 The process also did not go unnoticed by some contemporaneous West German observers, such as J?rgen Radde, who ascertained the steady progress of ?formalization, bureaucratization, and professionalization? within the East German foreign policy apparatus. J?rgen Radde, Die au?enpolitische F?hrungselite der DDR. Ver?nderungen der sozialen Struktur au?enpolitischer F?hrungsgruppen (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1976), 15. 88 Amos, Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale 1949-1963, 398-399. 178 the 1960s, the Sector Foreign Propaganda and Information, whose name had been changed to Sector Information and Foreign Propaganda in 1960, was gradually detached from the division. In 1963, in the wake of the VI Party Congress of the SED, the Politburo in 1963 passed a resolution creating two bodies dealing exclusively with foreign propaganda: an Arbeitsgruppe f?r Auslandsinformation (Working Group for Foreign Propaganda) attached to the Politburo?s Agitation Commission and a Beirat f?r Auslandsinformation (Advisory Board for Foreign Propaganda). The former took on the character of a standing body under the leadership of Werner Lamberz, supported by Deputy Director Ernst-Otto Schwabe,89 who was released from his position as director of the APIV Division?s own propaganda sector to take up this position; the latter had a coordinating and advisory role, periodically bringing together representatives of the relevant ministries and mass organizations dealing with foreign propaganda.90 The Working Group for Foreign Propaganda and the Advisory Board for Foreign Propaganda were to work in close cooperation with one another within the SED?s larger effort ?to secure effective and uniform direction and coordination of foreign propaganda.?91 In March 1967, a fully independent Foreign Propaganda Division (Abteilung Auslandsinformation) under the leadership of Manfred Feist, who would head the division until 1989, was created within the Central Committee, supplanting the Working Group for Foreign Propaganda92 and marking the final step in the removal of 89 Schwabe would go on to serve as the editor-in-chief of Horizont, the GDR?s weekly foreign policy magazine, from its founding in 1968 until 1989. 90 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/953. 91 Martin Praxenthaler, Die Sprachverbreitungspolitik der DDR. Die deutsche Sprache als Mittel sozialistischer ausw?rtiger Kulturpolitik (Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2002), 105 92 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1435. The Secretariat resolution on the creation of the division clearly spoke to the perceived need for foreign propaganda and expectations on the role it was to play: ?The growing international authority of the GDR has led to further growth in the demand for information from abroad. Our consistent peace policy, our effective anti-imperial struggle, our support for revolutions of 179 responsibility for foreign propaganda from the APIV Division and its transfer to a discrete foreign propaganda division of the Central Committee. This process was part and parcel of the ongoing delineation and refinement of the APIV Division?s work, refocusing its attention on its core objectives of maintaining relations with foreign communist parties and movements and, as highest party instance dealing exclusively with foreign policy, coordinating the actions of the state foreign policy apparatus, with direct responsibility for the creation and dissemination of foreign propaganda not fully fitting into either area. As the streamlining process continued apace, the APIV Division filled all of its remaining vacant positions in the course of implementing the 1959 foreign policy cadre resolution, employing a total of 32 political functionaries in 1962.93 In mid-1963, the division was given back its pre-1953 name, Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen, or International Relations Division (IV Division), as it would remain designated for the remainder of the existence of the GDR. As head of the division, Peter Florin oversaw its growth and refinement until he was replaced in 1966 by Paul Markowski, shortly after which Florin became the GDR?s ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Markowski, born in 1929, came from a working class family and rose quickly in the ranks of the GDR?s national liberation as well as our growing economic weight and our technical progress occasion more and more people in the world to grapple with our development and our point of view, our domestic and foreign policy?. Foreign propaganda must contribute to strengthening the foreign policy positions of the GDR and establishing it as a sovereign national state in the international arena.? Cited in Muth, Die DDR- Au?enpolitik, 65. 93 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/883. Based on a structural plan of the SED?s Central Committe (to which the APIV Division belonged) produced by the Office of the Politburo in 1961 (SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/5/24), Amos puts the number of political functionaries in the APIV Division in 1961 at 45. Amos, Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale, 398. However, the 1962 figure of 32 appears to be the accurate one since this information was compiled by the division itself (in contrast to the 1961 figures provided by the Office of the Politburo) and accords with the division?s pace of expansion up to that point. While reliable statistics on the size of the division for the rest of the 1960s are lacking, one may safely assume that, given the increasing importance of foreign policy in the GDR and the ongoing expansion of the East German foreign policy apparatus, the division grew steadily in the period. 180 foreign policy apparatus after completing in 1953 one of the first courses of study in foreign policy at the DVA/IVB. He began working in the IV Division in 1953, heading the sector dealing with capitalist countries from 1956-1964 and serving as deputy head of the division from 1964 until replacing Florin in 1966.94 Markowski was the very embodiment of the new socialist foreign policy cadre desired by the SED who combined unswerving loyalty to the will of the party in practice and political-ideological commitment with specialist knowledge and professional competency. At the same time, Markowski also served as an example of the tension that existed between these two sets of characteristics, a tension that defied the presumptions of the party leadership on their compatibility. Markowski was widely viewed within the SED as a pragmatic thinker willing to challenge existing dogma and the rigidity of the party leadership?s prevailing understanding of foreign policy.95 Although this issue would become moot since Markowski died in a helicopter crash in Libya in 1978 together with Werner Lamberz? the ?two figures on whom many younger, open-minded, sensitive functionaries of party and state pinned their hopes?96?the rise of a figure like Markowski to a leading position within the SED was emblematic of an important generational changing-of-the-guard that took place in the course of the 1960s and that made up a key component of the broader 94 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 193. 95 Manfred Uschner, who worked under Markowski?s direction in the International Relations Division before becoming personal assistant to Hermann Axen, claims, certainly not without a bit of ex post facto hyperbole, that Markowski ?demanded in particular professional aptitude, openness toward the world, and sound personal conduct [from employees of the division].? Manfred Uschner, Die zweite Etage. Funktionsweise eines Machtapparates (Berlin: Dietz, 1993), 33. 96 Ibid., 33. Even an OibE of the MfS (i.e., a MfS agent working covertly at another party or state organ to gather information) recognized Lamberz as being cut from a different cloth than the rest of the SED leadership: ?Werner Lamberz was an exception in the Politburo clique. He was somebody you could talk to on equal terms.? Rudolf Nitsche, Diplomat im besonderen Einsatz. Eine DDR-Biographie (Schkeuditz: GNN, 1994), 33. 181 process of professionalization and specialization reshaping the East German foreign policy apparatus at the time. By the early 1960s, a generation of cadres began to enter the East German foreign policy apparatus that had come of age and had been educated in the GDR. The socialization, life experiences, and formal training of this generation contrasted sharply with those of the Alt-Genossen (old comrades), who dominated the IV Division, the MfAA, the PAMaD, and other East German foreign policy institutions when members of the younger generation began their careers. The near-complete absence of a middle stratum of foreign policy cadres only served to highlight the differences between the two groups. The old comrades were battle-hardened communists, many of who had been members of the KPD since the 1920s and who had cut their teeth in the fierce political battles of the Weimar and Nazi periods. The Stalinist proclivities of many of the old comrades, furthermore, were oftentimes unmistakable, as a member of the younger generation has noted: ?For them, it was incontrovertible fact: the task of the party apparatus was implementing the line decided upon by the party leadership without protest and with full force, supervising its realization in their designated areas of responsibility, and identifying problems that might occur in ?the appropriate form.??97 The political and ideological credentials of the older generation were correspondingly beyond reproach, but the vast majority lacked formal training in foreign policy aside from perhaps a brief, hurried course of study at the DVA/IVB. The stark contrast between the two generational cohorts?as well as the sometimes-thorny issues associated with it?did not go unnoticed by East German authorities. A Council of Ministers resolution on foreign policy cadres commented: ?The main problem in cadre development consists in creating a healthy 97 Uschner, Die zweite Etage, 21. 182 relationship between old cadres who have proven themselves in the class struggle (even if for the time being they do not possess specialist knowledge to the necessary extent) and the young cadres who received their foreign policy training in our state.?98 In a period of foreign policy expansion that demanded greater professionalization and specialization such as the GDR was experiencing at the time, the shortcomings of the generation of old comrades were patent?the difficulties of the IV Division and the MfAA in finding individuals who had intimate knowledge of a given region, who spoke the language(s) of that region, and who could draw on substantial experience abroad were unmistakable. The generation of young cadres, in contrast, was much better equipped to meet the task at hand since the majority had undergone a thorough and increasingly standardized and specialized course of training at the IVB/PAMaD specifically designed to prepare them for employment in one of the institutions of the East German foreign policy apparatus. While the orientation toward specialization and professionalization was more pronounced among these young cadres, this did not necessarily entail a lessening in the importance of basic political-ideological subordination?acceptance of the ?leading role of the party? in the SED state retained its centrality and the young cadres were typically ?schooled? by the old comrades on how things were done.99 Most cadres of the younger generation, moreover, had spent their formative years in the GDR and correspondingly viewed the existence of a separate, socialist East German state as a given, a trait which would facilitate the fusion of Marxist-Leninist tents with hardnosed pragmatic concerns that demanded specialist knowledge and professional competency. In the context of the expansion of the East German foreign policy apparatus in the 1960s, these young cadres 98 BArch, DC 20/I/4/355. 99 Uschner, Die zweite Etage, 25-26. 183 entered the foreign policy apparatus of the GDR in increasing numbers and, given the absence of a large, mid-level age cohort of cadres, would rather quickly come numerically to dominate the East German foreign policy apparatus as older cadres retired or moved on to other positions. The result was the juvenescence of the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus, with the average age at the MfAA, for instance, dropping from 53 in 1956-1958 to 49 by 1969.100 The advent of a younger generation of cadres represented both a cause and an effect of the movement away from the most extreme forms of ideological distortion and rigid dogmatism and toward increasing professionalization and specialization in the East German foreign policy apparatus. This development was also closely tied up with broader trends in the GDR, particularly following introduction of the New Economic System of Planning and Management (NOS) at the VI Party Congress in 1963. The NOS represented an attempt to ramp up East Germany?s economic performance by granting greater autonomy to East German enterprises (e.g. in the acquisition of materials and credit, the setting of prices). And the NOS did in fact succeed in increasing labor productivity (by 7 percent in 1964, by 6 in 1965) and in raising the standard of living in the GDR.101 The NOS bespoke the pronounced pragmatic approach of the SED toward the economy in the 1960s as the party sought to make use of expertise and specialist knowledge while maintaining its political and ideological hegemony. Indeed, the NOS, which was predicated upon the notion of introducing material levers into the East German economy, was designed by Erich Apel and G?nter Mittag,102 young economists who better fit the mold of specialists than ideologues, representing as it were economic 100 Radde, Die au?enpolitische F?hrungselite der DDR, 208. 101 Weber, Geschichte der DDR, 239-240. 102 Ibid., 237. 184 counterparts to the new generation of specialist foreign policy cadres. The tension between economic efficiency and maintenance of the SED?s hegemony was finally resolved, in what would eventually prove to be a Pyrrhic victory, in favor of the entrenched party apparatus with the re-establishment of full state control over the economy by the early 1970s.103 ?Eastern Europe leaders feared that moving further down the path of economic liberalization and decentralization could undermine political control,? as Barry Eichengreen has put it.104 The NOS nevertheless clearly highlighted the SED?s increasing cognizance of the need to strike a balance between political and ideological rigidity on the one hand and specialist knowledge and professional competency on the other for the sake of effective rule in East Germany. The trend was present throughout the GDR in the early 1960s, as Heike Amos has noted: ?Younger functionaries?academics, scientists, engineers, economists?increasingly moved up into leading SED bodies alongsidge long-serving apparatchiks?. With this new cadre policy, a trend arose of making party policy in its entirety more fact-based by including more expertly trained specialists in the advisory and decision-making bodies of the SED.?105 The sharply increasing importance of professional expertise in the 1960s became manifest in the specific realm of the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus as a new generation of young cadres came onto the scene that seemed finally to match the profile of the ?socialist foreign policy cadres? desired by the SED. They combined solid specialist training with unswerving loyalty to the GDR as the embodiment of socialism in Germany 103 For more on the tension between achieving economic efficiency and maintaining political power in the GDR, see Andr? Steiner, Die DDR-Wirtschaftsreform der sechziger Jahre. Konflikt zwischen Effizienz und Machtkalk?l (Berlin: Akademie, 1999). 104 Barry Eichengreen, The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 160-161. 105 Amos, Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale 1949-1963, 602. 185 in the context of the ?clash of systems? between East and West. Professional competency was indeed a point of pride among East German foreign policy cadres, who believed the specialist training they received in the GDR was superior to the general foreign policy training West German foreign policy personnel received.106 This generational change among foreign policy cadres was even evident to some contemporary commentators. In 1971, the West German Karl Wilhelm Fricke wrote: ?The old comrade type who has rendered outstanding services to the party can today be found only rarely in the foreign service. Apparently, he is being recalled because he incapably represents the GDR and because he feels uncertain and overburdened.?107 And it was this young generation of cadres with this balance between ?political? and professional qualifications that would leave their stamp on East German foreign policy expertise. Contrary to the expectations of the SED, however, the advent of this generation also marked the advent of the characteristic tension at the center of East German foreign policy expertise between specialization and expert knowledge on the one hand and strict adherence to unsophisticated Marxist-Leninist tenets on the other. As Fricke went on to note: ?The dilemma [of the new type of cadre] appears to be that of many party and state functionaries?their dilemma is the contradiction between appearance and reality in the politics of the regime, a dilemma which constantly renews itself.?108 As this generational change gradually set in in the 1960s, it overlapped with important institutional changes in areas of the East German foreign policy apparatus that extended far beyond just the IV Division, the party?s most important foreign policy 106 Raimund Kr?mer and Wolfram Wallraf, ?Diplomat oder Parteiarbeiter? Zum Selbstbild einer Funktionselite in der DDR,? Deutschland-Archiv 26 (1993): 326-334 107 Karl Wilhelm Fricke, ?Der diplomatische Dienst der DDR,? Deutschland-Archiv 4 (1971): 35-42. 108 Ibid., 41. 186 organ. The work of the MfAA, as the most important state foreign policy organ in the GDR, was also streamlined and more clearly defined in order to match the needs of the SED as ruling party in a period of foreign policy growth. By the end of the 1950s, the structure of the MfAA had been transformed from its initial orientation toward the foreign office of the Weimar Republic to mirror the organization of the Soviet foreign ministry. As a result of the unique situation of divided Germany, however, one organizational peculiarity remained: the status of relations with West Germany, which still were not administered in the same way as relations with other foreign countries. Following one of the last extensive bouts of re-organization at the MfAA in 1959, however, an initiative was begun to ?normalize? East Germany?s handling of relations with the FRG. A series of proposals on the issue were submitted to the Council of Ministers and the Politburo,109 culminating in a resolution of the Council of Ministers from April 1963 that charged the MfAA with responsibility for the maintenance of relations with West Germany as with any other sovereign foreign country: ?The leadership of the MfAA is strictly to see to it that relations with West Germany develop as relations between two sovereign states?. The leadership of the MfAA is to submit proposals on the struggle for normalization of relations between the two German states, continually to defend the sovereignty of the GDR against the attacks of the West German revanchists, and to advise other ministries and organs of state on their relations with West Germany and to coordinate their actions.?110 This organizational modification, several years in the making and coming two years after the construction of the Berlin Wall, signaled the GDR?s definitive abandonment of an ?all-German? orientation in its 109 Michael Lemke, Einheit oder Sozialismus? Die Deutschlandpolitik der SED 1949-1961 (Cologne: B?hlau, 2001), 433. 110 Cited in Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 122. 187 handling of relations with West Germany, which was now officially categorized as ?Ausland,? or abroad. The rest of the 1960s witnessed what Jochen Staadt has characterized as ?a policy of destruction of all-German identity.?111 Two other, less significant modifications to the organizational structure of the MfAA took place at the same time that, however, demonstrate the intensification of the process of specialization at the ministry and the increasing weight and prominence the ministry possessed as main actor responsible for the GDR?s expanding international relations: the creation of a division dealing exclusively with economic policy and the detachment of the individual culture sections from the ministry?s territorial divisions to form an independent division dedicated specifically to cultural policy.112 The structure of the MfAA was modified again in 1964 and 1966, but these bouts of re-organization, which did not radically alter existing structures, were focused above all on streamlining administration of the ministry: six deputy foreign ministers positions were created, with each responsible for one area into which several of the ministry?s divisions were grouped together,113 and a second secretary of state position (simultaneously a deputy position) was created.114 G?nter Kohrt and Josef Hegen were named as secretaries of state in 1966, one year after Otto Winzer had replaced Lothar Bolz as foreign minister. With these changes, the MfAA brought to an end the multiple re-organizations that it had undergone since it had first been created: ?At the conclusion of the MfAA?s consolidation phase in 1958-1966, organizational and leadership structures had taken shape that largely matched 111 Jochen Staadt, Die geheime Westpolitik der SED 1960-1970. Von der gesamtdeutschen Orientierung zur sozialistischen Nation (Berlin: Akademie, 1993), 13. 112 Wenter, Au?enpolitik, 196-197. 113 The six areas were: fundamental questions, press, information for abroad; cadres, information, protocol, archive, interpreters, inner administration and relations; Eastern Europe, economy, consular affairs; Western Europe, culture; Asia, Africa, Australia, Oceania; America, international and universal organizations; Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 129-130. 114 Ibid., 131. 188 the demands on a modern, functional foreign policy apparatus within the GDR?s power structures and that in its basic structures hardly changed until 1989/90.?115 The MfAA was now well-positioned to fulfill its role as main state foreign policy organ and to work in concert with the other institutions of the dictatorially controlled East German foreign policy apparatus toward achievement of the GDR?s centrally determined foreign policy goals. The MfAA naturally cooperated very closely with the IV Division, which maintained responsibility for directing and supervising the work of the ministry. Although the main focus of each institution?s operative work encompassed a discrete field of activities that in theory could remain distinct from one another (state foreign relations for the MfAA, foreign relations of the SED for the IV Division), the IV Division?s additional responsibility for coordinating the foreign policy apparatus of the GDR in its entirety (including the MfAA) created the likelihood of its involvement in foreign policy issues that went beyond its formal area of competency. This was not as much the case in the 1960s as in the 1970s, when the IV Division increasingly turned its attention to questions of state foreign policy following the massive growth in the GDR?s official international relations resulting from the GDR?s attainment of diplomatic recognition.116 Despite the potential for redundancies and inefficiency created by this situation, the working relationship between the IV Division and the MfAA, the two most important foreign policy institutions of party and state, was attested to be ?collegial and 115 Ibid., 132. While Wentker and Muth are in agreement on the fact of professionalization, Wentker is skeptical toward the notion that professionalization at the MfAA was equivalent to normalization in comparison to the foreign ministries of other states, particularly in regard to the role and influence of the Ministry for State Security on the day-to-day operations of the MfAA. Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 145; Wenkter, Au?enpolitik, 204. 116 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 64. 189 professional,? which ?guaranteed the successful day-to-day functioning of the foreign policy apparatus and of [the GDR?s] bilateral relations.?117 Two factors in particular allowed for this: ?The fact that qualified specialists with experience abroad who valued the input and collaboration of experts worked [in the IV Division]? and ?a relatively close personal connection? between cadres employed at the two institutions.118 Since exchanges of personnel between the two institutions took place on a fairly regular basic and many employees knew one another personally from studying together at the IVB/PAMaD or at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO), ?both partners knew how the respective other institution functioned and what was necessary to ensure the smoothest work flow possible.?119 Indeed, what was true for the working relationship between the MfAA and the IV Division also held true for the East German foreign policy apparatus more broadly. An effective working relationship between its various operative and training and research institutions was fostered by a common stock of foreign policy cadres, most of whom either were trained at the IVB/PAMaD or received a similar education at MGIMO. Further, exchanges of personnel in the 1960s were becoming an increasingly common phenomenon, not only between the MfAA and the IV Division, but between a majority of institutions within the East German foreign policy apparatus, particularly the MfAA and the IVB/PAMaD, which had already begun in the early 1950s. The ultimate guarantee for cooperation between East German foreign policy cadres, whose training was now becoming increasingly ?expert,? was finally provided by the basic nature of SED rule, which demanded in its dictatorial administration of the foreign policy apparatus 117 Ibid., 65. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid. 190 uniformity both in political-ideological outlook and practical behavior. All component parts of the apparatus were utterly subordinated to a single goal: fulfillment of the GDR?s centrally dictated foreign policy goals. This unambiguous point of orientation formed the key element determining the place of foreign policy expertise within the broader foreign policy apparatus. Scientific foreign policy analysis was to be conducted not as a process of value-free scholarly inquiry, but in direct service of the GDR?s foreign policy goals and in line with the practical requirements and political-ideological goals of the SED. Accordingly, no clear distinction could be drawn between operative foreign policy and foreign policy expertise as practiced in the GDR; the two facets of foreign policy activity rather represented flip sides of the same coin, and the essential interconnectedness of these two facets was observable across the spectrum of East German foreign policy institutions, whether dealing primarily with operative foreign policy or with training and research. This key fact was apparent in light of the responsibilities and activities of the other most important institutions populating the East German foreign policy apparatus. The Politburo?s Foreign Policy Commission (APK) represented, alongside the IV Division, the other central organ within the party apparatus of the SED dealing exclusively with foreign policy. Unlike the IV Division, the responsibilities of the APK, a deliberative body, did not touch upon direct operative activity but were limited to coordination, control, and advisory functions, which it fulfilled in its periodic meetings (approximately every two to three weeks). As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s, the official responsibilities of the APK, which was typically convened anew following each party congress of the SED, diverged very little from those defined at the commission?s 191 creation in 1953. Its main tasks as delineated in 1957120 and 1963121 essentially duplicated those from 1953.122 The APK?s mission, confirmed by Politburo resolution in 1967, provided clear definition of its role in what was becoming an increasingly complex and professional foreign policy apparatus: ?[The APK] is to ensure the systematic coordination of the foreign relations of the German Democratic Republic in the realm of foreign policy, foreign economic relations, international scientific-technical cooperation as well as foreign relations in the areas of culture, science, and public health.?123 The nature of the commission?s relationship with other institutions of the foreign policy apparatus was also clarified: ?[The APK] organizes the coordination of the foreign relations of the state organs and mass organizations [of the GDR], which continue to bear full responsibility for their activities in this area.?124 The APK, however, was not a standing body and could be rather eclectic in the issues with which it dealt. As a party institution dealing exclusively with foreign-policy related issues, it came in a clear second to the IV Division, and the APK?s influence, which could be considerable, was 120 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/1. 121 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/946. 122 The APK?s profile was provided in summary form at a 1962 meeting: ?The commission is responsible for preparing the Politburo?s resolutions on fundamental questions of foreign policy and, in particular, for overseeing their implementation. Within the framework of resolutions of the CC and the Politburo, the commission has the right to issue binding recommendations and directives for the work of party and state organs as well as the mass organizations in the area of foreign policy. The commission advises the activities of the foreign ministry, the [IV Division], and the Ministry of Foreign Trade (insofar as fundamental foreign policy questions are involved).? In the same pr?cis, the nature of the APK?s work and its relationship with the GDR?s two main operative foreign policy institutions, the MfAA and IV Division, were given further clarification: ?The commission does not supplant the activities of the [IV Division] and the foreign ministry, yet is authorized to accept from all organs reports and information that pertain to foreign policy questions.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/3. 123 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1230. 124 The concrete means by which the APK was to exercise its coordinating and organizational function included: ?Oversight of the uniform and purposeful implementation of the resolutions of the Central Committee in the main areas of foreign relations; coordination of the long-term work plans of the state and mass organizations in respect to foreign relations; continual assessment of the political and economic efficacy of the GDR?s cooperation with other states; creation of a system of qualified and rationally and frugally organized scientific work that conforms to the political and economic needs of the GDR.? Ibid. 192 based as much on the weight of its individual members as on the formal competencies ascribed to it. In terms of membership, the APK continued to be composed of leading figures drawn from both party and state institutions whose work involved foreign policy in some capacity. In accordance with the profile of the APK, its size consistently remained small, but fluctuated considerably over the years; the commission counted 15 members in 1957,125 between 11 and 14 in 1958,126 10 in 1962,127 18 in 1963,128 12 in 1967,129 and 14 in 1970.130 As for the leadership of the APK, Heinrich Rau, minister of Foreign Trade and Inner-German Trade and head of the commission from 1955, died in 1961 and was succeeded by Hermann Axen. Axen, born in 1916 to a Jewish family, had spent time in French emigration during the Nazi period before being interned in Auschwitz III and Buchenwald between 1942 and 1945. His subsequent rise in the ranks of the SED was rapid?interrupted only between 1953 and 1956 as a consequence of Axen?s support for Ulbricht?s opponents in the Politburo power struggles surrounding the ?New Course? and the Uprising of June 17?culminating in his selection as the Central Committee?s 125 The 1957 incarnation of the APK included: Peter Florin, head of the IV Division (and secretary of the commission); Otto Winzer, deputy foreign minister and future foreign minister; Georg Handke, member of the Central Revision Commission of the SED and later president of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship; Gerhard Weiss, deputy minister of Foreign Trade and Inner-German Trade; and Paul Wandel, future GDR ambassador to China. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/1. The 1957 composition and responsibilities of the APK were confirmed by Politburo resolution in March of that year. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/558. 126 The Politburo resolution on the composition of the APK contained multiple versions of persons proposed for membership in the commission, but did not indicate which variant was finally confirmed. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/643. 127 The number of members was reduced in the course of ?improving the political efficacy of the commission by accordingly adjusting its qualitative composition.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/870. 128 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/946. 129 The Politburo resolution confirming the composition of the APK stipulates that the commission was to be completed by ?a comrade, who deals with questions of economic cooperation with the socialist countries,? which would have brought the total number of members to 13. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1230. 130 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/11. 193 secretary for international relations in 1966 after taking over direction of the APK in 1962. Axen would remain a foreign policy fixture within the SED for the remainder of the GDR?s existence, even gaining the informal title of ?foreign minister of the party.? Unlike many other leading SED figures, Axen was not only solidly educated but also possessed a certain cultural refinement; as a result of his time spent in French emigration, he even spoke fluent French. However, in contrast to a figure like Paul Markowski, the head of the IV Division who was known for his independent streak, Axen, like many SED members whose formative years had been spent in Weimar and Nazi Germany, placed highest priority on conformity with the existing party line.131 Manfred Uschner, Axen?s personal assistant from 1976 to 1989, reveals that his boss was also sometimes referred to with a nickname much less flattering than foreign minister of the party: Kugelblitz (lightning bolt) for the speed with which he would obsequiously scurry into the office of Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the SED from 1971-1989, whenever summoned.132 The subordinate role of the APK as primarily an advisory and coordinating, not a policy-making, body received formalization of sorts in a 1963 Politburo resolution stipulating that Axen was ?to coordinate [problems to be discussed in the commission] with the First Secretary of the SED [i.e. Ulbricht].?133 True to its profile, the APK in the course of 1960s dealt with a broad range of issues pertaining to the foreign policy of the GDR, usually falling into one of three categories: analysis of issues of fundamental strategic and tactical importance; longer-term prognoses on the development of specific 131 The title of Axen?s 1996 autobiography, written in collaboration with Harald Neubert, is illuminating in this regard: Ich war ein Diener der Partei (I was a servant of the party) (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1996). 132 Uschner, Die zweite Etage, 53. 133 Amos, Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale 1949-1963, 607n245. 194 countries or regions; and questions relating to the internal functioning of the foreign policy apparatus.134 In a 1969 self-assessment, the APK, while noting some token shortcomings, presented a largely positive estimation of its work: ?The exhaustive consultations of [the APK] have made a constructive contribution to the development and formation of the socialist foreign policy of our republic and to closer coordination of actions in the most important areas of the GDR?s foreign relations. The large majority of the proposals handled in the commission became resolutions of the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Presidium of the Council of Ministers or informational materials for these bodies.?135 The influence of the APK on the formation of foreign policy is generally believed to have receded with time, particularly in the later 1970s and 1980s, when decision-making authority became ever more concentrated in the hands of an increasingly small number of individuals,136 but the question of the commission?s influence on foreign policy decision-making at the highest levels is of secondary importance when approached from the perspective of foreign policy expertise in the GDR since, until the final dissolution of the GDR in 1989/1990, the APK would remain a key body composed of leading figures drawn from the most important party and state foreign policy institutions that continually commissioned and drew on expertise in fulfilling its duties within the East German foreign policy apparatus. 134 For the biannual work plans of the APK from 1962 to 1970, see SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/17. The APK?s work plans appear to have been created in particularly close cooperation with the IV Division. See SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/20/6. 135 The contributions of the APK highlighted in the report include: conceptualization (Konzeption) of the foreign policy tasks of the GDR after the VII Party Congress of the GDR; assessment of the situation in the Middle East and foreign policy measures of the GDR; assessment of the international situation and the central foreign policy tasks of the GDR in 1968; foreign policy activities toward the ?fraternal states?; development of relations with Cuba; creation of the socialist foreign policy weekly newspaper Horizont; foreign policy teaching and research; conceptualization of the development of relations with the states of Northern Europe; conceptualization of the development of relations with the countries of Latin America, South and South-East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/10. 136 See, for instance, Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 60-61; Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 192-193. 195 Conclusion At the end of the 1950s, the development of foreign policy expertise in East Germany took a sharp turn. Following a decade of relative neglect, which had resulted in a foreign policy apparatus and attendant expert institutions marred by ineffectual leadership and deficient coordination, unclear delineation of responsibilities and overlapping competencies, a shortage of material resources, an acute lack of qualified personnel, and the inability to produce analysis of any real value, the SED shifted the focus of its attention toward addressing the problems its disinterest had created. Prompted by the partial stabilization of party and state and the growth of the GDR?s foreign relations activities at the end of the 1950s and the start of the 1960s, the party set about creating a foreign policy apparatus tailored to meet its needs as ruling party. The demands of the MfAA and the IV Division, the GDR?s most important state and party organs of foreign policy, brought about a new emphasis on specialization and professionalization. As the two institutions grappled with the new practical challenges stemming from increased foreign policy activity, it became clear that they required cadres who were not only ?politically qualified? (i.e. schooled in Marxism-Leninism and loyal beyond question to the SED) but also professionally qualified (i.e. in possession of specialist knowledge and professional competency). As the East German foreign policy apparatus was modified to accommodate the growing importance of professional qualification, political-ideological subordination, whose dominance within the East German foreign policy apparatus had been absolute for most of the 1950s, did not experience a corresponding drop in importance; rather, the greater fachlich (expert) orientation was supposed to complement and increase the effectiveness of Marxism-Leninism, which provided the basic 196 framework within which foreign policy was understood. The highest echelons of the SED, moreover, were now acutely aware of the need to increase the expert orientation within the foreign policy apparatus and throughout the GDR in order to guarantee maximal utility and efficacy. The Politburo and the Secretariat as well as the APK, accordingly, were intimately involved in the formulation and implementation of measures aimed at satisfying the demands of the MfAA and the IV Division for professionally trained cadres. The success of such measures was greatly facilitated by the advent of a young generation of individuals who provided the ideal human material with which to create a new type of foreign policy cadre. The ?old comrades,? battle-hardened communists who occupied the leading positions within the East German foreign policy apparatus, possessed political and ideological credentials that were beyond reproach, but were not foreign policy specialists by any stretch of the imagination, possible participation in a brief crash course in foreign policy at the DVA/IVB notwithstanding. The members of the young generation, in contrast, could successfully combine acknowledgement of ?the leading role of the party,? which remained indispensable, with the new emphasis on specialist knowledge and professional competency as they underwent a thorough and increasingly standardized and specialized course of training at the IVB/PAMaD, now specifically designed to meet the expectations of the MfAA and the IV Division. The advent of this young generation of foreign policy cadres in the 1960s would prove immensely important since, given the lack of a substantial middle stratum, they and the characteristic fusion of Marxist-Leninist tenets with hardnosed, specialist-based concern 197 with practical foreign policy issues they embodied would shortly come to define East German foreign policy expertise. The new emphasis on specialization and professionalization in the training of cadres was mirrored in the broader process of streamlining the East German foreign policy apparatus. Starting in the late 1950s and continuing throughout the 1960s, a concerted effort was made to ensure the effective, coordinated functioning of the MfAA and the IV Division as well as the APK. Institutional differentiation, clarification of each institution?s profile and objectives, and standardization of work routines within and between different institutions were the central features of this process and their combined impact established the permanent importance of specialist knowledge and professional competency in the East German foreign policy apparatus. As a result of the streamlining process, by the end of the 1960s a well-organized, increasingly professional, and efficiently functioning foreign policy apparatus?along with the attendant expert institutions?had supplanted the hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination that had taken shape in the 1950s. Both the streamlining of the East German foreign policy apparatus and the ?expertification? of foreign policy training, however, were implemented with a single goal in mind: synchronization with the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the SED. Rationalization from above largely overcame the existing underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus, but did so exclusively to facilitate the removal of all traces of political and intellectual autonomy. The rationalization-cum-synchronization of East German foreign policy expertise was not 198 total?the institutional completion of expertise would only come in the 1970s?but the East German foreign policy apparatus would never again undergo such a radical transformation. Yet the process of rationalization in service of synchronization would also have an unforeseen effect: it laid the groundwork for the dynamic of permanent tension in foreign policy expertise between ideology and specialist knowledge, between intellectual subordination and intellectual autonomy. In the prevailing conditions of diplomatic isolation, the tension would largely lie dormant as minimal engagement with the world outside the Soviet Bloc would foster insularity and ideological dogmatism, but foreign policy normalization would eventually reverse this dynamic. In the meantime, however, rationalization-cum-synchronization would bear fruit. The emergence of expert analysis of international relations as a discrete activity within the East German foreign policy apparatus would in turn engender experts? enunciation of a comprehensive conception of international relations based upon fusion of the GDR?s specific foreign policy interests with the dichotomous, class-based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. 199 Chapter Four Foreign Policy Expertise Takes Shape: The Fusion of East German Realpolitik and Marxism-Leninism Introduction Starting at the end of the 1950s, the SED squarely directed its attention at re-shaping East Germany?s haphazardly organized and poorly coordinated foreign policy apparatus to meet its specific needs as dictatorially ruling party of the GDR. As institutions like the MfAA, IV Division, and APK underwent consolidation and streamlining, East German foreign policy expertise began to take on concrete shape as analysis of international relations became a discrete field of activity within the broader foreign policy apparatus. Yet analytical activity did not gain in importance only at operative institutions like the MfAA and IV Division; it also became a primary task of what could now be identified as analysis-producing institutions. These were the German Economic Institute (DWI) and the German Institute for Contemporary History (DIZ) as well as the Prorectorate for the Training of Leading Foreign Service Employees (PAMaD), which added research responsibilities to its mission as the training of foreign policy cadres at the prorectorate became consolidated and regularized. The growth of these three institutions to become research centers devoted to international relations issues was driven by the same process of rationalization in service of synchronization as the contemporaneous transformation of the MfAA, the IV Division, and the APK. At the DWI, the DIZ, and the PAMaD, the process would encounter a surprising number of obstacles, ranging from direct opposition to foot-dragging, from 200 institutional inertia to simple inability. The considerable turbulence which occasionally accompanied rationalization-cum-synchronization of the GDR?s emergent analysis- producing institutions was emblematic of the scope of the changes envisioned by the SED, aspiring at nothing less than the complete elimination of political and ideological autonomy. Despite a number of false starts and setbacks, the efforts were ultimately successful, even if not complete?the process would only be capped off in the 1970s. All semblances of autonomy were eliminated and subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership became the defining characteristic of East German foreign policy expertise. Subordination, however, contained a certain ambiguity since it required compliance with the party line at all times and the application of Marxism-Leninism as the theoretical foundation of expertise but it also demanded analysis conducted on the basis of specialist knowledge and professional competency in order to provide the party leadership with valuable information that could fruitfully be used in the formulation of foreign policy. At the GDR?s emergent analysis- producing institutions, autonomy, which had entailed a degree of opposition to the vision of the SED, was replaced by the melding of political-ideological and professional criteria, which, however, entailed tension within the vision of the SED. With the institutional underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus essentially a thing of the past and with expert analysis of international relations established as a discrete field of activity on the basis of successful rationalization-cum- synchronization, glaring deficiencies in analytical output were also able to be overcome. Gone were the shrill ideological overstatement, baselessly optimistic prognoses inspired by Marxist-Leninist tenets, and a lack of reliable information and general knowledge 201 about the outside world characteristic of analytical output in the 1950s. In their place was more refined, penetrating analysis, which was testament to the new emphasis on specialist knowledge and professional competency. The basic Marxist-Leninist framework of expertise by no means disappeared?it actually became more thoroughly and firmly established as a result of the thoroughgoing standardization of working procedures and clarification and refinement of the formal division of labor. The improvement of analytical quality in individual areas in turn permitted the articulation of a comprehensive conception of international relations within which the place and interests of the GDR were clearly identified and which could provide a cohesive framework for all analytical activity, something which had been conspicuously absent in the 1950s. The key geo-strategic features upon which this conception would be built were already in place?national division in the context of the Cold War ?clash of systems,? non-recognition from the West, acute dependency on the Soviet Union, pronounced reliance on the Soviet Bloc?but the prevailing institutional underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus had prevented them from being combined into a single, overarching GDR-specific conception of international relations. However, within the context of the newly rationalized East German foreign policy apparatus, where expert analysis had become a discrete activity, the GDR?s foreign policy experts were now able to address this shortcoming and to construct a comprehensive conception based upon fusion of the GDR?s specific foreign policy interests with the dichotomous, class-based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. Rationalization and Synchronization at the GDR?s Emergent Research Institutions 202 At the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s, the state of the East German foreign policy apparatus was a major concern to the SED leadership. After a decade of relative neglect, the SED set about re-shaping the apparatus to meet its concrete needs as ruling party of a state, which had achieved a degree of internal stability and whose international relations were growing significantly while still remaining restricted by the diplomatic isolation imposed by West Germany?s Hallstein Doctrine. The process of consolidating and streamlining the foreign policy apparatus encompassed operative institutions like the MfAA and IV Division but also institutions like the DWI, DIZ, and PAMaD, which were on their way to becoming the GDR?s leading centers for research on international relations. The success of the process of rationalization in service of synchronization at these institutions would establish foreign policy analysis as a discrete field of activity within the East German foreign policy apparatus and in doing so would mark the emergence of East German foreign policy expertise as such. Yet, while ultimately successful, the process of rationalization-cum-synchronization at the GDR?s emergent expert institutions, since it entailed the elimination of all traces of political and intellectual autonomy, was accompanied by a considerable amount of turbulence as the SED imposed its vision of the role and function of expertise. The process played out in most turbulent fashion at the German Economic Institute (DWI). In the 1960s, the DWI continued to orient its work around the central task it had been given at its creation in 1949?propagation of a parteilich (partisan) perspective on economics issues externally and provision of information internally, with a Marxist-Leninist interpretative framework providing the common foundation for both activities. The DWI occupied a peculiar position in the East German expert landscape 203 since, of all the institutions dealing with foreign policy-related issues, its work was easily the most ?wissenschaftlich? by virtue of the fact that it dealt primarily with economic questions. The DWI-Berichte (DWI-Reports), published biweekly,1 continued to represent the institute?s main vehicle for fulfillment of its external propagandistic function. The reports even enjoyed an amount of esteem in West Germany and other non- communist countries for its thorough treatment of economic issues, which was often supported by detailed statistical analysis.2 In terms of its internal, informational role, the DWI?s status within the East German party and state apparatus as the final authority on economic issues was cemented in the first half of the 1960s. The institute maintained and expanded its position as a clearinghouse for economic data, processing requests from various state and party institutions for information on a given issue and receiving reports from other institutions, which it would in turn incorporate into its own work. The DWI worked with a range of East German institutions, but its main partners were the State Planning Commission, the Ministry for Foreign Trade and Inner-German Trade, and the MfAA. The scope of its research grew to include studies on the foreign trade of West Germany with communist states, trade agreements among developing countries, industrial production in capitalist countries, the causes and effects of inflationary tendencies in the member-states of the European Economic Community, the activities of West German monopolies abroad as well as a host of other topics.3 While the work of the DWI did not deal exclusively with West Germany, the FRG nevertheless remained at the center of the DWI?s attention, manifested for instance in the clear emphasis on West 1 At the end of the 1950s, the average print run was 4,500 copies. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A 677. 2 Indeed, the reputation of the journal outside the borders of the GDR was a major concern at the DWI, where statements on the DWI-Berichte in the West German press were fastidiously tracked. BArch, DC 202/15. 3 See, for example, BArch, DC 202/4 and 5. 204 Germany in the DWI-Berichte and in regular publication of internal reports on the FRG?s economic indicators. The interconnected process of institutional rationalization and political and ideological Gleichschaltung ? la SED played out at the DWI in extremely tumultuous fashion, claiming a number of casualties, including Director Siegbert Kahn, and nearly resulting in the very dissolution of the institute. The same rationale that applied to all the other institutions of the East German foreign policy apparatus also applied to the DWI: the institute was to comply with the political-ideological requirements set for it by the SED leadership in the context of fulfilling its designated objective within the GDR?s dictatorially administered foreign policy apparatus. However, the DWI?s focus on economics as well as employees? access to otherwise forbidden material from the West meant that the ?wissenschaftlich? aspect of its work could potentially detract from the institute?s central mission of producing Marxist-Leninist analysis keyed to the needs of the SED leadership. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the SED focused its attention on creating a well-coordinated and effective foreign policy apparatus in line with its ?leading role? in East Germany following the relative neglect of this area in the 1950s, efforts on the part of the party aimed at the complete subordination of the DWI repeatedly clashed with the institute?s own efforts to maintain a degree of operational and intellectual autonomy. The first instance of conflict flared up following a January 1959 resolution of the Politburo. The resolution attested that ?the leadership of [the DWI] has succeeded in creating a collective of scientific employees who possess good knowledge of economic developments in West Germany and in the capitalist camp,? but simultaneously 205 demanded that the DWI play a more constructive, active role in fulfilling the superordinate political-ideological goals of the SED: ?The main task of [the DWI] consists in continually analyzing and depicting the economic development of West Germany and thus providing through its scientific work effective aid to the party in its struggle against re-emergent German imperialism. The scientific work of [the DWI], however, has to be made more thoroughly subordinate to the resolutions of the party and the current demands of the class struggle. The DWI-Berichte must do a better job of exposing and refuting the class enemy. Marxist-Leninist theory has to provide the basis for this process in a more pronounced and sounder manner than has been the case thus far.?4 In order to combat these ?apolitical? and ?objectivistic? tendencies, the Central Committee?s Sciences Division, replaced the All-German Questions Division, as the party organ responsible for the DWI and was instructed to take an active role in ensuring the institute?s work complied with the vision laid out in the Politburo resolution. The Sciences Division in turn dispatched a five-member brigade led by Karl Kampfert, first deputy director and subsequently rector of the Labor Union Academy ?Fritz Heckert,? to the DWI in July 1959 to get a clearer picture of the situation at the institute. The brigade?s report, completed on the basis of personal interviews with employees of the DWI and examination of its output, was submitted in final form to the Secretariat in April 19605 and presented a damning account of conditions at the institute and of the leadership of Director Siegbert Kahn and Deputy Director Willi Kling. Not without mentioning the accomplishments of the DWI (e.g. ?The scientific employees have developed into solid specialists on the various areas of the economic development 4 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A 677. 5 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3/J/150. 206 of West Germany as well as the capitalist camp?6), the report nevertheless stressed the shortcomings discovered by the brigade. Chief among these was the DWI?s failure to fulfill its central objective: Marxist-Leninist analysis of economic processes. The report described this failure as the result of an ?unclear conception of the mission? of the institute, which created a propensity for simple compilation and presentation of data in an ?objectivistic? manner.7 Closely connected with this was the existence of ?an unhealthy, uncritical atmosphere bordering on liberalism.?8 ?An essentially petit-bourgeois attitude toward critique and self-critique,? according to the report?s authors, was an impediment to bringing the institute?s employees into lockstep with the party line and led to ?political-ideological vacillation.? Such ?vacillation? was manifested in a particularly grievous case in the fall of 1956, when no opposition was voiced to then-Party Secretary Kru??s ?false political line? toward the Hungarian Revolution. The DWI?s ability to fulfill its mission was likewise severely impaired by ?inadequate knowledge of the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism,? even among group leaders and other leading employees. According to the brigade?s report, the pernicious tendencies it described were reflected in the DWI?s output, which was criticized for ideological laxness and the inclusion of elements of ?bourgeois? economics such as Keynesianism. These grievous political and ideological shortcomings were attributed to the fact that ?the leading role of the party ha[d] not been established? at the DWI.9 More specifically and with ominous connotations for Director Kahn and Deputy Director Kling, the unacceptable situation at the DWI was attributed in large part to a failure of leadership: ?Comrades Kahn and 6 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/9.04/198. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 207 Kling bear an essential portion of the responsibility for the unsatisfactory state of affairs in party work. They are both old comrades with great party experience and the fact that they have not actively used this experience to improve the work of [the SED party organization at the DWI] and to rectify the situation has inhibited the development of [the party organization]. A large segment of the young comrades have understandably oriented themselves around Comrades Kahn and Kling and have often uncritically accepted their attitude.?10 The solution to these numerous and serious problems was sought in a series of far-reaching measures intended to bring the work of the DWI into line with the SED?s vision for the institute. The measures matched greater standardization of procedures at the DWI with increased supervision by outside organs including but not limited to the Sciences Division. A new statute detailing the goals and structure of the DWI was to be drawn up and approved by the Sciences Division and the State Planning Commission; a long-term research plan (to be approved by the DWI?s Scientific Advisory Council and the Sciences Division) and a semi-annual work plan were likewise to be drawn up in order to create a more regularized work flow; the resolutions of the SED and the West German KPD (Communist Party of Germany) were to form the ?key foundation? of the DWI?s work; the leadership of the DWI?s party organization was to draw up a plan to ensure the institute?s employees mastered the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism; the DWI-Berichte were to be assessed by outside specialists on a bi-annual basis; and, finally, the Sciences Division was to strengthen its direction of the DWI?s party organization.11 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. The information provided to the Secretariat by the Sciences Division noted that both the leadership of the DWI and the leadership of the DWI?s party organization had ?acknowledged these conclusions as 208 The Sciences Division, in collaboration with the party organization at the institute, accordingly kept a close eye on the DWI in the subsequent period in order to measure progress made toward remedying the unacceptable situation at the institute. At a consultation on 14 March 1961, one year after the Sciences Division brigade had concluded its assignment, the party organization of the DWI, with Director Kahn and Deputy Director Kling also present, informed Johannes H?rnig, the head of the Sciences Division, that ?no essential changes have been made in the work of the institute since the conclusion of the brigade?s investigation? and that ?a decisive transformation of the work of [the DWI] can only be effected if fundamental changes to the institute?s leadership are made, if Comrades Kahn and Kling, who have shown themselves incapable of fulfilling the tasks that have been set, are discharged of their functions at the DWI.?12 The very next day, Reinhold Kowalski, party secretary at the DWI, dispatched a letter that summarized the position of the party organization to the Sciences Division, the office of Walter Ulbricht, and the Central Party Control Commission, which was the highest party authority on cadre-related matters. H?rnig and the Sciences Division supported the party organization?s initiative to remove Kahn and Kling?two separate resolutions to be submitted to the Secretariat for approval were drawn up, one in March, the other in June13?but Kurt Hager, a party grandee and head of the Politburo?s powerful Ideological Commission, intervened at the last minute and rescued Kahn and Kling?s heads from the chopping block.14 The intervention of Hager, whom Kahn had already contacted in late correct? in a consultation on the brigade?s report on 1 March 1960 with Kurt Hager, head of the Politburo?s Ideological Commission. 12 Ibid. 13 The March draft resolution even designated Kahn and Kling?s potential replacements: Heinz Mehrmann and Gerhard Hiller, respectively. Ibid. 14 In a short note from 10 July 1961, Hager informed H?rnig of his opposition to removing Kahn and Kling from their posts, which signaled the initiative would not be passed by the Secretariat. Ibid. 209 1959 to voice his displeasure with the Sciences Division brigade?s intensified scrutiny of his leadership at the DWI, saved two fellow old comrades15 from certain removal, but also ran counter to the SED?s broader interests since it impeded the process of rationalization in service of synchronization at the DWI, leaving the DWI?s political- ideological subordination incomplete and the issue unresolved. The unsurprising result was that another bout of even more serious conflict erupted at the DWI within a few short years. The spark that re-ignited the latent conflict between the SED and the DWI was furnished by a party meeting at the DWI in early January 1965. Since the first bout of conflict had concluded with a stalemate in mid-1961, some changes in personnel at the DWI had been made. A second deputy director, Gerd Maurischat, had been brought in to exert greater influence on the leadership duo of Kahn and Kling and a number of other individuals were also brought in, including a certain Hahn as party secretary, with the idea being that these new figures would be more amenable to the SED?s vision of a thoroughly politicized and ideologized institution. Ironically, these changes appear to have had the opposite effect since the SED in 1965 found itself battling against not only a recalcitrant leadership, as was the case in 1959-1961, but also a refractory group of rank- and-file employees. At the party meeting in January 1965, DWI employee Helen Borges led an effort (characterized by its detractors at the DWI and the Sciences Division as an ?organized action?) to submit to party authorities a letter critical of the party?s construction plans for East Berlin, particularly the Television Tower, whose construction Hermann Matern, the head of the powerful Central Party Control Commission with whom Kahn also maintained friendly relations, may have also played a role in blocking the initiative?s realization. 15 Kahn and Kling were both longtime KPD/SED members and remained active and loyal to the party during the Nazi era, with Kling having spent six years interned at Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen. 210 had been approved in 1964 but had not yet begun at the time. This episode of outspoken criticism of party policy, which was accompanied by critical remarks directed at the person of party leaders, was seen as just the tip of a much larger iceberg. Testimony provided by DWI employees to the Sciences Division claimed that ?some comrades at the DWI openly defame the policies of the party in fundamental questions and view them as false?. [T]he basic outlook of many comrades at the institute is markedly objectivistic,? and that ?the party organization [at the institute] is ideologically contaminated.?16 The last claim was based in particular on the fact that the secretary of the SED party organization at the DWI, Hahn, was said to have openly supported critical attitudes toward the decisions and decision-making process of the party leadership. The matter took on even greater explosiveness since Helen Borges, the leader of the critical letter-writing effort, was a close friend of Robert Havemann?s wife, who was also employed at the DWI but did not herself take part in the critical discussions under question. DWI employees who voiced criticism of the SED also expressed sympathy for Robert Havemann, whose contentious, public expulsion from the SED for his overly critical attitude toward the party just ten months prior remained a very sensitive issue.17 These circumstances prompted the Sciences Division to view the situation at the DWI as parallel to the Havemann episode: ?Apparently there exists at the DWI a similar political- ideological situation as was earlier prevalent in the party organization in the chemistry department of Humboldt University [where Havemann had been active]; the discussions [at the DWI] display parallels to Havemann?s position and arguments.?18 To top things 16 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/9.04/197. 17 Clemens Vollnhals, Der Fall Havemann. Ein Lehrst?ck politischer Justiz (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000), 17- 18. 18 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/9.04/197. 211 off, Siegbert Kahn as head of the institute was portrayed as complicit in the existence of open anti-party sentiment at the DWI: ?Comrade Professor Kahn as institute director fulfills his duties as comrade and as institute head only insufficiently. Comrade Kahn is often not informed about the situation at the institute. He does not work together with the comrades and as an older and more experienced comrade hardly engages in educational work. The political-ideological leadership of the institute, which is especially necessary in light of the work of the DWI, evidently is not assured.?19 In a letter from 22 February 1965, Johannes H?rnig, head of the Sciences Division, informed Erich Honecker, Politburo member and future General Secretary of the SED, and Kurt Hager of the scope of the ?great ideological carelessness? present at the DWI as well as the initial steps taken to remedy the situation.20 But significant movement on the issue only came with the formation of a nine-member working group comprised of members of the Sciences Division and the District Administration of East Berlin, which was charged with investigating the reasons for the ?ideological backwardness of a number of comrades, their anti-party-oriented attitude toward the resolutions and policies of the SED, and their uncritical attitude toward their own work and the situation at the DWI.?21 The working group carried out approximately 20 personal interviews with employees of the DWI and concluded its work on 20 May 1965. Its report seconded and greatly expanded upon the preliminary findings of the Sciences Division. The situation at the DWI was portrayed in no uncertain terms: ?There has existed for years among many comrades of the German Economic Institute disbelief in the strength of the party, the workers, and socialism and many questions relating to the 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 212 policies of the party have not been understood?. The resolutions of the party have not been taken as the starting point of [the institute?s] political-ideological and scientific work; the resolutions rather have been met with reservations and arrogance.?22 Failures on the part of the leadership of the party organization at the DWI as well as the leadership of the DWI itself were held responsible for what was, from the perspective of the SED, an entirely unacceptable situation. In an atmosphere where ?great distrust toward the party leadership?23 existed, the leadership of the party organization at the institute ?was not conscious of its responsibility for the political-ideological state of the DWI and engaged in essentially no party-oriented educational work,? which was deemed ?not surprising since even many party members demonstrated a considerable lack of clarity and incorrect positions on the party and its resolutions.?24 The behavior of Hahn, who as head of the DWI?s party organization was supposed to be responsible for enforcing ensuring compliance with its will, went rather in the opposite direction, even moving beyond ?liberal? interpretation of party resolutions and directives to an openly critical stance, as when he supported Helen Borges?s critical letter-writing action or criticized Havemann?s expulsion from the party. DWI Director Siegbert Kahn, who in 1961 had already been on the verge of being removed from his position, came in personally for heavy criticism in the working group?s report: Comrade Kahn was incapable of making use of the support of the party organization [at the DWI] and of cooperating with the party leadership in order to prepare the collective of scientists and other employees for their new, greater tasks. What is more, efforts in this 22 Ibid. 23 The working group?s report cites Helena Borges to provide one example of the widespread opposition at the DWI to the SED?s methods of democratic centralism: ?Party members should be informed of every discussion in the Politburo so that each member gets a picture of individual members of the Politburo and can better determine who is worthy of being a member of the Politburo.? Ibid. 24 Ibid. 213 direction that were undertaken by individual comrades were heeded insufficiently? Comrade Kahn also has not lived up to his responsibilities in the political-ideological leadership of the DWI?s employees, neither in his work as director nor as longtime member of the leadership of the party organization. He made too little use of his rich experiences in political work to bring about a change of course in the political life of the party organization and its leadership. He also did not become involved in the process of clarifying the political-ideological state of the party organization; instead, he asserted that he knew nothing of this weighty state of affairs, expressed his shock over the seriousness of the situation, and adopted a wait-and-see position. He still has not recognized that the direction of the institute bears a large portion of the guilt for the situation that has arisen.25 Kahn?s shortcomings were thus understood more as sins of omission than commission, but were no less serious given the ?objectivistic? and ?anti-party? disposition of significant numbers of the DWI?s employees, including leading personnel in the SED party organization at the institute. The working group?s conclusions were presented to employees of the DWI and subsequently rubber-stamped by the institute?s now-prostrate party organization on 17 June 1965 in a declaration that attested to the ?great process of political and ideological clarification? underway at the DWI.26 Given the gravity of the situation and the lack of progress, if not regression, following the 1959-1961 episode, responsible figures in the SED this time around would not be satisfied with halfhearted measures in order to correct the ?completely unsatisfactory political-ideological state of affairs at the DWI.? One option under serious consideration was the dissolution of the DWI as an independent institute and its incorporation into another institution. Gerhard Sch?rer, deputy chairman 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 214 and future head of the State Planning Commission (SPK), the organ responsible for coordination of the East German Economy, circulated a draft Secretariat resolution to Johannes H?rnig, Kurt Hager, Albert Norden, and G?nter Mittag that envisaged the absorption of the DWI into the SPK?s Economic Research Institute.27 However, the final Secretariat resolution on the issue, passed 25 August 1965, preserved the DWI as an organizationally distinct institution, but introduced a set of sweeping changes.28 First off, a completely new leadership team was brought in to guarantee the ?leading role of the party? at the DWI and to ensure that the institute?s work fully corresponded to the ideological presuppositions of the SED. Director Siegbert Kahn had already been given ample opportunity to right the ship so even his status as an old comrade could no longer prevent his dismissal. He was replaced by Lutz Maier, a 36-year old economics specialist, who was joined by two deputy directors, Karl-Ernst Reuter and Alfred Lemnitz, Margot Honecker?s predecessor as minister of education. Gerd Maurischat, to whom remarks critical of the SED leadership were also attributed, was removed from his position as deputy director, which he had taken over to strengthen the role of the party at the DWI after the 1959-1961 episode, and was made scientific secretary to the direction of the institute and to a scientific council that was to be created. The Sciences Division of the Central Committee remained the party organ responsible for the DWI, but the State Secretariat for Higher Education replaced the State Planning Commission as the responsible state organ. However, much more important than the issue of formal subordination was a fundamental overhauling of the mission of the DWI. While the institute had previously 27 Ibid. 28 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1216. 215 concerned itself rather narrowly with economics, its designated objective now became ?investigation and presentation of the development of state-monopoly capitalism in West Germany in its entirety [italics added].?29 The SED leadership took advantage of the opportunity for drastic change at the DWI afforded by the need to rectify its political and ideological deficiencies not only to bring the work of the institute into line with the demands of the party but also to alter the very profile of the institute in order to make its work of greater value to the party. The Secretariat resolution clearly expressed the role the SED expected the revamped DWI to play: ?The main task of the DWI consists in analyzing on the basis of the current requirements of the class struggle the new problems and developmental tendencies of state-monopoly capitalism, particularly in West Germany, and in drawing theoretical conclusions from its analysis. It is necessary to unveil convincingly and to grapple with the essence, the aggressive role in domestic and foreign policy, and the misanthropic policy and ideology of West German imperialism in the current stage and thereby effectively to aid the party in its struggle.?30 The DWI- Berichte, which now were to appear monthly, remained the main publication produced by the institute for public consumption (alongside irregularly appearing publications devoted to specific topics) while a wide range of topics in accord with the DWI?s overhauled profile were covered in the institute?s reports for internal use. Another important innovation intended to ensure the predominance of Marxist- Leninist analysis in the context of the institute?s new mission was the creation of a Scientific Council (Wissenschaftlicher Rat). The council was responsible for setting the general tone of research at the DWI and approving the institute?s long-term research 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 216 plans as well as coordinating collaborative efforts between the DWI and other institutions. The inclusion in the Scientific Council of representatives from several outside institutions, including the Central Committee?s West Division, Sciences Division, and Propaganda Division,31 was intended to provide an extra guarantee for the Marxist- Leninist character of research conducted at the DWI. The structure of the DWI was also overhauled in order to better correspond to the institute?s new, broader mission. Seven separate research groups were created, each devoted to a single theme: the capitalist world economy, capital and concentration of power, state-monopoly reproduction processes, the technical revolution and structural analysis, the social situation and class struggle, ideology and class struggle, and imperialistic research on the East.32 The direction, editing, documentation, library, and administration divisions made up the other units comprising the DWI. As a result of both the broadened mission of the institute and incorporation into the DWI of other institutions like the Division for West German State- Monopoly Capitalism of the Institute for Social Sciences and the Division for Imperialistic Research on the East of the Philosophy Department of Humboldt University, the number of persons employed at the institute mushroomed. With the influx of historians, legal specialists, and political philosophers who joined the existing stock of economic specialists at the DWI, the institute grew from 100 employees at the start of the 1960s33 to 183 by the end of the decade, approximately half of whom were scientific 31 The resolution designated that the Agitation Division, the Economic Research Institute of the SPK, the Institute for Social Sciences, and the Party School ?Karl Marx? were also to have representatives on the Scientific Council of the DWI and that representatives of other institutions would likely also join the council. Ibid. 32 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/9.04/197. 33 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/9.04/198. 217 employees, the remaining employees being either technical specialists (e.g. editing, documentation) or administrative personnel.34 Following two bouts of major conflict between SED authorities and a DWI struggling to resist implementation of the ?leading role? of the party at the institute, the corner had now been turned. Siegbert Kahn in the position of director, although an ?old comrade? with great party experience, proved incapable of creating the type of DWI desired by the SED, one centered on Marxist-Leninist analysis of its designated field of investigation and full compliance with the political injunctions of the party. After Kahn had been given a second chance following the 1959-1961 episode, he was finally removed from his position in 1965 when the ?anti-party? sentiment at the DWI, which Kahn?s neglect had allowed to go unchecked, revealed the scope of the problem. Change then came swiftly. Kahn?s replacement by Lutz Maier, who as a young economic specialist with unswerving loyalty to the SED very much fit the party?s image of the ideal foreign policy cadre, was only the most visible in a set of drastic changes in personnel. At the same time, the SED made use of the necessity of thoroughgoing change at the DWI to overhaul the institute?s profile to better match the growing and increasingly complex set of foreign policy-related needs of the GDR. The transformation of the DWI from semi- autonomous institute with a rather narrow focus on economics to fully subordinate research center dealing with ?state-monopoly capitalism in its entirety? in 1959-1965 was of a piece with the broader process of rationalization in service of synchronization to which the entire East German foreign policy apparatus being subjected at the time. At the end of the process, the DWI had been brought to heel and outright opposition of the 34 BArch, DC 202/82. A 1970 report envisaged an annual increase of five in the total number of employees at the DWI. 218 SED?s vision for the institute had been eliminated. Yet that opposition was replaced by a tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy resident within the vision of the SED as the synchronization of the DWI enshrined the importance of specialist knowledge and professional competency within the framework of political-ideological subordination. A similar process of rationalization in service of synchronization took place in the 1960s at the German Institute for Contemporary History (DIZ), which shared the DWI?s focus on West Germany. Institutional growth, differentiation, and standardization were joined with more thoroughgoing and effective subordination to the practical goals and the political-ideological requirements of the SED?s dictatorially controlled foreign policy apparatus, yet the process played out in less turbulent fashion at the DIZ than at the DWI, principally because it had already begun in 1955 with the Politburo?s ?history resolution,? which had aimed at establishing the DIZ as the central institution of Marxist- Leninist contemporary history in the GDR. With the conclusive re-orientation of the DIZ in 1957 and its simultaneous assumption of responsibility for conducting research on contemporary history (i.e. since 1945), the work of the institute in fact increasingly complemented that of the DWI, with the latter focusing specifically on economics and the former on current events in general, with both centering on developments in the FRG and the capitalist West, particularly as they related to the German question. The new research responsibilities taken up by the DIZ in the late 1950s did not supplant its existing external, propagandistic function and internal, informational function, but rather joined them in what was supposed to be a fruitful symbiosis. The DIZ?s biweekly publication Dokumentation der Zeit formed, as in the 1950s, the main vehicle for the outward propagation of the distinct East German Marxist-Leninist perspective on current events in 219 the capitalist West (a quarterly journal, Unsere Zeit, was also published from 1958 to 1962). In respect to its internal, informational function, the DIZ continued its work of making available to party and state organs documentation and information on current events, earning it the designation ?the leading institution for all social-scientific information in the area of contemporary politics and ideology? and ?the center for information on contemporary political and ideological problems in the clash of systems between socialism and imperialism.?35 Although Walter Bartel?s replacement of Karl Bittel as director and the institute?s re-orientation in 1957 were supposed to secure the complete subordination of the DIZ to the political and ideological goals of the SED in the realm of contemporary history, progress was slow. In July 1958, one year after the Secretariat resolution sealing the re- orientation of the DIZ had been passed, a report submitted by the SED party organization to the Sciences Division, the party organ responsible for the DIZ, portrayed the institute?s fulfillment of the resolution as wanting. A series of negative traits were identified, all of which were attributed to the fact that ?the leading role of the party not been established in practice.?36 The report declared that the DIZ had only enacted superficial, piecemeal changes in order to fulfill the demands placed on it by its new profile when what was needed was a fundamental transformation of the institute and its work. The DIZ had neither a thoroughgoing plan nor a comprehensive vision of how to achieve this goal, which became directly manifest in the atmosphere at the institute and in its output. The report identified a lack of ?collectivity? and ?critique? and ?self-critique,? which in practice were intended to bring about uniformity of opinion in accord with the party line. 35 BArch, DC 201/2. 36 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/9.04/113. 220 According to the report, ?political-ideological work,? indispensable for the SED?s goal of establishing the DIZ as an institute of Marxist-Leninist contemporary history, received insufficient attention: ?Party work is carried out more or less as a formality. The resolutions of the CC are only superficially evaluated and are not taken as the foundation of the institute?s work.?37 Furthermore, procedures in place at the institute exacerbated rather than mitigated the problem. For example, material from the West, which was indispensable to the DIZ?s work but whose very presence was viewed by the party as a potential source of ideological subversion, could easily be perused by all employees of the institute whether relevant to their work or not. In some instances, material from the West had even been taken off the premises off the DIZ. The deficient political- ideological work at the institute and lax operating procedures had, in the eyes of the party organization at the DIZ, pernicious effects, manifested particularly in ?revisionist? views38 and several instances of ?Republikflucht,? or fleeing the GDR. A large part of the responsibility for the DIZ?s failure to fulfill the demands placed on it by the SED was indirectly placed at the doorstep of Director Bartel, who had ?differences of opinion? with the party organization in a number of ?central questions? discussed in the report.39 The party organization highlighted the need for a concrete plan clearly outlining how the DIZ was to be transformed in accord with the vision of the SED, but the leadership of the institute under Bartel had failed to take this step. Connected with this was the fact that Bartel, in addition to his position as director of the DIZ, also held a professorship at Humboldt University, which prompted the authors of the report to protest that, ?due to 37 Ibid. 38 Similar to the situation at the DWI, a bout with ?revisionism? at the DIZ broke out in response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, when employees who had upheld the line of the SED were disparaged as ?Stalinists.? Ibid. 39 Ibid. 221 the strain on Comrade Bartel from the most varied tasks and obligations outside of the institute, there arise serious difficulties in the fulfillment of the scientific tasks of the DIZ. A qualitative strengthening of the direction of the institute is therefore urgently necessary.?40 In sum, the party organization?s report to the Sciences Division attributed the numerous problems it identified, collectively signifying the DIZ?s lack of progress toward becoming the Marxist-Leninist institute of contemporary history envisioned by the SED, to a failure of leadership that contained two separate, yet closely intertwined elements: failure to take the lead, in cooperation with the party organization at the DIZ, to establish a uniform ?political-ideological? line at the institute and failure to organize and administer the institute in such a way so as to ensure its functioning and output corresponded to the vision of the SED. As was the case at the DWI, the goal of subordinating the DIZ to the political and ideological goals of the SED, encapsulated in the pithy phrase ?establishing the leading role of the party,? thus was predicated upon greater institutional rationalization and regularization. And it was exactly this feature?rationalization in service of synchronization? that characterized the further transformation of the DIZ. What would be the conclusive round in the re-orientation of the DIZ, however, would not be led by Director Walter Bartel, who had already come in for serious criticism because he appeared neither willing nor able to oversee the transformation of the DIZ into a Marxist-Leninist institute of contemporary history. During his tenure as director, his work had revealed a number of ?serious defects and mistakes? in respect to ?basic questions of the struggle of anti-fascist opposition in Germany and developments after 1945,? questions which ?ha[d] already 40 Ibid. 222 been answered in the works41 of Comrade Walter Ulbricht.?42 What exactly Bartel?s ?deviations? consisted in is not known, but Bartel, as one of the leaders of the inmate uprising that contributed to the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp, certainly had grounds enough to dispute the official party version of anti-fascist activities during the Nazi era. This issue notwithstanding, the leadership of the party organization at the DWI in March 1962 came to the conclusion that Bartel ?does not live up to the expectations which his scientific functions place upon him.?43 In April 1962, although he kept his position as professor of history at Humboldt University, Bartel was removed from his post as director of the DIZ and replaced by Stefan Doernberg. Doernberg, who began working at the DIZ in 1961 as deputy director and as editor-in-chief of the journal Unsere Zeit, was supposed to succeed where Bartel had failed?he was to ensure the establishment of ?the leading role of the party? at the DIZ, ?our most important institute of contemporary history,? as the Secretariat resolution removing Bartel and appointing Doernberg put it.44 Doernberg, born in 1924 into the family of a KPD functionary, enjoyed tremendous respect within the SED, in part because he, after emigrating in 1935 at the age of eleven with his family to the Soviet Union, served as lieutenant in the Red Army and personally took part in the Battle of Berlin.45 After taking over the reins of the DIZ in 1962, Doernberg would remain a fixture within East German foreign policy expertise for the duration of the GDR?s existence, holding a number of key positions in a variety of areas, mostly scientific but 41 Ulbricht and a team of authors issued a multi-volume work on the history of the German labor movement. Walter Ulbricht, Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 8 vols. (Berlin: Dietz, 1966) 42 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/860. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 For an autobiographical account of his time in the Soviet Union, his service in the Red Army, and his life in the GDR, see Stefan Doernberg, Fronteinsatz: Erinnerungen eines Rotarmisten, Historikers und Botschafters (Berlin: Edition Ost, 2004). 223 also operative positions (e.g. ambassador to Finland), which again highlights the fundamental interconnectedness of the two enterprises in the GDR. Combining ideological reliability, a ?scientific? approach to history (he had formal training in history in both the USSR and the GDR), and organizational aptitude, Doernberg provided the leadership needed to remedy existing deficiencies at the DIZ in the quest to establish the institute as the leading site for Marxist-Leninist contemporary history in the GDR. By the early 1960s, the DIZ?s research division, created in 1957 as the centerpiece of the institute?s envisioned transformation, had only made limited progress46 and its output correspondingly lagged behind in comparison to the work produced for the DIZ?s two other main areas, external propaganda and international information. Doernberg as newly appointed director of the DIZ emphasized this failing in a May 1962 letter to Johannes H?rnig, head of the Sciences Division: ?[The DIZ] has fulfilled the resolution from 1957 only in part. The tasks formulated in the resolution in respect to strengthening research on the emergence and development of the GDR in particular have thus far been addressed in a fully unsatisfactory manner. Furthermore, the institute has yet to publish the results of its research in the form of scientific analyses, essays, and monographs in sufficient measure.?47 Doernberg?s letter had been prompted by instructions from the Sciences Division to overhaul the profile of the institute and was part of a larger, concerted effort on the part of the DIZ in close collaboration with not only the Sciences Division but also the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee finally to bring the DIZ in line with the profile demanded by the SED. Expanding the research competencies of the DIZ made up a large part of the institute?s 46 The research division?s 1962 report on its own activities goes into exhaustive detail, but in the end attests only to limited growth. BArch, DC 201/155. 47 BArch, DC 201/2. 224 overhauled profile and the DIZ?s final draft of the proposal presented to the Sciences Division and the Ideological Commission for approval depicted this as a necessary step in light of changing internal and external conditions: ?In the time [since passage of the 1957 Secretariat resolution], changes in the political situation that have occurred internationally and in Germany have produced a series of new problems and have created new goals in the field of contemporary history. Scientific work in the GDR in the field of contemporary history has simultaneously reached a higher level. We therefore find it necessary and viable to charge a scientific institution in the GDR with the task of comprehensively investigating and presenting political developments in both German states as well as other states? policy toward Germany. Further, it is also necessary to investigate the most important questions of international current events, which are often closely tied to the so-called German question or at least strongly influence it [italics added].?48 The DIZ, of course, was to be this institution. Strong emphasis was placed on increasing the practical utility of the DIZ?s work: ?With its activities in the areas of compilation, information, documentation, and research, the DIZ should help inform the leadership of party and state in a swift and scientifically grounded manner and should analyze political processes of the most recent period.?49 The refashioned institute was to resemble in general character if not in specific organization and functioning the model provided by the Soviet Institute for World Economy and International Relations 48 Ibid. The proposal expounds on the new focus of research in more detail: ?The object of research will comprise the current essential questions of political developments in both German states on the basis of the national and international role of the GDR. Proceeding from this foundation, research will analyze in particular domestic and foreign policy and social relations in West Germany. Furthermore, questions of international politics, particularly the policy toward Germany of the USSR?s and other socialist states but also of imperialistic, other capitalist as well as non-aligned states will be examined and presented. Important focal points of international politics, insofar as they influence the policy of the two German states, will likewise be examined.? 49 Ibid. 225 (IMEMO) or the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM).50 In 1963, Doernberg even visited PISM personally, which led to the establishment of more comprehensive ties between the two institutions.51 By 1966, the DIZ had made agreements establishing close cooperation with several other socialist research institutes,52 by which time the institute had also established contact with institutions in capitalist countries, but such relations remained limited and would only expand in significant measure following foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s. After the Sciences Division in March and the Ideological Commission in April 1963 confirmed the proposal,53 the DIZ immediately moved to take the practical steps necessary to match its revamped profile as ?research institute for German and international politics.?54 The working and research plans of the institute were modified to reflect the expanded thematic scope of the DIZ?s research. The institute?s research plans from this point both on would go into greater detail, which would allow a greater influence over the results of individual research projects, and would cover a longer period of time, permitting consideration of longer-term processes affecting the GDR and 50 Ibid. While highlighting the desired affinity with the Soviet and Polish institutions, the proposal also highlighted the specificity of a retooled DIZ: ?The [DIZ] should have the general character of an institute for German and international politics and fulfill in its research tasks similar to those of [IMEMO] or [PISM], with both of which our institute already maintains close relations. The main difference from these institutes will consist in the unambiguous focus of our work on the national role of the GDR and developments in West Germany.? 51 The agreement on cooperation between the DIZ and PISM included exchanges of personnel, research plans, and publications. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ IV A 2/9.01/144. 52 In addition to IMEMO and PISM, the DIZ maintained contractual relations with the West Institute in Poznan, the Institute for International Politics and Economics in Prague, the Institute for Research on Socialist States (likewise in Prague), and the Institute for International Politics and Economics in Belgrade. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/9.01/145. 53 In its approval of the proposal, the Sciences Division emphasized the correctness of the DIZ?s principal engagement with current events: ?The focus of the institute?s scientific work rightly lies after 1945; in particular, the most topical (aktuellste) issues of the immediate present should be addressed, for example of the last two to three years. BArch, DC 201/2. 54 The leadership of the DIZ in June 1963 drafted a set of measures to be implemented posthaste. Ibid. 226 allowing closer coordination with the relevant party and state organs;55 the lack of both these elements in the past had previously been identified as a major impediment to synchronization. Greater regulation was likewise reflected in the fact that the individual divisions of the DIZ were now obliged to draft reports detailing their work and identifying to what extent they had fulfilled a given work or research plan. The expanded thematic scope of the DIZ?s work was likewise manifested in the creation of a new ?international questions? research division alongside the existing ?West Germany? and ?GDR? research divisions.56 The international questions research division grew quickly and by 1965 had been subdivided into three sectors: ?imperialist countries,? ?socialist countries,? and ?developing countries.?57 Finally, the re-orientation of the DIZ did not only include internal growth and rationalization but also affected the place of the DIZ in the broader East German foreign policy apparatus. The DIZ in particular and contemporary history in the GDR in general were only useful to the SED insofar as they could contribute to fulfillment of the party?s broader policy goals, which required thoroughgoing integration into the foreign policy apparatus. To this end, the DIZ formed closer working relationships with other party and state institutions, particularly the MfAA and the DWI. This process reached a high point in 1967, when the MfAA made a bid to replace the State Secretariat for Higher Education as the state organ responsible for the DIZ. The resolution on the issue asserted: ?The work of the DIZ is not intimately connected with the day-to-day and long-term objectives 55 For instance, the DIZ?s Perspektivplan for 1966-1970, while making explicit reference to the 1963 proposal, was ?to serve the goal of raising research in the area of contemporary history and especially investigation and presentation of current aspects of national and international developments to a higher level in accord with the directives of the party, in particular the determinations of the Ideological Commission on the development of the social sciences. BArch, DC 202/81. 56 Lexikon der Institutionen und Organisationen, s. v. ?Deutsches Institut f?r Zeitgeschichte,? in Enzyklop?die der DDR, CD-ROM (Berlin: Directmedia, 2004). 57 BArch, DC 201/55. 227 of the foreign policy of the GDR. The MfAA therefore believes it expedient to subordinate the DIZ to [the ministry]. This would ensure systematic supervision of the DIZ.?58 As the overhauled DIZ became more thoroughly integrated into the broader East German foreign policy apparatus and, in the process, became increasingly implicated in the realm of operative foreign policy, the institute?s practical utility grew proportionally. The more pronounced orientation of the institute?s work toward issues of practical foreign policy, however, also had the potential to undermine the ?Marxist-Leninist contemporary history? practiced at the DIZ since the connection with international relations practice provided a corrective of sorts to ideological dogmatism and insularity. Yet for the time being this potential conflict would remain incipient, its further development requiring more direct engagement on the part of the GDR in general and the DIZ in particular in international relations. A key element in the process of increasing the DIZ?s orientation toward the practical goals and the political-ideological requirements of the SED and carving out a clearly delineated niche for the institute in a uniform, standardized, and growing system of foreign policy expertise was its relationship with the DWI. The relationship between the DIZ and DWI was a peculiar one since the thematic focus of each institution?s work was so similar, the main difference consisting in the DWI?s focus on economics. The peculiarity of the relationship, which included the potential for both fruitful cooperation and inefficient double work, was addressed in the Sciences Division?s approval of the 1963 proposal, which noted: ?Current national and international economic problems and analyses have thus far been covered too little in the work of the institute. In order to 58 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 42. However, it remains unclear whether the resolution was actually implemented. 228 resolve this deficiency, there has to be a strengthening of personnel through the addition of specialists (economists, economic historians). Furthermore, close cooperation with [the DWI] must occur in order to offset these deficiencies. Close cooperation should take the form of joint scientific enterprises, documentation, information, and, potentially, a joint work plan without, however, bringing about the organizational fusion of the two institutes at this point in time.?59 With the thematic scope of the DWI expanding beyond a narrow focus on economic questions after 1965 to include consideration of ?state-monopoly capitalism? in West Germany in its entirety and with the growth of the DIZ from an information and documentation center to a full-fledged research institute including investigation of economic questions, the fusion of the two institutes in fact became more and more logical and more and more likely. For the time being, however, the DWI and the DIZ remained separate entities while steadily deepening their working relationship.60 In the meantime, the DIZ had completed a major transformation?it had grown from an information center documenting current events and packaging them for internal and external consumption in the mid-1950s to become by the second half of the 1960s the GDR?s important institution of ?Marxist-Leninist contemporary history??and a leading site of ?scientific? research on West Germany, the German question, and international politics, that was responsible for providing analysis and prognoses on this constellation of topics to organs of party and state.61 Marxist-Leninist analysis formed the common 59 BArch, DC 201/2. 60 Not surprising given the two institutes? overlapping thematic foci, the working relationship between the DIZ and the DWI in the second half of the 1960s was not always free of tension, sometimes resulting in a tug-of-war over human resources and competencies with the Sciences Division playing the role of arbiter. Shortly after the re-orientation of the DWI in 1965, for instance, Director Lutz Maier made a plea to Johannes H?rnig, head of the Sciences Division, for his institute to take over some of the responsibilities as well as some of the employees of Doernberg?s DIZ. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/9.04/197 and 198. 61 Toward the end of the 1960s, the DIZ succinctly summed up its role in the following manner: ?The main function of the DIZ consists in the completion of scientific analyses and information as required by the 229 denominator of both the propagandistic and informational/analytical areas of the DIZ?s work, but a thicker line was drawn between ?expertise? produced for public consumption and expertise produced for internal use. In terms of personnel, the DIZ experienced considerable growth, employing 226 individuals in 1970 (scientific employees, technical specialists, and administrative personnel) as compared with 166 in 1960,62 marking a 27 percent increase. As was the case at the DWI, increasing standardization, refinement, and specialization at the DIZ in the 1960s were inextricably linked with establishment of ?the leading role of the party,? i.e. complete political and ideological subordination. Here too, then, rationalization in service of synchronization had left its mark, in the process laying the groundwork the for the dynamic of permanent tension between ideology and specialist knowledge, between intellectual subordination and intellectual autonomy, that was setting in across East Germany?s young system of foreign policy expertise. The Central Role of the PAMaD/IIB In the ongoing rationalization of the East German foreign policy apparatus, the Prorectorate for the Training of Leading Foreign Service Employees (PAMaD) of the DASR occupied a lynchpin position. The centrality of the PAMaD, which had taken over the responsibilities of the DASR?s Institute for International Law and International Relations (IVB) in 1958, derived from the fact that it played a dual role in the East German foreign policy apparatus. As the GDR?s central institution for foreign policy party leadership and in the organization of a competent flow of information in the field of contemporary politics and ideology. The DIZ continues to convey needed information to the state leadership, the mass media, and scientific institutions.? BArch, DC 201/2. 62 BArch, DC 201/72. 230 training, the PAMaD produced cadres to staff East Germany?s operative foreign policy bodies, principally the MfAA and the IV Division; as an emergent foreign policy research institution, the PAMaD analyzed the GDR?s international relations to produce ?scientific? expertise meant to aid in the process of policy formation. While at the end of the 1950s the PAMaD still devoted the majority of its attention to foreign policy training, the prorectorate in the course of the 1960s would increasingly expand its research activities to become one of the GDR?s most important centers for foreign policy research alongside the DWI and DIZ. By virtue of its dual responsibility for foreign policy training and research, the PAMaD thus occupied a unique position within the East German foreign policy, intimately involved in foreign policy training and research and deeply implicated in issues of practical foreign policy. The PAMaD had played a central part in the 1959-1962 foreign policy cadre initiative designed to meet the needs of the MfAA and the IV Division in the context of the GDR?s increasing foreign policy activities. The initiative, which marked the start of the SED?s efforts to create a well-integrated, effective foreign policy apparatus, succeeded in addressing the most pressing issues?a shortage of qualified cadres and poor qualifications among existing cadres?but the GDR?s larger foreign policy ?cadre problem? remained unresolved as a shortage of individuals with advanced qualifications and practical experience was paired with the lack of a clearly formulated and consequently applied conception of the functional purpose and goals of the respective institutions of the East German foreign policy apparatus. The gradual process of professionalization and standardization that had begun in the late 1950s had already made headway in this area, as the examples of the MfAA, the IV Division, the DWI, and the 231 DIZ make clear. However, the SED?s attempt to create a well-integrated, effective foreign policy apparatus out of the loosely connected, poorly coordinated network of institutions inherited from the 1950s would hinge upon the success of these efforts at the PAMaD, the GDR?s premier foreign policy cadre forge. A fundamental turning point not only in cadre training but also in the general orientation of the East German foreign policy apparatus and its system of expertise came with the VI Party Congress of the SED in January 1963. The congress announced the triumph of ?socialist relations of production? in the GDR and set the stage for the inauguration of the New Economic System of Planning and Management (NOS) in June of the same year. The NOS?s emphasis of efficiency and practical results extended beyond its immediate area of concern, the economic realm, to include a general orientation on the part of the SED leadership toward improving performance in the GDR by balancing maintenance of the SED?s political and ideological hegemony, which naturally remained central, with expertise and specialist knowledge. The initiative was encapsulated in the term Wissenschaftlichkeit, which connoted belief in the ability to plan processes ?scientifically? in order to achieve optimal results63 and which extended to all areas of administration and fields of knowledge. The VI Party Congress, while placing new emphasis on the importance of specialist knowledge, simultaneously made clear that scientific activity was not to be conducted in a value-free manner; instead, it was to serve the ends of the SED: ?Analysis of the work of many social science institutes shows that the main issue is whether a close bond exists between instruction and research with the struggle of the party to fulfill the goals it has set for itself, whether the unity of theory and 63 As noted above, the German term Wissenschaft connotes not only the natural sciences (as is the case with the English term ?science?) but also the social sciences and humanities. 232 practice has been achieved. There are still scientists who are beholden to an old, dogmatic notion of the role of science, which is demonstrated by the fact that they depict, detail, describe life and social processes, yet insufficiently support the struggle of our party.?64 The new emphasis on specialist knowledge in service of the party?s goals was concretized in a Politburo resolution from February 1963, one month after the congress, which established the Produktionsprinzip,65 or production principle, as the guiding principle for all party work.66 In regard to cadres, the production principle entailed a clear upgrading of specialist knowledge vis-?-vis political and ideological compliance, as a Secretariat resolution from May of the same year made clear: ?[Leading party functionaries] must have a solid understanding of technical-economic issues alongside comprehensive political-ideological knowledge.?67 A Secretariat resolution from October 1963 continued in the same vein: ?Comrades who have proven themselves in the struggle to carry out complicated tasks, who with great expert knowledge (Sachkenntnis) and political understanding have performed a host of highly complicated and demanding jobs, should be supported und systematically prepared to take over greater responsibility.?68 While the image presented here of the ideal functionary, politically dedicated and expertly trained in equal measure, pertained most immediately to individuals directly involved in the implementation of the NOS (e.g. industrial and agricultural cadres), it marked a fundamental shift of orientation in SED cadre policy in its entirety following the VI Party Congress. As a subsequent Secretariat resolution put it: ?Realization of the 64 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 1/VI/8. 65 The concept was shaped by G?nter Mittag, one of the main architects of the NOS. G?nter Mittag, Fragen der Parteiarbeit nach dem Produktionsprinzip in Industrie und Bauwesen (Berlin: Dietz, 1963). 66 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/949. 67 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/954. 68 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/996. 233 program passed by the VI Party Congress for the period of the comprehensive construction of socialism and the implementation of the technical revolution demands that all social processes be planned scientifically and that use of the economic laws of socialism be made comprehensively. It is therefore necessary?to work out an exact plan, determined by the political, economic, and cultural requirements, for the systematic development of cadres in all areas of social life.?69 This new, ?scientific? approach would become ingrained not only in respect to cadre training and not only at the PAMaD, but also throughout the East German foreign policy apparatus and all its emergent expert institutions. As the GDR?s main site of foreign policy training and as an increasingly important site of foreign policy research, the PAMaD responded immediately to the new orientation in cadre work introduced by the VI Party Congress. Indeed, the entire DASR, of which the PAMaD was a part, underwent drastic change in order to meet the new demands placed on it. The leadership of the DASR, headed by Rector Herbert Kr?ger, drafted between May and June 1963 a Grundsatzbeschlu?, or fundamental resolution, on the future orientation of the DASR and its respective prorectorates that demonstrated full compliance with the new line: ?The discussions of the VI Party Congress and the new program of the SED [passed at the VI Party Congress]?demonstrate in all clarity that the existing system for the training and qualification of state functionaries in all areas must undergo fundamental change. We must produce individuals who possess outstanding expert (fachlich) qualifications and who at the same time are politically educated.?70 The draft was given provisional approval by the Council of Ministers and was re-submitted 69 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1132. 70 BArch, DC 20/I/4/758. 234 after taking into account the results of the June 1963 economic conference, which unveiled the NOS.71 The resolution received final approval from the Council of Ministers in October 196372 and brought with it a fundamental re-orientation of the work and organization of the PAMaD as well as the DASR as a whole. It replaced the previous organizational division of the DASR into prorectorates with discrete institutes. The PAMaD was accordingly dissolved and re-formed as the Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen (IIB), or Institute for International Relations. The Institute for International Relations began operating on 1 January 1964 and stayed in operation under that name until the final dissolution of the GDR in 1990. The mission of the newly established institute closely resembled that of the prorectorate it had replaced: ?The Institute for International Relations conducts research in the area of international relations and international law, is responsible for the scientific training and continued education of employees of the foreign service of the GDR, and supports the work of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in scientific matters.?73 Yet much more detailed delineation of its profile, responsibilities, and operating procedures were intended to better equip the IIB to fulfill the goals set for it and to do so in a more integrated and coordinated manner with the other institutions of the East German foreign policy apparatus. Central among these was the MfAA, whose operative needs were to form the basis for teaching and research at the IIB. Unlike all the other institutes of the DASR, which were subordinated to the GDR?s Council of Ministers, the IIB was directly subordinate to the MfAA (the IV Division was the corresponding party institution 71 For the meetings of the DASR senate that handled the resolution, see SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/13/211. 72 BArch, DC 20/I/4/832. 73 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13107. 235 responsible for the IIB), which lent the institute an extraordinary position at the DASR? the IIB was formally part of the larger academy, but the academy exercised minimal influence over the IIB?s internal functioning. This fact was underlined by the creation in the same year of a separate party organization at the IIB decoupled from the party organization at the DASR.74 The subordination of the IIB to the IV Division as responsible party organ was a further step that both strengthened the de facto autonomy of the institute in respect to its mother institution, the DASR, and bolstered the IIB?s orientation toward issues of practical foreign policy and the needs of East Germany?s most important operative foreign policy organs. Greater emphasis had already been placed on cooperation between the IIB and the MfAA in the context of the 1959 Secretariat resolution on foreign policy cadres, and now the institutional basis was created for the intensification and regularization of relations between the two institutions. The MfAA was to be thoroughly involved in all aspects of the IIB?s work, which was to be conducted ?in strict consideration of the needs and in most intimate connection with foreign policy practice.?75 Herbert Kr?ger, previously rector of the DASR,76 became head of the newly established IIB, which was sub-divided into seven Lehrst?hle (academic chairs or caucuses): the history of international relations, international economic relations, world economics, general history, international law, constitutional law, and cultural policy and cultural relations, which were joined by divisions for foreign language instruction as well as documentation and information.77 74 ?Zeittafel,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 222. 75 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13107. 76 Kr?ger, a doctor of law, for a time was legal advisor to the Central Committee of the SED and defended the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) at the 1956 trial before the Constitutional Court of West Germany, which outlawed the party. 77 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13107. 236 The IIB was already in the process of phasing out its existing four-year course of study as its main vehicle of foreign policy training and replacing it with a two-year postgraduate course, the first of which began in academic year 1963/64. Foreign policy training would initially revolve around four themes that built upon one another: the international constellation of forces in economics and politics from the time of the Second World Word and the continual progress of socialism toward becoming the determining factor in world events; the economic development and the foreign trade policy of CMEA states as the main weapon in the struggle against imperialism; fundamental issues in the foreign policy of the GDR; and international law as an instrument of the foreign policy of socialist states.78 Exams in the following areas would then conclude the two-year course: the history of international relations and current questions in the foreign policy of the GDR, general history, world economics and the economy of the GDR, international economic relations, international law, and foreign languages.79 The content of the new two-year course of study, which now explicitly required the approval of the minister of foreign affairs, varied, but the overriding goal remained constant, as was made patent in the introduction to the curriculum for the two-year course of study convened in 1967: The aim of the two-year course of study at [the IIB] is the education and training of socialist state functionaries for the organs and institutions of [the GDR] active in the realm of foreign policy, particularly for service at [the MfAA]. After completing their studies, students must possess the necessary expert, political-moral, and ideological qualities, they must be fit and prepared for subsequent assignment in the various fields of foreign policy activity, and they must commit themselves unreservedly and with all their energies to fulfillment of the goals set by party and state. They must embody the type of 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. 237 socialist foreign policy functionary who is capable of meeting the constantly growing tasks in the area of foreign policy and of working as propagandist and representative of the first socialist German state. Animated by the ideas of proletarian internationalism, they must contribute as partisans of peace, democracy, and socialism to the further consolidation and strengthening of the prestige of our worker-and-peasant state and its foreign relations. As a result of their training, they must as political employees be capable of unwaveringly and consequently representing the interests of the GDR and of the socialist world system in all settings of the international class struggle.80 The foreign policy training provided by the newly established IIB was thus meticulously oriented toward matching the operative needs of the MfAA and represented an important step in the broader intensification of cooperation and coordination between the various operative and research and instruction institutions within the East German foreign policy apparatus. While the creation of the IIB in 1964 and its strict orientation toward the practical goals of East German foreign policy did in fact provide the needed foundation in the realm of foreign policy instruction and research to overcome the institutional underdevelopment and lack of coordination inherited from the 1950s, thoroughgoing and effective cooperation between the IIB and the MfAA would not be brought about over night. Cognizance of the need and a desire for greater cooperation was certainly not lacking, but the necessary institutionalization and regularization of such links progressed only slowly. In a 1965 report completed for the Secretariat, the leadership of the MfAA did not mince words: ?There are still serious deficiencies in our cooperation with the Institute for International Relations.?81 Chief among these was the absence of a binding 80 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/20/132. 81 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1143. 238 agreement regularizing relations between the ministry and the IIB, something the original Council of Ministers resolution approving the transformation of the PAMaD into the IIB in fall 1963?one and a half years prior?had stipulated. Furthermore, the report described the influence of the MfAA on the curriculum of the IIB, one of the areas where its input was supposed to be greatest, as minimal: ?The ministry?s constitutive influence on the content and the political quality of the [IIB?s] curriculum and on [bringing about] practice-bound training is insufficient.?82 It is therefore no surprise that the MfAA in 1965 in a separate report described the two-year course of foreign policy training at the IIB simply as an ?interim solution? to the MfAA?s attenuated yet still pressing ?cadre problem,? i.e., the availability of politically and expertly qualified individuals in sufficient number.83 The MfAA found the two-year postgraduate course of study at the IIB to be unsuitable because it was simply a course of supplementary study (participants had already gained a degree elsewhere in another field) and ?not part of a self-contained course of study.?84 As a result, the slack had to be picked up by East German graduates of the Institute for International Relations in Moscow (MGIMO), which continued to graduate approximately 15 East German students each year, or suitable candidates from wherever else within the East German party and state apparatus they could be found. The critical stance of the MfAA toward the IIB?s two-year course of foreign policy training made clear the need for a different form of training at the IIB given the increased emphasis on Wissenschaftlichkeit and the strict orientation toward the practical foreign policy goals of the GDR, but changes in this area were slow in coming as the two-year 82 Ibid. 83 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ J IV 2/3A/1184. 84 Ibid. 239 course of study remained, for the time being, the IIB?s main vehicle for training foreign policy cadres. Emergent Expertise?s Research Orientation The prevailing trends within the East German foreign policy apparatus in the 1960s of increased Wissenschaftlichkeit, deepened institutional coordination and integration, and a pronounced orientation toward practical utility came together in the IIB?s other main area of activity?foreign policy research and analysis. Indeed, the emergence of foreign policy research and analysis as a discrete undertaking at institutions like the IIB, the DWI, the DIZ, the MfAA, and the IV Division formed a key element in the process of adapting the East German foreign policy apparatus to meet the specific foreign policy challenges faced by the GDR in the 1960s. Resolution of the most urgent cadre issues had already brought about a broadening of focus within the foreign policy apparatus from fulfillment of the most pressing, day-to-day tasks to longer-term planning and prognostication. The GDR- wide orientation toward Wissenschaftlichkeit and the ?scientific? planning of all social processes inaugurated by the VI Party Congress and the NOS only served to bolster this trend. Simultaneously, the increasing number of foreign policy cadres both professionally and politically qualified fulfilled another prerequisite for development of foreign policy research and analysis since the necessary personnel to bring specialist knowledge to bear on outstanding foreign policy problems was now available. Furthermore, the steady expansion of the GDR?s international relations starting in the late 1950s meant that East German foreign policy was becoming that much more complex, which demanded more 240 sustained analysis and longer-term consideration in order to ensure the GDR could meet its increasingly ambitious foreign policy goals. This concatenation of processes produced a set of institutions and individuals whose main goal consisted in analysis of the GDR?s international relations from a ?scientific? perspective. Analysis took on different forms and dealt with a range of issues, but for all its variety it was bound together by the common foundation of Marxism- Leninism and the common goal of advancing the foreign policy interests of the GDR. Starting in the 1960s, in stark contrast to the situation in the 1950s, when the myriad problems created by the institutional underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus prevented the establishment of foreign policy analysis as a discrete activity with a cohesive, standardized character, one may thus begin to speak in earnest of East German foreign policy expertise. Although the responsibilities of the institutions responsible for its production varied considerably, foreign policy expertise in the GDR possessed a cohesiveness that transcended institutional boundaries since the significance of functional differentiation within the East German foreign policy apparatus was dwarfed by the unity of purpose created by unambiguous subordination to the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the ruling SED. The result was a symbiotic relationship between the two general types of foreign policy institution in the GDR?operative institutions and research and teaching institutions?where expert analysis was meant to aid operative activities and where practical experience gained through operative activities was supposed to enrich expert analysis. The unity of purpose created and sustained by the GDR?s dictatorially controlled foreign policy apparatus 241 provided the lynchpin of the entire system in which operative and expert activities were to exist in a symbiotic relationship. The concrete shape of nascent East German foreign policy expertise was imparted by the process of rationalization in service of synchronization that affected the East German foreign policy apparatus in its entirety in the 1960s. Cognizance of the need for ?scientifically? grounded research on foreign policy already began to grow in the late 1950s and a led to a series of corresponding measures, but the trend, however, was greatly accelerated in the wake of the VI Party Congress in 1963 with its emphasis on Wissenschaftlichkeit, where a ?scientific? approach stressing rationalization of working procedures and long-term planning was supposed to infuse the work of all party and state institutions. This emphasis on ?scientific? analysis and prognostication was immediately incorporated into the orientation of the MfAA, when an April 1963 resolution of the Council of Ministers stipulated: ?The leadership of the MfAA is to supply the Politburo of the SED and the Council of Ministers and, after corresponding directives have been added, representations abroad with political assessments or scientific analyses of important international events, conferences, and the treaties of other states. The leadership of the MfAA must ensure that political, economic, and military developments in the imperialist camp as well as in the camp of young national states are painstakingly tracked both at the ministry and in the representations abroad and that the necessary conclusions for GDR policy are drawn from new events and processes in a timely manner.?85 While all the various territorial and topical divisions of the MfAA could and did complete a range of scientific studies (e.g. assessments, reports, analyses) in their 85 BArch, DC 20/I/4/706. 242 respective areas, there was only one division whose primary responsibility lay in conducting analytical research for ?the development of strategic foreign policy planning and the conceptual elaboration of foreign policy initiatives?86: the Grundsatzabteilung, or Fundamental Questions Division. The division, which until the early 1960s operated under the name Abteilung Grundsatzfragen, fell within the bailiwick of Otto Winzer until he took over the position of foreign minister in 1965, at which point he was succeeded by the new secretary of state and first deputy minister of the MfAA, G?nter Kohrt, who had worked his way up to the position of deputy head of the IV Division in 1958-1964 before serving for two years as GDR ambassador to China.87 The VI Party Congress?s emphasis on Wissenschaftlichkeit and long-term planning entailed an increase in the status of the division: ?The Fundamental Questions Division of the MfAA must be strengthened substantially so that the leadership of the MfAA may meet the growing political and scientific demands in the formulation and implementation of the foreign policy of the GDR as well as its obligations toward the Politburo of the CC of the SED and the state.?88 The retooled division, which was headed from 1966 by Siegfried Bock and which was now subdivided into four sections (socialist states, German questions, non- aligned states, the imperialist system),89 was given a host of different responsibilities, but two areas in particular were identified as central: (1) ?elucidating the fundamental questions of the GDR?s foreign policy and providing scientific grounding for the foreign policy steps and initiatives of the GDR? and (2) ?advising the leadership of the MfAA in 86 Ingrid Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000), 134. 87 Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR, s. v. ?G?nter Kohrt,? in Enzyklop?die der DDR, CD-ROM (Berlin: Directmedia, 2004). The position of secretary of state and first deputy at the MfAA remained vacant for the period of time between Winzer?s ascension to foreign minister in 1965 and Kohrt?s return from his diplomatic post in Beijing in 1966. Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 129. 88 BArch, DC 20/I/4/706. 89 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 135. 243 fundamental questions of international relations, producing estimates and suggestions for the development of the foreign policy of the GDR, and thereby facilitating a qualified flow of information for the orientation of the GDR?s representations abroad in fundamental questions of international relations.?90 The final element in the upgrading of the position of the Fundamental Questions Division?and with it the status of foreign policy research and analysis as a discrete activity at the MfAA and in the broader East German foreign policy apparatus?was personnel enhancement. The 1963 Council of Ministers resolution on the new role of the division stipulated that it was to be strengthened through the addition of ?international law experts, historians, and constitutional law experts who have demonstrated the capacity for independent scientific work.?91 The division underwent a significant shake-up in 1967, after a March 1966 report for the Politburo had attested to the insufficiency of research conducted by the MfAA, but not necessarily by the division itself: ?Despite progress, the results of scientific work show a highly variable level of quality. Alongside acceptable performance there are still too often analytical works of low quality and sometimes even incorrect assessments. A considerable failing consists in the fact that analytical work pertaining to questions of the socio-economic development of individual countries is not yet developed and that existing scientific capacities within and outside the MfAA are not yet deliberately utilized to that end.?92 In response, an initial MfAA proposal submitted to the Politburo in September 1966 recommended the creation of specialized expert groups ?in order to improve analytical work and above all to attain a scientifically grounded and systematic 90 BArch, DC 20/I/4/706. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid. 244 handling of complex and regional questions (Warsaw Pact and CMEA, NATO and EEC, [the Organization of African Unity], Arab League, [the Organization of American States], etc.) and to overcome the hitherto existing fragmentation among various country divisions.?93 In 1967, the Fundamental Questions Division was actually dissolved and its competencies divided among two newly created divisions: the Division for Foreign Policy Planning (Abteilung f?r au?enpolitische Planung) and the Division for Global and Regional Problems (Abteilung f?r globale und regionale Probleme).94 Given the stated goal of ?a precise, systematically controlled, scientifically managed foreign policy,? the role of the MfAA?s Division for Foreign Policy Planning was envisioned as follows: ?What is required are thorough, scientific analyses of the internal and external, constructive and constrictive, objective and subjective factors which the historically determined laws of international development, elucidated in their fundamental tendencies by the international communist and workers? movement, encounter in specific countries and regions so that on this basis the direction of social developments in different variations may be expounded (developmental prognoses). Proceeding from this foundation, the thrust and foci of the foreign policy activities of our state can then be determined.?95 Furthermore, the Division for Foreign Policy Planning, as a center of analytical activity at the MfAA, was to be the IIB?s main point of contact at the MfAA in the area of research.96 While the Division for Foreign Policy Planning was responsible above all for the coordination and formulation of strategy based on foreign policy research, the Division for Global and Regional Problems took over the lion?s share of the 93 Ibid. 94 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 136. 95 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 42. 96 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 41. 245 actual analytical responsibilities of the dissolved Fundamental Questions Division. In addition to the previously existing slate of topical, regional, and supranational questions, the Division for Global and Regional Problems also took over responsibility for questions relating to European security and disarmament.97 The upgrading of the status of foreign policy research and analysis as a discrete activity in the wake of the VI Party Congress in 1963 was also in evidence at the IIB, which largely owed its establishment in 1964 as the replacement for the outmoded PAMaD to the impulse for Wissenschaftlichkeit produced by the congress. In its new statute, research was given for the first time equal standing with the IIB?s other main task, the training of foreign policy cadres. ?Research in the area of foreign policy and international law? was to be oriented toward ?the demands stemming from the resolutions of the VI Party Congress? and was to be adjusted to meet ?new, heightened requirements.?98 Just as was the case in the realm of teaching, the IIB?s research activities were to be conducted in collaboration with the MfAA in order to guarantee the institute?s work was clearly directed toward fulfillment of the practical foreign policy goals of the GDR. And also just as was the case in the realm of instruction, seamless cooperation between the IIB and the MfAA in the area of research would not be established overnight?the regularization of links between the two institutions would take time. However, the gradual tempo of the progress of institutional coordination ought not to obscure the critical fact that from the very moment foreign policy research began to come 97 The Division for Global and Regional Problems as the replacement of the Fundamental Questions Division proved to be short-lived as the latter was re-constituted in 1973 under the name Central Division for Fundamental Questions and Planning (Hauptabteilung Grundsatzfragen und Planung). Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 136. 98 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13107. 246 into its own?and not just at the IIB, but throughout the East German foreign policy apparatus?it was subordinated to the ideological and political requirements of the SED. Indeed, the ideological and political instrumentalization of nascent East German foreign policy expertise to the SED?s centrally dictated goals was unmistakable at both research institutions like the IIB, the DWI, and the DIZ and operative institutions like the MfAA and IV Division, which employed expertise created either by other institutions, their own sub-units or both. The main thrust of the rationalization of the East German foreign policy apparatus in the 1960s was the suppression of all traces of intellectual autonomy and the thoroughgoing ideologization of analysis along Marxist-Leninist lines. Marxist-Leninist foreign policy presuppositions on foreign policy were to be handled as incontrovertible and were to form the starting part of all analysis. A statement on the ?political-ideological objective? of research at the PAMaD, the IIB?s immediate predecessor, expressed this expectation in undiluted form: [What is required is] the comprehensive investigation and depiction of the process of the inevitable decline of the exploitative capitalist order, the historically determined certainty of the ultimate dissolution of the imperialistic system of colonialism, and the victory of the anti-imperialist national liberation movement as well as the final victory of socialism on a global scale? The continual shift of the international constellation of forces in favor of peace and socialism resulting from the struggle of the two systems on a global scale as the expression of the progressive resolution of the fundamental contradiction of international development in our time?the contradiction between socialism and capitalism?must be elucidated and substantiated.99 While a basic Marxist-Leninist disposition thus represented the sine qua non of foreign policy expertise in the GDR, the SED leadership likewise demanded that foreign policy 99 PA AA, MfAA, A 15824. 247 research and analysis produce real practical benefits for the process of foreign policy formulation and implementation. And sweeping declarations of ideological loyalty would do little to advance the concrete foreign policy goals of the GDR. It is for precisely this reason that the SED leadership pushed and pushed hard for specialization and professionalization within its foreign policy apparatus in the 1960s after the combined effects of extreme dogmatism and relative neglect in the 1950s had left foreign policy expertise in a sorry state. Ulrich Bernhardt has even spoken of a reform process in the 1960s that ?sought to find a balance between the hegemonic position of the SED and limited autonomy in the sciences.?100 Bernhardt?s assertion of a ?re-autonomization of science,? which he discerns above all in regard to legal scholarship, certainly overstates the case, at least in regard to foreign policy expertise, but his emphasis on the ?increased significance of expert knowledge (Fachwissen)?101 correctly highlights the growing importance, even indispensability, of expertise in all its forms for the success of the SED?s goals. The unmistakable need for true specialist knowledge in foreign policy expertise, however, brought with it the potential for serious conflict since the increased emphasis on specialization and practical utility could in its continued development easily clash with the Marxist-Leninist presuppositions which were supposed to form the unassailable theoretical foundation of East German foreign policy. As Werner H?nisch, deputy director for research at the IIB 1974-1990, has put it: foreign policy expertise continually moved back and forth within ?a field of tension (Spannungsfeld) between 100 Ulrich Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? 1948- 1971 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1997), 147. 101 Ibid. 248 partisanship (Parteilichkeit) and a striving for objectivity.?102 For the time being, however, this tension remained largely latent. The GDR?s circumscribed foreign relations prevented the type of extensive foreign policy engagement and exposure to the full scope of international relations developments necessary to turn the existing tension between unyielding ideological dogmatism and specialist-driven realism from a potential into a real conflict. The Result of Rationalization in Service of Synchronization: The Formulation of a GDR- Specific Conception of International Relations The process of rationalization in service of synchronization to which the East German foreign policy apparatus was subjected in the 1960s radically altered the institutional context in which analysis of the GDR?s foreign relations was carried out. In the course of establishing ?the leading role of the party,? it transformed the hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination inherited from the 1950s into a well-organized, increasingly professional, and efficiently functioning foreign policy apparatus. As the East German foreign policy apparatus was re-shaped to meet the practical requirements and political-ideological requirements of the SED as ruling party of a state which had achieved a degree of internal stability and whose international relations activities were on the rise, East German foreign policy expertise was born?expert analysis of international relations became a discrete activity with a cohesive, standardized character. The cohesive character of the analysis conducted by the various institutions of the East German foreign policy 102 Werner H?nisch, ?Wurde die Au?enpolitik der DDR wissenschaftlich begr?ndet?? in ?abgegrenzte Weltoffenheit? Zur Au?en- und Deutschlandpolitik der DDR, eds. Daniel K?chenmeister et al. (Schkeuditz: GNN, 1999), 57-58. 249 apparatus, although their responsibilities could vary widely, was provided by the unity of purpose created by unambiguous subordination to the practical goals and political- ideological requirements of the ruling SED. While the institutional development of the East German foreign policy apparatus progressed significantly in the 1960s, the international relations of the GDR themselves did not keep pace, a fact which exercised a key influence on expert output in the decade. At any given time, the institutional configuration of East German foreign policy expertise set the parameters in which analysis was conducted and the GDR?s actual foreign relations supplied the object of analysis, and the interplay of these two factors produced the basic dynamic that molded the output of analytical activity. In the 1960s, the East German foreign policy apparatus became increasingly well-organized, increasingly professional, and efficient, but the GDR?s foreign relations essentially remained those of its infancy?highly restricted in range and influence. The foreign relations of the GDR did in fact grow considerably in the 1960s, but the central features of the geo-strategic situation facing East Germany remained unchanged: national division, non-recognition by the West, and acute dependency on the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc. With ?breaking through? the suffocating diplomatic isolation imposed by the Hallstein Doctrine still the superordinate goal of East German foreign policy, the GDR attempted to bolster its position within and outside the Soviet Bloc and generally sought to extend its activities and influence wherever the opportunity presented itself. Because the foreign policy horizons of the GDR remained limited throughout the 1960s, revolving around a set of goals as clear as they were circumscribed, the range of its foreign policy expertise, 250 which was oriented toward issues of practical foreign policy, perforce remained limited as well. On this backdrop, analytical output differed sharply from that produced in the 1950s. The emergence of foreign policy expertise, consisting in practice in the application of specialist knowledge to international relations within a Marxist-Leninist framework adapted to the GDR?s interests, would allow the glaring deficiencies of earlier analytical output to be overcome?more refined, substantive analysis would take the place of the combination of shrill ideological overstatement, deficient knowledge, and a near total absence of analytical value typical of the 1950s. What is more, successful rationalization-cum-synchronization had created the foundation to rectify the most conspicuous failing of the 1950s?the failure to formulate a comprehensive conception of international relations within which the place and interest of the GDR were clearly identified and which could provide a cohesive framework as the basis for all analytical activity. The GDR?s ?socialist foreign policy cadres,? now both politically and professionally qualified, enunciated a comprehensive conception of international relations based upon fusion of the GDR?s specific foreign policy interests with the dichotomous, class-based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. The key geo-strategic features upon which this conception was built?national division in the context of the Cold War ?clash of systems,? non-recognition from the West, acute dependency on the Soviet Union, pronounced reliance on the Soviet Bloc?were not new. They were in place essentially from the founding of the GDR, but the prevailing institutional underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus had prevented them from being combined into a single, overarching GDR-specific conception 251 of international relations. Once the institutional prerequisites had been fulfilled, East German experts? fusion of the GDR?s foreign policy interests with the dichotomous, class-based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations flowed almost naturally, one might say, since there existed in fact a strong correlation between the GDR?s realpolitical interests and a strict black-and-white, class-based understanding of international relations, where a monolithic socialism squared off against an equally monolithic capitalism in an ineluctable ?clash of systems.? On the basis of this strong correlation, international relations were understood essentially in ideological terms?to a significant degree, ideology became reality for East German foreign policy experts. This fusion entailed the use of Marxist-Leninist concepts as the framework for analysis of international relations. The key concept shaping experts? understanding of international relations in this regard was the international constellation of forces (das internationale Kr?fteverh?ltnis). The Systemauseinandersetzung, or clash of systems, between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations, a notion based upon the idea that foreign policy was a direct reflection of social system and accordingly a form of the class struggle (Au?enpolitik als Klassenpolitik).103 Within this context, the constellation of forces denoted the relative strengths and weakness of the socialist and capitalist blocs in the Cold War and represented a type of barometer by which the position and prospects of international socialism could be measured at any given point in time.104 By the early 1960s, the notion was well on its 103 Muth details how the ideological premises guiding GDR foreign policy followed in a long tradition of ?socialist foreign policy? stretching back to Lenin?s Decree on Peace, all based on the notion that foreign policy was determined by social structure. Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 20-22. 104 The term constellation of forces was used in other contexts as well?the Kr?fteverh?ltnis within a given country for example?but was most frequently applied by East German experts to the international Cold War conflict between East and West. 252 way to becoming the overriding question guiding foreign policy analysis in the GDR, with all other issues essentially being supplementary lines of investigation dealing with one, smaller constituent element of this larger question. The ?constellation of forces? was the object of countless reports, both large (e.g. for SED congresses) and small (e.g. individual IIB studies). To name but one example, the concept formed the central question around which a major report drafted by the MfAA in 1964 reviewing the GDR?s international relations was organized. The positive developments discussed were framed in terms of the concept: ?The international constellation of forces continues to change in favor of the forces of peace and socialism;? as were the negative: ?Changes to the constellation of forces, however, are not taking place in all areas at the same tempo.?105 The term reveals much by highlighting the baseline ideological understanding of foreign policy among East German experts, who at this point could not imagine the GDR as a ?normal? foreign policy actor with its own set of discrete interests but only within the context of an international socialist movement in unremitting conflict with capitalism, which was understood as a social system transferred onto the world stage rather than a differentiated aggregation of distinct states. Since the assumptions underlying the notion of the constellation of forces?the existence of a socialist movement under the leadership of the Soviet Union, its unified character and unified behavior in the international arena, and its eventual triumph in the international class struggle?touched on both the vital interests of the GDR as a state and the most hallowed ideological precepts of the SED as ruling party, the concept?s basic validity was not up for discussion; the focus was rather on working within the broad framework established by the notion of an international constellation of forces to advance the interests of the GDR and the international socialist 105 PA AA, MfAA, A 13482. 253 movement, which were seen as essentially one and the same thing. The task correspondingly fell to East German expertise to elucidate, in grappling with specific issues, the particular foreign policy interests of the GDR given the paradigmatic position of the Marxist-Leninist, class-based understanding of international relations. The specific practical framework in which East German experts did so was provided by ?peaceful coexistence,? the Soviet-promulgated general line that provided both the strategic orientation and the theoretical foundation for the foreign policy of Soviet Bloc states. The concept of peaceful coexistence had a long history,106 but was first adopted in the postwar period by Nikita Khrushchev at the XX Party Congress of the CPSU in 1956 in the context of the post-Stalinist Thaw. Peaceful coexistence, a permanent feature of Soviet foreign policy following 1956, rejected the Stalinist notion that wars between socialist and capitalist countries were inevitable without disavowing belief in the essential incompatibility of socialism and capitalism and thereby maintained a fundamentally ideological understanding of international relations. Correspondingly, foreign policy under peaceful coexistence continued to embody the class struggle on the international stage; direct military conflict between the socialist and capitalist blocs was simply rejected in favor of other forms of competition, e.g. in the economic and diplomatic realms, with indirect military conflict in the form of proxy wars or support for armed insurgent groups also not excluded. It was in the practical and theoretical framework provided by peaceful coexistence in which East German experts were to 106 The concept was first enunciated in the early 1920s by Gregorii Chicherin, People?s Commissar of Foreign Affairs in the Soviet Union 1918-1930, and then adopted by Lenin in the context of NEP. G?nter Rosenfeld, ?Zum Geleit. Die Problematik der sowjetischen Au?enpolitik zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen,? in Zwischen Tradition und Revolution. Determinanten und Strukturen sowjetischer Au?enpolitik 1917-1941, eds. Ludmila Thomas and Viktor Knoll (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000), 9-30. 254 analyze the place of East Germany and the Soviet Bloc, the embodiment of socialism in the international arena, in relation to the international constellation of forces. In terms of tracking the international constellation of forces and divining its further course so as to provide a sounder, more ?scientific? foundation for East German foreign policy, a natural focus of foreign policy expertise was the actions of the US, the leader of the capitalist word and superpower rival of the Soviet Union. Considering the limited means available to the GDR to exert influence on the international stage, a significant amount of expertise in the 1960s was either descriptive or prognostic in character and less often oriented toward supplying a basis for operative action on the topic being analyzed itself than toward providing a grounding upon which to assess the GDR?s prospects in that specific area as well as in relation to other issues. The character of expert analysis of the US in the 1960s was overwhelmingly descriptive since the course of US-GDR relations was completely out of the hands of the GDR and dependent on relations between the bloc leaders and their larger Cold War considerations.107 This, however, did not mean that the actions of the US were unimportant for the GDR?on the contrary, expert knowledge of the foreign policy of the US was gaining understanding of US policies and how they might affect the position of the GDR. A 1964 report on US policy in Europe did exactly that. The report, drafted by the MfAA in consultation with the APK and submitted to the Politburo and Secretariat, examined the effects of the US ?strategy of peace,? initiated by the Kennedy administration and continued by the Johnson administration, on the states of the Soviet Bloc. The outstanding characteristics of East German foreign policy expertise in the 1960s?a basic Marxist-Leninist 107 Christian M. Ostermann, ?Die USA und die DDR (1949-1989),? in Die DDR und der Westen, Transnationale Beziehungen 1949-1989, ed. Ulrich Pfeil (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001), 165-184. 255 understanding of foreign policy matched with greater analytical refinement?were on clear display. The report highlighted the fundamentally ?imperialistic? nature of the US by ascribing to the entire ?monopoly bourgeoisie? in the US the tendency to misread superficial, ephemeral phenomena as objective changes to the constellation of forces in capitalism?s favor, but the report?s authors were also concerned with making important differentiations in terms of practical policy: ?[The two groups within the monopoly bourgeoisie] differ from one another?and this is essential in the struggle to preserve peace?in regard to the method of achieving their goals and to the length of time they believe they need.?108 This seemingly small nuance had great import for the report?s authors, who then provided an exposition of the significance of the strategy of peace, in place of the Eisenhower-era vision of ?rollback? and the associated doctrine of massive retaliation, for the Soviet Bloc and the GDR. The strategy of peace was seen as both an opportunity and a danger. It represented an opportunity because it could, through the prospect of increased trade and cultural relations between the Soviet Bloc and the US, facilitate the desired realization of ?peaceful coexistence? on the way to lasting d?tente between the two superpowers and it represented a danger because its ultimate aim was identified as undermining Soviet Bloc unity and weakening ties between the Soviet satellite states and the Soviet Union itself. Romania in particular appeared to be falling into the trap laid by the Johnson administration. The GDR in this case was the odd-man-out since the US, in accord with the Hallstein Doctrine, maintained its refusal to take up direct contact with the GDR, which, as the report noted, meant the strategy represented a particularly grave threat to 108 PA AA, MfAA, A 13427. The MfAA?s final draft incorporated suggestions made by the APK in its meeting on 27 July 1964. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/6. 256 the exposed, dependent GDR: ?The so-called ?strategy of peace? aims to isolate the GDR in terms of foreign policy and economic policy.?109 The Ulbricht Doctrine, enunciated in February 1967, was aimed at preventing exactly this outcome from coming to pass by insisting that no Soviet Bloc normalize its relations with the FRG before the FRG normalized its relations with the GDR. The states of the Soviet Bloc agreed, although Romania established diplomatic relations with the FRG in 1967 anyways. The conclusion of the report highlighted the ambivalent nature of the strategy of peace from the perspective of East German experts: on the one hand, it represented real progress since the US was starting to treat the constituent members of the Soviet Bloc not simply as Soviet satellites but as independent states and adopted a more conciliatory tone toward the Soviet Union; on the other, it represented a significant threat to the still-tenuous position of the GDR by potentially undermining the bloc unity on which East Germany was so heavily dependent. The same, essentially descriptive concern with the significance of the actions of the US for the global constellation of forces and, in turn, the position of the GDR was on display at the end of the decade in a 1969 MfAA report. The report, submitted to the APK in April of that year,110 addressed the foreign policy orientation of the recently elected Nixon administration. It portrayed the strength of ?US imperialism? in ?the worldwide clash of antagonistic class forces? as weakened by setbacks in Vietnam and other areas, which limited the chastened American foreign policy establishment?s room for maneuver at a time when domestic turmoil was reaching a highpoint.111 The authors of the report therefore saw the US compelled to become more flexible in the use of its 109 PA AA, MfAA, A 13427. 110 The APK dealt with the report in its meeting on 14 April 1969. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/10. 111 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 50. 257 political, military, and economic might and to take into greater account the interests of its allies and potential partners in order to break out of its current defensive position. The report highlighted, for instance, the softening of the US line toward China, a more differentiated approach in the Middle East after the Six Day War, a greater reliance on regional alliances to represent the interests of the US, Nixon and Kissinger?s reluctance to engage in an arms race, and the ?Vietnamization? of the Vietnam War. The analysis contained in the report displayed a high level of refinement in comparison to analysis produced in the 1950s; at the same time, however, this more differentiated type of analysis was unmistakably placed within a strict class-based understanding of international relations. The report portrayed the Nixon administration as concerned above all with representing the interests of the American ?monopoly bourgeoisie? and underscored the fundamental class nature of US foreign policy in warning that however differentiated the foreign policy of the US might become, it would in no way ?signif[y] the abandonment of the global-strategic objectives of US imperialism.?112 As the foreign relations of the GDR grew steadily in the 1960s, the increased involvement in international provided no shortage of material for expert analysis. Yet the GDR?s inability to fully engage in international relations as a normal state actor and its highly restricted range of foreign policy actions meant that the task of East German experts was not so much to ponder important tactical and strategic questions as passively to provide an account of how the actions of the other, more powerful states of the world might affect the position and interests of the GDR and how the GDR might respond. This meant that East German experts could, on outstanding issue after issue, clearly delineate the specific interests of the GDR, but could only do so within the established Marxist- 112 Ibid. 258 Leninist framework. In short, the GDR?s diplomatic isolation, which ensured a strong correlation between the actual conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations, effectively precluded any alternative understanding of international relations. This was particularly clear on the issue of unity within the Soviet Bloc, where the threat of isolation discussed in the report on the US strategy of peace was but one manifestation of a constant, overriding concern with bloc unity in light of the GDR?s extreme vulnerability stemming from ongoing non-recognition and national division. An IV Division report on the SED?s relations with other communist and workers? parties from 1961 was exemplary in its identification of the goals of inter-party relations as ?the strengthening of the unity of the socialist camp and the international workers? movement?the bolstering of friendship and cooperation with the CPSU...the bolstering of a common front against West German militarism and imperialism.?113 The acid test by which unity was measured was adherence to the Soviet line, at the time embodied by the resolutions of the XX and XXII Congresses of the CPSU and the international consultations in Moscow in 1957 and 1960. The report on inter-party relations noted approvingly: ?All these parties [i.e., of the Soviet Bloc] evaluated the XXII Congress at extraordinary meetings and drew concrete conclusions for their own work. It must be emphasized that these parties time and time again show themselves capable of creatively applying the experiences of the CPSU to conditions in their own countries. In this way, the parties have contributed to the comprehensive strengthening of the socialist camp.?114 In the conditions of diplomatic isolation, where the GDR?s foreign policy fortunes were completely dependent on the 113 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/31. 114 Ibid. 259 fortunes of the Soviet Bloc, the interests of the GDR and ?international socialism,? embodied by the Soviet Bloc, were viewed as one and the same. The flip side of the bloc unity coin was the GDR?s clear demarcation from those elements within the socialist movement that challenged the claim to ideological and political hegemony made by the GDR?s superpower patron and existential guarantor, the Soviet Union. The GDR?s hostile stance toward states like China and Yugoslavia which effectively asserted their ideological and political independence from the Soviet Union was one area in which the importance of bloc unity and the merging of the GDR?s specific interests with the Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations became particularly apparent. From the very the founding of the GDR, its position toward Yugoslavia had shifted in lock-step with the Soviet line and could not have been otherwise since the status of the fraught relationship between the USSR and Yugoslavia set the tone for GDR-Yugoslav relations. It was Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation in the 1950s, overcoming the divide created by the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, that resulted in Yugoslavia?s diplomatic recognition of the GDR in 1957?as well as West Germany?s first application of the Hallstein Doctrine in response. Yugoslavia?s position outside the Soviet Bloc and its skilled maneuvering between the socialist and capitalist worlds, however, represented a thorny issue for East German experts, who clearly recognized the benefits for the GDR of greater rapprochement between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Bloc yet also demonstrated constant wariness of Yugoslavia?s political and ideological independence and the debilitating effect it could have on socialist unity and, in turn, the position of the GDR. A MfAA report from 1962 reflected the complexity of the situation. The report?s authors noted with satisfaction that Yugoslavia was striving to improve its 260 relations with the Soviet Bloc as ?the Yugoslav leaders must increasingly take into account the movement of the international constellation of forces in favor of the socialist camp.?115 The possibility of improved USSR-Yugoslav relations, however, did not automatically result in improved relations between the GDR and Yugoslavia since Yugoslav leaders were most concerned with restoring their severed diplomatic relations with West Germany and were willing ?to sacrifice a great deal with respect to the GDR? to achieve that end.116 The report correspondingly claimed that, despite the improved relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union and other Soviet-Bloc states, ?the Yugoslav regime objectively supports the regime in Bonn in its efforts to exclude the GDR from the process to improve relations with the socialist bloc and to isolate it.?117 East German experts could now accurately identify the key interests of the GDR and the most important factors influencing GDR-Yugoslav relations. Yet, as a result of the GDR?s limited ability to actually shape those relations, East German experts could only passively highlight the importance of bloc unity in order to bolster the position of the vulnerable GDR vis-?-vis a Yugoslavia that had the potential to be an important ally, yet which also appeared susceptible to the blandishments offered by West Germany and other capitalist countries. While East German analysis on Yugoslavia was thus characterized by a certain ambivalence, vacillating as Yugoslavia?s relations with the Soviet Bloc vacillated, analysis of China in the 1960s was categorical. Despite the divergent outcome in expertise, the same dynamic underlay East German analysis in both cases?a strict concern with the importance of bloc unity for a vulnerable GDR that wielded little 115 PA AA, MfAA, A 17922. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid. 261 influence over the developments in either area that directly affected it. While the Yugoslavs showed themselves willing to cooperate with the Soviets in many areas, China?s frontal challenge to the Soviets? claim to political and ideological leadership of ?international socialism? offered no points of engagement for the dependent GDR and, correspondingly, was rejected in toto in expertise on the topic. With Sino-Soviet antagonism becoming public in 1960, clearly delineated support of the Soviet position and rejection of the Chinese position became imperative. By the time the split had become formalized in 1963/1964 with the rupture of party relations,118 East German analysis on China displayed the characteristic features of expertise in the 1960s: the pronounced ability to locate China-related issues in relation to the GDR?s own interests matched with limited capacity to actively shape relations. In 1964, for instance, the IV Division in an assessment for the Politburo described the goals of China?s leaders as follows: ?They are making desperate efforts in order to undermine the authority of the CPSU, to sow confusion and uncertainty in the international communist movement, and to gain widespread recognition for the position of Mao Zedong and they hope that the development of international events ? will confirm their line.?119 However, given the limited influence and latitude of the GDR on the issue, the IV Division could do little more than recommend: ?The principled ideological struggle against the views and policies of the leaders of the CP of China through public presentation of the policies of our party must be continued.?120 A report drafted by Hermann Axen?s Foreign Policy Commission in 1964 similarly ascertained that ?the divisive activities of the leadership of 118 For an excellent account that places the split in the context of Soviet and Chinese domestic politics, see Lorenz M. L?thi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); see 285-301 in particular for the final rupture in party relations. 119 PA AA, MfAA, A 17962. 120 Ibid. 262 the Chinese CP currently remain the main danger within the international communist movement,? which in turn threatened to weaken the position of the dependent GDR by removing a powerful potential ally; tellingly, however, the report could propose no active means to remedy the situation.121 The supreme strategic important attached to bloc unity by East German experts was given unambiguous expression in the face of the greatest crisis within the Soviet Bloc since the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Alexander Dub?ek?s leadership during the Prague Spring of 1968 put Czechoslovakia on a course for liberal democracy, which threatened fatally to undermine the cohesion of the Soviet Bloc through the loss of one its main members. Although troops of the East German National People?s Army did not take part in the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia on 21 August 1968, strategic considerations dictated SED leaders? enthusiastic support of the action. The emergence of a democracy based around ?socialism with a human face? in the heart of Soviet- dominated Central Europe would have had unpredictable consequences, certainly negative, for the exposed GDR and future of the Soviet Bloc in its entirety. For East German experts, the crushing of the Prague Spring therefore represented a case where the outcome of analysis was nearly pre-determined owing to the highly restricted range of foreign policy options available to the GDR. A joint APK-IV Division report on ?The International Situation and the Situation in the International Communist Movement after the actions of the Five Socialist States on 21 August 1968,? claimed that ?imperialism suffered a strategic setback as a result of these measures.?122 The report further asserted that the crushing of the ?counter-revolution? in Prague had strengthened the position of 121 Ibid. 122 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/12616. 263 international socialism, which?seen from the narrow perspective of the GDR that equated the Soviet Bloc with international socialism?was essentially true: ?The actions taken to secure a socialist order in the ?SSR have strengthened the socialist position in the international constellation of forces in the long run. However, temporary tactical difficulties in foreign policy as well as adverse effects on the unity and capacity for action of the international workers? movement and its allies cannot be ruled out [italics in original].?123 The reaction of various parties within the international communist movement toward the ?relief measures? of 21 August 1968, which were expounded in extensive detail in the report, again provided for East German experts a kind of acid test to measure adherence to the Soviet line within the larger concern with bloc unity. It was in this respect that the crushing of the Prague Spring had its greatest significance for East German experts: ?The process of differentiation within the international communist movement has been intensified by the events in the ?SSR and the actions of the five socialist states. On the one hand, Marxist-Leninist parties closed ranks around the CPSU; on the other, revisionist forces intensified their activities by a degree of magnitude. This situation has created the urgent necessity to intensify the principled debate on the fundamental questions of Marxism-Leninism and to refute revisionist views.?124 For East German experts, fully cognizant of the crucial importance of bloc unity for the dependent GDR, analysis of the crushing of the Prague Spring offered no platform for the expression of critical views, only the opportunity to assess how the events might affect the unity of ?international socialism,? upon which the GDR so strongly depended. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. 264 And if recognition of the crucial importance of bloc unity was not itself sufficient to prompt East German experts to acknowledge the ?necessity? of crushing the Prague Spring, the SED did not hesitate to undertake disciplinary measures in order to ensure conformity with the party line. Joachim Schulz, an employee of the IIB who worked as a lecturer in the institute?s International Law Division, voiced open criticism of the Warsaw Pact?s invasion of Czechoslovakia.125 For his deviation from the party line, Schulz received an official party reprimand at an assembly of the IIB, at which Paul Markowski as head of the IV Division was present, was stripped of his lectureship, which he never regained, and was demoted to the position of assistant. The reason the GDR was so dependent on the capability of the Soviet Bloc to act in unison on the international stage, which dictated support for steps like the crushing of the Prague Spring, lay in the fact of national division and its consequences. While the GDR?s weight within the Soviet Bloc was growing considerably and its relations with countries outside the Soviet Bloc were expanding (though still without attaining diplomatic recognition), East Germany in the 1960s still unambiguously remained ?the second German state? behind the FRG. The immediacy of the still-unresolved Deutschlandfrage abated with the end of the Second Berlin Crisis and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, but it retained immense significance for the GDR?the focus of concern simply shifted from securing the immediate survival of a separate East German state to how the German question shaped the GDR?s foreign policy prospects in 125 According to his own account, Schulz also came into conflict with the party on two other issues: assessment of the secret treaties concluded between the USSR and Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939 and 29 September 1939 and the rationale for demanding, in the context of Willi Stoph?s meeting with Willy Brandt in Kassel in 1970, 100 million DM as compensation for the damages caused by years of non- recognition. Joachim Schulz, ?Zur V?lkerrechtswissenschaft,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 169- 175. 265 connection with superordinate goal of finally achieving diplomatic recognition. The German question was another area where the GDR was not in a position actively to shape further developments as much as passively to observe and to react to actions taken by other states. Thus the German question was also an area where the lack of viable policy alternatives meant analysis took on above all a descriptive character, whereby experts clearly identified the fundamental features of the situation as well as potential positive and negative developments without being able to offer much in the way of alternative tactical or conceptual approaches. In 1961, in the midst of the Second Berlin Crisis and just a few months before the Berlin Wall was built, a report drafted by the MfAA noted that ?the common objective of the Western powers remains prevention of the emergence of a unified, peaceable, and democratic Germany? and claimed that the only thing preventing fulfillment of Western ?imperialists?? designs on Germany was the ?increasing predominance of the forces of socialism and democracy.?126 Underscoring the growing strength of ?socialism? in the abstract and its ?objective? role as a bulwark against ?imperialism? was a recurring feature in East German analysis, highlighted how the particular situation in which East Germany found itself uniquely corresponded to the dichotomous, Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. The report, after asserting that ?the strategic objective of US imperialism in the German question remains unchanged,? conceded that the new Kennedy administration might engage in a tactical re-orientation on the issue.127 The report?s conclusion bundled together two of the most characteristic features of East German foreign policy expertise in the 1960s: passive description of the issue, which 126 PA AA, MfAA, A 9606. 127 Ibid. 266 stemmed from the GDR?s inability to do much at all to shape the resolution of the question, and a resulting retreat to flat ideological platitudes. The analysis concluded: ?Our task consists in attentively tracking this development and in initiating corresponding steps at the appropriate time. Every change in the position of US imperialism in the German question, be it only of a tactical nature, provides us with new opportunities and starting points for action in our struggle against West German imperialism.?128 Analysis of the German question naturally included intensive coverage of the position and actions of West Germany itself. The ideological-dogmatic element was particularly prominent in this area since the inherent ideological hostility of the GDR toward its greatest rival combined with the FRG?s non-recognition of the GDR as well as the FRG?s ?presumption of exclusivity? (Ausschlie?lichkeitsanmassung), as GDR commentators disdainfully referred to the FRG?s claim to an exclusive mandate to represent the German nation, to give free rein to shrill ideological analysis. The FRG?s objective in regard to the GDR was depicted as nothing short of its eradication: ?In its policies toward the GDR, [the orientation of] the West German government continues to be based on the fundamental revanchist conception of weakening, wearing down, tearing apart, isolating, and finally eliminating the GDR.?129 This dynamic applied more broadly to East German expertise: generally the less contact the GDR maintained with a given country, the more rigidly ideological its analysis of that country tended to be; the converse was also true, but, until foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s, conditions generally favored the former. A MfAA report submitted to the APK in 1963 stated the default view of the FRG in the 1960s: ?From the first days of the 128 Ibid. 129 PA AA, MfAA, A 15727. 267 existence of the separatist West German state, the West German government has pursued a policy of the violent revision of the results of the Second World War, which finds theoretical expression in the presumption of exclusivity to be the sole representative of the German people within the territory of the former German Reich in its 1937 borders.?130 In relation both to the FRG and the conflict between socialist East and capitalist West, the construction of the Berlin Wall was viewed as a key turning point: ?In the struggle between socialism and imperialism and to secure peace, the measures taken by the German Democratic Republic on 13 August 1961 were an important caesura. They made clear the changed international constellation of forces in Germany and changed it further in favor of the GDR and the world socialist system.?131 East German experts continually understood the GDR?s foreign policy situation as one component of the larger clash between socialism and capitalism?it was not that the foreign policy interests of a single state actor were at stake but rather socialism in its entirety as social system. Due to the peculiar strategic situation faced by the GDR, no clear distinction could be drawn between the narrow realpolitical interests of the GDR and the ideological concerns of ?international socialism.? Realpolitical and ideological elements continually overlapped in analysis of the German question because the GDR?s experts were acutely aware of the inability of the GDR to effect change in the German question on its own and correspondingly viewed the support of its Soviet Bloc allies as indispensable: ?The GDR can wage a successful struggle against the Hallstein Doctrine only with the support of friendly states, particularly those of CMEA.?132 West Germany?s ?presumption of exclusivity? therefore was not understood simply as a challenge to the 130 PA AA, MfAA, A 15728. 131 PA AA, MfAA, A 15727. 132 PA AA, MfAA, A 15728. 268 GDR?s interests but also as a manifestation of the essential ?imperialistic? nature of the FRG, which for this reason threatened the entire socialist bloc, not just the GDR. A MfAA report submitted to the APK in 1965 identified the FRG?s ?presumption of exclusivity? as ?a main component of West Germany?s policy of revanchism,? which was aimed at both the Soviet Union and Poland in addition to the GDR: ?With its dogged refusal to recognize existing borders in Europe and to confirm in binding form the illegality and invalidity of the Treaty of Munich and with its appeal to an alleged homeland right (Recht auf Heimat), [the West German government] reveals that it has territorial claims that extend even further?. This policy is the main obstacle to rapprochement and to ensuring peace in Europe??133 In East German analysis of the Hallstein Doctrine, the specific challenge to the GDR?s interests posed by the doctrine was understood not just as a conflict between two states but rather within the broader context of the clash between socialist East and capitalist West. East Germany?s lack of opportunities to effect much change on the issue by itself facilitated an analytical rigidity that in turn reinforced East German experts? black-and-white understanding of foreign policy, where the strategic situation faced by the GDR was manifestly compatible with the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding that viewed international relations as the embodiment of the class struggle on the international stage. The flip side of the coin was the markedly less dogmatic view that prevailed in respect to the GDR?s relations with other states as part of the quest to ?break through? the Hallstein Doctrine and gain diplomatic recognition. The urgency with which the task of expanding the GDR?s foreign relations in order to bolster its position internationally was viewed fostered a type of ideational flexibility that was less willing to apply class-based 133 PA AA, MfAA, A 13482. 269 analysis to that large group of states, including countries as diverse as India, Sweden, and Egypt, where the GDR saw the possibility of successfully challenging West Germany?s claim to be the sole representative of the German people. What is more, the fact that the overwhelming majority of states in this category formally maintained a policy of neutrality, i.e. did not belong to either the socialist or capitalist bloc, provided a further disincentive to apply an unbending and strictly dichotomous approach to the topic. The GDR?s growing system of foreign policy expertise had a key role to play here because a shrewd approach to establishing and/or improving relations with foreign states depended upon gaining extensive knowledge of existing opportunities, which included analysis of the position of states with whom diplomatic relations might be established or whose actions could substantially influence the broader context in which the GDR had to operate. The result was a near-constant stream of estimates on various states? position on the German question. Shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Fundamental Questions Division of the MfAA compiled a list of the arguments proffered by non- socialist states for their refusal to take up diplomatic relations with the GDR. The reasons enumerated varied widely, but the common denominator was fear of the political and economic repercussions if West Germany were to make good on its threat, enunciated in the Hallstein Doctrine, to sever relations with any country that recognized the GDR. This was particularly apparent in the case of a country like Sukarno?s Indonesia, whose basic position toward the GDR was favorable and where the establishment of diplomatic relations was described as ?not a question of principle but rather a question of time.?134 Indonesia?s position was described as follows: ?Such a step currently does not serve 134 PA AA, MfAA, A 15779. 270 Indonesia?s interests, particularly in light of Indonesia?s close economic relations with West Germany and the consequences that would issue from the establishment of diplomatic relations. President Sukarno asserted he is personally ashamed that relations between Indonesia and the German Democratic Republic do not have a higher status since the government of the German Democratic Republic is much closer to Indonesia than West Germany.?135 The main motivation for a neutral country like Finland not to take up diplomatic relations with the GDR lay, in contrast, in the very maintenance of its position of neutrality. From the Finnish perspective, the German question could only be resolved by the great powers and Finnish involvement would violate its pledged position of neutrality. Its position in regard to the German question was formulated accordingly: ?Finland shares neither the view that two German states exist nor the view that the Federal Republic is the only German state. It operates on the assumption that the German question has not yet been resolved and, as long as it considers the question as still in a provisional phase, Finland will maintain relations of a provisional character with both German states.?136 In the numerous estimates completed on the position of other states on the German question in the 1960s, East German experts? pronounced tendency to fall back on simplistic ideological argumentation was mitigated by the fact that the GDR could not afford to be choosy in attempting to expand its foreign relations?opportunities had to be seized wherever they presented themselves. And because the Hallstein Doctrine stipulated that relations would be severed only in the case that official diplomatic relations were established with the GDR, the door was left open for the GDR to establish 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid. 271 and expand its relations with foreign countries in a bevy of forms short of full diplomatic recognition (e.g. trade representations and delegations, general consulates, agreements for technical cooperation, delegations of the Volkskammer, cultural exchanges). By mid- decade, the GDR had succeeded in doing just that, significantly expanding its relations in one form or another with numerous foreign states, including Egypt, Syria, Burma, Indonesia, Tanzania, Ceylon, Cyprus, Finland, Ghana, and Guinea. A MfAA report from 1965 highlighted the urgency attached to expanding relations with the non-socialist world: ?It is necessary to intensify in all areas the struggle for the gradual surmounting and final breach of the Hallstein Doctrine and to decide upon new concrete measures for the development of the GDR?s relations with non-socialist states.?137 The report?s authors called for ?rational use of the means at the disposal of the GDR? (referring above all to trade relations and the provision of credit), but also highlighted the necessity of coordinating its actions with its Soviet-Bloc allies: ?Overcoming the West German presumption of exclusivity demands that the GDR make new efforts in order to coordinate its own efforts in the struggle against the presumption of exclusivity with the socialist states and more effectively to make use of their potential.?138 The success or failure of the GDR?s attempts to breach the Hallstein Doctrine indeed depended much less upon the GDR?s own efforts than upon broader international relations developments over which it wielded little influence. This was particularly the case in respect to the GDR?s efforts at diplomatic recognition in the Middle East, ?the central focus of East German foreign policy in the 1960s.?139 Hostility toward Britain and 137 PA AA, MfAA, A 13482. 138 Ibid. 139 Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 278. 272 France as former colonial powers and general suspicion toward the West for its imperialist past, a broadly socialist orientation augmented by increasing cooperation with the Soviet Union from the time of the Suez Crisis, and, perhaps most importantly, a critical attitude toward West Germany on account of its relations with Israel combined to make a number of countries in the region, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq most prominently, amenable to East German overtures. Ten Arab states140 broke off diplomatic relations with West Germany following its recognition of Israel in 1965, which itself was prompted in part by one of East Germany?s greatest foreign policy triumphs of the 1960s: Egyptian President Nasser?s reception of Walter Ulbricht?s in Cairo with all the trappings of an official state visit.141 A MfAA reported commissioned by the APK identified Arab states? severing of diplomatic relations with the FRG as ?a significant foreign policy defeat for the West German government,? but did not view the act in isolation, seeing it rather as a setback to ?imperialist? designs in the Middle East as a whole: ?West German policy in the Middle East is a component part of imperialism?s total design, whose main goals are to weaken the anti-imperialist movement for national liberation in Arab countries through division, differentiation, and enticements as well as the fomentation of anti-communism and to prevent the implementation of further social transformations as well as overturning as far as possible the transformations that have been already been implemented.?142 The MfAA analysis noted, correctly as it would turn out, that the Arab states which had broken off relations with the FRG would not in turn take up diplomatic 140 The ten states were: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Sudan, Algeria, and Tunisia. 141 For a detailed account of Ulbricht?s visit to Egypt in the context of in-depth coverage of the GDR?s relations with Israel that is also excellent on East German-Arab relations, see Angelika Timm, Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern. Das gest?rte Verh?ltnis der DDR zu Zionismus und Staat Israel (Bonn: Bouvier, 1997), 184-188. 142 PA AA, MfAA, A 13482. 273 relations with the GDR. The report?s explanations of why Arab states would not to do so ranged from a sympathetic account of Egypt?s vulnerability to economic blackmail from the West (the ten Arab states had not severed their trade relations with the FRG) to contemptuous explication of the position of states like Saudi Arabia which refused to establish relations with communist states due to its ?class character?.143 Since the Arab states were not yet prepared to take the step of full normalization of their relations with the GDR, the report concluded that ?further prerequisites for advancement toward establishment of diplomatic relations must be created through the expansion of de facto relations in all areas where this corresponds to the interests of the GDR and the wishes of its partner [italics in original].?144 Significant progress in this area was in fact made in the following years, but was due much more to the correlation of interests between Arab states and the Soviet Bloc in the broader Cold War context than the GDR?s own efforts. The Soviet Bloc threw its full support behind the Arab states in the Six-Day War with Israel, which, paired with the Arab states? defeat in that war, increased their dependency and their orientation toward the Soviet Union. The Soviets, following West Germany?s resumption of diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia in 1968, pushed the Arab states to recognize the GDR, with both the USSR and the GDR offering substantial financial incentives. The coordinated efforts of the Soviets and the East Germans paid off in 1969 as Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Egypt (as well as Cambodia) took up official diplomatic relations with the GDR?the only significant breach of the Hallstein Doctrine before it was completely abandoned in the context of d?tente in the early 1970s. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid. 274 The analysis of the situation in the Middle East following 1965?by far the most promising region for the GDR?s efforts to expand its foreign relations?manifested a deftness that was clearly lacking in the 1950s and bespoke the greatly improved competence of East German experts. Greater differentiation and less ideological rigidity was on display, yet these features applied to specific topics without affecting the larger, relentlessly class-based framework in which individual topics were understood. Indeed, the very fact that change in the GDR?s relations with Middle Eastern states took place gradually and came about without fundamentally changing any of the basic features of the strategic situation facing the GDR ensured that greater analytical refinement largely remained restricted to isolated issues and had a negligible impact on the overall conceptual framework in which expertise was conducted. This was reflected above all in the fact that relations with ?the third world? were considered not only in respect to the GDR?s narrow interests in the struggle for diplomatic recognition but also as a key constitutive element in the superordinate global conflict between socialism and capitalism. The place of the developing world in relation to the competing blocs was introduced into the matrix of the GDR?s overlapping strategic and ideological concerns and in turn comprised one of the main pillars of the comprehensive conception of international relations enunciated by East German experts in the 1960s. The decisive impulse for inclusion of the developing world into East German experts? class-based understanding of international relations was provided by the Soviet line on the issue. Already at the XX Party Conference of the CPSU in 1956, Khrushchev spoke of the ?objectively anti-imperialist? character of national liberation movements in the developing world. The notion that the de-colonizing states of Asia and Africa 275 represented natural allies for the communist movement then received explicit and detailed formulation at the 1960 conference in Moscow that brought together representatives of 81 Communist parties from around the world. The declaration signed by the representatives of all the parties placed new emphasis on the importance of the developing world for the ?world-revolutionary process.? The numerous national liberation movements in Asia and Africa were described as ?objectively anti-imperialist? as a result of their colonial pasts, and the establishment of anti-imperialist ?national democracies? encompassing both ?proletarian? and ?bourgeois? elements was viewed as the natural outcome of the de-colonization process. The historical significance of ?the dissolution of the system of colonial slavery under the onslaught of the movement for national liberation? was portrayed as ?the most important phenomenon after the emergence of the socialist world system.?145 Most importantly, the Moscow Statement of 1960, issued coincidentally in the ?Year of Africa,? when de-colonization was reaching a peak, provided the conceptual foundation for the incorporation of the developing world into the ideological canon of communism. The foreign policy experts of the GDR, which at the time was just ?discovering? the significance of Asia and Africa in the course of expanding its foreign relations, subsequently enshrined the interpretation found in the Moscow Statement in their analysis of the GDR?s relations with the developing world. Thus shortly before the Moscow Conference, a MfAA report for the Politburo on the GDR?s relations with Africa proclaimed: ?The fact that, of 160 million people living under colonial oppression, 140 live in Africa alone and that the center of the struggle for colonial liberation has shifted from Asia to Africa proves the accuracy of N. S. Khrushchev?s conclusion ?that the 145 Cited in Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 40. 276 question of the complete abolition of the shameful colonial system is one of the most urgent questions we face.??146 A report from 1966 was based on the same assumption that the affairs of states in the developing world could only be understood in the context of the broader clash of systems between socialism and capitalism: ?The foreign relations of the GDR with African states are based on the essential realization that the alliance between socialist and non-aligned states represents a common, objective necessity of the anti- imperial struggle.?147 Accord to this view, events the developing world, where the movement for national liberation was viewed as ?objectively anti-imperialist,? only possessed significance insofar as they related to and impacted the international constellation of forces. While the notion of the international constellation of forces most commonly referred to the constellation of forces between socialism and capitalism, East German experts often examined applied the concept to developments within a given country. Class-based analysis of the local the constellation of forces between bourgeois, proletarian, and peasant elements was to illuminate whether that country might adopt ?the non-capitalist path of development.? This was the case, for example, in respect to Southeast Asia: ?The development of the constellation of class forces in countries in Southeast Asia was heavily influenced by the colonial powers. The colonial status of these countries had the consequence that industry was developed only minimally and in a lopsided manner. As a result, the working class in all of Southeast Asia is not only numerically relatively small in comparison to the population as a whole but also can be 146 PA AA, MfAA, A 17829. 147 PA AA, MfAA, C 470/72. 277 addressed only partially as a modern industrial proletariat.?148 While the focus of East German expertise on the developing world, matching the GDR?s concrete efforts to gain diplomatic recognition, was directed at states of Asia and Africa, Latin America was also incorporated into the class-based understanding of the process of de-colonization as objectively anti-imperialist, particularly on the example of the Cuban Revolution. A MfAA plan from the mid-1960s was submitted to the APK unambiguously reflected this understanding: ?Latin America is the most important sphere of influence of US imperialism. The continent occupies in political, economic, and strategic terms a prominent position in the plans of the US?. However, as a result of the development of national and social contradictions, particularly the central contradiction between on the one hand national interests and on the other exploitation by foreign capital and under the influence of the changing international constellation of forces, in the second half of the 1950s a new upsurge in the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle of the peoples of Latin America began?. Latin America has become an important front in the anti- imperialist struggle.?149 Expert analysis of Latin America, like that applied to developing countries in Africa and Asia, integrated the topic into experts? broader class-based approach to foreign policy that fused consideration of the GDR?s strategic interests with Marxist-Leninist precepts. Conclusion The formulation of a comprehensive conception of the place of the GDR in the international arena that clearly delineated East Germany?s specific foreign policy 148 PA AA, MfAA, A 17246. 149 PA AA, MfAA, A 13412. 278 interests was in fact the major achievement of the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise in the 1960s. In contrast to expertise produced in the 1950s, which typically possessed little analytical value and was generally characterized by a combination of shrill ideological overstatement, unfounded wishful thinking, a shortage of information that went much beyond basic facts, and the near total absence of analytical value, expertise produced in the 1960s investigated all the most pressing foreign policy issues facing the GDR?the relationship between the superpowers and the international Kr?fteverh?ltnis, the dynamics of Soviet Bloc unity, the complexities of the German question, the GDR?s prospects to ?break through? the Hallstein Doctrine, the ?objectively anti-imperialist? movement for national liberation?and in doing so enunciated a comprehensive, GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused East Germany?s clearly identified realpolitical interests with the class-based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations as defined by the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism. International relations was not simply the realm where the interests of different states collided but where the two antithetical systems of socio- economic organization battled for hegemony and where all developments possessed significance only insofar as they affected that battle. As a result of the peculiar strategic situation faced by East Germany?national division, lack of diplomatic recognition, dependency on the Soviet Union, and reliance on the Soviet Bloc?s unity of action?the GDR?s concrete foreign policy interests were uniquely compatible with Marxist-Leninist assumptions on foreign policy, which resulted in a fusion of the specific interests of the GDR with ideological precepts to a degree unmatched in other Soviet Bloc states, so much so that the two features at times became 279 indistinguishable. The enunciation of this comprehensive, GDR-specific conception of international relations by East German experts at this particular point in time, however, did not depend upon external as much as internal changes?the key features of the strategic situation faced by the GDR remained essentially unchanged from the 1950s to the 1960s, it was the structure and make-up of the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise that had changed dramatically. The outstanding feature of the institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise in the 1960s was the process of rationalization in service of synchronization. At the end of the 1950s, the SED, prompted by the stabilization of party and state as well as the growth of the GDR?s foreign relations activities, set out to re- shape the East German foreign policy apparatus to meet its needs as ruling party. By the end of the 1960s, this process had brought about the transformation of the hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination inherited from the 1950s into a well-organized, increasingly professional, and efficiently functioning system of foreign policy expertise where ?the leading role of the party? (i.e. subordination to the practical requirements and political-ideological goals of the SED) had been established. Certain Steps to improve coordination and maximize efficiency remained to be made, but East German expertise in the 1960s made a quantum leap forward in comparison with the situation in the 1950s. What is more, the East German foreign policy apparatus was now populated by those ?socialist foreign policy cadres? who had been so eagerly sought by the SED and who would be the standard figure within East German foreign policy expertise from this point on. These overwhelmingly young, capable cadres combined unswerving political- 280 ideological reliability with specialist knowledge and professional competency and it was they who, working within the GDR?s newly rationalized and coordinated foreign policy apparatus, were responsible for the formulation and entrenchment of a comprehensive conception of international relations within which the place and interests of the GDR were clearly identified and which provided a cohesive framework for all analytical activity. Rationalization in service of synchronization had overcome the institutional underdevelopment inherited from the 1950s and in the process had given rise to the emergence of expert analysis of international relations as a discrete activity within the East German foreign policy apparatus. The fact that East German foreign policy expertise had been made strictly subordinate to the GDR?s practical foreign policy goals severely constricted the latitude available to East German experts in their analysis, which was only compounded by the state of the GDR?s limited foreign relations in the 1960s. The range of foreign policy options available to the GDR was highly circumscribed by the fact of diplomatic isolation outside the Soviet Bloc engendered and enforced by the Hallstein Doctrine, which in turn resulted in the single-minded pursuit of diplomatic recognition and protracted East German dependency on the Soviet Union. Given the lack of viable options and the strict subordination of expertise, East German experts? conceptualization of international relations in the 1960s necessarily represented more a reflection and elucidation of pressing foreign policy concerns than an exploration of tactical, let alone strategic, alternatives. This situation, however, would not and could not remain static since the output of East German foreign policy expertise would continue to be shaped by two main factors: the institutional configuration of expertise, which set the parameters in which 281 analysis was conducted, and the GDR?s actual foreign relations, which supplied the object of analysis. As these two elements changed, so too would output. Following the radical transformation of East German foreign policy expertise in the 1960s by the process of rationalization in service of synchronization, the essential features of foreign policy expertise were more or less in place. Yet the foreign relations of the GDR were about to change dramatically. The output of East Germany?s experts would correspondingly change to reflect the new realities and the new conditions of East German foreign policy would make it possible for the latent tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy, between ideology and specialist knowledge that had emerged with the synchronization of East German foreign policy expertise in the 1960s to become manifest. 282 PART III Foreign Policy Expertise in the D?tente Era: Institutional Completion and the Zenith of the Marxist-Leninist Paradigm, 1968-1979 283 Chapter Five The Institutional Completion of East German Foreign Policy Expertise Introduction The East German foreign policy apparatus underwent a radical transformation in the 1960s as the process of rationalization in service of synchronization was successfully carried out. The underdevelopment inherited from the 1950s was largely overcome, which engendered the emergence of expert analysis as a discrete activity with a cohesive, standardized character. On this basis, East German experts articulated a comprehensive, GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused East Germany?s clearly identified realpolitical interests with the Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations as the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism. As a result of the conspicuous correlation that existed between the actual conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy?diplomatic isolation, national division, acute dependency on the USSR, pronounced reliance on the Soviet Bloc?and a strict dichotomous, class- based understanding of international relations, experts? GDR-specific conception in fact rested upon a strong objective basis. Yet as the GDR?s actual foreign relations changed, since they delivered the object of expert analysis of international relations, changes in expert output became that much more likely. And in the 1970s, the GDR?s foreign relations underwent their most radical change in East German history. The foreign policy normalization achieved in the first half of the decade dramatically altered the definitive geo-strategic features of the GDR?s foreign policy situation and opened the door for the latent critical tendency within East 284 German foreign policy expertise to come to the fore. Yet the manner in which foreign policy normalization was achieved?as part and parcel of the broader gains of ?international socialism? in the era of d?tente?delayed the advent of this development. In the meantime, the institutional configuration of East German foreign policy expertise, which made up the other essential element shaping expert output since it set the parameters in which analysis was conducted, also underwent considerable change. While the breadth and depth of expertise?s transformation in the 1960s would remain unparalleled, East German foreign policy expertise nevertheless continued to develop in such a way that would have an important influence on how East German experts understood the world and the GDR?s place in it. The Gleichschaltung ? la SED of East German foreign policy expertise that made up the central thrust of the process of rationalization in service of synchronization in the 1960s had gone a long way in transforming the hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination inherited from the 1950s into a well-organized, increasingly professional, and efficiently functioning set of institutions. At the end of the 1960s, however, the SED still viewed the process as incomplete and the ?the joining of theory with practice? (i.e. the complete subordination of expertise to the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the GDR?s dictatorially controlled foreign policy apparatus) as unfinished. Efforts to increase levels of standardization, professionalization, and centralization were correspondingly redoubled in order to take the final step in the creation of a uniform and efficient system of foreign policy expertise to match the vision and demands of SED leadership. 285 These ?systematization? efforts, as they were dubbed, did not mark a departure from previous efforts but rather their continuation and perfection. They represented the culmination of the long attempt, begun in the 1950s, to create an East German foreign policy expertise that fully corresponded to the SED leadership?s vision of the role and function of expertise. Yet the completion of the institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise in the 1970s, which established its conclusive structure and character, also marked the final entrenchment of the dynamic of tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy, between ideology and specialist knowledge, within foreign policy expertise. In the era of East Germany?s greatest foreign policy triumph, the seemingly irresistible march forward of ?international socialism? served to mute this tension and to reinforce the comprehensive conception of international relations developed by East German experts in the 1960s. The changing character of those relations and the context in which they were conducted, however, would in time provide the decisive impulse for a corresponding change in expert output. The ?Systematization? of East German Foreign Policy Expertise At the end of the 1960s, the ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise increasingly became the stated goal of the SED. Previous efforts had laid the necessary foundation in terms of rationalization and coordination; currents efforts now sought to weld together the individual parts into a comprehensive and smoothly functioning whole in order to seal the development of East German foreign policy expertise in line with the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership. The first of these systematizing efforts was directed at the Institute for International Relations (IIB), 286 which occupied a uniquely important position within the East German foreign policy apparatus as both the GDR?s main foreign policy ?cadre forge? and its leading site of foreign policy research, which entailed extensive interaction with both the MfAA and the IV Division as well as with other research institutes. Correspondingly, the IIB was at the center of a push to establish a ?system of administration for scientific research and instruction in the realm of foreign policy? begun in 1968. The initiative was consonant with the broader trend of centralization and ?scientification,? which received confirmation at the VII Party Congress of the SED in 1967, and was linked with passage of the Third Reform of Higher Education (Dritte Hochschulreform) in 1968, but above all represented a continuation of the pre-existing tendency within East German foreign policy expertise toward rationalization in service of subordination and ?joining theory with practice.? A meeting of Hermann Axen?s Foreign Policy Commission (APK) on 19 May 1968, at which Otto Winzer, minister of foreign affairs, Horst S?lle, minister of foreign trade, and Gerhard Hahn, deputy director of the IIB, were present, provided the initial impulse and direction for an ?analysis of the current situation in the area of scientific research and instruction in questions of foreign policy and foreign trade? and called for the MfAA in collaboration with the IIB and other relevant institutions to submit a plan of action by September of the same year.1 After an initial proposal was rejected by the APK on the basis of ?insufficient quality,? a reworked proposal, discussed at the APK?s meeting on 4 October, was approved and passed on for approval by the Secretariat.2 1 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/9. 2 Ibid. 287 The final version of the proposal approved by the Secretariat in its meeting on 27 October clearly detailed what benefits further centralization and standardization were to bring: The continued development of research and instruction in the realm of foreign policy is part of the socialist reform of higher education and secures the unity of research and instruction and strengthens class-based education on the basis of a practice-bound and well-founded Marxist-Leninist instruction. Research capacities in the realm of foreign policy will be effectively concentrated on the requirements of the foreign policy of the German Democratic Republic and closely bound with practice as a contribution to the achievement of a scientific manner of operating and as the point of departure for instruction on a high level. Proceeding from this set of objectives, institutional and conceptual fragmentation, irregular lines of subordination, and thematic duplication in foreign policy research as well as the fragmentation of foreign policy education and training and the resulting variations in effectiveness and quality will be overcome. In their entirety, foreign policy research, instruction, and continued education must be oriented in terms of content and organization around a scientific manner of operating that is timely and rational within the framework of a firmly established system.3 The drive for further centralization and rationalization was intended entirely to dispel fragmentation from the life of East German foreign policy research and instruction with the ultimate aim of creating a closer bond between ?theory and practice,? or a system of foreign policy research and instruction rationally organized and oriented exclusively around the GDR?s practical foreign policy goals. The IIB was designated the ?central institution? (Leiteinrichtung)4 around which foreign policy research and instruction capacities were to be concentrated through a dual 3 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ J IV 2/3A/1671. 4 The original proposal submitted to the Secretariat even envisaged changing the name of the IIB to Central Institute for International Relations in order to reflect its new status as central institution for foreign policy 288 process of horizontal consolidation and vertical integration. The number of region- specific research institutes (regionalwissenschaftliche Institute) attached to universities that dealt with foreign policy-relevant topics was reduced so as to avoid thematic overlap and to consolidate resources and personnel. It was in this respect that the systematizing initiative was most closely connected with the Third Reform of Higher Education as the reform abolished the remaining vestiges of the Humboldtian ideal5 of the unity of research and instruction in the service of a humanistic education in order completely to subordinate the now-separate fields to the goals of the SED. Under the reform, university Fakult?ten (departments) were abolished in favor of Sektionen (sections) and, in conjunction with the proposal approved by the Secretariat, five of the newly organized sections supplanted the previously existing ten region-specific research institutes and were incorporated into the new system of foreign policy research being established under the aegis of the IIB, each with its own clearly defined profile.6 The sections, since they were attached to universities, remained subordinate to the Ministry of Higher Education (and the status of the Afro-Asian Research Center of the German Academy of Sciences, which dealt with fundamental questions of the developing world in its entirety, remained unchanged), but the goal of central coordination of research through the IIB was to be served by direct incorporation of the Central Council for Asia, Africa, and Latin America research and instruction and was referred to as such in the proposal, but the decision was ultimately made to leave the name unchanged. Ibid. 5 For a discussion of application of the Humboldtian ideal to German academic life prior to the Cold War, see R?diger vom Bruch, ?A Slow Farewell to Humboldt? Stages in the History of German Universities, 1810-1945,? in German Universities Past and Future: Crisis or Renewal?, ed. Mitchell G. Ash (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1997), 3-27. 6 The five were: the Section Asia Studies of the Humboldt University Berlin, the Section Middle East and Africa Studies of the Karl Marx University Leipzig, the Section Latin America Studies of the University of Rostock, the Section Northern Europe Studies of the Ernst Moritz Arndt University Greifswald, and the Section Orient and Antiquity Studies of the Martin Luther University Halle. 289 Studies (ZENTRAAL),7 ?the coordinating organ that encompasses all branches of Asia, Africa, and Latin America studies [italics in original],? as the Secretariat resolution put it, into the IIB.8 This move also entailed the MfAA replacing the Ministry for Higher Education as the organ to which ZENTRAAL was subordinate.9 The increase in the IIB?s direct influence over the newly consolidated region- specific research institutes made up just one half of the vertical integration of foreign policy research around the IIB as central institution; the other was an increase in the MfAA?s direct influence over the IIB in particular and foreign policy research in general. The stated goal of the Secretariat resolution was to shape research to meet ?the requirements of foreign policy,? which necessitated that the MfAA exercise a continual influence over the research activities of the IIB and the other relevant institutions. The resolution stated plainly: ?The MfAA plans, directs, coordinates, and manages in accord with the resolutions of the Council of Ministers foreign policy research and region- specific research?. The research plans of the central institute [i.e. the IIB] and ZENTRAAL are coordinated with the annual research plans of the MfAA, deliberated upon in the Collegium of the MfAA, and confirmed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.?10 The goal of foreign policy research coordination was served by the activities of two 7 Lothar Rathman, the official head of the council, and the head of the IIB were jointly responsible for administering ZENTRAAL. The council was created in 1966 to coordinate East German universities? research on the developing world to serve the foreign policy interests of the GDR. As Renate W?nsche, head of the IIB?s division for Asia, Africa, and Latin America from 1973 and deputy chairwoman of ZENTRAAL has put it: ?Foreign policy practice was supposed to be able directly to use the results of research on developing countries and to influence its basic orientation correspondingly.? Renate W?nsche, ?Das IIB und der ZENTRAAL,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 181-185. 8 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1671. 9 The Secretariat resolution stipulated that the subordination of the Institute for Intensive Language Training in Brandenburg-Plaue also be switched from the Ministry for Higher Education to the MfAA so that the institute could better fulfill its designated purpose of providing intensive language instruction for foreign policy cadres. Ibid. 10 Ibid. 290 councils. The first was the Scientific Council (Wissenschaftlicher Rat) of the IIB, which brought together leading representatives of the IIB and the MfAA and thereby ensured the MfAA?s intimate involvement in the most important affairs of the IIB; the second was the Council for Foreign Policy Research (Rat f?r au?enpolitische Forschung), which was created at this time as a direct result of the initiative11 and which brought together leading representatives of not only the IIB and MfAA but also nearly all other foreign policy- research institutions12 in order to coordinate foreign policy research GDR-wide under the chairmanship of the head of the IIB. It was also precisely at this time that the IIB underwent a change in leadership. Herbert Kr?ger, who had led the IIB since its creation in 1964, was demoted to the position of deputy director while Gerhard Hahn, hitherto deputy director, was elevated to the position of director. The leadership swap came about because Kr?ger ?no longer lived up to? the new requirements placed upon the IIB by the systematization process, particularly because ?in recent years and especially in the past few months he ha[d] made a series of serious political mistakes in public appearances.?13 Hahn, meanwhile, was described as ?a politically reliable and qualified scientist.?14 Hahn?s replacement of Kr?ger as director of the IIB was in fact consonant with the general trend within East German foreign policy expertise toward promotion of younger, expertly trained cadres in place of older cadres who lacked specialist training in foreign policy. Kr?ger, who was 57 11 The original Secretariat resolution did not stipulate the formation of the Council for Foreign Policy Research; the stipulation rather was contained in the Council of Ministers resolution from March 1969, which formally made the provisions of the resolution binding. BArch, DC 20/ I/4/1942. 12 The heads of the following institutions were members of the council: the five region-specific university sections, ZENTRAAL, the Afro-Asian Research Center of the German Academy of Sciences, the Scientific Council of the Department of the International Labor Movement of the Institute for Social Sciences, the German Institute for Contemporary History, and the Institute for Intensive Language Training in Brandenburg-Plaue. 13 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1827. 14 Ibid. 291 at the time of his demotion, had a specialist training in law, not foreign policy, while Hahn, who was just 40 years old when he was appointed head of the IIB, gained his doctorate from the IIB in 1962 and his Habilitation (a type of second, more advanced doctorate) in 1966. Hahn thus matched perfectly the profile of the ?socialist foreign policy cadres? sought so zealously?and successfully?by the SED in the 1960s and represented a natural choice for the directorship of the IIB, which he would lead, barring his time as ambassador to Yugoslavia in 1977-1982, until the fall of the Berlin Wall. The final, key step taken in order to bolster the new ?systematic? character of foreign policy research in the GDR was the creation of a central research plan covering an interval of five years. The first Perspektivplan for foreign policy research, which encompassed the years 1971-1975, was compiled in July 1970 both as a consequence of the 1968 Secretariat resolution and as part of the broader process underway to systematize social scientific research in the GDR in its entirety.15 The plan was drafted jointly by the MfAA and the IIB and received the stamp of approval of the heads of the IV Division (Paul Markowski), the APK (Hermann Axen), and the Sciences Division (Johannes H?rnig) as well. The reasons given to substantiate the centrally drafted and supervised plan underscored how the plan was perceived as necessary to guarantee the 15 The October 1968 Politburo resolution that initiated the systematization of the ?Marxist-Leninist social sciences in the GDR,? which formed the broader context in which the systematization of foreign policy research was carried out, depicted the need for the process in the following manner: ?It is imperative that the social system of socialism as a whole and in its component systems be pervaded by science, that corresponding models for the planning and direction of social processes be developed, and that all workers be continually familiarized with the new aspects of social development and be enabled to participate actively in the formation of socialist society. It is necessary that the research and education of social scientists are oriented toward the goals of the future and that capacities are employed so that the greatest benefit for socialist society is obtained. In this process, an increase in the quality of research represents an essential precondition for higher-quality results in education and instruction.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1334. 292 larger goal of complete subordination of foreign policy research to the GDR?s practical foreign policy goals: The conceptual orientation, the process of formulation, and the provisional and final results of individual research projects must satisfy the demand for a maximal increase of the social benefit of foreign policy research. The heads of the scientific collectives need to ensure that research serves to fulfill the main foreign policy objectives of the German Democratic Republic. For this reason, all capacities and resources must be employed in the period 1971-1975 toward the following uniform research goal: ?Analysis and prognosis of the international constellation of forces, of the developmental tendencies and developmental prospects of international relations, of international politics, and of international law in the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism in the 1970s and the resultant tasks for the foreign policy of the GDR? [italics in original].16 In particular, foreign policy research as directed by the new central plan was explicitly called upon to produce results that ?secure such a theoretical manner of operating in the analysis and prognosis of developmental tendencies of international relations and the international constellation of forces as is required by praxis? and that ?identify points of contact and include concrete suggestions for the formation of policy options in foreign policy decision-making in the interest of realizing the fundamental aims of the foreign policy of the GDR.?17 The influence of the MfAA and the IV Division over the research agenda of the IIB and other research institutes had grown steadily in the course of the 1960s as the synchronization of foreign policy research and operative institutions progressed apace. It was not just that the MfAA and the IV Division as the leading operative institutions set the general orientation or designated specific topics for individual research projects, it 16 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1455 and 1456. 17 Ibid. 293 was rather that research topics were so closely attuned to the concrete concerns of those institutions that, combined with the predominant position of the Marxist-Leninist paradigm in foreign policy expertise, the conclusions of research projects were heavily influenced in advance. The creation of a central foreign policy research plan raised the influence of the MfAA and the IV Division even further over the newly ?centralized system of foreign policy research? as research now became even more minutely planned and thoroughly coordinated in the drive for systematization. In the 1971-1975 plan, ten broad ?theme-complexes? supplied a specific research topic to be covered that corresponded to a main area of East German foreign policy activity and demonstrated the unique fusion of Marxist-Leninist presuppositions with the realpolitical interests of the GDR at the center of East German foreign policy expertise. For instance, the first two of the ten theme-complexes were: ?The system of international relations under the conditions of the class conflict between socialism and imperialism? and ?Analysis of the main factors in the continued strengthening of the socialist states of Europe, the consolidation of unity and solidarity of the community of socialist states, and the resultant effects on the international constellation of forces.?18 Each theme complex was in turn sub-divided into several, more specific topics and an individual at the IIB was made responsible for coordinating research on a given complex. Institutions, whether East German (e.g. the Northern Europe Studies Section of the University of Greifswald) or Soviet (e.g. IMEMO), with which research was to be coordinated were also 18 Further examples include: ?Main developments in the societal development of the national-revolutionary liberation movement. The effects of the political and socio-economic development of Afro-Asian and Latin American states on the international constellation of forces and the system of international relations; the influence of socialism on these processes and the struggle against the neo-colonial strategy of imperialism? and ?the tasks of the foreign policy of the GDR in the struggle against West German imperialism and the foreign policy strategy and tactics of the Federal Republic in the 1970s.? Ibid. 294 designated. The model of a centrally directed research plan, inaugurated by the 1971- 1975 Perspektivplan for foreign policy research, would subsequently become a permanent feature of the East German foreign policy apparatus that made an important contribution to sustaining the fusion of ?theory and practice.? For the years 1976-1980, foreign policy research was integrated into the mammoth ?Central Research Plan of the Marxist-Leninist Social Sciences,? which, as the name suggested, encompassed all social-scientific research in the GDR.19 The plan specifically relating to foreign policy research for the years 1976-1980 included therein was far more extensive in both quantity and quality than the 1971-1975 Perspektivplan as the number of designated research topics ballooned and the specificity with which topics were identified increased dramatically. The trend subsequently continued with the 1981-1985 central research plan, which set a new standard in terms of scope and detail.20 The sum total of the efforts aimed at synchronizing foreign policy research in the late 1960s?in particular the establishment of an administrative system structured around 19 The draft of the plan submitted to the Politburo identified the main objective of foreign policy research for the plan period: ?Research in the realm of international development and foreign policy has the goal of contributing to the investigation of new developments and real processes in the continued transformation of the international constellation of forces in favor of socialism in its historical interrelations and to elucidation of means of solving current problems of foreign policy practice.? The three broad areas into which foreign policy research was divided directly reflected the prevailing Marxist-Leninist conceptualization of GDR foreign policy: ?socialism?s growing influence in the process of world revolution and on international relations,? ?the continued deepening of the general crisis of capitalism? and the intensification of contradictions and the increasing instability of state-monopoly capitalism,? and ?fundamental questions of socio-economic and societal development in the states of Asia, Africa, and Latin America and their role in the process of world revolution.? Foreign policy research?s role as a weapon of ideological struggle was also unambiguous: ?An effective offensive must be carried out against reactionary bourgeois and opportunistic views of international relations as well as against the anti-socialist, anti-Soviet, and great power-chauvinistic ideology and policy of Maoism.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1895. 20 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/2356 and 2357. The central research plans for 1976-1980 and 1981- 1985 became so comprehensive that simply compiling them demanded a great amount of time, work, and coordination between different institutions. Complying with the plans and supervising their fulfillment represented similarly arduous tasks as specially made Erf?llungsberichte (fulfillment reports) for each ?Z- project? (a research project contained in the central research plan, with ?Z? being derived from the German Zentralforschungsplan) had to be submitted to the Sciences Division, the body responsible for issuing the plans and supervising their fulfillment. See, e.g., SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/7466, DY 30/8208, DY 30/8240, DY 30/8296, DY 30/8297, DY 30/8300, DY 30/8301. 295 the IIB as Leitinstitut, the formation of the Council for Foreign Policy Research, and the creation of a central research plan21?built upon the rationalization realized in the 1960s to attain a new level of subordination of research to the needs of operative institutions. The repeated avowal of the need to systematize foreign policy research was much more than just rhetoric; concrete measures were taken to realize the vision of a smoothly operating system where research institutions and operative institutions worked together to achieve the common end of fulfilling the GDR?s centrally dictated foreign policy goals. The two types of institutions performed different enough functions, but were linked in a symbiotic relationship?now more than ever in the wake of systematization efforts?by the unity of purpose created and sustained by unambiguous subordination to the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the ruling SED within the dictatorial East German party-state. Just as the push for systematization based on the 1968 Secretariat resolution was underway, the MfAA?s assessment of the process spoke to the symbiotic nature of the relationship between foreign policy research and practice: ?[These steps] guarantee the central designation of complex research topics oriented toward our areas of focus and corresponding to the real requirements of the foreign policy of the GDR for the entire scope of research in the realm of foreign policy?. Through its clear lines of direction and coordination, [the new system] facilitates the necessary reciprocal relationship between science and practice.?22 21 The IIB?s role as Leitinstitut in the GDR?s system of foreign policy research and the responsibility of the newly created Council for Foreign Policy Research for ?the formulation and fulfillment of the Perspektivplan for scientific research in the realm of foreign policy, international law, and region-specific studies? were confirmed in the new statute given to the DASR, where the IIB was housed, in 1969. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/20/133. 22 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1671. 296 Systematization and Foreign Policy Training The systematization of research was to be accompanied by the systematization of foreign policy instruction in order to guarantee the complete fusion of ?theory and practice? within the East German foreign policy apparatus. To this end, the Secretariat resolution bolstered the position of the IIB as the GDR?s leading foreign policy ?cadre forge? and sought to bring about a complete rationalization of the GDR?s system of foreign policy instruction that mirrored the efforts made in the realm of research in the context of creating a ?uniform system of research and instruction in the realm of foreign policy.?23 The five region-specific research institutes attached to universities had a role to play herein by training, in accord with each institute?s specialization, regional experts for employment in a range of institutions, such as the Ministry of Culture or the State Radio Committee, where they could put their highly specialized knowledge to productive use in support of a given institution?s specific set of objectives. The lion?s share of responsibility for training foreign policy cadres, however, remained with the IIB as an extremely large part of the demand for foreign policy cadres in the GDR was met by graduates of the IIB (although a number of East German cadres still were trained at MGIMO, the Soviet Union?s main training site for foreign policy cadres, as well as other East German institutions). Foreign policy instruction at the IIB, despite the efforts made throughout the decade, by the end of the 1960s still did not fully match the SED?s vision of a rationalized system of instruction fully oriented toward the practical foreign policy needs of the GDR. The two-year postgraduate course of study, which had been introduced in 1963 and was intended to replace the existing four-year course of study, was viewed as 23 Ibid. 297 early as 1965 as an unsuitable vehicle to train foreign policy cadres and little more than an ?interim solution? since it was a course of supplementary study (participants had already gained a degree elsewhere in another field) and ?not part of a self-contained course of study.?24 The 1968 Secretariat resolution correspondingly spoke of the need ?to configure anew the content and methods of instruction and education.?25 The result was the abolition of the two-year course of study, which was convened for the last time in March 1970,26 and its replacement by a comprehensive five-year course of study, which unlike the two-year course it replaced was treated as a stand-alone, not supplementary, course of study. The new five-year course of study in terms of form and content borrowed significantly from the previously existing four-year course of study (convened for the last time in September 1967), but the prevailing concern with rationalization and practical utility meant that each phase of instruction was even more minutely planned and keyed to the needs of the MfAA and other operative institutions than previously. The now-characteristic dual emphasis on Marxism-Leninism and specialist knowledge was fully in evidence in the new offering, which was divided into three parts: instruction in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (Grundstudium); general instruction in foreign policy (au?enpolitisches Fachstudium), which was supposed to ?build upon the study of the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism? and to ?apply the knowledge gained thereby? to international relations; and regional specialization (au?enpolitisches Spezialstudium) to produce region- and country-specific experts tailored to ?the future function of 24 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1184. 25 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1671. 26 For an account of the last two-year postgraduate course from a participant who would go on to become an important figure in East German foreign policy expertise, see Helmut Ettinger, ?Der letzte Zweijahreslehrgang,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 65-69. 298 graduates? at the MfAA or other institutions of the East German foreign policy apparatus.27 In accord with the drive to produce regional experts, great emphasis was also placed on language instruction, the longtime b?te noire of foreign policy expertise in the GDR: students of the new five-year course at the IIB were required to study three foreign languages, either three ?world languages? (i.e. Russian, English, French, Spanish, and Arabic) or two world languages and one language specific to the student?s area of specialization, whereby the first foreign language was required to be Russian;28 students were also required to demonstrate their fluency in each language through mandatory proficiency exams, which were gradated according to the language?s relevance for students? specialization.29 The five-year course of study at the IIB, which was convened for the first time in September 1970 with 40 participants,30 would remain the main vehicle of foreign policy instruction in the GDR for the remainder of the state?s existence.31 In this time, approximately 90 percent of East German foreign policy cadres would go through the IIB.32 As was the case with research, the systematization of foreign policy instruction was to be fostered by vertical integration centered around the IIB, which served as the main 27 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1671. 28 Language instruction at the IIB was limited to the ?world languages? specified above; instruction in other foreign languages was provided at MGIMO in Moscow. 29 The language requirement, either before the first five-year course was convened or soon thereafter, was reduced to the study of two foreign languages. 30 PA AA, MfAA, C 5828. The program for the first five-year course of study drafted by the IIB itself, which goes into far greater detail on the features of instruction presented in the Secretariat resolution, highlighted the significance of the new course for fulfillment of the IIB?s mission: ?[With the convening of the first five-year course] the transition to a new stage in realization of the institute?s objectives as principal bearer of foreign policy instruction will be completed.? 31 For participants? accounts of the five-year course of study, see Jochen Franzke and Lutz Kleinw?chter, ?Das f?nfj?hrige Au?enpolitikstudium,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 71-79; and Wolfram Adolphi, ?F?nf-Jahres-Studium Au?enpolitik,? in ibid., 81-88. 32 Benno-Eide Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR 1976-1989. Strategien und Grenzen (Paderborn: Sch?nigh, 1999), 105n343. 299 pivot in the system by virtue of its position between the MfAA, to which it remained subordinate, and the region-specific and other research institutes, which were made subordinate to it. The new ?system? was therefore meant to facilitate the smooth flow of authority and directives from top to bottom and to guarantee foreign policy instruction in complete conformity with the needs of the MfAA and the other operative foreign policy institutions of the GDR, such as the IV Division. The 1968 Secretariat resolution and the 1969 Council of Ministers resolution33 that formally made its provisions binding capped the long period of construction, begun in the late 1940s, of a system of foreign policy instruction in the GDR that fully ?joined theory with practice,? that is, completed the subordination of instruction to the political, ideological, and operational goals of the GDR?s dictatorially controlled foreign policy apparatus. By the early 1970s, the essential features of foreign policy instruction in the GDR were in place and the subsequent two decades would bring nothing more than minor changes. The most significant change would come rather in the output of experts trained within this system, which with its dual emphasis on Marxism-Leninism and specialist knowledge created an inherent, if still latent, tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy. The Consolidation of ?Imperialism Research? The 1968 Secretariat resolution, despite its systematizing aspirations, clearly fell short of comprehensively revamping foreign policy research in the GDR as it completely passed over the two East German institutions engaged in ?West expertise? (i.e. expertise concerned primarily with West Germany and secondarily with the capitalist West): the German Institute for Contemporary History (DIZ) and the German Economic Institute 33 BArch, DC 20/I/4/1942. 300 (DWI). The failure to include the two institutes in the reform can be attributed at least in part to the peculiar position occupied by the DIZ and the DWI within East Germany?s expert landscape. First, proper foreign policy research and analysis did not belong to the original objectives of either institution but only became a main area of activity after the profile of each had been extensively re-worked in the course of the 1950s and 1960s (the DIZ had begun as a center for documentation and propaganda and the DWI as a research institute dealing exclusively with economics). Second, the idiosyncratic nature of East Germany?s relationship with West Germany and the latter?s unique importance for the international relations of the GDR had for a long time rendered research and analysis of West Germany a rather amorphously defined undertaking as the SED leadership grappled with how best to approach the very thorny matter of West Germany and the GDR?s position toward it. The SED?s vacillation between an ?all-German? orientation and unabashed affirmation of the separate, socialist character of East Germany, which resulted in not insignificant measure from the ambiguity of the Soviet position on the GDR in its broader Cold War calculus, particularly in the 1950s, had significant consequences for how West expertise was understood and practiced since, as a subordinate element within the broader foreign policy apparatus, the orientation of West expertise was dependent on what function(s) the SED wanted it to fulfill. Was expertise on West Germany to be nothing but another instrument of day-to-day operative policy toward West Germany and the West or was it also to be a ?scientific? tool of longer-term analysis and prognostication, as was increasingly the case with foreign policy expertise in the GDR as a whole? The development of the DIZ and DWI in the 1960s largely resolved this question in favor of the latter option. As the SED conclusively abandoned all 301 elements of an ?all-German? orientation and vehemently asserted the status of the GDR as an independent, socialist state behind the security provided by the Berlin Wall, the DIZ and DWI were subjected to the same type of rationalization in service of synchronization as all the other institutions comprising the East German system of foreign policy expertise, which entailed ?scientifying? expertise on West Germany and promoting its analytical, prognostic function. As was the case with the IIB and other expert institutions, rationalization in the 1960s laid the groundwork for the ?systematization? of the work and performance of the DIZ and DWI that would be implemented starting in the late 1960s and extending into the 1970s. The particular importance and sensitivity with which expertise on West Germany was invested as a result of the GDR?s peculiar relationship with the FRG would by no means disappear in the process of systematization; rather, the peculiar character of the GDR-FRG problematic would persist in the realm of West expertise even as the push for systematization would effect far-reaching institutional changes. The legacy of rationalization in service of operational and ideological subordination as carried out at the DIZ and DWI in the 1960s was mixed. Dramatic changes and frequent interventions on the part of party authorities had been required, but a high level of institutional standardization paired with thoroughgoing politicization and ideologization had been established at each institute after mid-decade?the ?leading role of the party? was thoroughly realized at both institutes. However, the process of rationalization had been accompanied by a reworking of each institute?s profile that included in both cases a significant broadening of responsibilities. The responsibilities of the DIZ under the leadership of Stefan Doernberg (from 1962) expanded from external propaganda and 302 internal documentation to include analytical research on West Germany and the West in the realm of contemporary history (i.e. from 1945); the scope of research at the DWI had likewise expanded from a narrow focus on economics in West Germany and the West to include investigation of political and ideological issues in accord with its new mission for the ?investigation and presentation of the development of state-monopoly capitalism in West Germany in its entirety?34 following the re-vamping of the institute under the leadership of Lutz Maier (from 1965). The process of rationalization thus actually created the need for rationalization where none had existed before since expansion of the two institutes? responsibilities resulted in overlapping competencies and thematic duplication. Added to this was the still somewhat amorphous institutional position of West expertise within the broader East German foreign policy expertise landscape as a result of the ambiguity that had earlier surrounded West expertise as an enterprise and its function(s) in the GDR?a simple tool of propaganda and day-to-day policy or instrument of ?scientific? analysis and prognostication. While the decision to render expertise on West Germany and the West a clearly defined field of activity capable of providing a ?scientific? foundation for operative policy (joining ?theory with practice,? as had been done with non-West foreign policy expertise) had indeed been made in the process of rationalization in the 1960s, the fact that this process was set in motion later for West expertise than for non-West expertise meant that the institutionalization and ?scientification? of West expertise lagged somewhat behind. Correspondingly, the disentanglement of expertise on West Germany and the West from its earlier non- ?scientific? propagandistic and operative functions to become a clearly demarcated ?scientific? undertaking concerned with expert analysis and prognostication was not as 34 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1216. 303 far advanced. This condition combined with the muddle of overlapping competencies and thematic duplication between the DIZ and DWI meant that, given the broader push for systematization at the turn of the 1960s, the need for further efforts at rationalization was particularly pronounced at the DIZ and the DWI, the leading institutions dealing in ?West expertise.? The push for the further rationalization and systematization of West expertise was carried out nearly simultaneously with the push for the systematization of foreign policy expertise discussed above, and with good reason: both were the result of a broader initiative to systematize the ?Marxist-Leninist social sciences? in the GDR in their entirety. The key difference was that by late 1968, when the push was started, foreign policy expertise (i.e. as practiced at the IIB) was treated as a discrete field of activity and its systematization was implemented separately while the West expertise practiced by the DIZ and DWI was still lumped together with disciplines like Marx and Engels research and sociology in the general category of social sciences, which provided the context for its systematization. It was on this backdrop that Kurt Hager, head of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee, sounded the starting shot for the systematization of all social-scientific research in the GDR. Hager argued that the ?intensification of the ideological struggle between socialism and imperialism? placed new demands on the social sciences: ?Under the current conditions of struggle, the social sciences can only live up to their growing importance if research in all disciplines is concentrated in a consequent manner and teamwork is increased, if great efforts are undertaken to improve teaching and instruction and to apply more effective forms of organization, planning, and direction. It is precisely on this front of the class struggle that no shortcomings, no 304 mediocrity, no self-satisfaction whatsoever may be tolerated [italics in original].?35 In order to ensure the social sciences in the GDR met the demands voiced by Hager, the Politburo in October 1968, the same month the Secretariat passed its resolution on the IIB and foreign policy research, approved a proposal drafted by Hager and his Ideological Commission in collaboration with H?rnig?s Sciences Division that brought far-reaching changes to social-scientific research in the GDR. The concrete measures taken echoed those taken to systematize foreign policy research around the IIB as central institute; the situation only differed insofar as the DIZ and DWI were just two institutions affected in the implementation of a much larger initiative while the IIB had essentially been the sole object of the 1968 Secretariat resolution. First, the resolution stipulated that all research within a given field had to be centrally coordinated. The injunction that ?capable research collectives? be formed provided the impulse for the subsequent formation of a series of R?te, or councils, to fulfill this coordinating function that were placed under the chairmanship of designated Leitinstitute, or central institutes.36 A Rat f?r Imperialismusforschung, or Council for Imperialism Research, was created to coordinate all research on ?state-monopoly capitalism,? focusing particularly on West Germany but also encompassing ?imperialism? (i.e. the capitalist West) as a whole. The DWI was named central institute for research on ?state-monopoly capitalism in West Germany and in the systematic confrontation with West German imperialism,?37 yet the newly created Council for 35 SAMPO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1334. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. It appears that the DWI?s designation as central institute for research on ?imperialism? entailed a re- shuffling of the party and state bodies to which it was subordinate: the former switched from the Sciences Division to the West Division and the latter from the Ministry for Higher Education to the State Secretariat for West German Questions. However, the Sciences Division, as the responsible party organ for all the social sciences, maintained a certain influence over the work of the DWI. 305 Imperialism Research was placed under the chairmanship of the Department of Imperialism Research of the Institute for the Social Sciences. The Politburo resolution also stipulated, as the Secretariat resolution on foreign policy research at the IIB had, that all social-scientific institutions of the GDR were to draft long-term research plans covering the years 1971-1975. The Council for Imperialism Research and the sundry other councils set up to coordinate research in other fields were likewise obligated to draft their own five-year research plans to prevent duplication in the selection of research topics and to foster joint projects between the various institutions that were under the councils? aegis. All five-year research plans had to be submitted to the relevant division of the Central Committee for approval (e.g. the Council for Imperialism Research was required to gain the approval of the West Division for its research plan). The Perspektivpl?ne drafted by individual institutes for the years 1971-1975 were a key step in the establishment of thoroughgoing central coordination of all social-scientific research (including that of the DIZ and DWI) and lay the groundwork for the next step in the process: the formulation of the mammoth and far more comprehensive Central Research Plan of 1976-1980, which encompassed non-West expertise foreign policy research as well after the IIB and the Council for Foreign Policy Research had had their own, separate Perspektivpl?ne for 1971-1975. Michael Klein has described the creation of central research plans in the wake of the VIII Party Congress in 1971 as evidence of the renewed emphasis on ?rationalization (Versachlichung) of working methods and expansion of functionaries? specialist qualifications.?38 38 Michael Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft der DDR in seiner Gr?ndungsphase 1971 bis 1974 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999), 67-68. 306 The Politburo resolution on the social sciences thus made significant progress in reducing the peculiarity of the position occupied by West expertise in the GDR, yet the resolution?s wide-ranging concern with the social sciences in their entirety also meant that a number of irregularities went unaddressed. The resolution lent the position and profile of the DWI new clarity by designating it central institute for imperialism research, but the exact function and profile of the DIZ?as well as its position vis-?-vis the DWI? remained rather poorly defined. The DIZ became, alongside the DWI and the Department of Imperialism Research of the Institute for the Social Sciences, a central member of the DWI-led Council for Imperialism Research and was integrated into the new structure established for the central coordination of research on ?imperialism? based around the DWI as central institute. As for the profile and responsibilities of the DIZ itself, the institute at the initiative of the Politburo resolution was to become a ?center for political- ideological information with its own research output in the framework of imperialism research.?39 In practice, however, this designation brought very little change as the DIZ continued its three-pronged approach toward West Germany and the rest of the capitalist West that combined propagandistic, documentary, and analytical activity, which, as the leadership of the DIZ envisioned it, were supposed to function in a mutually beneficial manner. The institute characterized its analytical work in January 1970, over a year after the Politburo resolution originally went into effect, in the following manner: ?The emphasis of research activity must be placed on the formulation of theoretically grounded process analyses of prognostic character that fulfill the leadership requirements of party and state organs and that simultaneously provide the foundation for high-quality publications that effectively support the formation of socialist consciousness. Particular 39 BArch, DC 201/16. 307 weight should be attached to the offensive engagement (Auseinandersetzung) with imperialistic and revisionist, particularly West German, ideologues [italics in original].?40 In other words, the Politburo resolution brought very little change to the practical activities of the DIZ; much more important was the fact that the DIZ was now embedded in the newly created structure for the central coordination of research on ?imperialism.? The research responsibilities of the DIZ were so similar to those of those of the DWI, however, that the new framework for central coordination still failed to prevent continued thematic duplication in the work of the two institutes. The creation of a centralized structure for the coordination of research on West Germany and the rest of the capitalist West, however, provided the forum for the gradual overcoming of the wastefulness and inefficiency created by the overlapping research profiles of the DIZ and the DWI. As early as the mid-1960s?when each institution began to take on more and more general research responsibilities on West Germany and, secondarily, the West?responsible officials were cognizant of the problems created by the overlapping competencies of the two institutes, which included a certain competition for resources aside from the simple inefficiency borne of duplication. A solution was sought in greater coordination and cooperation between the two institutions, which in fact steadily increased from the mid-1960s and reached a first point of culmination with the creation of the Council for Imperialism Research and the establishment of a centralized system of administration for research on West Germany and the West based around the DWI in 1968. Cognizance of the problem, however, remained limited and further developments were necessary before decisive steps could be taken. Such steps were facilitated by the upgrading of the DWI?s status to ?center of imperialism research in the 40 BArch, DC 201/2. 308 GDR? in 1970. Although the DWI had been named central institution for imperialism research by the 1968 Politburo resolution, chairmanship of the newly created Council for Imperialism Research had been given to the Department of Imperialism Research of the Institute for Social Sciences. A Secretariat resolution from February 1970 reversed this decision, which after all contradicted the stated objective of rationalization and central coordination around a single institution, as the chief element in an effort aimed at ?the further concentration of imperialism research in the GDR?: ?The goal is the assurance of complex research on the social system of state-monopoly capitalism, particularly state- monopoly capitalism in West Germany, with an emphasis on the economy.?41 The attention of the council, however, extended far beyond investigation of economic issues; economic issues were rather to be understood as one element of a larger, more complex whole: ?This emphasis [on the economy] is to be realized in close connection with investigation of social processes in the class structure, of the system of political rule, of ideological developments, and of the strategy of imperialism.?42 The re-constituted Council for Imperialism Research was chaired by Lutz Maier, the head of the DWI, and included representatives from a plethora of institutions connected in one way or another to the topic.43 However, the DWI and the DIZ, the latter of which was represented at the council by the Stefan Doernberg, the institute?s director, and other DIZ employees, were two of the council?s most active members and built upon existing forms of bilateral cooperation to develop an increasingly close working relationship. Initially, the council?s efforts were mainly directed at drafting its 1971-1975 41 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/1847. 42 Ibid. 43 Examples include: the State Secretariat for West German Questions (Herbert H?ber), the West Division of the Central Committee (Max Schmidt), and the East German Academy of Sciences (J?rgen Kuczynski). Ibid. 309 Perspektivplan for the central coordination of imperialism research and the organization of collaborative projects. A great deal of time and energy was spent on designing the plan, and the final product revealed much about expectations relating both to the ideological character and the practical function of East German ?imperialism research?: Imperialism research as a component part of the Marxist-Leninist social sciences must be organically integrated into the main strategic objective of shaping the developed social system of socialism in order to demonstrate imperialism?s lack of prospects and socialism?s superiority as a system and societal alternative to late capitalism. Its objective consists in creating a scientific manner of operating for the preparation of decisions of the organs of party and state, to which end systematic prognostic work must be developed, and contributing to the development of the consciousness of the population of the GDR, which demands a politically effective, scientifically grounded portrayal of capitalism?s process of decline, the exposure of its contradictions, and offensive engagement with imperialistic ideology.44 Imperialism research, conducted in the main by the DIZ and the DWI, was tasked with using the considerable resources now at its disposable to analyze scientifically the capitalist world in order to aid in the process of foreign policy formulation, yet was expected to do so on the foundation of Marxist-Leninist presuppositions about the nature of international relations and the inevitable demise of capitalism.45 Demands such as these placed on imperialism research (and foreign policy expertise in its entirety for that matter) were not necessarily contradictory into the early 1970s since there existed a 44 BArch, DC 201/22. 45 In an April 1971 letter to Kurt Hager, head of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee, that informed him of the completion of the council?s Perspektivplan, where one could expect a greater degree of candor, the stated aims of the plan mirrored those cited above: ?In formulating the plan, we proceeded from the premise that the main goal of imperialism research must be to provide the leading organs of party and state with scientifically grounded material to support the formulation of policy, to make a substantial contribution to the formation of our population?s consciousness, and to support democratic forces in the FRG, primarily the DKP [German Communist Party], in their struggle against the state-monopoly system.? BArch, DC 202/39. 310 strong correlation between the specific geo-strategic challenges faced by the GDR and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations that viewed socialism and capitalism as monolithic, contradictory blocs fighting out the inexorable class struggle on the international stage.46 It was only following achievement of foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s and the unfolding of its consequences that the contradictions implicit in such demands would become explicit. In the immediate term, however, the re-constitution of the Council for Imperialism Research under the chairmanship of the DWI pushed forward the development of research on West Germany and the capitalist West into a discrete ?scientific? undertaking (?imperialism research?), where West Germany still comprised the main object of investigation, but a much larger share of attention than previously was devoted to other ?imperialist? powers of the West and that was closely connected with the practical foreign policy goals of the GDR yet clearly in possession of its own distinct profile, placing it on a par with the foreign policy research carried out by the IIB. And this was achieved in no small measure as a result of increased cooperation between the GDR?s two main institutes engaged in West expertise, the DWI and the DIZ. It was precisely the intensification of cooperation between the DWI and DIZ facilitated by their collaboration in the Council for Imperialism Research and within the broader framework of the centralization of imperialism research around the DWI as central institution that engendered full recognition of the wastefulness and inefficiency created by the overlapping research responsibilities of the two institutes. Both the 46 This dual task was expressed neatly in the council?s preparatory material for the plan: ?In the clash of systems between socialism and imperialism, the ideological struggle is continually intensifying. This results in the continual growth of the importance of the Marxist-Leninist social sciences, which on the one hand are the theoretical foundation for the further development of socialist society and on the other are instrument and weapon in the struggle against the ideology of imperialism.? BArch, DC 202/41. 311 leadership of the DWI and the DIZ came to realize that the full potential of their institutions could not be fulfilled and their full weight could not be brought to bear on the stated goals of imperialism research as long as significant overlap and duplication existed in their work. In September 1970, the directors of the two institutes, Lutz Maier and Stefan Doernberg, came together to discuss these issues in a meeting that had been agreed upon in a prior session of the Council for Imperialism Research. The express purpose of the meeting was to address ?fundamental issues relating to closer cooperation between the DWI and the DIZ? based on recognition of ?the necessity of articulating for both institutes in the framework of imperialism research a clear-cut scientific profile aimed at forming a larger unit of scientific research, of achieving the greatest possible complexity in research and information, and matching the continually growing demands in the area of research and information through greater concentration of capacities and resources.?47 The option of complete fusion of the two institutes was discussed and received a favorable hearing. Fusion seemed to offer a number of significant benefits over the existing situation: ?Assurance of uniform planning and direction of research processes; avoidance of the overlap in the assignment of tasks and research that arises with loose cooperation. Each institute strives for substantial complexity in its research, which in certain areas leads perforce to duplication. The consolidation of the two institutes would produce more effective possibilities for the composition of research groups; the availability of researchers will be raised; rapid and non-bureaucratic opportunities for exchange and work assignments. The opportunity for the complex processing of short-term research assignments from the party and state leadership.?48 The 47 BArch, DC 202/39. 48 Ibid. 312 option of complete fusion of the DWI and DIZ had never before been addressed with such seriousness by the heads of the two institutes and now became a real possibility. For the time being, however, the work of the two institutes continued as normal with both, for example, drafting separate research plans for the year 1971 as well as the period 1971- 1975.49 While Maier and Doernberg were thus increasingly cognizant of the drawbacks of the existing situation and, conversely, of the benefits fusion could bring, it is unclear to what extent the two directors were ultimately involved in the final decision that actually brought about the fusion of the DWI and DIZ. Whether party grandees like Hager, H?rnig, and Albert Norden, head of the West Commission of the Politburo, all of whom wielded great influence in the realm of imperialism research (the former two by virtue of their responsibility for scholarship, the latter by virtue of his involvement in operative policy toward West Germany), facilitated the Politburo?s decision completely at their own initiative or partly as a result of input from below (i.e. from Maier and Doernberg) remains an open question. What is certain, however, is that the fusion of the DWI and the DIZ to form a single institute ultimately depended on the consent of the highest party authorities and could not have alone been the result of Maier and Doernberg?s shared view that the interests of imperialism research in the GDR would be best served by fusion, however important a role this view may have played in fostering cognizance of the same among party leaders. The move, however, was doubtlessly consistent with the prevailing drive for rationalization and was a natural extension of the ongoing push for the systematization in foreign policy expertise and the social sciences in their entirety in the GDR. 49 See, for instance, BArch, DC 201/16 and DC 202/73. 313 The final decision for fusion came with the Politburo?s approval of a resolution drafted by Norden in July 1971, less than a month after the VIII Party Congress of the SED, over which Erich Honecker presided for the first time as General Secretary following Walter Ulbricht?s removal from power. The DWI and the DIZ were to merge with the State Secretariat for West German Questions and their competencies and resources were to be consolidated to form a new institution: the Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft (IPW), or Institute for International Politics and Economics, characterized by the Bundestag?s Enquete-Kommission as ?the most important braintrust for SED policy on Germany.?50 The Politburo resolution on the founding of the IPW echoed the concerns voiced earlier by the DWI and DIZ themselves regarding overlapping competencies and thematic duplication and likewise highlighted the benefits rationalization of West expertise would bring. By consolidating the existing capacities of the DWI, DIZ, and the State Secretariat for West German Questions, whose main tasks had included propaganda directed at West Germany and evaluation of political processes there, the new IPW would be in a position ?to make the results of analytical and research work available for political use more quickly; largely to overcome the division between political and economic research on imperialism in the FRG; to expand and shape more systematically cooperation with relevant institutes of the Soviet Union and other socialist states; to increase the political and scientific efficacy of work on the basis of existing cadres and positions as well as heretofore expended financial means and spaces?to eliminate fragmentation in the publication of agitational material for West Germans and to obtain uniform political direction as well as consolidation of material resources in this 50 Cited in Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft, 75. 314 area as well.?51 The new institute had two main functions to fulfill, one directed inward, the other directed outward: (1) systematic analysis of all facets of ?imperialism? in West Germany and the capitalist West and provision of such information to leading organs of party and state and (2) propagandistic representation of the position of the GDR in its offensive engagement with ?imperialistic? ideology. The responsibilities of the IPW immediately after its creation correspondingly did not significantly diverge from those of the institutes that had been merged to create it (leadership of the Council for Imperialism Research also naturally fell to the IPW). Indeed, the greatest difference consisted rather in the fact that the disparate responsibilities of the institute?s predecessor institutions were now fulfilled within the single, centralized institutional framework provided by the IPW, which, as had been the rationale for its creation, provided for more efficient, economical, and effective fulfillment of those responsibilities. The first director of the IPW was Herbert H?ber, previously deputy secretary in the State Secretariat for West German Questions, whose employees and resources were incorporated into the IPW. Lutz Maier, head of the DWI, and Stefan Doernberg, head of the DIZ, were made deputy directors of the newly created institution, with the former more responsible for covering domestic policy in the FRG and the West and the latter more responsible for covering the foreign policy of the FRG and the West.52 H?ber?s tenure as director of the IPW, however, was extremely brief as he left the institute in 1973 to become head of the West Division of the Central Committee, the party organ to which the IPW was subordinate. H?ber?s brief tenure may have been due in part to his temperament and leadership style, which one former employee of the IPW has described 51 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1524. 52 Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft, 88. 315 as authoritarian and a poor fit for the type of wissenschaftlich work the IPW was expected to produce.53 H?ber in fact did not have a scholarly background, but his successor, Max Schmidt, did and managed the IPW in corresponding fashion. Schmidt, who was 41 years old at the time of his appointment as director of the IPW, embodied, like Gerhard Hahn, the head of the IIB, the combination of political-ideological loyalty and well-grounded specialist knowledge the SED demanded of its leading cadres. Unlike Hahn, however, Schmidt?s background was in law (he received his doctorate from the DASR) rather than foreign policy.54 A background in law nevertheless made Schmidt no less suitable a candidate for the directorship of the IPW; on the contrary, in combination with the practical experience and intimate familiarity with West Germany-related matters he had gained during his tenure in the West Division as section leader and deputy head, it made Schmidt the perfect choice to lead the GDR?s main institution dedicated to the sensitive area of ?imperialism research? with all the complex political, ideological, and scientific considerations it entailed. In contrast to H?ber, Schmidt proved himself capable of balancing the tensions that stemmed from the incongruous demand at the heart of the IPW?s mission of combining scientific analysis with ideological faithfulness in order to produce analytical output fully attuned to the party?s practical needs in the realm of imperialism research. On this basis, Schmidt would lead the IPW as director until its dissolution in 1990. News of the merger to create the IPW struck the rank-and-file employees of the DIZ like a bolt from the blue. On 13 July 1971, they were hastily summoned to a meeting at which they were informed their institute would be absorbed into the IPW. A former 53 Siegfried Schwarz, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 9 June 2008. 54 Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR, s. v. ?Max Schmidt,? in Enzyklop?die der DDR, CD-ROM (Berlin: Directmedia, 2004). 316 employee has claimed that even Doernberg and Maier as respective heads of the DIZ and DWI were caught off guard by announcement of the impending merger, 55 yet given earlier discussions between the two on the appositeness of fusing the two institutes it is difficult to imagine the decision to create the IPW was made completely without the two directors? input. Be that as it may, it stands to reason that the rank-and-file employees of the DWI and the State Secretariat for West German Questions, the other two institutions that were dissolved to create the IPW, were just as surprised by the news as those of the DIZ. Nearly all employees of the DWI, DIZ, and State Secretariat for West German Questions carried on their work at the newly created IPW. As a result, the IPW as the GDR?s new central institute for imperialism research employed a huge number of employees?approximately 450 by the mid-1970s.56 Given the number of employees with considerable experience and the consolidated resources at its disposal, the IPW was well-equipped to fulfill the dual task given to it by the SED leadership: systematic analysis of ?imperialism? to aid in the process of policy formulation and propagandistic representation of the position of the GDR in the clash with ?imperialistic? ideology. The latter function was fulfilled by publication of an entire range of different publications with the monthly journal IPW- Berichte the centerpiece of the IPW?s propagandistic efforts, which was supplemented by the quarterly IPW-Forschungshefte. The IPW-Berichte followed in the tradition of the DWI-Berichte, presenting ?scholarly? substantiation of the East-German Marxist-Leninist perspective on the most important East-West issues of the day. Like the DWI-Berichte, the seeming seriousness and scholarly nature of the IPW-Berichte, which were not widely 55 Schwarz, interview. 56 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 317 available in the GDR itself, earned for the journal a certain degree of esteem in the West, where it was recognized as a potentially useful source of information on the SED?s orientation on East-West issues and deemed the only ?readable? East German publication.57 Contemporary Western observers could occasionally even provide trenchant analysis of the internal workings of the GDR based upon a close reading of the IPW-Berichte.58 The newly created IPW was made up of four large topical divisions (Hauptabteilungen) corresponding to the main foci of the institute?s activity: economics, politics, ideology, and information.59 Each division was in turn sub-divided into specialized research units dedicated to a specific topic and staffed in most cases by specialists on the topic. The objectives of the IPW were defined in an exceedingly narrow manner and its activities, it was clear to director and rank-and-file employee alike, were subordinate at all times to the operational goals and ideological demands of SED leadership. The IPW was even explicitly told not to deal with questions relating to GDR foreign policy itself. During his brief tenure as director of the IPW, Herbert H?ber commented on this issue to Albert Norden, the Central Committee secretary responsible for the IPW: ?For an institute like the IPW that so-to-speak serves as central institute in the area of imperialism research focusing on the FRG, it?s unavoidable that it deals with 57 Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft, 109-110. 58 Ludwig Bress, ?Die Berichte des Instituts f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft 1973 bis 1977. Das theoretische Fenster zur Bundesrepublik und zur westlichen Welt,? in Systemwettstreit als Signatur des Zeitalters. Festschrift f?r Hans Lades, eds. Clemens Burrichter and Hans Lades (Erlangen: Institut f?r Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft an der Universit?t Erlangen-N?rnberg, 1978), 59-82. 59 The IPW maintained the documentary functions of its predecessor institutions, amassing a huge collection of periodicals from the West, including the GDR?s ?most extensive collection of press clippings.? Sylvia Kl?tzer, ?Zeitungsausschitte als historische Quelle: Das Presseausschnittarchiv des Instituts f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft der DDR (1971-1990),? in Vom Instrument der Partei zur ?Vierten Gewalt.? Die ostmitteleurop?ische Presse als zeithistorische Quelle, ed. Eduard M?hle (Marburg: Herder-Institut, 1997), 279-284. 318 problems of a foreign policy nature and must provide input in this area. Of course, this doesn?t change the fact that we, as an institute, do not comment independently on questions of foreign policy.?60 The internal role of the IPW indeed consisted in providing analysis on which the SED leadership could draw in the process of policy formulation, not providing policy proposals on West Germany and the West, and the compulsion to produce output in accord with the party line was naturally ubiquitous and strong. Nevertheless, characterizations of the work of the IPW as shot-through with ideology, distant from reality, fully devoid of value, and lacking all substance61 fundamentally misunderstand the nature and function of foreign policy-related expertise in the GDR, whether at the IPW or the IIB. General adherence to the Marxist-Leninist paradigm and compliance with the given party line were certainly a sine qua non of such expertise, yet consideration of the foreign policy challenges facing the GDR on the basis of specialist knowledge also formed a key component of the work of experts at the IPW and IIB, which were expected to provide sound analysis of the outstanding issues facing the GDR. As Director Max Schmidt would later put it before the Bundestag?s Enquete- Kommission: ?Naturally, I was not responsible for the strategy and tactics of the SED, yet, as a political scientist, I dealt with strategic as well as tactical questions?. Part of our work, also because we tried to adopt a non-dogmatic approach, consisted in 60 Cited in Steffen Alisch, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft. ?Imperialismusforschung? und SED-Westpolitik (Berlin: Arbeitspapiere des Forschungsverbunds SED-Staat 19, 1996), 29. 61 While Klein acknowledges that the internal, informational role fulfilled by the IPW demanded not only ideological compliance but also the capacity to judge international relations developments critically and realistically, he nevertheless offers a sweeping dismissal of the institute?s wissenschaftlich work. Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft, 192. 319 examining real issues and also putting them into writing.?62 Furthermore, the overlap between the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding of foreign policy and the strategic interests of the GDR was strong into the 1970s and remained in place until the very end of the GDR. Even as the GDR increasingly took on the characteristics of a ?status quo? state following foreign policy normalization, the distance between the two elements would grow, but a fully antithetical relationship between ideology and expertise would never develop. Rather, as the distance increased, it provided an opening for the tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy inherent to East German foreign policy expertise to become manifest. Subsequent international relations developments would prompt some East German experts to view the rigid class-based approach to international relations as incapable of offering true insight while others would not, yet providing sound analysis of the most import foreign policy issue facing the GDR in the conditions of the East German dictatorship would remain a central concern for all. With the fusion of the DWI, the DIZ, and the State Secretariat for West German Questions to create the IPW in 1971, the SED was now in possession of a centralized institute to further its specifically defined goals in the area of imperialism research: systematic analysis of all facets of imperialism in West Germany and the capitalist West and provision of such information to leading organs of party and state and propagandistic representation of the position of the GDR in its offensive engagement with imperialistic ideology. The establishment of the IPW capped a process of centralization that had lasted for more than twenty years and that saw the progressive rationalization of expertise on West Germany and the West. This however was not simply rationalization for the sake of 62 ?Zeitzeugen: ?Strategie und Taktik der SED in den innerdeutschen Beziehungen,?? in Materialien der Enquete-Kommission ?Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland? vol. 5: Deutschlandpolitik (Baden Baden: Nomos, 1995), pt. 1, pp. 873, 896. 320 rationalization but rather toward an explicit end: standardization and subordination of ?West expertise? to the operative needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership in their dealings with West Germany and the West. The key elements in this process in the realm of imperialism research?the consolidation of existing resources and personnel within a single institute, the creation of a central coordinating body for West expertise (the Council for Imperialism Research), the establishment of an unambiguous hierarchical structure with authority flowing from top to bottom, and complete assurance of political-ideological compliance?were essentially the same in the case of general foreign policy research, where the centralization process reached its climax at precisely the same time. The IIB, although its responsibility for training foreign policy cadres and its subordination to the MfAA and the IV Division set it apart from the IPW, became by the early 1970s mutatis mutandis for general foreign policy research what the IPW had become for West expertise. With the culmination in the early 1970s of the process of systematization in the area of both general foreign policy research at the IIB and ?imperialism research? at the IPW, the long-standing goal of establishing a comprehensive system of expertise in each area centered around a single institution, fully attuned to the practical needs of the relevant operative organs of party and state, and completely faithful to the political-ideological requirements of the party was accomplished. After this point, there would be no further substantive changes to the institutional make-up of foreign policy expertise in the GDR. The IIB and the IPW were firmly established as central institutions in their respective fields and each in accord with its profile was expected to apply its expert analysis to aid the practical goals of the 321 GDR?s operative foreign policy institutions, whose institutional completion also took place in the first half of the 1970s. Operative Institutions and Expertise in the Era of Foreign Policy Normalization The systematization of West expertise and foreign policy research around the IPW and IIB respectively was achieved at the same time the main period in the institutional development of the GDR?s operative foreign policy institutions was coming to a close. Although the consolidation of a settled institutional framework for the GDR?s operative foreign policy institutions took place roughly contemporaneously with the GDR?s achievement of foreign policy normalization, the two developments were not directly connected. The completion of institutional development in the early 1970s was rather the result of the lengthy process of supplanting the peculiar organizational elements of the East German foreign policy apparatus inherited from the initial provisional status and ?all-German? orientation of the East German state in favor of the regularized, uniform structures characteristic of other state-socialist regimes conducting themselves as ?normal,? sovereign states internationally. This process had proceeded apace from the very founding of the GDR in 1949, was accelerated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and reached its climax in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Just as was the case with expert institutions, the GDR?s operative foreign policy institutions would undergo institutional changes in the period following the early 1970s, but by this time the fundamental structures, goals, and forms of interaction among operative institutions were firmly in place. The imperative to standardize, centralize, and ?scientify? provided the impulse institutional development of operative foreign policy institutions, just as it had the 322 development of expertise institutions, and the completion of both processes in the late 1960s/early 1970s meant that the GDR now possessed a full-fledged system of foreign policy expertise founded on what was supposed to be a symbiotic relationship between the two types of foreign policy institution in the GDR?operative institutions and research and teaching institutions?where analysis provided by expert institutions was meant to aid the performance of operative institutions and where the practical experience gained by operative institutions was supposed to enrich the analysis of expert institutions, with the unity of purpose created by subordination to centrally determined foreign policy goals in the SED?s dictatorial party-state underpinning the entire enterprise. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MfAA) remained the GDR?s largest operative foreign policy institution and occupied a central position within the GDR?s system of foreign policy, although not as a result of its influence over the GDR?s foreign policy. The MfAA had always been responsible for the execution of foreign policy, not for its formulation, and the ministry?s direct influence on foreign policy decisions became even more curtailed following Erich Honecker?s accession to power in 1971. Although initially more focused on issues of domestic politics, which corresponded to his background, Honecker soon established his authority over all areas of foreign policy, where his influence became ?nearly unlimited.?63 Honecker?s leadership style in foreign policy differed from that of Ulbricht, who ruled through established decision-making channels within the SED, in that he all but circumvented leading party bodies by presenting them with faits accomplis to be rubber-stamped after he had already made the key decisions on 63 Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 371. 323 the basis of informal consultations held beforehand.64 With time, authority in foreign policy-related matters would only become even more concentrated in the hands of Honecker personally and a small coterie of his closest confidants, such as G?nther Mittag, Central Committee secretary for the economy, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, head of the Commercial Coordination (KoKo) Division of the Ministry for Foreign Trade, and Erich Mielke, head of the Ministry for State Security (MfS). The role of the GDR?s massive foreign policy apparatus, including the MfAA, was thereby largely reduced to faithfully fulfilling the policies and strategic orientation decided upon on high. The MfAA?s subordinate role in regard to policy formulation, however, in no way lessened it significance within the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise. The MfAA?s immense importance within the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise derived both from the role its played within the system?it was responsible for coordinating foreign policy research and ensuring its subordination to the practical needs and ideological requirements of the ministry as well as those of the entire East German foreign policy apparatus?and from its own work, which included the production of expert analysis by the ministry?s own sub-units. With the ?systematization? of foreign policy research around the IIB as central institution, the MfAA occupied the key position at the top of the chain of command, from which it directed the research activities of the IIB and other subordinate institutions, coordinated projects, and molded curriculum for instruction, all in order to guarantee the complete subordination of foreign policy research to the practical foreign policy goals of the GDR. The establishment of the MfAA, the GDR?s most important operative foreign policy institution, as the final authority over now-rationalized foreign policy research represented the central element in 64 Ibid. 324 joining ?theory with practice? and making foreign policy expertise in the GDR into a full- fledged system working in a coordinated manner toward a single goal and not simply a collection of disparate institutions lacking central direction. The MfAA?s importance for East German foreign policy expertise also derived from the fact that the ministry did not simply rely upon the expertise produced by other institutions like the IIB but produced a significant amount of its own as each sub-unit of the MfAA, which was divided into Sach- and Regionalabteilungen, or topical (e.g. international economic organizations) and regional divisions (e.g. USA, Canada, and Japan), produced expertise in accord with its area of specialization. Although a fair amount of the expertise produced by the MfAA?s various divisions dealt more with day- to-day, operative issues of limited scope (which was thus of a different character than ?scientific? expertise conducted, for instance, at the IIB) than in-depth analyses of longer- term developments and prognostic reports, the latter type of expertise was by no means a rarity at the MfAA. Not only were regional divisions periodically called upon to furnish assessments that considered developments in their area of specialization in relation to the strategic interests and current concerns of the GDR and the prevailing ?international constellation of forces,? but individual cadres, in accord with their specialist training, were also expected to go beyond familiarity with individual issues to have comprehensive knowledge of the most important issues facing a given region and how they would affect the interests of the GDR. Furthermore, the Division for Fundamental Questions and Planning (Hauptabteilung Grundsatzfragen und Planung), which in 1973 replaced the Division for Foreign Policy Planning and was directly subordinate to foreign minister Otto Winzer, had as one its express goals the formulation of scientific and conceptual 325 studies to contribute to ?a precise, systematically controlled, scientifically managed foreign policy.?65 The Division for Fundamental Questions and Planning, focusing on larger questions of foreign policy strategy, became a center of ?scientific? foreign policy expertise and by virtue of this status was one of the main contact partners for experts from the IIB, which frequently collaborated with their colleagues in the MfAA. Furthermore, the imperative to ?scientify? its work affected the MfAA in the late 1960s?just as it did the purely expert institutions?and further increased the importance of the analytical element in the ministry?s work. In the same time period that the APK was deliberating on measures for ?the creation of a uniform system of research and instruction in the area of foreign policy? that would lead to the systematization of foreign policy research discussed above, it also addressed how to establish a more scientific manner of working at the MfAA, particularly in the area of ?long-term analysis of international developments [and] long-term prognostication and planning in the realm of the foreign relations of the GDR.?66 The sum effect of all these developments was the creation of analytical capacities at the MfAA that fit seamlessly into the broader enterprise of foreign policy expertise in the GDR, which by this time had taken on a systemic character. The position of the MfAA as a main pillar within the East German system of foreign policy expertise was cemented by the late 1960s/early 1970s, when its main period of institutional development came to an end. As with the GDR?s expert institutions, it was not the case that no further institutional changes whatsoever would 65 This was one of the responsibilities the division took over from its predecessor, the Division for Foreign Policy Planning. Ingrid Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000), 136. 66 Cited in Ibid., 133. 326 take place, but, following an approximately twenty-year period of development, the now- uniform structures of the MfAA and its profile and accompanying responsibilities within the East German foreign policy apparatus were firmly established.67 One of the most significant changes at the MfAA?Oskar Fischer?s ascension to the position of foreign minister following Otto Winzer?s death in 1975?brought no far-reaching changes to the position the MfAA. Despite his good relations with Honecker, Fischer, out of no fault of his own, presided over a MfAA that continued to function in accord with its narrowly circumscribed role, i.e. above all as an executive organ: ?[Fischer] remained Honecker?s gofer (Erf?llungsgehilfe) who, although he was well-liked in the ministry for his modesty and his commitment, did not possess his own power basis.?68 The onset of foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s greatly increased the number of persons employed at the MfAA, which reached approximately 3,000 in the 1980s,69 and generally increased the prestige associated with foreign service in the GDR,70 but did not bring significant changes to the basic institutional structure of the ministry. With ?the conclusion of consolidation? in the period 1967-1972, ?an organizational and administrative structure had emerged at the foreign ministry which largely corresponded to the demands on a modern and functional foreign policy apparatus within the power 67 Although the thirty-year rule governing access to the files of the MfAA preclude comprehensive knowledge of the ministry?s institutional development in the late 1970s and 1980s, it is safe to assume, based on statements of former employees and scholarly investigations, that no changes to the institutional structure of the MfAA on a par with those of the 1950s and 1960s took place. 68 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 385. 69 Irma Leinauer, Das Au?enministerium der DDR. Geschichte eines politischen Bauwerkes (Berlin: Institut f?r Stadt- und Regionalplanung, Technische Universit?t Berlin, 1996), 98. 70 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 386. 327 structures of the GDR and which in its basic structures hardly changed until 1989/1990.?71 The International Relations (IV) Division of the Central Committee played a similarly important role in the system of foreign policy expertise established in the GDR by the early 1970s, by which time the IV Division?s position as leading party organ dealing exclusively with foreign policy had been long established. As the division had developed in the 1950s and 1960s, it took on responsibility for two main tasks: cultivation of relations with foreign political parties, many of which, though not all, were communist, and direction of the state foreign policy apparatus of the GDR, with the MfAA comprising the main institution, whose institutional structure was mirrored by that of the IV Division. Although the IV Division was small in comparison with the MfAA? the number of political functionaries it employed grew from approximately 30 in the early 1960s to over 100 in the 1980s72?it retained ultimate authority over the ministry and, by virtue of its position as the SED?s top foreign policy body and as intermediary between the Politburo and Secretariat and the rest of the party and state apparatus, possessed a certain amount of influence over the shaping of policy that the MfAA could never hope to gain. Similar to the MfAA, however, the IV Division?s importance for foreign policy expertise in the GDR stemmed both from its responsibility for directing foreign policy research and from its role as a producer of expertise itself. The IV Division had been intimately involved in every step of the institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise since its inception and, like the MfAA, guaranteed the 71 Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 132. However, Wentker, largely in reference to the strong influence of the MfS over the work of the ministry, takes issue with Muth?s characterization of the MfAA as ?a professional apparatus that in its structure and function did not fundamentally diverge from the foreign offices of other states.? Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 386. 72 Uschner, Die zweite Etage, 35. 328 full subordination of research to the GDR?s practical foreign policy goals through its authority over the foreign policy apparatus, which included strict oversight of the research activities of the IIB and other research institutions. Paul Markowski, who took over leadership of the division in 1966 and who stood head and shoulders above most other party functionaries for his intelligence, openness, and flexibility, headed the division for most of the 1970s and fostered a comparatively critical atmosphere among its employees. A former subordinate, for instance, recalls that Markowski internally voiced criticism of the black-and-white foreign policy vision of the ?antiquated and half- educated party leadership.?73 The nature of the IV Division?s work, which was based around intimate familiarity with the complexities of international relations, also contributed to a critical disposition among the division?s employees that did not mesh particularly well with the prevalent Marxist-Leninist simplification of foreign policy to a form of the class struggle since, of all the East German cadres involved in one form or another with foreign policy expertise, the specialists of the IV Division probably had the most complete picture of the foreign relations of the GDR as they actually were. Access to otherwise restricted knowledge and sources (including those from the West) as well as the opportunity to travel abroad, for which members of the IV Division were simultaneously disliked and envied, only bolstered the IV Division?s tendency for independent analysis. The division even had a reputation of being ?Honecker-feindlich,? or hostile toward Honecker.74 The expertise produced by the IV Division itself did not address only issues of immediate, operative importance but also covered longer-term analysis and prognostication. Although Markowski died together with Werner Lamberz, 73 Ibid., 34. 74 Ibid., 35. 329 his close friend and Honecker?s likely successor in the SED, in 1978 in a helicopter crash above Libya, the IV Division?s tradition of independence of thought would subsequently be carried on by his successors, Egon Winkelmann (head of the IV Division 1978-1980) and G?nther Sieber (1981-1989), under whose leadership in the 1980s the IV Division would make a key contribution to East German experts? break with a strict Marxist- Leninist understanding of international relations.75 The Foreign Policy Commission (APK) of the Politburo, although it fulfilled a function quite different than both the MfAA and the IV Division, continued to play an important role in East German foreign policy expertise following the latter?s systematization. The basic mission of the APK remained unchanged in the 1970s and 1980s: it was to fulfill an advisory and coordinating function in the realm of foreign policy, in respect both to the GDR?s foreign relations and the internal development of the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus.76 In contrast to the IV Division, the APK was not a standing body?it met on a periodic basis?and its work did not directly deal with day- to-day operative foreign policy. Instead, it fulfilled its advisory and coordinating function by holding consultations on select issues, which in the 1960s had always been chosen for inclusion in the APK?s agenda with the express approval of Walter Ulbricht. Hermann Axen, Central Committee secretary of international relations, after taking over leadership of the APK from the late Heinrich Rau in 1962, provided for great continuity at the top of the commission as he would head the commission for the remainder of the GDR?s existence. After learning of the perils associated with opposition to the party line during a 75 In its penchant for a hardnosed approach, the IV Division thus mirrored the International Division of the Central Committee of the CPSU, its Soviet analog. Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 19-20. 76 For a listing of the commission?s agendas in the 1970s, see SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/18. 330 short period in the political wilderness in the mid-1950s following his support for Ulbricht?s intraparty rivals Wilhelm Zaisser and Rudolf Herrnstadt, Axen subsequently deferred to the wisdom of SED leaders in all matters. However, the APK under Axen?s leadership was not conceived of simply as a body to provide confirmation of existing policy but, while remaining within designated boundaries, was expected to make a constructive contribution on the issues it addressed, whether assessing the continued development of the international constellation of forces vis-?-vis the West or considering how best to streamline foreign policy expertise in the GDR. The membership of the APK, which included some of the most important figures in East German foreign policy, likewise bespoke a certain critical potential. The APK began the 1970s with 18 members, including Paul Markowski, head of the IV Division, Otto Winzer, minister of foreign affairs, Peter Florin, former head of the IV Division and currently a secretary of state at the MfAA, Manfred Feist, head of the Central Committee?s Foreign Propaganda Division, and Gerhard Hahn, head of the IIB.77 Discussion in the APK was said to be ?concrete and open? in comparison to leading party organs like the Politburo and Secretariat,78 which should not necessarily come as a surprise given the intimate familiarity of the commission?s members with the practical foreign policy challenges facing the GDR. Broad agreement exists79 that the influence of the APK on the actual formulation of policy declined over time?particularly in the 1980s, when decision-making authority in foreign policy matters increasingly centered around the person of Erich Honecker and 77 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2/1344. 78 Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR, 76-79. 79 Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 376-377; Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR, 76-79; Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik, 60-61. 331 a miniscule group of his closest confidants80?but this should not distract from the continuing importance of the APK for East German foreign policy expertise on the whole. In fulfilling its designated functions, the commission both produced it own expertise and drew on that produced by other institutions. By virtue of its coordinating role, it also retained importance for the internal development of East German foreign policy expertise, in whose formative development it had been intimately involved. Finally, the APK, similar to the situation with the IV Division, enjoyed a privileged perspective on East German foreign policy since the commission?s members represented some of the leading East German figures involved in practical foreign policy. This knowledge of the GDR?s foreign relations as they actually were as well as the ability realistically to judge the GDR?s prospects and problems created a critical potential that, as challenges to the Marxist-Leninist foreign policy paradigm would mount in the years to come, would receive expression on several occasions. Conclusion By the mid-1970s the institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise in its fundamental outlines was complete. The process of rationalization in service of synchronization that had advanced unevenly though continually from the very creation of the SED in 1946 culminated in the full ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise in the early 1970s. In the IIB and IPW, general foreign policy expertise and West expertise as the two branches of foreign policy research were centralized around a single institution responsible for molding its own research and that of subordinate 80 One clear indication of the APK?s waning influence in later years was the increasing infrequency and irregularity of its meeting?from the mid-1980s, only four yearly meetings were planned. Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR, 76-79. 332 institutions to meet the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the respective operative institutions to which it was in turn subordinate. The clear flow of authority from top to bottom within a uniform and centralized hierarchy effectively brought about the long-desired union of ?theory with practice? and transformed what previously was a disparate set of institutions oftentimes working at cross-purposes or inefficiently duplicating one another?s output into a full-fledged system of foreign policy expertise wielded together by the dictatorial rule of the SED and the unity of purpose in foreign policy expertise it imparted. And this unity of purpose was at the center of East Germany?s system of foreign policy expertise in that it provided a uniform orientation and set of goals for the various institutions which comprised the system and which differed greatly from one another in respect to their specific field of activity. The systemic nature of East German foreign policy expertise was expressed in the expectation that interaction and collaboration between expert institutions like the IIB and the IPW and their operative counterparts like the MfAA and the IV Division would take on a symbiotic character. Analysis provided by expert institutions was meant to aid the performance of operative institutions and the practical experience gained by operative institutions was in turn supposed to enrich the analysis of expert institutions. Despite functional differentiation, there was in theory to be no clear distinction between the work of exclusively expert institutions and operative institutions?foreign policy expertise was viewed as a scientific undertaking based on the tenets of Marxism-Leninism with the sole purpose of advancing the centrally designated foreign policy goals of the GDR. The desired symbiosis between expert and operative institutions, further, was not limited to institutional coordination and cooperation within 333 the newly centralized institutional framework of expertise, but also extended to include extensive personnel overlap and exchange. Nearly all the institutions of East German foreign policy expertise, whether expert or operative, drew essentially on the same pool of cadres?those trained at the IIB and, to a lesser extent, at MGIMO in Moscow. The ?socialist foreign policy cadres? that overwhelmingly populated the institutions comprising East Germany?s system of foreign policy expertise by the 1970s, whether as an expert on the UN and other international organizations at the IIB or as a specialist on sub-Saharan Africa at the MfAA, went through a rigorous process of both political- ideological schooling and thorough specialist training that guaranteed a fundamental uniformity in outlook as well as understanding of what the role of foreign policy expertise in East Germany was supposed to be. Cadres trained in this manner unsurprisingly worked extremely well with another across institutional divides in most cases, contributing to the desired symbiosis between purely expert and operative institutions. Beyond a common understanding of the role of foreign policy expertise, which facilitated fruitful cross-institutional cooperation within East German foreign policy expertise, symbiosis was further fostered by frequent exchanges of personnel. The shared background of East German foreign policy cadres paired with the unity of purpose at the center of the system of foreign policy expertise allowed individuals to switch from institution to institution with ease (whether in the form of short-term exchanges or permanent change) and/or simultaneous membership in several bodies. Such far-reaching personnel exchange and overlap was at once both a cause and a result of the unity of purpose at the center of East German foreign policy expertise, which by the early 1970s lived up to the demands for systematization placed on it by SED leadership. 334 The systematization of East German foreign policy expertise thus effected the total subordination of expertise to the sole practical-political purpose of advancing the GDR?s foreign policy goals. Total subordination, however, was not without its contradictory elements since the GDR?s ?socialist foreign policy cadres,? who populated the system and whose training contained equal parts political-ideological schooling and specialist instruction, were expected to generate output that was directly relevant to the GDR?s practical activities, which could easily clash with categorical maxims from drawn the Marxist-Leninist canon. This dynamic had the potential to check the tendency toward overbearing ideological interpretation and to manifest itself in a fundamental tension between the two poles?realpolitical and ideological?of East German foreign policy expertise. This tension remained latent for a long time since the GDR?s peculiar strategic situation and diplomatic isolation meant the GDR?s actual interests corresponded nicely to Marxist-Leninist tenets of foreign policy, which fostered the fusion among East German experts of the GDR?s interests with the Marxist-Leninist understanding of foreign policy to create a GDR-specific conception of international relations. It was only after foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s that the objective basis for the Marxist-Leninist foreign policy paradigm in East German would grow weaker as the strong correlation between the GDR?s interests and a strict dichotomous understanding of foreign policy would begin to dissolve. In the wake of the GDR?s greatest foreign policy triumph, however, the Marxist-Leninist paradigm in East German foreign policy expertise would actually reach its pinnacle. 335 Chapter Six The Marxist-Leninist Paradigm Triumphant Introduction The ?systematization? push of the late 1960s and early 1970s brought about the institutional completion of East German foreign policy expertise. What began as a hodgepodge of inefficient, haphazardly organized, poorly coordinated institutions with imprecisely defined responsibilities had become a highly effective, thoroughly coordinated, and professional system of expertise. The IIB and the IPW were established as, respectively, the central institutions of general foreign policy expertise and West expertise and their work became fully coordinated with the needs of the MfAA and the IV Division, the two most important operative foreign policy institutions of, respectively, state and party. The systematization of foreign policy expertise completed the process of rationalization in service of synchronization begun in the 1950s and realized the SED?s long-sought union of ?theory with practice,? where the unity of purpose provided by the party?s dictatorial rule would ensure that, despite functional differentiation, operative and expert institutions worked together in a tight symbiosis on the basis of adherence to the tenets of Marxism-Leninism and with the sole purpose of advancing the centrally designated foreign policy goals of the GDR. At the same time, institutional completion also conclusively entrenched the dynamic of tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy, between ideology and specialist knowledge, within East German foreign policy expertise. 336 The systematization process also had an important impact on the training of foreign policy cadres. Efforts to bring about the ideal ?socialist foreign policy cadres? desired by the SED who would be politically and professionally qualified in equal measure had been a central component in the process of rationalization in service of synchronization in the 1960s. In the context of systematization, the SED?s declared goal for the training of foreign policy cadres became producing ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy.? The profile of this new type of foreign policy cadre did not different substantively from the profile of the ideal type it replaced?the same characteristic combination of political-ideological subordination with expert knowledge and professional competency distinguished the SED?s ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? as it had the ?socialist foreign policy cadres? of the previous period. Any changes inaugurated by the new concept were rather changes in degree than in kind. Yet the changes in degree the new concept entailed were in fact quite important since they placed renewed emphasis on the importance of specialist knowledge and professional competency in the training?and work?of the East German foreign policy cadres. In the d?tente era, which saw the dramatic growth of the GDR?s foreign relations following foreign policy normalization, the complexities of the numerous new challenges facing the GDR demanded the type of knowledge and thoroughgoing familiarity that only a specialist could provide. In fact, under the combined impact of systematization and foreign policy normalization, the center of gravity within East German foreign policy expertise would tack ever more in the direction of specialist knowledge and professional competency to the detriment of ideological dogmatism. 337 The actualization of East German foreign policy expertise?s critical potential in terms of concrete analysis, however, would be delayed by foreign policy normalization, or rather the manner in which normalization was achieved. Fulfillment of the GDR?s greatest foreign policy goal?establishing diplomatic relations with the world outside the Soviet Bloc in order to become a ?normal? foreign policy actor?was achieved not as a result of the GDR?s own efforts but as part and parcel of the broader gains made by ?international socialism? (i.e. the Soviet Bloc) in the d?tente era. As a result, the East Germany?s achievement was seen not as the key moment in the transformation of the GDR into a normal state actor with a discrete set of idiosyncratic interests but of a piece with the inexorable forward march of socialism?the notion that the GDR?s interests and those of international socialism were one and the same was reinforced. Thus, just as the strong correlation between the actual conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy and the dichotomous class-based understanding of international relations began to dissolve, experts? GDR-specific foreign policy conception that fused East Germany?s clearly identified realpolitical interests with ideological precepts drawn from the Marxist-Leninist canon actually reached its zenith. It was only after the fortunes of international socialism were reversed at the start of the 1980s that this ideological triumphalism would yield to a more sober accounting of the GDR?s foreign relations and would activate the latent tension between ideology and specialist knowledge inherent to the mission of East German foreign policy experts. 338 ?Abgrenzung? and Expertise in the D?tente Era Foreign policy normalization placed new demands on the training of foreign policy cadres in the GDR. On the one hand, increasing importance was placed on acquiring specialist knowledge and professional competency in order to meet the new and more varied challenges facing the GDR; on the other, foreign policy normalization and the broader process of d?tente also led to intensification of the ideological element in East Germany?s general foreign policy orientation. Erich Honecker, who replaced Walter Ulbricht as head of the SED in May 1971, was acutely aware that d?tente represented a certain danger to the GDR because it threatened to undermine the Cold War antagonism at the very heart of East Germany?s raison d??tre as a clearly defined socialist state of the German nation. So that rapprochement between East and West and between the GDR and the FRG could not undermine this central pillar of the GDR?s legitimacy, Honecker set the country on a clear course of ideological Abgrenzung, or demarcation, vis-?-vis the capitalist West in general and West Germany in particular. The hope was that demarcation and the corresponding intensification of the ideological element in the self- presentation of East German foreign policy would counteract the effects of conciliation and engagement with the capitalist enemy. This orientation reigned supreme at the VIII Party Congress of the SED in June 1971, over which Honecker presided as newly confirmed First Secretary. The social scientists of the GDR were called upon ?fully and effectively to unveil the misanthropic essence of imperialism? for which task ?Lenin?s theory of imperialism?is our intellectual instrument.?1 The orientation received further confirmation in 1972, when Honecker designated West Germany ?imperialistisches Ausland? (an imperialist foreign 1 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ IV A 2/2.024/56. 339 country) and, in what was the final nail in the coffin of the GDR?s ?all-German? orientation toward a unified, communist Germany, for whose realization serious hope had long been given up, the constitution of the GDR (ratified in 1968) was revised in 1974 to remove all references to the German nation.2 With the attempted replacement of German with socialist nationhood, combined with efforts to make a clean break with the Ulbricht era, a January 1973 Politburo resolution3 expunged references to both from the name of the DASR, where the IIB was housed, dropping ?German? as well as ?Walter Ulbricht? from the name of the academy so that it was simply called Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft (ASR), or Academy for the Study of State and Law.4 Ideological demarcation vis-?-vis West Germany and the capitalist West, however, was to have a much greater impact on East German expertise than a simple change of name. In October 1971, shortly after the VIII Congress, Kurt Hager, head of the Politburo?s Ideological Commission and the party?s leading authority in ideological matters, gave a lecture at the SED?s Party School ?Karl Marx? on ?The Tasks of the Social Sciences after the VIII Party Congress,? in which he expounded on the implications of ideological Abgrenzung in response to the nascent process of foreign policy normalization. Hager first underscored the continued centrality of Marxism- Leninism as the theoretical foundation for all practical activities of the SED: ?In all of its 2 The most conspicuous change was found in the first line of the constitution, which was changed from ?The German Democratic Republic is a socialist state of the German nation? to read ?The German Democratic Republic is a socialist state of workers and farmers.? For a detailed discussion of ech German state?s self-understanding as reflected in their respective constitutions, see Horst M?ller, ?1949. Zwei deutsche Staaten, eine Nation? Zum nationalen Selbstverst?ndnis in den Verfassungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR,? in Das doppelte Deutschland. 40 Jahre Systemkonkurrenz, eds. Udo Wengst and Hermman Wentker (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2008), 15-34. 3 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1656. 4 The Politburo resolution may have simply confirmed what had already occurred in practice since a notice in Neues Deutschland from March 1972 announcing the appointment of Gerhard Sch?ssler as new rector of the academy already referred to it by its new name. Neues Deutschland, 4 March 1972. See also Ulrich Bernhardt, Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? 1948-1971 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1997), 205. 340 activities, our party conducts itself in accord with Marxism-Leninism, the most progressive, revolutionary science of the present age. It is the unshakeable foundation of our theoretical and ideological work.?5 Hager also highlighted the ideological task of the social sciences specific to the time period when rapprochement between East and West and between the GDR and the FRG was proceeding apace: [The Marxist-Leninist social sciences] face the task of conveying knowledge and conviction of the historical greatness and purpose of our actions under often difficult conditions and conveying understanding and conviction of the correctness of our path to the members of the party and all workers, in a word, of contributing to the formation of a socialist worldview, to the enlightenment of the workers in the spirit of Marxism- Leninism. This can only occur through constant offensive engagement with bourgeois ideology as well as revisionism of all shades, whose attacks upon our theory and worldview grow stronger to the extent that the socialist world system and the entire revolutionary world movement continue to grow, that victories in the struggle for the safeguarding of peace are achieved, and that the GDR in community with the Soviet Union and the other socialist states further strengthens its position.6 Hager highlighted one danger in particular, namely that rapprochement between East and West could undermine the theoretical integrity of Marxism-Leninism and thereby strike a blow at the heart of the ideology upon which the legitimacy of the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc was founded. Hager?s depiction of the situation conformed with the position of Honecker and other SED grandees, which had provided the impulse for ideological Abgrenzung to begin with. Conciliation between East and West appeared particularly dangerous because it could dilute a strict ideological viewpoint by replacing a class-based 5 SAMPO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/2.024/56. In addition to being printed as a pamphlet, Hager?s lecture was also deliberated upon and approved by a meeting of the Politburo. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2 J/3708. 6 SAMPO-BArch, DY 30/IV A 2/2.024/56. 341 position in favor of ?general human values (allgemein menschliche Werte).?7 Hager highlighted the potential dangers of rapprochement on the example of the aggressive character of imperialism: ?The exposure of the aggressiveness of imperialism, particularly the imperialism of the FRG, is especially urgent because imperialist ideologues and social-democratic politicians alike currently seek to make people believe that, in light of the treaties that the administration of the FRG concluded with the governments of the USSR and the PR Poland and the Four-Power Agreement on West Berlin and the more realistic approach among Western politicians toward individual international questions, imperialism has lost its aggressive character.?8 In response to this threat, Hager demanded complete ideological clarity and consistency from the GDR?s social scientists as constant affirmation of the ?class-based perspective? was seen as the only means of checking the advance of ideological dilution: ?Social scientists and propagandists bear great responsibility for the unmasking and annihilation of the ideological diversion of the enemy, for the heightening of class vigilance? as well as for ?theoretically grounding in a comprehensive and convincing fashion the class essence of socialism and its internationalist character.?9 Hager?s injunctions to the assembled social scientists of the GDR were not directed exclusively or specifically toward issues of foreign policy instruction, yet nevertheless had great import for the training of foreign policy cadres at the IIB. The presentation, given by one of the SED?s leading authorities on ideology and the social sciences, expounded the party?s vision for the role of social-scientific expertise in the era 7 Ibid. Not for nothing, the same exact term would later be used, but with a positive connotation, by East German experts critical of the class-based approach to international relations. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 342 of foreign policy normalization. An intensification of the ideological element in expertise in the form of Abgrenzung from the capitalist world was viewed as necessary to counteract the very serious danger of ideological dilution as a result of the East-West conciliation at the heart of the d?tente process. Ideological retrenchment in the face of practical engagement with the West became the guiding principle of social-scientific expertise in the era of foreign policy normalization, and the training of socialist foreign policy cadres was shaped to conform to these expectations. Simultaneously, however, this tendency was partially offset by another need created by foreign policy normalization: the need for ever-higher levels of qualification and skill among East German foreign policy cadres in order to deal successfully with the more complicated set of international relations issues now facing the GDR. The tension between the ideological and the expert in East German foreign policy expertise continued unabated, yet the latter element was gaining more and more in importance at the expense of the former. The IIB and the Training of ?Party Functionaries in the Realm of Foreign Policy? As the push for systematization was applied to foreign policy training in order guarantee production of cadres fully attuned to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the MfAA, the IV Division, and the GDR?s other operative foreign policy institutions, the bulk of the effort was directed at the Institute for International Relations (IIB), long established as the GDR?s premier foreign policy ?cadre forge.? The basic features of the ideal foreign policy cadre had been in place since the 1950s, but it was only with the rationalization and, finally, the systematization of foreign policy instruction in the GDR that the necessary institutional framework for full realization of 343 this vision was established. Foreign policy instruction was marked by a dual emphasis on Marxism-Leninism and specialist knowledge, which were largely seen as flip sides of a single coin rather than discrete, let alone incongruous, elements. Marxism-Leninism, which saw the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the defining feature of international relations, formed the basic framework for training, within which thoroughgoing specialist training was intended to produce experts who, whether working as an attach? at a foreign embassy or as an analyst at the IIB, could skillfully identify and contribute to realization of the GDR?s concrete foreign policy interests. The SED?s ideal foreign policy cadres were expected to be, as a report from 1979 would have it, ?Parteiarbeiter auf au?enpolitischem Gebiet,?10 or party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy, who were both faithful Marxist-Leninists and true specialists. Whereas the 1950s and 1960s had been characterized by, first, the working-out of exactly what comprised the profile of the SED?s ideal socialist foreign policy cadres and, second, the development of an institutional structure to guarantee realization of that profile, the 1970s saw the focus in foreign policy training shift to attaining ever-higher levels of qualification and skill within the existing framework. The prevailing dual emphasis in foreign policy instruction on political-ideological schooling and specialist knowledge did not disappear in the process; on the contrary, the arrangement, in which Marxism-Leninism provided the theoretical framework in which foreign policy was understood and specialist knowledge served as concrete tool for the realization of ?socialist diplomacy? was rather reinforced. What was different was that the greater emphasis on attaining ever-higher levels of qualification and skill necessarily brought 10 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13093. 344 with it a shift toward the expert side of the equation in foreign policy training at the expense of ideological dogmatism. And, thanks to the success of earlier rationalization and systematization efforts, the IIB was well-equipped in the 1970s to meet the challenge of producing foreign policy cadres schooled in Marxism-Leninism yet simultaneously trained as true specialists. In November 1973, the MfAA and the IV Division in cooperation the IIB itself completed an assessment of the IIB?s activities for the Secretariat, which was signed off on by Otto Winzer, Paul Markowski, and Gerharhd Hahn?the respective heads of the three institutions.11 The assessment testified to the IIB?s success in adapting its foreign policy training program to keep pace with the far-reaching changes underway in the era of d?tente and foreign policy normalization: ?The new international situation attained as a result of the concerted policies of the community of socialist states, the increased international authority of the GDR, and the heightened demands of the international development of socialist science place new demands upon the activities of the IIB in their entirety.? In the training and continuing education of cadres for foreign policy activities and diplomatic service, the continued development of positive experiences has been realized in a targeted manner in accord with the new situation.?12 The assessment?s specific evaluation of the IIB?s five-year course of study, which had served as the institute?s main vehicle for foreign policy training after replacing the previous four-year course of study and two-year course of postgraduate study13 in 1970, was likewise very 11 Impetus for the assessment apparently came originally from a consultation of the Foreign Policy Commission in July of the same year. 12 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30 J/IV 2/3A/2439. 13 The last four-year course of study took place 1967-1971 and the last two-year course 1970-1972. ?Zeittafel IIB,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 222, 224. 345 positive: ?Experiences in the instruction and education of foreign policy/diplomatic cadres heretofore gained in the five-year course of study underscore that the selection and preparation of students as well as the program of instruction and education in its entirety have proven themselves.?14 The assessment further highlighted the efficacy of the IIB?s curriculum in producing the type of cadres needed by the various operative and expert institutions comprising the East German foreign policy apparatus. The dual emphasis of the IIB?s curriculum?on the ideological and on the expert?was particularly stressed: ?Instruction in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism has been provided beyond the obligatory level set by the Ministry for Higher Education. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of a steadfast class-based point of view and a Marxist-Leninist consciousness of history. Treatment of the party?s policies for the formation of developed socialist society in the GDR, of problems in the development of the community of socialist states, of relations to the USSR, of socialist economic integration, and of the coordinated foreign policy of the states of the socialist community occupies a central place in the curricula.?15 The assessment?s overall picture of foreign policy training at the IIB, while making the obligatory appeal for continued improvement in accord with the continued development of the international class struggle, was overwhelmingly positive. When compared with the finding that research at the IIB was ?not yet satisfactory,?16 the glowing appraisal of foreign policy training conducted at the IIB testified to the success of earlier rationalization and systematization efforts, which put the institute in a position to fulfill its central task as the GDR?s main foreign policy ?cadre forge?: the production 14 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30 J/IV 2/3A/2439. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 346 of cadres both thoroughly schooled in Marxism-Leninism and rigorously trained as specialists. In the very same year that the MfAA, IV Division, and the IIB completed their assessment for the Secretariat (1973), the revised ?instructional and educational conception? (Ausbidlungs- und Erziehungskonzeption) for the IIB?s five-year course of study captured the essence of the dual emphasis?on the ideological and on the expert? of foreign policy training in the GDR. A new Absolventenbild enumerating the characteristics IIB graduates were expected to possess as a result of their training was issued the same year,17 and based on that profile the IIB?s new training program took as its central goal the production of cadres who, ?as class-conscious cadres of party and state trained in Marxism-Leninism and qualified as specialists, are capable of rapidly meeting the demands of foreign policy practice.?18 The IIB?s 1973 program did not change the basic format of training at the institute?the five-year course of study remained divided into three main parts: instruction in the fundamentals of Marxism- Leninism, general instruction in foreign policy in which Marxism-Leninism received concrete application to international relations, and regional specialization, plus obligatory study of Russian and one other foreign language. The main thrust of the revised program lay rather in securing and tautening the dual emphasis on ideological education and expert training at the heart of East German foreign policy instruction in order to ensure graduates of the IIB were up to the new, more complex tasks facing the GDR in the era of 17 The Absolventenbild, while presenting a detailed picture of the qualities cadres were expected to possessed, at the same time was not completely rigid. As the MfAA?s own 1971 catalog of ?expectations for foreign policy-diplomatic cadres? noted, the profile it laid out was an ?ideal type? and that cadres should not be judged on the presence or absence of individual characteristics but rather on the entire complex of characteristics possessed by a cadre. PA AA, MfAA, C 5815. 18 PA AA, MfAA, C 5829. 347 foreign policy normalization. The two elements continued to be seen as indispensable and complementary components of a successful course in foreign policy training: ?The [course of] study is conducted in intimate connection with societal practice as a unity of class-based political-ideological education and self-education as well as instruction in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, in expert specialization, and in foreign languages. The systematic and effective conveyance and acquisition of knowledge and insight, of faculties and skills are joined with their creative application in instruction, in independent scientific-analytical work, and in societal practice.?19 And by this time the experienced instructors and pedagogues at the IIB were able to satisfy the exacting demands placed on foreign policy training at the institute. In particular, the application of Marxist-Leninist foreign policy precepts to outstanding international relations issues facing the GDR?the activity that comprised the most essential task of training at the IIB?could be planned in minute detail in a broad array of areas. For example, the IIB?s 1972 lecture series on ?imperialist counties,? part of the IIB?s program in general foreign policy instruction, encompassed 36 hours and delved into the particulars of such topics as ?causes, character, and main manifestations of imperialist integration in capitalist Europe and its developmental tendencies? and ?the function of NATO and the EEC vis-?-vis the socialist states.?20 The IIB?s lecture series from the same year on developing countries, comprising 131 hours, likewise allowed exhaustive treatment of a range of topics, including ?causes and results of the collapse of the imperialist colonial system,? ?the objective basis and the significance of the anti- imperialist alliance between socialism and the movement for national liberation,? 19 Ibid. 20 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13044. 348 ?international economic aspects of petroleum production,? and ?basic features, level of development, and prospects of the deformed capitalist mode of production in the countries of Latin America and its political and socio-economic consequences.?21 The simultaneous presence of both a strong ideological element and a strong expert element in the IIB?s revised course of study was unambiguously oriented toward producing the desired ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? capable of identifying and advancing the concrete interests of the GDR from a firm Marxist-Leninist perspective. The rigidity in instruction that could potentially result from the imperative to inculcate in cadres a thoroughgoing Marxist-Leninist understanding of foreign policy was balanced by the equally important imperative to shape expertise to keep pace with practical developments in foreign policy in order to ensure the highest possible level of efficacy und utility. As a result, there existed a certain flexibility in the now-mature IIB?s approach to its curriculum and instructional responsibilities as changing domestic and international developments appeared to demand that modifications and adjustments to instruction at the institute be made. This flexibility was on clear display in 1976/77, when the training program of the IIB was again overhauled. With the climax of the d?tente process having been attained in 1975 with the signing of the Helsinki accords, which simultaneously served as the high point in the normalization of the GDR?s foreign relations (by 1973 the GDR had become a full member of the United Nations Organization and had established diplomatic relations with 118 countries), the GDR and, indeed, the entire Soviet Bloc were faced with a qualitatively new foreign policy situation. The XXV Party Congress of the CPSU and IX Party Congress of the SED, both held in 1976, presented a foreign policy vision in 21 Ibid. 349 line with the changed conditions of the new situation. The congresses emphasized the imperative to stabilize and expand upon East-West d?tente (?the results of the policy of peaceful coexistence?), particularly in Europe, where it had had its greatest impact and had brought the greatest benefit to the interests of the Soviet Bloc. The importance of ?anti-imperialist solidarity? was correspondingly given greater emphasis since, with the Soviet Bloc more than content to maintain the status quo of ?peaceful coexistence? in Europe, the developing world took on heightened significance within the framework of the inexorable ?international class struggle,? which, Soviet and East German propagandists never tired asserting, did not abate in the least despite the achievements of East-West rapprochement. In order to ensure that foreign policy training kept pace with the changed international situation, a joint IIB-MfAA commission in the second half of 1976 began working on a ?comprehensive revision of the instructional and educational conception? of the five-year course of foreign policy study based on ?evaluation of the resolutions of the IX Party Congress of the SED and the XXV Party Congress of the CPSU, of the experiences of communist and workers? parties in the struggle for peace, security, cooperation, and social progress, and the experiences the GDR has gained in the realm of foreign policy.?22 New Deputy Director for Instruction Helmut Matthes, previously GDR ambassador to Tanzania, took the lead on the initiative and the IIB, working in close cooperation with the Cadres and Instruction Division of the MfAA, presented the revamped conception in February 1977.23 The basic format of instruction at the IIB remained the same (Marxist-Leninist fundamentals, general foreign policy study, 22 PA AA, MfAA, C 5830. 23 The conception was preceded by an ?orientational? document, completed by the joint commission, that lay out the guiding principles for the revision. UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13305. 350 specialized foreign policy study plus foreign language instruction) and the dual emphasis on ideological education and specialist training maintained its absolute centrality (?The [course of] study in all its phases must be shaped as a unity of class-based education and specialist (fachlich) training?);24 the main innovations came rather in the form of greater systematization of instruction to better realize the ?unity of class-based education and specialist training? and modification of curricular content to conform to the re-formulated foreign policy priorities of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc. The units on the developing world (centered around ?the anti-imperialist alliance between socialism and the anti- imperialist national liberation movement and the strategy of the community of socialist states, particularly the Soviet Union and the GDR, toward the national liberation movement and developing countries?) and d?tente in Europe (?the Leninist policy of peace and peaceful coexistence between states of different social orders and its successful realization,? including ?the main stages in the history of changes in the international constellation of forces in favor of socialism and peace?) were accordingly refined.25 New emphasis was placed on one further area that was rapidly increasing in significance for the GDR: international economics. The increasingly fachlich orientation of East German foreign policy expertise was reflect in a growing concern with economics, which earlier would have hardly registered: ?the increasing importance of international economic relations, particularly issues in the development of economic and scientific-technical relations between socialist and capitalist states and in the struggle of developing countries 24 The stated goal of instruction at the broadest level was identified as ?the education and training of party functionaries who are willing and able to fulfill the goals of the German Democratic Republic in the area of international relations.? PA AA, MfAA, C 5830. 25 Ibid. 351 for new, equitable economic relations with capitalist states.?26 Although economic considerations represented one area of instruction among many others in the IIB?s new conception, the greater attention paid to them foreshadowed the steady increase in importance they would enjoy in subsequent years, both in the GDR?s foreign relations and in expert analysis thereof. The extensive revamping of the IIB?s curriculum in 1976/77, after a thoroughgoing revision had already been carried out in 1973, demonstrated the flexibility at the core of the training of foreign policy cadres in the GDR. Since the goal of foreign policy training?the production of Marxist-Leninist cadres simultaneously capable of contributing to the furtherance of the GDR?s concrete foreign policy goals?necessitated not only intense ideological schooling but also thoroughgoing expert instruction, modifications to cadre education had to be made in response to political-ideological injunctions from above as well as the changing practical challenges facing the GDR. In this way, a pressing concern with the concrete interests of the GDR, which, however, could still be perceived through an ideological lens of variable strength, provided a counterweight of sorts to extreme ideological dogmatism in the crucial area of foreign policy training, which in turn molded the outlook and work of innumerable East German foreign policy cadres. And it was only in the 1970s that, following earlier rationalization and systematization efforts, the institutional prerequisites were in place to allow full realization of the dual mission of foreign policy training at the IIB. Foreign policy training by the 1970s had become thoroughly professionalized and specialized within a highly centralized and coordinated system based around the IIB as central institute. 26 Ibid. 352 Evidence indeed abounded in the first half of the decade that the IIB had once and for all overcome its most tempestuous period of development and had attained full institutional maturity. In 1972-1973, a ten-month special course of foreign policy study for ten students from Czechoslovakia was convened at the IIB in what was the first instance of the IIB training foreign students.27 Courses for foreign students subsequently became a semi-regular feature at the IIB, which throughout the 1970s and 1980s would train foreign policy cadres from other socialist or socialist-oriented countries such as Angola, Mozambique, and Cambodia.28 The IIB likewise continued and strengthened its instructional offerings for Leitungskader (leading cadres).29 These Kurzlehrg?nge (condensed courses of study) typically lasted for about a month and served a vital purpose: ensuring that higher-ranking personnel from the MfAA and other organs of party and state dealing in some capacity with foreign policy were kept up-to-date on the changing political-ideological and practical priorities of the SED in international relations. Foreign policy cadres simultaneously faithful to Marxism-Leninism and trained as specialists were viewed as indispensable for the successful conduct of East German foreign policy and these condensed courses of study were designed to guarantee that cadres who had significant practical experience retained those characteristics. Such an outcome, it was believed, would bolster the desired symbiosis between foreign policy expertise and practice in the GDR and ultimately guarantee that the East German foreign policy apparatus as a whole would continue to work smoothly and efficiently toward the singular end of furthering the foreign policy vision and goals of the SED leadership. 27 The ten cadres were trained to become specialists for German-speaking countries. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/2204. 28 Helmuth Busch, ?Ausl?nderstudium,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 97-103. 29 For curricula and assessments of the courses in the 1970s, see PA AA, MfAA, C 5811, C 5812, C 5813. 353 Sometimes the condensed offerings were general ?refresher? courses, meant to keep participants up-to-date on the latest developments, sometimes they were dedicated to a specific theme. In 1972, for instance, a special one-year non-residential condensed course30 was held to prepare East German cadres for the GDR?s looming membership in the UN.31 Similarly, ?questions of socialist economic integration? and other economic issues became more prominent in the curricula of the condensed courses for leading cadres as economic issues themselves took on increasing importance in the foreign relations of the GDR.32 The efficacy, professionalism, and centrality of the IIB in foreign policy training in the GDR were further underscored by the fact that the practice of employing Quereinsteiger (cadres following non-foreign policy career trajectories) at the MfAA all but ceased by the 1970s.33 Whereas hiring specialists from other fields who had limited experience in foreign policy had been common practice in the 1950s and into the 1960s in order to compensate for the acute shortage of qualified cadres prevalent throughout the East German foreign policy apparatus, the advances made in organization and instruction at the IIB in the same period, combined with a less severe shortage of cadres in general, now rendered the practice largely superfluous. From the start of the decade onward, the 30 The course consisted in one lecture held each month so as not to draw away participants from their primary area of responsibility. 31 The initiative came from the highest levels with a Politburo resolution initiating the process in July 1971 (SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/1528), two Council of Ministers resolutions, one from September 1971 (BArch, DC 20/I/4/2542) and one from February 1972 (BArch, DC 20/I/4/2600), and a Secretariat resolution providing final approval in April 1972 (DY 30/J IV 2/3A/2154). The rationale for offering the course was clear: ?The imminent acceptance of the GDR into the UN, the participation of the GDR in several sub-areas of the UN system that has already taken place as well as the indivisibly connected, qualitatively higher demands placed on foreign policy cadres require the corresponding preparation of cadres for the various areas of operation of the UN system.? For the citation and rather detailed coverage of the course itself, see PA AA, MfAA, C 54/76. 32 PA AA, MfAA, C 5811. 33 Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 387. 354 demand for qualified foreign policy cadres at the MfAA and throughout the East German foreign policy apparatus was satisfied almost exclusively by cadres who went through the rigors of the IIB?s specialized training process.34 And the general consensus held that the IIB excelled in fulfilling its central mission of producing faithful Marxist-Leninist cadres who were simultaneously trained as specialists and capable of ably identifying and promoting the foreign policy interests of the GDR. An evaluation of the training provided in 1978/79 within the framework of the IIB?s five-year course of study, for instance, was interested in measuring the efficacy of instruction following the overhauling of the IIB?s curriculum in 1977. The report, whose tenor was overwhelmingly positive, testified to the success of the IIB in making the necessary changes to ensure continued fulfillment of its central mission: ?Owing to implementation of the curricular revisions following the IX Party Congress, the students were increasingly equipped with thorough and politically efficacious knowledge that conforms to latest scientific findings and the demands of foreign policy practice. With few exceptions, the students were successfully educated and qualified as party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy.?35 The importance and reputation the IIB had built up as the GDR?s central foreign policy ?cadre forge? and its indispensability to the East German foreign policy apparatus received unambiguous acknowledgment in 1974 when the director of the IIB, Gerhard Hahn, was made a member of the Collegium of the MfAA, that institution?s highest- ranking deliberative body, as well as the Foreign Policy Commission (APK). He took over those positions in addition to his day-to-day responsibilities as head of the IIB as 34 East German foreign policy cadres continued to receive specialized training at MGIMO in Moscow in the 1970s and 1980s, but their number declined in proportion to cadres trained at the IIB. 35 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13093. The average cohort at the IIB in the late 1970s numbered approximately 120 students. 355 well as those stemming from his position as chairman of the Council for Foreign Policy Research, which was led by the IIB. Furthermore, Hahn was named in 1976 president of the UN?s Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), a prominent if largely honorary position.36 These distinctions and the general rise of the director of the IIB to become an outstanding figure in East German foreign policy expertise symbolically crowned the long development of the IIB and its predecessor institutions into the highly professional and highly capable cadre forge at the center of a true system of foreign policy training it had become. On the basis of the numerous alterations to organization and instruction that had been made in the process of rationalization and systematization, the IIB successfully transformed cadre production into a science. Foreign policy training at the IIB proved efficient and effective in turning out the ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? demanded by the SED leadership and viewed as indispensable to the success of East German foreign policy. With a stock of foreign policy cadres who were both schooled in Marxism-Leninism and trained as true specialists guaranteed, the dynamic of tension between ideology and specialist knowledge within the orientation and work of East German experts became firmly established and the latter element began its gradual ascent over the former. The IPW as ?Instrument in the Class Struggle? The cadre situation at the Institute for International Politics and Economics (IPW) in the 1970s, despite some important differences, echoed that at the IIB. The IPW, which had been created in 1971 by the fusion of the German Economic Institute (DWI), the German 36 ?Zeittafel IIB,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 227. 356 Institute for Contemporary History (DIZ), and the State Secretariat for West German Questions, was the GDR?s central institute for ?Imperialismusforschung? (imperialism research) and formed, alongside the IIB, one of the GDR?s main sites for foreign policy- related expertise. The IPW, unlike the IIB, was not oriented explicitly or exclusively toward international relations?the ?West expertise? in which the IPW was engaged had taken its own discrete path of institutional and cadre development?yet the focus of the IPW?s imperialism research on West Germany in particular and the capitalist West in general necessarily entailed significant contact with foreign policy issues. The IPW in fact continued to fulfill most of the responsibilities previously performed by its predecessor institutions, which meant it performed an array of tasks, ranging from the completion of studies for internal consumption and the publication of works for propagandistic purposes to serving as the ?scientific? face of the GDR in the capitalist West and to compilation and documentation of materials from the West. The IPW also had an important coordinating role to play as Leitinstitut (central institute) for imperialism research, which included leadership of the Council for Imperialism Research, which was chaired by Max Schmidt, director of the IPW. The common denominator of all these tasks performed by the IPW, parallel to the situation with the IIB, was strict subordination to the political-ideological mandates and operative needs of the SED leadership in order to contribute to the furtherance of party goals in the highly sensitive area of relations with the FRG and the capitalist West. The IPW had ?an essential contribution to make? on the basis of ?scientific achievements of great partisanship and on a high theoretical level, well-grounded political-scientific analyses and briefings, [and] practice-bound implementation of the results of its work.?37 37 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 357 The position of the IPW as a ?brain trust? for the SED leadership and its focus on the comparatively narrow area of contemporary developments in the capitalist West both lent the institute a more elite character and enmeshed it more closely with operative issues than the IIB, which was focused on international relations in their entirety. The IPW was further distinguished from the IIB by Director Schmidt?s ?line? to the Central Committee (the IPW was subordinate to the West Division of the CC), which gave the institute a number of practical advantages vis-?-vis the IIB, with which it sometimes had to compete for resources and influence.38 The IPW?s closer connection with the SED leadership and its greater involvement in operative issues created a more acute concern with the immediate, practical utility of the institute?s work than existed at the IIB. While the work of the IPW was thus very much concerned with more immediate, operative issues and oriented toward advancing the day-to-day interests of the GDR in its relations with the West, there still existed a strong ideological element in its work since perception of the GDR?s interests themselves, whether long- or short-term, was filtered through a Marxist-Leninist prism. For this reason, it would be mistaken in this case to speak of an absolute dichotomy between ?real? interests and chimerical ideology. The strong correlation that existed between the interests of the GDR and the division of the world into two hostile blocs in accord with the Marxist-Leninist understanding of foreign relations before the 1970s was indeed attenuated by the d?tente process and foreign policy normalization, but ideological retrenchment was initiated in response in order to deflect the risk of international relations developments undermining the ideological legitimacy of the GDR as a separate, socialist East German state. This is also the reason why the cadre situation at the IPW significantly echoed that at the IIB, where the issues 38 Siegfried Schwarz, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 9 June 2009. 358 of basic competency confronted in 1950s and 1960s were left far behind and were replaced by concerted attention aimed at achieving ever-higher levels of skill and specialization, though without weakening the centrality of ?political-ideological? compliance. This sort of complex interplay between expertise and ideology was on display at the IPW, where, however, the unique combination of operative and scientific responsibilities stemming from the IPW?s position as central institute in the highly sensitive and strategically important area of ?imperialism research? also raised concern with a number of issues otherwise absent at the IIB. Cadre questions at the IPW were of particular importance since the political and scientific demands placed on researchers there, in accord with the institute?s elite status, were exceptionally high. In the mid-1970s, when the modus operandi of the newly created institute was still being fleshed out, internal documentation clearly reflected this concern: ?Cadre-political questions at the IPW currently have and in the immediate future will have particular importance?they have to occupy an important and paramount place in the work of the party organization [i.e., the SED party cell at the IPW] and all state leaders [i.e., leading cadres at the institute, which formally was a state, not a party, institution].?39 The ultimate goal of such efforts was identified as ?the quickest-possible and simultaneously enduring political-ideological consolidation of the work collective [italics in original]? as well as ?elevating the effectiveness and quality of work in all areas.?40 Many of the cadres at the IPW were quite young, but, unlike the situation at the IIB, there was no uniform training program in which they all took part. As a result of its development out of the field of ?West expertise,? imperialism research was a discipline 39 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 40 Ibid. 359 unto itself with its own discrete trajectory that placed it outside the fold of the IIB?s general foreign policy expertise. The IPW accordingly drew on a set of cadres that differed significantly from those at the IIB?instead of the ?Au?enpolitiker? trained in Potsdam-Babelsberg, the IPW predominantly employed cadres with a background in the social sciences, such as economics, philosophy, sociology, and political economy. IPW cadres therefore shared no uniform professional training, which meant that the qualities and characteristics of the institute?s ideal ?West expert? had to be inculcated in employees above all on the job rather than beforehand in a specially tailored course of study.41 Despite this important difference, the demands placed on the IPW?s cadres nevertheless had much in common with those placed on the IIB-trained ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? who would go on to work at the MfAA or the IV Division or would remain at the IIB. With three broadly ranging divisions (economy, politics, ideology, which were joined by another large division dedicated to information and documentation), the ?political function? of the IPW was unambiguously identified as advancing the goals of the SED: ?[The IPW] is an instrument in [the class] struggle (Kampfinstrument) of the leadership of party and state that with the tools of our Marxist-Leninist science has a key contribution to make to the realization of party policies.?42 The political and scientific functions of the IPW, it is important to note, were understood as two separate, albeit overlapping, areas, whereby the institute?s scientific function was clearly subordinated to its political function: ?The value of our scientific 41 Both in order to address the diversity of employees? educational background and in order to promote talent among its many young cadres, the IPW gained in 1975 the right to grant Promotion degrees and in 1981 the right to grant Habilitation degrees. 42 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 360 work is measured by its benefit for the party.? This was the framework within which the role of the individual employee at the IPW was understood: ?The struggle for the resolution of this task is the unequivocal class duty (Klassenauftrag) of every comrade and employee of the IPW.? In this, at issue is not verbal avowals, but rather a partisan, inner disposition toward work at the institute.?43 The political-ideological and scientific demands placed in particular on ?nomenklatura cadres? at the IPW were especially demanding. Due to the large size of the IPW, which by the mid-1970s employed approximately 450 individuals,44 a significant number of specialists were nomenklatura cadres, including the heads of not only all four main divisions, but also the heads of all sub-divisions and even of all working groups with more than three or more members, among other positions. Such leading cadres were expected both to manage their subordinates to ensure compliance with the demands placed upon all employees of the IPW and to set an example themselves so that ?every comrade acts as a genuine communist, that the party duty of the institute becomes the party duty of every comrade, that every comrade, wherever he might work, operates politically first and foremost as a party functionary.?45 The IPW?s 1978 guidelines for cadre work highlighted the responsibilities of nomenklatura cadres and described the ideal set of traits to be possessed by every leading cadre: The highest principle in the selection and assignment of cadres is that the leading role of the working class and its Marxist-Leninist party is guaranteed. Nomenklatura cadres of the institute should be distinguished in particular by the following characteristics and skills: unconditional loyalty to the working class, its party, and Marxism- 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 361 Leninism?pride in the achievements of socialism, love of the socialist homeland, unshakeable friendship with the CPSU, the Soviet Union, and the other countries of the socialist community, loyalty to proletarian internationalism?consistent fulfillment of the main task in its unity of economic and social policy as the main motivation for thought and behavior?partisanship and great specialist knowledge?high political and expert knowledge in order to achieve the best-possible work results, the correct relationship between collective leadership and personal responsibility.46 While the IPW?s ?political function? certainly enjoyed priority over its ?scientific function? and thus exercised the strongest influence on the orientation and output of the institute, the scientific element was still viewed as extraordinarily important. In fact, achieving and maintaining a high level of specialization and expert knowledge was seen as indispensable for the fulfillment of the IPW?s ?class duty.? Its cadres were expected to act as faithful Marxist-Leninists with realization of SED policy their highest goal, yet to do so required cadres capable of ably identifying and working to advance the GDR?s interests vis-?-vis the capitalist West. For this reason, the IPW?s cadre program for the period 1976-1980, drafted in January 1976, highlighted as required characteristics for cadres not only political-ideological loyalty but also a high level of competency and skill. For instance, while ?a clear political disposition toward work at the institute and its mission of conducting scientific work with the greatest benefit for the implementation of the policies of our Marxist-Leninist party? was described as indispensable, so was ?a high level of knowledge corresponding to one?s area of expertise in sufficient breath in the scientific disciplines: political economy, philosophy, scientific communism or the study of state and law, and sociology.?47 Similarly, ?the ability for independent scientific work 46 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6385. 47 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 362 in analysis and research for the creative response to and resolution of new questions and for collective work? was demanded of all employees, whether nomenklatura cadres or not.48 Finally, cadres at the IPW, as at the IIB, were expected continually to work to refine and improve the level of expertise they had already gained in order to ensure the highest possible level of quality and efficiency in their work and to keep abreast of new developments. The 1976-1980 cadre program identified as vital ?the constant pursuit of political and specialist qualification and full utilization of the existing level of qualification? as well as ?the constant effort to increase the effectiveness of scientific work in research, observation, and information.?49 The IPW was indeed understood as the SED?s Kampfinstrument in its (class) struggle with West Germany and the rest of the capitalist West, yet fulfillment of this unquestionably political function simultaneously required a high level of specialist knowledge and competency on the part of cadres. Similar to the situation with the IIB?s ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy,? the IPW?s designated mission of contributing to the furtherance of the party?s goals through scientific analysis resulted in the fusion of the ideological and expert elements in their work, where a tension yet no absolute dichotomy existed between the two. While the demands placed upon cadres at the specialized IPW thus generally corresponded to those placed upon cadres at the all-inclusive IIB, the former?s position as the GDR?s central ?West? institute introduced a heightened concern with security and ?ideological contamination? that was not present in as acute a form at the latter institution. Success in the IPW?s ?offensive engagement with imperialism? required a 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 363 familiarity and clarity of knowledge of the ?non-socialist world? (often simply abbreviated as ?NSW? for nichtsozialistische Welt) that was unattainable for the average citizen of the GDR on account of government censorship and propaganda. Employees of the IPW enjoyed special privileges in respect to contact with the west, whether direct or indirect, in order to carry out their ?class mission.? First, an abundance of materials from and about the capitalist West were available to analysts at the IPW, which maintained a massive collection of books and newspapers from the West in its function as ?documentation center.?50 Access to such otherwise inaccessible materials was the most common way employees at the West came into contact with the so-called class enemy in the West. A more select group, comprising mainly nomenklatura cadres, maintained personal contact with individuals at research institutes in the non-socialist world, such as the German Institute for Economic Research in West Berlin, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy of the University of Hamburg, the Cologne Institute of Economic Research, and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Ebenhausen near Munich.51 An even more select group of cadres, comprising the institute director, deputy director, and division heads, regularly traveled to the West to meet with their counterparts, to take part in scholarly conferences, or to hold presentations on their work. The official designation for the members of this exclusive group was ?travel cadres? (Reisekader), who, however, were permitted to travel to the non-socialist world exclusively on official business, not as 50 The IPW was also a UN depository library. 51 Lexikon der Institutionen und Organisationen, s. v. ?Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft,? in Enzyklop?die der DDR, CD-ROM (Berlin: Directmedia, 2004). While such contacts existed previously, they increased dramatically following rapprochement with West Germany and foreign policy normalization. See the following chapter for a more detailed account of the topic. 364 private individuals.52 As was the case with contacts with individuals and institutions in the non-socialist world more generally, most such trips took place in West Germany, but visits to other capitalist countries were also fairly common and would increase in the 1980s. These types of contacts with the West presented a serious dilemma: they were absolutely necessary for the success of the IPW given its mission and designated functions, yet extensive contact with the capitalist world, whether through the written word or personal interaction, threatened to contaminate the worldview of IPW cadres with ?bourgeois? elements and thus to undermine the ideological integrity that had only gained in importance for the SED leadership in the era of foreign policy normalization and ideological Abgrenzung from the West. The response to this dilemma was a rigorous set of measures intended to allow the required level of engagement with the West while preventing dilution of a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? at the IPW. To begin with, IPW employees were obligated to sign a commitment (Verpflichtung) in which they agreed ?to maintain the strictest silence on official matters? in accord with ?the norms of socialist vigilance as well as the protection of state and official secrets.?53 IPW employees also had to pledge they would inform the Cadres and Education Division of the institute of any changes in their personal life and that of close relatives as well as any attempts made by third parties to gain personal or official information from them. All visitors and non-official relationships with persons from ?the non-socialist abroad as well as West Berlin? likewise had to be reported??[All private contacts with citizens of the 52 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 53 Ibid. 365 non-socialist abroad as well as West Berlin] are altogether to be reduced to a minimum and to be strictly regulated.?54 The GDR?s meticulous system regulating access to confidential documents was also in place at the IPW in order to control who had access to materials from the West that could potentially have a pernicious effect on ideological cohesion at the institute. In the second half of the 1970s, twenty IPW employees held the highest-level security clearance (GVS for Geheime Verschlu?sache); 64 the intermediate-level security clearance (VVS for Vertrauliche Verschlu?sache); and 69 the lowest-level security clearance55 (VD for Vertrauliche Dienstsache).56 The IPW, however, not only made use of this system to regulate access to classified material but also used it as the basis to regulate all contacts of IPW employees with the non-socialist world. A discrete set of rules and regulations was attached to each security clearance so that members of the highest-level clearance group were forbidden to receive private visitors while members of the two other groups could do so but were required either to gain approval beforehand (genehmigungspflichtig for VVS cadres) or to report the visit (meldepflichtig for VD cadres).57 The situation was parallel in the maintenance of postal or any other sort of indirect contact with private persons from the non-socialist world. GVS cadres had to gain approval for all such contacts, VVS cadres had either to report such contacts (for family members) or to gain approval for them (all others), and VD cadres simply had to report all such contacts.58 Clearly, the higher up one was in the hierarchy at the IPW? where one?s position corresponded to the security clearance one possessed?the less 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 The designations corresponded roughly to ?top secret,? ?secret,? and ?confidential.? 57 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 58 Ibid. 366 unregulated contact with private individuals from the non-socialist world one was supposed to have. It is important to keep in mind that a significant number of the approximately 450 employees at the IPW in the second half of the 1970s were not included in this system whatsoever. Even the lowest-level security clearance group was rather exclusive, including mainly directors and deputy directors of sub-divisions, not rank-and-file researchers. The latter presumably had to concern themselves less with the onerous regulations to which other cadres were subjected, but also had much less exposure to sensitive materials from and about the West, which could potentially hinder fulfillment of their scientific function in service of the IPW?s larger political goal. A number of other important measures were in place at the IPW in order to bolster the ?class-based outlook? of cadres susceptible to the pernicious ideological influence of the West. Chief among these measures were the activities of the Ministry for State Security (MfS, or ?Stasi?).59 The MfS had a constant presence in the IPW in the form of unofficial collaborators (IMs) who reported on their colleagues? activities,60 but the ministry?s most intrusive and far-reaching activities at the IPW came in the form of periodic operations of ?political-operative safeguarding? (politisch-operative Sicherung). The purpose of such operations was to ?case? (erfassen) individual cadres at the IPW in order to ensure strict loyalty to the political-ideological and operative injunctions of the SED among a constituency under high risk for ideological deviation because of its elevated exposure to materials from the West. A ?political-operative safeguarding? operation was carried out at the IPW, for instance, in the second half of 1976, as a result 59 David Childs and Richard Popplewell have described how the MfS was ?even more necessary to the maintenance of the SED?s power? in the post-normalization era to counter the potentially pernicious effects of the end of isolation. David Childs and Richard Popplewell, The Stasi: The East German Intelligence and Security Service (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 175. 60 Schwarz, interview. 367 of which 18 persons with ?negative-operative-relevant characteristics? were removed from the institute and five others were subjected to greater scrutiny by the Operative Personenaufkl?rung division of the MfS.61 The list of ?negative-operative-relevant characteristics? was wide-ranging, including consideration of both the professional performance and personal life of employees. Elements from the latter category that could arouse the suspicion of the MfS included consumption of alcohol, contact with foreigners, contact with former members of the IPW ?who in the past as in the present are tainted with negative characteristics,? having relatives who had fled the GDR, and an amorphously defined ?morality.?62 The overriding criterion by which employees? professional performance was judged was correct understanding and internalization of the eminently political role the IPW was to play, i.e., complete subordination to the ideological and operative priorities of the SED. Concern with ideological contamination overlapped with concern that research at the IPW could be conducted as an autonomous Wissenschaft rather than Kampfinstrument of the SED?one wanted to avoid at all costs a return to the situation in the first half of the 1960s, before the ?leading role? of the SED had been established at the DWI and DIZ, two of the predecessor institutions of the IPW. A head of one of the IPW?s large sub-divisions, for instance, was removed from his position by the party organization at the institute for ?a deficient political and ideological understanding of his responsibilities and role as political leader and educator of a collective? and ?a lack of clarity in fundamental questions of the relationship between politics and science at the IPW.?63 Similarly, a joint report from the Central Party Control Commission and the West 61 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 368 Division of the CC, following two cases of ?Republikverrat? (i.e. fleeing the GDR)64 and ?a cluster of party [disciplinary] proceedings,? described the institute?s ?insufficient political-ideological work?: ?Too little is done so that all comrades have a correct relationship to the party and to democratic centralism [italics in original].?65 This situation, however, owed little to the leadership of the institute, which was said to cooperate fully with the MfS in its ?political-operative safeguarding? operations, as the ministry?s own report on the 1976 operation noted: ?It can be assessed that Director Prof. Schmidt, his deputies Prof. Meyer and Prof. Doernberg, and head of cadres Comrade Schlafke in particular fully support the essential interests of the MfS in all questions.?66 Alongside the MfS, the party cell of the SED at the IPW played the role of enforcer of political-ideological orthodoxy at the institute, which made up one of its main responsibilities. In its efforts to do so, the party cell in a sense could exercise an even more effective and uniform, if less draconian, influence than the MfS because the presence of its members at the IPW (the rank-and-file of the party cell was comprised of IPW employees) allowed both constant supervision and incessant meddling. The top priority of the party cell at the IPW, very similar to that of the MfS, was to ensure that cadres? performance and outlook conformed to a certain profile: ?our institute?s model of the politically engaged scientific employee.?67 The party cell?s most effective method of guaranteeing conformity to the desired profile was the ?cadre interview? (Kadergespr?ch), which made up part of a type of general performance review that took place on a regular basis (every two years on average) to measure cadres? compliance with 64 One of the two defectors subsequently gave an interview to RIAS. 65 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ IV B 2/2.028/32. 66 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6326. 67 Ibid. 369 the model of ?the politically engaged scientific employee.? Assessments of cadres naturally paid great attention to their behavior from the ?political-ideological? perspective and did not fail to identify a series of negative characteristics. A small sample would include ?lacking in political-ideological constancy and unstable behavior, insufficient qualifications for political and scientific work at the IPW;? ?political blindness when confronted by a foreign agent? and ?careerist tendencies;? ?politically neutral;? and one employee, whose father occupied a prominent position in the military, which complicated the matter, drew the ire of the party cell for holding regular meetings of a discussion group in her apartment.68 Although the assessments of the party cell, some of which led to dismissal, some of which merely resulted in closer observation of the individual in question, clearly attached great importance to ?correct? political-ideological behavior, they also demonstrated a pronounced concern with the specialist skills and professional competency of IPW cadres. Perhaps as a result of its members? hands-on familiarity with day-to-day operations at the IPW, the party cell demonstrated understanding for the fact that the presence of competent specialists was indispensable to the success of the institute?s broader political mission and thus that both elements had to be taken into consideration. This was the case, for instance, with the IPW employee identified above as ?politically neutral.? The same employee?s industriousness and talent as well as his membership in the IPW?s Kampfgruppe were evaluated positively. The party cell?s report speculated that his political impartiality might be due to the fact that he had not been sufficiently challenged in his work and concluded that further inquiry into the reasons for his apolitical outlook was needed.69 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 370 The ultimate impact of the battery of measures in place at the IPW to address the dilemma stemming from the institute?s intimate involvement with persons, institutions, and materials from the West was ambiguous. A hyper-concern with maintenance of a resolute Marxist-Leninist approach in the face of potential ideological contamination from the West, a concern which was not present in quite as acute a form at the IIB, underlay a strict system that meticulously regulated cadres? exposure to the West?s dangerous influence, whether in the form of personal contacts or printed materials. The existence at the IPW of such a stringent system highlights the dilemma of conducting wissenschaftlich research on a spectrum of topics that by their very nature were considered a threat to the ideological presuppositions on which researchers were supposed to be operating. The inherent tendency of the SED, whose legitimacy and operative efficacy rested upon maintenance of a cohesive worldview, toward ideological Abgrenzung and retrenchment, however, was tempered by the need for specialist knowledge and professional competency among scientific cadres at the IPW, which replicated the situation at the IIB. The mission of the IPW after all was an eminently practical-political one: providing scientific analysis on the capitalist West on which the SED leadership could draw in the process of policy formulation. In this, adherence to the Marxist-Leninist worldview that lay at the very center of the SED?s self-understanding was naturally indispensable, yet identification and furtherance of the interests of the GDR required expertly trained cadres as much if not more so than ideologically schooled ones. Furthermore, ideology and expertise at the IPW did not stand in total opposition to one another?ideology informed experts? perception of the GDR?s interests just as expertise shaped ideology. There thus existed at the IPW the tension between ideological and 371 expert imperatives, not an absolute dichotomy, that was present in East German foreign policy expertise more generally. The complex interplay that characterized the relationship between ideology and expertise was shaped by multiple factors. The increasing emphasis in the 1970s on attaining ever-higher levels of skill and specialization favored the expert side of the equation while renewed emphasis on the ?class mission? of expert cadres in the same time period provided a counterweight; similarly, d?tente and foreign policy normalization raised the prospect of weakening ideological dogmatism among experts through multifaceted contact with the capitalist West while the response of ideological Abgrenzung and retrenchment paired with strict regulation of contact with the West was aimed at counteracting such a development. East German foreign policy expertise in the era of foreign policy normalization was at a crossroads where the further course developments would take was open. The monumental international relations triumphs of the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc in the d?tente era reinforced among East German experts the perceived correlation between the interests of the GDR and the Marxist- Leninist paradigm in international relations. It was only later?at the turn of the decade? that they would begin to realize that the new international position of the GDR engendered by foreign policy normalization and the state of international relations developments in general no longer conformed to the established class-based framework. The Zenith of the Marxist-Leninist Paradigm in East German Foreign Policy Expertise The outstanding feature of expert output in the 1960s had been the formulation of a comprehensive conception of international relations within which the place and interests 372 of the GDR were clearly identified and which provided a cohesive framework for all analytical activity. As East German experts analyzed the most pressing foreign policy issues facing the GDR?the relationship between the superpowers and the international Kr?fteverh?ltnis, the dynamics of Soviet Bloc unity, the complexities of the German question, East Germany?s prospects to ?break through? the Hallstein Doctrine, the ?objectively anti-imperialist? movement for national liberation?they merged identification of the GDR?s specific interests in each of these areas into the interpretive framework provided by Marxism-Leninism, which viewed the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the defining characteristic of international relations, and created a GDR-specific foreign policy conception in the process. As a result of the peculiar strategic situation faced by East Germany?national division, lack of diplomatic recognition, dependency on the Soviet Union, reliance on the Soviet Bloc?s unity of action?the GDR?s concrete foreign policy interests were uniquely compatible, to a degree unmatched in other Soviet satellite states, with the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding of foreign policy, which meant experts? newly formulated conception in fact rested upon strong objective foundations. The combined influence of the institutional configuration of East German foreign policy expertise, which set the parameters in which analysis was conducted, and the highly circumscribed range of foreign policy options available to the GDR, which delivered the object of analysis, all but precluded alternative understandings of international relations. In the 1970s, however, the situation changed dramatically. There was great continuity in the institutional development of foreign policy expertise as the process of ?systematization? continued and completed the rationalization in service of 373 synchronization that had preceded it in order to create a comprehensive system of foreign policy expertise fully synchronized with the political-ideological requirements and operative needs of the larger East German foreign policy apparatus. In the process, the key features of East German foreign policy expertise underwent a change in degree rather than kind. Marxism-Leninism retained its centrality as the framework within which expert analysis was conducted, but increasing importance was placed upon specialist knowledge and professional expertise in order to keep pace with the new, more complex challenges of the d?tente era. Immense change came rather in the realm of the GDR?s foreign relations themselves. Indeed, from this point on, with the key characteristics of expertise essentially fixed, changes in expert output would occur principally in response to the development of the foreign relations East German experts were charged with analyzing. And in the 1970s, the epoch-making international relations developments of the d?tente era represented the key events to be analyzed by East German experts. Fulfillment of the GDR?s most fervently sought foreign policy goal?full diplomatic recognition and normalization of its international relations?fundamentally altered the conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy and represented what would be the greatest foreign relations achievement in the GDR?s entire history. Whereas the range of inquiry available in the 1960s to foreign policy expertise had perforce remained limited by the narrow horizons of East German foreign policy in the pre-normalization era, the GDR?s foreign policy ?breakthrough? in the first half of the 1970s correspondingly?and dramatically?broadened the spectrum of issues to be addressed. The GDR took on all the trappings of a ?status quo? state?an international actor nominally like any other in 374 the international arena. While the GDR in concert with the USSR would still actively seek to shape the ?constellation of forces? in favor of international socialism, particularly through supporting revolutionary movement in the developing world, the GDR now had a vested interest in preservation of the new d?tente-era status quo in Europe between the two superpowers and was accordingly wary of radical changes that could undermine that status quo and the benefits it carried for the GDR. Integration into the international order and the seeming transformation of the GDR into a status quo state, however, would not immediately engender a corresponding weakening of experts? Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations, as one might have reasonably expected. On the contrary, to East German experts, the course of events only confirmed the correctness of their class-based understanding of international relations. In time, the fact of foreign policy normalization?and the extensive engagement with the outside world it brought with it?would eventually allow for a more critical stance among experts, but the immense gains made by ?international socialism? in the first half of the 1970s meant that reinvigoration of experts? GDR-specific Marxist- Leninist conception of international relations became the dominant feature of expert output in the period. Thus, despite the fact that foreign policy normalization undermined the strong correlation between the actual conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations, experts? GDR-specific foreign policy conception that fused East Germany?s realpolitical interests with the Marxist-Leninist, class-based understanding of international relations reached its zenith in the d?tente era. 375 Given the strict orientation of East German expertise toward advancing the practical foreign policy goals of the GDR, which had become firmly entrenched by the 1970s, the most pressing issues in the operative realm were at once the most important questions addressed in the expert realm. At the dawn of the 1970s, breaching the Hallstein Doctrine remained the GDR?s supreme foreign policy objective, but, with the linked processes of d?tente between East and West and the FRG?s ?new Ostpolitik?70 beginning to move forward, it was becoming less a distant goal than a plausible target that could realistically be met in the short term. Even before Walter Ulbricht was removed from power in May 1971?that is, before Honecker abandoned Ulbricht?s rather dilatory position in favor of a purely constructive role for the GDR in the nascent d?tente process?acute concern with international diplomatic recognition in the context of d?tente provided the overarching orientation for foreign policy expertise. In January 1971, the MfAA drafted a report for the Foreign Policy Commission (APK) on ?The Chief Foreign Policy Goals of the GDR in the Near Future? which underscored the identity of the GDR?s interests with those of the Soviet Union and the broader Soviet Bloc and infused its analysis with a pronounced ideological element, demonstrating the mutually reinforcing relationship between interests and ideology in East German foreign policy at the time. The report took the recent signing of the Treaties of Moscow (August 1970) and Warsaw (December 1970) as the starting point of its analysis and saw them as evidence of ?the further transformation of the constellation of forces in Europe in favor [of the fraternal socialist states of the Warsaw Pact],? which had brought about this 70 In a recent volume, Carole Fink and Bernd Schaefer argue that d?tente and the new Ostpolitik were intimately linked, yet were simultaneously discrete phenomena that occasionally diverged from one another. Carole Fink and Bernd Schaefer, eds., Ostpolitik, 1969-1974: European and Global Responses (Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2009). 376 positive development through ?joint and coordinated action.?71 In response, however, ?the most aggressive imperialist forces, particularly those in the US,? were attempting to combat this development ?through activation of NATO policies hostile to d?tente and peace? and ?to prevent the resolution of existing problems in Europe.?72 In light of the resulting ?intensification of the international class struggle on European soil,? there arose a need for ?greater efforts? on the part of all socialist states, including the GDR: ?The energies of GDR foreign policy are also concentrated on strengthening the offensive of socialist policies for peace and security under the leadership of the USSR.?73 The report further described in no uncertain terms the relationship of the GDR to the USSR in respect to strategic orientation: ?The sustained development of the alliance and the community of action with the USSR determines the foreign policy strategy of the GDR in all areas.?74 Most importantly, however, the report?s authors demonstrated clear understanding of the fact that the GDR?s particular interests could only be advanced in concert with the rest of the Soviet Bloc in the framework of the evolving d?tente process. The ratification of the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw by the West German Bundestag was identified as the next ?link in the struggle for the realization of the policy of peace of the community of socialist states,? which was simultaneously identified as a key precondition for fulfillment of the GDR?s central objectives: ?[Ratification] will create new points of contact for the GDR?s establishment of diplomatic relations with more states as well as 71 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 52. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 377 the GDR?s membership in the UN system.?75 The attainment of a cross-bloc settlement acknowledging the status quo in Europe was likewise identified as crucial for advancing and maintaining the interests of the GDR in particular and the Soviet Bloc in general: ?Immediate preparation for a European security conference and the creation of stable, contractual foundations for a system of peaceful coexistence between European states of differing social orders stand at the center of the struggle for European security. The establishment of normal diplomatic relations between the GDR and the capitalist states of Europe, including the FRG, has become a central question in the normalization of the situation in Europe.?76 Thus, in this early stage of the d?tente process, just as fulfillment of the supreme goal of normalization of its foreign relations was becoming more plausible, if still uncertain, for the GDR, the MfAA report provided clear indication of how East German experts would handle the momentous international relations developments unfolding in the first half of the 1970s. Owing to the nature of the d?tente process, in which gains made by the GDR were inconceivable apart from the gains made by its superpower patron and the entire Soviet Bloc, the qualitatively new situation that would emerge would not challenge but would rather be incorporated into experts? pre- existing interpretive framework and would bolster the perceived strong correlation between the particular realpolitical interests of the GDR and a strict black-and-white, class-based understanding of international relations among East German experts. A report on the FRG completed in 1970/1971 by a special strategic working group under the leadership of Hermann Axen clearly revealed this dynamic at work: ?In respect to the establishment of equal relations between the GDR and the FRG on the basis of 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 378 international, the exchange of ambassadors, and the acceptance of the GDR and the FRG into the UN, all of which is quite likely in the coming years, this would decisively contribute to consolidation of the international position of the GDR and to pushing back the imperialism of the FRG. By no means, however, would it be equivalent to attenuation of the clash of systems between socialism and imperialism in the form of the socialist GDR and the imperialist FRG.?77 At the VIII Party Congress of the SED in June 1971, Erich Honecker, who just one month earlier had replaced Walter Ulbricht as party head, presented foreign policy normalization as the centerpiece of an ambitious program that included establishment of diplomatic relations with states outside the Soviet sphere of influence (including with West Germany on equal terms), entry into the UN and all its special organizations, and participation in a Europe-wide conference recognizing the postwar status quo on the continent. As had been the case in the past, fulfillment of this program would not depend on the GDR?s own actions as much as on broader Cold War developments, but the measures comprising the d?tente process between East and West would indeed entail fulfillment of this ambitious program: the Four Power Agreement on Berlin in 1971, West Germany?s ratification of the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw in 1972, the signing of the SALT I Treaty between the US and the USSR in 1972, the conclusion of the Basic Treaty between the GDR and the FRG in 1972, the entry of both German states to the UN in 1973, and the passage of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation 77 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/11. 379 in Europe (the Helsinki Accords) in 197578 marked realization of the GDR?s most zealously pursued foreign policy objectives. The expert response to these epochal events followed the analytical approach that had been applied just as substantive progress was starting to be made in the d?tente process: welcome acknowledgement of the changes to the international situation engendered by d?tente matched with integration of the new situation into experts? pre- existing interpretive framework. The analysis provided in an IIB study from September 1974, even before the culmination of d?tente had been reached with the Helsinki Accords, was exemplary as it displayed the key features that were more generally characteristic of the expert response to East-West rapprochement. For the report?s authors, the substantial, if incomplete, East-West rapprochement at the heart of d?tente was not a sign that the international conflict between socialism and capitalism might be waning; instead, conciliation between East and West was understood as a development within the inexorable ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism, which continued unabated: The d?tente process, which has become the decisive tendency of the present, has ushered in a profound change of course (Wende) in international relations. As a result of the coordinated foreign policy of the socialist states and in realization of the peace offensive announced at the XXIV Party Congress of the CPSU, d?tente is advancing on the foundation of an international constellation of forces that has changed in favor of socialism. D?tente is, in its essence, a far-reaching political and social process of transformation of the international situation. It reflects?directly or indirectly?the changes, which have set in on the level of state relations and international life and in the 78 Olaf Bange and Gottfried Niedhart highlight the central role of the German question in the broader d?tente process in general and the Helsinki Accords in particular. Olaf Bange and Gottfried Niedhart, eds., Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008). 380 situation of classes but also of nations, which find visible expression in the safeguarding of world peace and avoidance of an all-destroying world war, and which at once have led to a new situation in the class struggle between capitalism and socialism. In the transitional phase from capitalism to socialism, the international constellation of forces has experienced a new qualitative change. The d?tente process reflects the unfolding of that historical stage in which, although imperialism still possesses considerable positions of power, the conditions of the class struggle are imposed upon it by socialism, a socialism which is becoming the determining factor of international development.79 Fulfillment of the GDR?s greatest foreign policy goal and the strengthening of the international position of its Soviet Bloc allies brought about by d?tente not only represented an international relations triumph that significantly advanced the interests of the GDR but marked the forward march of international socialism as well?d?tente?s significance consisted above all in the shift in favor of socialism it engendered in the international constellation of forces in the ongoing, ineluctable clash of systems. The clash between capitalism and socialism was viewed as a zero-sum game, where the strengthening of the socialist side necessarily entailed a corresponding weakening of the capitalist side, as an analysis from the IPW underscored: ?The coordinated and concerted foreign policy of the states of the socialist community compels the imperialist states toward gradual acceptance of the principles of peaceful coexistence and pushes them into a historic defensive position. The compulsion emanating from socialism toward adaptation to the changing situation is one of the essential characteristics of the imperialism of the present.?80 79 PA AA, MfAA, C 509/78. 80 BArch, DC 204/2. 381 The great foreign policy triumph represented by normalization and d?tente for the GDR and for international socialism was able to be integrated so seamlessly into experts? existing understanding of international relations, which saw an ascendant and monolithic socialism locked in an inexorable struggle with a decrepit and equally monolithic capitalism, because developments seemed to be playing out in complete accord with the main tenets of that very understanding. Since it had first been fully formulated in the 1960s, the central characteristic of experts? GDR-specific conception of international relations was the fusion of the clearly delineated realpolitical interests of the GDR with the Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as the class struggle in the international arena. This particular conception was facilitated by the unusually strong correlation between, on the one hand, the GDR?s strategic interests and, on the other, the division of the world into two antagonistic blocs locked in existential struggle?national division and wide-ranging international isolation made the exposed GDR deeply dependent on the USSR, the superpower guarantor of its existence, and reliant on the Soviet Bloc?s unity of action. The GDR?s strategic situation, unique among states in the Soviet Bloc, thus rendered advancement of the interests of the GDR as a state all but fully contingent on advancement of the interests of the Soviet Bloc as a whole and thereby promoted identification of the GDR?s interests with those of the Soviet Bloc, understood as the real-world embodiment of the abstract cause of ?international socialism.? When the GDR fulfilled its central objective of full foreign policy normalization in the context of d?tente?the triumph of the GDR being inseparable from the broader triumph of ?international socialism? in the period?it facilitated the reification of experts? ideologized understanding of international relations since the entire process appeared to 382 play out in conformity with the defining feature of that understanding, the fusion of the GDR?s realpolitical interests with the Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as a form of the class struggle. The assessment of normalization and d?tente in the analysis of the IV Division of demonstrated just how much those events confirmed for East German experts the validity of the dichotomous conceptual framework they had built up over the previous 30 years. In December 1975, only four months after the crowning achievement of d?tente had taken place?the signing of the Helsinki Accords by the GDR, the FRG, and 33 other states?the IV Division issued a top-secret report appraising the results of East German foreign policy since the VIII Party Congress of the SED in June 1971, when the ambitious goal of foreign policy normalization had first been declared. The IV Division?s overwhelmingly positive assessment clearly interpreted the momentous international relations developments of the first half of the decade as evidence of the success of the GDR but also and more importantly of international socialism in its struggle with capitalism: The period since the XXIV Party Congress of the CPSU and the VIII Party Congress of the SED occupies a special position in postwar history in its entirety. In these years, the international constellation of forces continued to move significantly in favor of the forces of peace, national independence, and socialism. The struggle of the states that have closed ranks around the Soviet Union and other progressive forces has resulted in the development of a new international situation. It finds most visible expression in the transition from ?cold war? to d?tente and the peaceful coexistence of states of differing social orders, which commenced at the start of the 1970s. The process of international 383 d?tente, which is furthest-advanced on the European continent, has become the main tendency of international development.81 From the perspective of East German experts, the d?tente process was not simply the prosaic balancing of interests between different states on the international stage, but rather represented a key step in the ongoing clash of systems between socialism and capitalism.82 Within the ongoing clash of systems, the interests of the GDR and of international socialism were seen as essentially identical. The IV Division?s summary report underscored this and highlighted how realization of practical foreign policy goals in the d?tente process facilitated the reification of an ideologized understanding of international relations by unambiguously linking the advancement of the GDR?s interests with advancement of those of the Soviet Bloc as a whole and, therefore, with the progress of socialism: While the GDR in the nearly 22 years of its existence up to the VIII Party Congress was able to establish diplomatic relations with only 30 states, it presently maintains diplomatic relations with 118 states. This is striking proof of the increased international standing of the socialist German state. As a consequence, the position of international socialism has also been fortified. The qualitatively new position of the GDR is result and reflection of the strength of socialism?. Never before has so much been achieved in the struggle for peace?a fundamental concern of all peoples?as in the period since the XXIV Party Congress of the CPSU and the VIII Party Congress of the SED. D?tente and peaceful coexistence are no longer just the programmatic goals of the socialist states and all progressive forces, but are increasingly becoming practical reality.83 81 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B/2/20. 82 This interpretive approach was present at the IIB as well, where, for instance, a planned monograph on d?tente followed the example of the IV Division?s report. UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13053. 83 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B/2/20. 384 In East German experts? analysis of d?tente, the interests of the GDR were not simply the interests of a state like any other but rather manifestations of socialism?s progress on the world stage. Thus despite East German experts? assertions that d?tente had brought about a ?qualitatively new situation? in international relations, no qualitative changes to the existing interpretive framework could be discerned in their analytical response to the great foreign policy success of the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc in the first half of the 1970s. Allowance was made for the dramatically altered conditions that obtained at mid- decade versus the start of the 1970s, but the qualitatively new situation which had arisen was integrated into experts? GDR-specific conception of foreign policy without the conception itself being substantially modified. Indeed, this trend applied more or less uniformly to the entire range of foreign policy issues faced by East German experts in the 1970s. The context of d?tente was crucial to expert output in general in the 1970s since as consideration of the d?tente process reinforced experts? existing interpretive framework for international relations, it in turn set the tone for analysis and interpretation of other outstanding foreign policy issues. On this backdrop, expert analysis in the d?tente era was distinguished by two key elements that were neither fully compatible nor fully contradictory. On the one hand, analysis was conducted on the basis of the existing Marxist-Leninist conceptual framework and largely with the aim of strengthening it and extending its applicability; on the other hand, analysis more and more reflected the high level of competency and specialization of the GDR?s foreign policy cadres and correspondingly was becoming increasingly incisive on a growing range of topics. This 385 set of contrasting, if not contradictory, features would in later years allow for a more self- critical approach in respect to the interpretive framework employed by experts, but, in the context of ideological intoxication and reification engendered by foreign policy normalization, the seemingly triumphant Marxist-Leninist paradigm retained its centrality. The conceptual triumphalism facilitated by the highly favorable results of d?tente for the GDR was only further bolstered by another contemporaneous development that unambiguously redounded to the benefit of ?international socialism?: US defeat in Vietnam. North Vietnam?s final victory over the South Vietnamese regime in Saigon occurred almost simultaneously with the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975. A report completed in December of that year by the Fundamental Questions and Planning Division of the MfAA, signed off on by foreign minister Fischer and submitted to the APK, provided detailed analysis of the situation in ?Asia after the Victory of the Peoples of Indochina.? The report?s analysis was consistent with the pattern found in other analysis of the period?rather differentiated treatment of the various and complex questions connected with the issue firmly located in the prevailing class-based interpretive framework. The ideological element was clear in the report?s general assessment of the event?s significance: The victory of the peoples of Indochina over the aggressor US is of strategic importance. It reflects the profound changes to the international constellation of forces in favor of the forces of socialism and national liberation that are currently taking place. It was made possible above all through the political, military, economic, and diplomatic support of the Soviet Union and the other socialist states. With modern weapons at their disposal, the 386 Vietnamese people were able to withstand the US military machine. This victory is an outstanding example of the power of international solidarity.84 While interpreting the victory of the North Vietnamese and the defeat of the US and the South Vietnamese with pronounced concern for the effect on the ?constellation of forces? in the region, which was called ?a focal point of the international class struggle,? the report also drew a clear link between events in Vietnam and the GDR?s immediate interests in Europe, particularly peaceful coexistence and continuation of the d?tente process: ?With the cessation of the Vietnam War, one of the most dangerous sources of war and tension since the Second World War has been eliminated. Just as international d?tente significantly contributed to the cessation of US aggression, the elimination of this source of war and tension will exercise a positive influence on the process of international d?tente.?85 As was the case with analysis of d?tente itself, the favorable conclusion of the Vietnam War bolstered the already-strong association among East German experts between the GDR?s interests and those of the cause of international socialism and thereby reinforced the existing class-based approach to foreign relations. The report, however, also contained a great deal of hard-nosed examination of how communist victory in Vietnam might affect the region more broadly. The report?s authors, for instance, predicted US defeat would embolden members of the Association of Southeast Asian States to steer a more independent foreign policy course vis-?-vis the US, which culminated in the dissolution of SEATO in 1977 after a long period of dormancy. India, which maintained close relations with the Soviet Union, was also portrayed as a 84 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 64. 85 Ibid. 387 beneficiary of the Vietnam War: ?India endeavors to use the more favorable conditions resulting from the altered constellation of forces for realization of its national interests against imperialism and particularly against the great power-chauvinist and hegemonic policies of the rulers in Beijing.?86 Furthermore, the report?s authors also recognized that the positive change to the ?international constellation of forces? brought about by North Vietnamese victory could prove short-lived and that an all too-triumphalist interpretation of the event was correspondingly out of place. The goals of ?imperialism? in the region, the report claimed, remained unchanged and the US, in collaboration with its allies, could bring its still-considerable resources to bear in order to influence development in the region: ?Despite the worsening of its military-strategic position on the Asian continent, the US maintains considerable political and economic capacities in Asia and will continue its policy of encirclement of the Soviet Union. It endeavors to create new jump- off points for an offensive strategy adapted to the new conditions and is expanding its chain of bases from South Korea over Japan (Okinawa), Taiwan, the Philippines, and Guam to Diego Garcia?. The US also endeavors more strongly than before to incorporate EC countries into the defense of imperialism?s positions in Asia.?87 Finally, the report considered the continued role in the region of China, the b?te noire of the Soviet socialist world ever since consummation of the Sino-Soviet schism in the 1960s.88 86 Ibid. 87Among US allies, Japan in particular had a key role to play to reinforce the position of imperialism in the region: ?Japan?s ruling circles see in their close alliance with the US the guarantee for maintenance of existing social relations and therefore reacted to the defeat of US imperialism in Indochina with greater integration into the military-strategic concept of US imperialism, in which Japan occupies an important position. [The country] is supposed to serve as ?counterweight? to the growing influence of the USSR in Asia, but also of the People?s Republic of China, and with its economic and political resources is supposed to help imperialism re-conquer the positions it has lost in Indochina.? Ibid. 88 Vietnam had become a key venue in which the ongoing Sino-Soviet rivalry was fought out. See Eva- Maria Stolberg, ?People?s Warfare Versus Peaceful Coexistence: Vietnam and the Sino-Soviet Struggle for 388 While the communist victory in Vietnam was described as a ?serious setback to the great power-chauvinist policy of the Chinese leaders,? the report?s authors were certain that the ?fundamentally anti-Soviet disposition? of Chinese leaders would mean that policy emanating from Beijing would continually seek to oppose Soviet interests at every turn, whether in calls for a greater US presence on the Asian continent, overtures toward Japan to cooperate on an anti-Soviet basis, or support for Maoist guerillas in Thailand, Malaysia, and Burma. In respect to the main topic of the report, continued friction between Vietnam and China appeared inevitable to the report?s authors: ?The great power-chauvinist policy of the Chinese leaders after the victory of the peoples of Indochina led to an intensification of tensions between the People?s Republic of China and Vietnam, a tendency that in light of the continuing clash of interests will continue to grow in strength.?89 At mid-decade, the coincidence of the GDR?s foreign policy normalization and the North Vietnamese communists? triumph over the leading ?imperialist? power, the US, exercised an immense impact on East German foreign policy expertise. Real-world events seemed to confirm the most fundamental elements of East German experts? understanding of international relations. The progress of the GDR and the progress of ?international socialism? appeared to be one and the same, and, from the perspective of East German experts, the ?international constellation of forces? seemed to be shifting decisively and enduringly in favor of socialism. As a result, the ideological element in expert output in the 1970s maintained the central position it had enjoyed in the 1960s. The strength of the ideological element in each period, however, was the result of two Ideological Supremacy,? in America, Vietnam, and the World: Comparative and International Perspectives, eds. Andreas W. Daum et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 237-258. 89 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 64. 389 different processes. The seeming confirmation of the Marxist-Leninist understanding of foreign policy provided by developments like d?tente, normalization, and US defeat in Vietnam stood in start contrast to the situation in the 1960s, when the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise stemmed in large part from absence of substantive engagement with the outside world on the part of the GDR. The GDR?s isolation outside the Soviet Bloc enforced by the Hallstein Doctrine favored a strictly dichotomous and dogmatic view of foreign relations. In the 1970s, as the GDR was in the process overcoming its diplomatic isolation, the ideological element in foreign policy expertise remained strong, yet now not due to the absence of substantive engagement with the outside world, but rather to the manner in which the GDR realized its supreme objective of foreign normalization, which occurred just as ?international socialism? was making great gains in Europe and Asia. Yet the imperative to produce sound analysis was also present in both decades, and it only grew stronger in the 1970s. While the immediate impact of d?tente and foreign policy normalization heavily favored reinforcement of the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise, the results of the very same process, since diplomatic isolation could no longer serve as an ideological shelter in light of the complexities brought by the GDR?s full engagement with the outside world, simultaneously allowed movement toward a less dogmatic approach, where the expert element paid less attention to ideological articles of faith than to issues tied to the concrete interests of the GDR. One area in which this dynamic was particularly apparent was analysis of unity in the Soviet Bloc. In the pre-normalization era, the exposed and isolated GDR was acutely 390 dependent on the willingness and ability of the member-states of the Warsaw Pact to act in unison on the international stage in order to promote interests the GDR was incapable of realizing on its own. The GDR?s dependency on the Soviet Bloc?s unity of action likewise was a key contributing factor to the strong correlation that existed between the GDR?s foreign policy interests and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. Following foreign policy normalization, when the GDR took on all the trappings of a status quo foreign policy actor, the GDR?s dependency on the Soviet Bloc was greatly reduced, although not completely eliminated, yet ?proletarian internationalism? retained its importance for GDR foreign policy both in practice and in theory. The Foreign Policy of Socialist States Division of the IIB addressed the topic in a 1977 report for the Council for Foreign Policy Research entitled ?Main Directions and Tendencies in the Convergence Process between States of the Socialist Community. The Influence of the Formation of Commonalities in the International Development of Socialist States on the Deepening of the Convergence Process.? The report identified convergence (Ann?herung) as the central characteristic in the development of relations between socialist states in the 1970s: ?At the start of the 1970s, convergence as a new step in the societal development and the cooperation of the countries of the community of socialist states became the decisive developmental tendency in their mutual relations. Convergence means the ever-closer joint action of independent socialist states, their growing alignment, and their complementarity in respect both to internal political, economic, and social structures and the main directions of their cooperation. Convergence is based on the objective process of the internationalization of the economic and societal life of socialism in its entirety.?90 90 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13054. 391 Whereas unity of actions among states of the socialist community in the pre- normalization era was tried rather specifically to breaking through the Hallstein Doctrine and preventing the total isolation of the GDR, in the post-normalization era it was understood not so much in reference to a single, overriding goal as aimed at bolstering the strength of ?international socialism? more generally in its continual clash with capitalism: ?Convergence is taking place under conditions of bitter class struggle with imperialism. It reveals itself already today as the decisive factor of the joint action of [the states of the socialist community] in the struggle for peace and international cooperation for the freedom and independence of nations. The turn in international relations from ?cold war? to d?tente is inseparably bound to the unfolding of convergence as historically determined development. The continued strengthening of the influence of the socialist community in the international class struggle demands the deepening of the convergence process.?91 The IV Division?s comprehensive report on the GDR?s foreign relations at mid-decade echoed the same sentiment: ?The changed international political situation creates manifold new, complex tasks for the socialist states, whose resolution demands united efforts more than ever.?92 Despite the pronounced tendency of East German experts in the era of foreign policy normalization to depict the ?international constellation of forces? as moving continually in favor of socialism, their penchant for heavily ideologized analysis was consistently tempered by the need to provide a credible and accurate account of a given topic. The IIB?s analysts demonstrated cognizance of the fact that, despite the great gains made by ?international socialism? in the first half of the decade, the situation both among 91 Ibid. 92 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B/2/20/2. 392 socialist states and between the Soviet Bloc and the capitalist world remained fraught and susceptible to abrupt change, which could very well unfold to the detriment of the GDR and other socialist states. The IIB report on the convergence process expressed just this kind of circumspection in its otherwise positive account of the topic: ?On the whole, development in recent years shows that the central contradiction of our epoch shapes the convergence of socialist nations and states in varying ways, some of which are directly contradictory. Certain aspects and elements of convergence?conditioned by the demands of the intensifying class struggle with imperialism?are being accelerated. On the other hand, the policies of imperialism and its efforts to use existing possibilities to influence affairs in certain areas complicates the convergence process and creates additional difficulties.?93 The analysis demonstrated awareness of the potential friction that could arise between socialist states in response to incentives and/or pressure from the West, just as would be the case in the 1980s when the ?second Cold War? would flare up. The IIB report on convergence in fact exhibited one of the central characteristics of expert output in the wake of d?tente and normalization: the articulation of critical analysis in ideological terms, that is, without departing from the established conceptual framework. The notion that the international constellation of forces moved continually in favor of socialism could not be directly challenged, but when developments that appeared to run counter to the notion appeared, they still had to be described. Thus in the case of the convergence process of socialist states, setbacks in the process were framed as the result of temporary ?contradictions? in international relations that, however, did not affect the continual movement of the international constellation of forces in favor of socialism. At the height of the conceptual self-confidence engendered by d?tente and 93 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13054. 393 normalization, East German experts recognized the danger a breakdown of bloc unity could represent for a GDR that was still not completely master of its own fate in the context of the ongoing East-West conflict. A similar process played out in respect to experts? approach to the developing world, where the capacity for critical analysis continued to advance even as the triumphs of d?tente and normalization bolstered the conceptual self-confidence of East German experts. And just as the dramatically different conditions of d?tente had been seamlessly incorporated into the preexisting theoretical construct of peaceful coexistence, whose central supposition of the inexorable struggle between socialism and capitalism remained unchanged, the considerably different situation prevalent in the developing world in the 1970s versus the 1960s appeared to provide evidence of the continued ?objectively anti- imperial? character of the national liberation movement and indeed of the entire developing world. Although events in the developing world in the 1970s were not as uniformly positive as d?tente and normalization in Europe (communist victory in Vietnam stood essentially as the lone example that could potentially be interpreted as unambiguous evidence of the further movement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of socialism), the dynamic of expert output on the developing world mirrored that of expert output on the situation in Europe. Favorable developments were portrayed as consistent with the continual movement of the international constellation of forces in favor of socialism and thus bolstered experts? class-based conception of international relations while unfavorable developments could be written off as temporary setbacks without affecting the fundamental integrity of the existing interpretive framework. In the IV Division?s comprehensive report on the GDR?s foreign relations at 394 mid-decade, for instance, promising developments in Africa were not only viewed as beneficial to the interests of the Soviet Bloc but were also taken as confirmation of the continuing struggle between socialism and ?imperialism?: ?The national liberation movement as one of the main revolutionary currents of our era made significant progress in the period under review [1971-1975]. The last imperialistic colonial empire, the Portuguese empire, collapsed. Ethiopia embarked upon the path of independence and non-capitalist development following the fall of the feudal-capitalistic monarchy. The republic of Madagascar asserts its newly gained independence. The nationally liberated states achieved important results in the struggle for the attainment and consolidation of their political independence?. The crisis in the system of relations with the imperialist powers deepens.?94 Owing to the continued centrality of the dichotomous Marxist- Leninist understanding of international relations that equated the interests of the GDR as a state with the advancement of ?international socialism,? the situation in the developing world was analyzed within that framework, where the ?objectively anti-imperialist? character of national liberation remained axiomatic. Given this understanding, in which specific significance was ascribed to the developing world in the larger conflict between socialism and capitalism, advances in national liberation necessarily redounded to the benefit of socialism and to the detriment of capitalism in what amounted to a zero-sum game between the two protagonists. The IV Division report continued: ?The nationally liberated states?despite the intensified process of differentiation?have become an important factor in world politics that promotes the progressive tendencies in the world.? The GDR as socialist state consistently stood and stands on the side of all 94 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B/2/20/2. 395 peoples and states, parties and movements, which fight for national and social liberation and against colonialism, neo-colonialism, and racism.?95 At the same time, however, the general ideological significance ascribed to the developing world within East German experts? conception of international relations in the 1970s did not preclude sober, critical assessment clearly focused on how the GDR?s interests might be affected. Indeed, the high level of professionalism and specialist knowledge achieved through the systematization of East German foreign policy expertise promoted this critical, expert element. And a certain balance, albeit uneasy, was able to exist between the ideological and expert element in foreign policy expert output since Marxist-Leninist notions set the general framework within which expert analysis was conducted, which however left abundant room for critical, differentiated analysis within that framework. The uneasy balance between the ideological and the expert in output in the 1970s was on display in analysis of another key region of the developing world: the Middle East. In a 1976 report on ?Current Issues in the Struggle for a Political Solution to the Crisis in the Middle East? drafted by the MfAA and submitted to the APK, an unmistakable concern with the topic?s significance for the international class struggle provided the general framework for what was otherwise rather deft analysis of the complexities of the situation. The report portrayed the Middle East as a key venue in the broader clash between socialism and capitalism and as an area where ?imperialism? had been able to make significant gains: ?Imperialism rapidly adapted to the constellation of forces, which had patently changed during the Yom Kippur War, and exploited the intensified process of class differentiation within and between the Arab states in order to 95 Ibid. 396 proceed actively against progressive forces. The gap that Nasser?s death left and his successor?s shift to openly pro-imperialist positions gave imperialism the opportunity, in league with the Arab reaction, to go on the offensive and to expand its weakened position. This is supposed simultaneously to compensate for the strategic defeats in Europe and Indochina and to forestall further defeats.?96 The gains of ?imperialism? in the region compelled the report?s authors, who in accord with their ideologized understanding of foreign relations viewed the competition between socialism and capitalism as a zero-sum game, to concede that the situation in the Middle East was developing contrary to the general movement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of socialism: ?The policies of imperialism have heretofore impeded a political solution of the Middle East conflict and have aggravated tensions in the region. The explosive situation in the Middle East could not be rectified. This development, which stands in sharp contrast to the basic tendency of international development, exercises an enormous influence on the worldwide class struggle for d?tente and disarmament. The just and lasting resolution of the Middle East conflict?as the peace program of the XXV Party Congress of CPSU formulated?is one of the most pressing tasks in the continued struggle for peace, freedom, and national independence.?97 The GDR naturally adopted the position of its superpower patron on the issue as its own?support for Arab states? demands for territorial concessions from Israel, support for the PLO,98 and opposition to Israel as the main ally of ?imperialism? in the region? 96 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 70. 97 Ibid. 98 The GDR afforded the PLO diplomatic recognition even before the USSR (1973 versus 1974) since the move complemented the GDR?s efforts to impose its dichotomous, class-based understanding of international relations onto the politics of the Middle East. Angelika Timm, Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern. Das gest?rte Verh?ltnis der DDR zu Zionismus und Staat Israel (Bonn: Bouvier, 1997), 269. 397 and the report clearly reflected this fact by making no distinction between the interests of the Soviet Union and those of the ?community of socialist states? in the Middle East. East German diplomatic engagement with the states of the region following foreign policy normalization, however, brought with it cognizance of the complexity of the situation on the ground, for which an overly dogmatic approach centered around the simplistic notion of an ?anti-imperial alliance between international socialism and the Arab movement for national liberation? was a poor fit. While the MfAA report employed a considerable amount of ideological terminology, it did so while providing a differentiated account of the complexities of the situation. The situation in the Arab world, the report described, was volatile owing both to internal processes and external developments: ?The movement for national liberation of the Arab peoples is currently passing through a complicated stage. In nearly all Arab states, increasing class differentiation and polarization under the conditions of the intensification of the struggle against imperialism, Israeli aggression, and neo-colonial exploitation is producing a gradual re-grouping of political forces. Social questions are coming ever more to the fore alongside national questions. In many states (Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, et al.), sharp clashes over the further path of development are emerging.?99 The complex situation in individual Arab states were manifested for the report?s authors in an equally complex situation between Arab states: ?The social processes within Arab states lead likewise to a growth in the social-political differences between them. The political contradictions and clashes that are riling and dividing the Arab world in previously unknown measure and that hold nearly every Arab state in their grip are unmistakable. The progressive, anti-imperial Arab states and forces (Iraq, Syria, Algeria, South Yemen, Lebanon, and PLO) currently face a larger group of 99 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 70. 398 reactionary monarcho-feudal and right-nationalist capitalist states led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.?100 The analytical approach applied to the situation in and between Arab states?a differentiated account sensitive to existing complexities paired with the continued use of ideological terminology?was also applied to the policies of the US and other capitalist states in the Middle East.101 ?Imperialism? was handled as a monolithic bloc that stood in absolute opposition to an equally monolithic ?international socialism.? The ongoing class struggle set the essential context for the clash of interests between socialism and capitalism in the Middle East, which meant ?imperialist? aims consisted exclusively in promoting its own interests at the expense of the Arab movement for national liberation and, by extension, international socialism: ?The goals of imperialism in the Middle East lie in comprehensively securing its political, economic, and military interests in the region. The rule of imperialism and the Arab reaction is to be fully re-established in new, neo-colonial forms and is to be safeguarded by the consolidation of exploitative relations in the individual Arab states.?102 While describing the ?imperialist? approach to resolving the situation in the Middle East, the report again deployed ideological language to provide what was essentially an accurate, differentiated reading of the situation. It described the US approach to securing peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors by brokering compromise settlements between moderate elements on a country-by-country 100 Saudi Arabia in particular was singled out for having expanded its influence considerably in previous years by spending funds gained through oil production in order to curry favor among other Arab states: ?Supported by imperialism, Saudi Arabia is using the influence it has gained in order to strengthen the reactionary elements of Arab nationalism and to disseminate anti-communist, pan-Islamic ideas.? Ibid. 101 West Germany in particular was seen as one of the main partners of the US in the ?neo-colonial? exploitation of the developing world. A report from earlier in the 1970s asserted: ?The FRG plays as partner of US imperialism and in the framework of the global strategy of the US an ever-weightier role im the imperialistic struggle against the movement for national liberation and the young national states.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/11. 102 PA AA, MfAA, MR-A 70. 399 basis, a process which had already begun with Henry Kissinger?s shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Egypt to bring about a cease-fire in the Yom Kippur War and to initiate the peace process that would culminate in the 1978 Camp David Accords. The process of class differentiation analyzed above had a key role to play since, according to the report?s authors, the presence of a ?national bourgeoisie? willing to negotiate and make peace with Israel was an indispensable element for any type of agreement: [T]he imperialist approach toward resolution of the Middle East conflict aims at a balancing of interests between the Israeli monopoly bourgeoisie and the Arab bourgeoisie, whereby Israel will remain the central imperialist base in the region. In this process, the legitimate, fundamental demands for resolution of the Middle East conflict cannot be ignored. In particular, the return of Arab territory occupied by Israel is an essential condition for the Arab bourgeoisie in a solution that would also have to open the possibility of satisfying the interests of the Palestinian bourgeoisie. The continued strengthening of the Arab bourgeoisie, particularly its most reactionary elements, and the weakening of the anti-imperialist, democratic elements represent the decisive prerequisite for coming closer to the realization of such a solution. The fundamental method for the prosecution of this objective is the policy of partial steps. Imperialism thereby has to ensure that each concrete step vis-?-vis its Arab partners does not comprise the preeminence of Israel in the area.103 East German experts in their approach to the thorny situation in the Middle East thus continued to apply the GDR-specific Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations to provide the general framework within which analysis was conducted, but this did not prevent them from clearly recognizing the complexity of a situation where ?international socialism? appeared to be on the defensive. The MfAA report on the Middle East likewise tacitly acknowledged by its repeated statements of support for a 103 Ibid. 400 ?complex political solution? to the problem that the interests of the Soviet Bloc and the interests of the diverse panoply of Arab states with a stake in the Middle East crisis were by no means as compatible as the theoretical postulate of a close objective alliance between international socialism and national liberation would have it. East German experts? confidence in the fundamental soundness of their basic approach was unshaken?the report claimed for instance that ?the process of intensified class differentiation and polarization does not nullify the contradiction between the Arab movement for national liberation and imperialism in league with the ruling circles of Israel and the Arab reaction?104?but their conceptual certainty was tempered by recognition of the complexity of a situation that did not mesh well with a rigid, dogmatic approach. In its concluding section, the report underscored the continuing volatility and unpredictability the situation in the Middle East would present in the future: ?The struggle for resolution of the Middle East conflict will continue to be protracted and will not be free of manifestations of stagnation or of setbacks. One must anticipate new maneuvers on the part of imperialism and Israel as well as pronounced manifestations of differentiation among the Arab states and the PLO.?105 The situation surrounding the Middle East conflict, the report acknowledged while simultaneously never straying too far from stock ideological terminology, could very well continue to develop in a manner contrary to the concrete interests of the Soviet-led community of socialist states and thereby to the detriment of international socialism. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid. 401 Even while analysis was becoming more differentiated and refined in the 1970s, the continued adherence to class-based analytical categories at times clearly hindered an accurate reading of international events. The Fundamental Questions Division of the MfAA, for instance, completed a report on Iran just months before the regime of the shah was overthrown and replaced by a theocracy under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The report attributed the strikes and demonstrations that paralyzed the country in 1978 to ?intensification of the contradictions that derive from the accelerated capitalist development of Iran paired with maintenance of the autocratic regime.?106 While it was acknowledged that ?the opposition finds a relatively broad resonance among the population,? the application of class-based analysis resulted in a woefully inaccurate assessment of the situation: ?Yet [the opposition] thus far does not represent an alternative to the existing regime. On the basis of its divergent social and political interests and goals, [the opposition] is not in a position to seriously threaten the power of the regime.?107 In April 1979, the Iranian Islamic Republic was declared, fundamentally altering the geo-strategic situation in the Middle East. If certain situations in the developing world such as events in the Middle East appeared to play to the disadvantage of socialism, East German experts generally remained loathe to interpret such events?which were perceived as isolated setbacks and thus exceptions to the rule?as evidence of the fallibility of their broader understanding of international relations, in which socialism and the developing world were viewed as ?objective? allies against the common imperialist enemy. One area that allowed East German experts in the second half of the 1970s to maintain their ideologically inspired 106 PA AA, MfAA, C 3015. 107 Ibid. 402 belief in the fundamental compatibility, if not identity, of interests between the two movements despite a significant amount of evidence to the contrary was the realm of international economic policy. The efforts of developing countries to restructure international economic relations in order to obtain a more favorable position vis-?-vis industrialized states gained steam after the General Assembly of the UN passed the ?Declaration for the Establishment of a New International Economic Order? in May 1974. The demands of developing countries now took shape around a comprehensive program, which focused above all on raw materials and international trade, intensified industrialization, debt relief, the international currency system, developmental aid, and maritime law. The concerted push on the part of developing countries in the 1970s to establish a ?new international economic order? (NIEO) provided another case where a seemingly strong correlation between concrete international relations developments and the class- based Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations facilitated an ideologized reading of the GDR?s foreign policy interests. As an attempt to place international economic relations on a more favorable basis for developing countries, the push for a NIEO was directed above all at the capitalist world. East German experts in the second half of the 1970s seized upon this opening as a chance for socialist states to work together with developing countries at the expense of ?imperialism? and consciously integrated the issue into their existing conceptual framework of international relations, where the theoretical postulate of an ?objective? anti-imperialist alliance between socialism and the developing world remained central. The IIB-led Council for Foreign Policy Research dealt with the issue repeatedly, as in its meeting on 27 April 1978, when a paper on 403 ?Conceptual Questions in the Restructuring of International Economic Relations on a Democratic Basis,? presented by Wolfgang Spr?te, was discussed. The paper assigned no independent value to developing countries? push for a NIEO, but rather unambiguously subordinated it to the inexorable clash between socialism and capitalism, which retained its absolute primacy: ?The democratic restructuring of international economic relations is a component part of the struggle for the democratic restructuring of international relations and the class struggle between socialism and capitalism under the conditions of the ever- stronger realization of the principles of peaceful coexistence in relations between states of differing social and political orders.?108 Discussion of the paper at the council?s meeting, which was attended by 26 leading experts from the IIB and the IPW as well as other institutions, revealed the complex balance between voluntaristic and deterministic elements at play in the process of infusing international relations developments with specific ideological significance at the GDR?s expert institutions. Although experts? basic understanding of international relations stipulated that the developing world was ?objectively? anti-imperial, scientific analysis was required, first, to elaborate the specific anti-imperial content of individual initiatives emanating from the developing world and, second, to bring about the actualization of the specific anti-imperialist character of the undertaking. In other words, East German experts were not content with simply asserting the objectively anti-imperialist character of the push for a NIEO, but were obligated by the very nature of their duty as ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? to ground it in both theoretical and practical-political terms. The meeting of the Council for Foreign Policy Research at which the paper was discussed highlighted for instance ?the necessity of further working out the concept of a NIEO from the perspective of Marxism- 108 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13053. 404 Leninism and the interests of socialism.?109 The meeting similarly underscored the need for the GDR and the socialist world to take action in order to ensure full realization of the anti-imperialist character of the undertaking: ?At the heart of the struggle for a NIEO?is the abolition of unequal capitalist international economic relations, i.e. restructuring with an overall democratic character. The struggle for a NIEO is therefore a key element of the anti-imperialist struggle of the present and raises the possibility of correspondingly broad anti-imperialist alliances.?110 Expert analysis of the push for establishment of a NIEO was at a relatively early stage, where the issue required further attention to become fully grounded in both theoretical and practical-political terms. The case is revealing because it demonstrates how East German experts seized upon the ostensible correlation between concrete international relations developments and the Marxist-Leninist reading of them both to promote cooperation between ?international socialism? and the developing world at the expense of ?imperialism? and to integrate the issue into the existing conceptual framework, where the theoretical postulate of an ?objective? anti-imperialist alliance between socialism and the developing world remained central. Whereas the Soviet Bloc appeared to be losing ground in the 1970s in some key areas of the developing world, such as the Middle East, the NIEO allowed East German experts to maintain their ideologically inspired belief in the fundamental compatibility, if not identity, of interests between the developing world and international socialism. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 405 Conclusion The 1970s were a crucial decade for East German foreign policy expertise in terms of both institutional development and analytical output. The process of rationalization in service of synchronization that had advanced unevenly though continually from the very creation of the SED in 1946 culminated in the full systematization of East German foreign policy expertise in the early 1970s. A disparate set of institutions oftentimes working at cross-purposes or inefficiently duplicating one another?s output had been transformed into a full-fledged system of foreign policy expertise welded together by the dictatorial rule of the SED and the unity of purpose in foreign policy expertise it imparted. The clear flow of authority from top to bottom within a uniform and centralized hierarchal structure effectively brought about the long-desired union of ?theory with practice,? or subordination to the political, ideological, and operational goals of the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus. In the Institute for International Relations (IIB) and the Institute for International Politics and Economics (IPW), the two branches of foreign policy research, general foreign policy expertise and West expertise, were respectively centralized around a single institution responsible for molding its own research and that of subordinate institutions to meet the practical goals and political-ideological requirements of the respective operative institutions to which each was in turn subordinate. The training of foreign policy cadres was likewise systematized to produce the ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? demanded by the SED leadership and viewed as indispensable to the success of East German foreign policy. Such cadres were expected to be capable of adroitly identifying and advancing the foreign policy interests of the GDR, and doing so from a firm Marxist-Leninist perspective. 406 The institutional completion brought about by systematization in the 1970s ultimately had an ambiguous effect on the central characteristic of East German foreign policy expertise, the tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy. On the one hand, systematization brought with it ever-greater demands for professional competency and specialist knowledge on the part of East German experts, whose ultimate mission remained furtherance of the GDR?s concrete foreign policy goals; on the other hand, Marxism-Leninism retained its central position as definitive theoretical template of East German foreign policy, particularly as ideological retrenchment played a pivotal role in the systematization effort in response to the perceived threat of ideological dilution emanating from wide-ranging East German engagement with the world in the era of foreign policy normalization. Institutional completion as sealed by systematization in the 1970s thus did not alter the fundamental character of East German foreign policy expertise?typified by a dual emphasis on Marxism-Leninism and specialist knowledge?but rather represented the continuation and completion of a process that had been initiated in the 1950s: creation of a comprehensive system of foreign policy expertise fully synchronized with the political-ideological requirements and operative needs of the larger East German foreign policy apparatus. The high level of systematization and professionalization attained by the 1970s matched with ever-greater emphasis on moving beyond basic competency to attain a higher levels of specialization tended to favor the expert side of the equation, but this was an adjustment within rather than to the established framework of foreign policy expertise. The importance of specialist knowledge and professional expertise in East German foreign policy was 407 steadily increasing, and this trend would only be bolstered by the effects of foreign policy normalization. With the institutional framework of East German foreign policy expertise essentially fixed by the early 1970s, it was rather the other main element in the equation?the international relations themselves East German experts were charged with analyzing?that would henceforth prove the more dynamic element in the mix shaping the output of East German foreign policy experts. And in the 1970s, the epoch-making foreign policy gains of the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc in the d?tente era appeared dramatically to alter the basic features comprising the GDR?s geo-strategic situation. Full diplomatic recognition and normalization of its international relations represented the greatest foreign policy achievement in the GDR?s history and marked fulfillment of the one foreign policy goal most fervently pursued since the very inception of the East German state. The GDR now faced the international community on the same terms, in theory, as every other state and thus took on all the trappings of a ?status quo? actor on the international stage. Broad engagement with the outside world following the imposed isolation of the preceding 20 years did not, however, result in actualization of the inherent tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy, as one could have perhaps expected. On the contrary, the manner in which the GDR achieved foreign policy normalization, where the attainment of normalization was inconceivable without and inseparable from the gains of the GDR?s superpower patron and the entire Soviet Bloc, the qualitatively new situation that emerged at the end of the d?tente process did not challenge but rather reinforced experts? GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused the clearly delineated realpolitical interests of the GDR with the 408 Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as a form of the class struggle. The GDR?s interests were understood as one and the same with the cause of international socialism. When the GDR fulfilled its central objective of full foreign policy normalization in the context of d?tente, it facilitated the reification of experts? ideologized understanding of international relations since the entire process appeared to play out in conformity with the notion that the interests of the GDR and ?international socialism? were essentially identical, which itself derived from the view that saw the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the defining feature of international relations. At a time when the strategic situation in which the no longer-isolated GDR found itself began to correspond less and less to a dichotomous class-based understanding of international relations, the ostensible shift in the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of socialism represented by d?tente brought about the highpoint of East German experts? comprehensive foreign policy conception. The perception of fundamental agreement between the GDR?s strategic interests and the foreign policy precepts of Marxism- Leninism attained its apogee in the GDR?s attainment of foreign policy normalization. While extensive engagement with the outside world following foreign policy normalization did not result in immediate actualization of the tension between the ideological and the expert in East German foreign policy expertise, it nevertheless lay the necessary groundwork for a more critical stance toward the existing Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations. Following foreign policy normalization, the GDR became fully exposed to the vagaries of international relations and East German experts accordingly had to analyze and illuminate the GDR?s increasingly complex foreign relations without being able to retreat to the type of ideological dogmatism that had 409 served as the natural default under the conditions of imposed isolation. In an era marked by the supreme conceptual self-confidence engendered by d?tente and normalization, international relations developments that appeared to run contrary to the postulate of the continual movement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor socialism could be dismissed as ephemeral phenomena that did not affect the fundamental integrity of the existing interpretive framework. But just as the foreign policy triumphs of the 1970s led to confirmation of the existing understanding of international relations, adverse developments could now have the opposite effect, challenging the established interpretive framework in a GDR now fully integrated into the international order and divested for good or ill of the insularity borne of diplomatic isolation. What is more, there were already indications in the 1970s that the conception of international relations fusing the GDR?s realpolitical interests with the Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as a form of the class struggle was not impervious to revision even at the apex of East German experts? conceptual self-confidence. In 1975, at the height of d?tente, the IV Division warned: Imperialism remains a dangerous and strong adversary. Its aggressive character has not changed. The most aggressive imperialist circles?openly supported by the leadership in Beijing?are redoubling their efforts to arrest or even undo the positive changes in the world. Imperialism?s quest to block the effects of the d?tente process detrimental to itself and to exploit d?tente for realization of its anti-socialist goals is unmistakable. There still exist potential sources of acute conflict in different areas of the world. Setbacks in the international class struggle and abrupt turns in the international situation therefore cannot be ruled out.111 111 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B/2/20/2. 410 With the importance of specialist knowledge and professional competency on the rise following ?systematization? and with the GDR now thoroughly integrated into the international order, reversals in the foreign policy fortunes of the GDR such as those presaged here by the IV Division would not lead to conceptual change within but rather to the existing interpretive framework. 411 PART IV The ?Second Cold War? and the Crisis of the Soviet Bloc: The Eclipse of the Marxist- Leninist Paradigm in East German Foreign Policy Expertise, 1979-1990 412 Chapter Seven East German Foreign Policy Expertise and the ?Second Cold War?: The Marxist-Leninist Paradigm under Stress Introduction The ?systematization? of foreign policy expertise in the GDR in the 1970s brought about the completion of a process of institutional development that had proceeded unevenly but continually since the very founding of the GDR. The absolute ?joining of theory with practice? accomplished by systematization entailed the thoroughgoing politicization of foreign policy expertise and the suppression of any last remnants of operational autonomy, but also brought with it far-reaching professionalization and specialization. The profile of the ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? produced by and populating the GDR?s foreign policy organs was correspondingly marked by a dual emphasis: strict adherence to Marxism-Leninism as the theoretical template for investigation of international relations paired with great stress on specialist knowledge and professional competency. Furtherance of the GDR?s foreign policy interests represented the superordinate objective in which the two elements were ostensibly unified, yet a continual tension existed between the ideological and the expert, between intellectual subordination and autonomy, in the mission of East German foreign policy experts. With the institutional development of foreign policy expertise essentially complete, this tension became entrenched. Yet the effects of foreign policy normalization, both by integrating the GDR (and its experts) into the international order and by further augmenting the demand for sound, specialist analysis of the GDR?s 413 increasingly complex foreign relations, facilitated the continual growth of the critical tendency in East German foreign policy expertise. One aspect of normalization would have a particularly important effect on the work of East German experts: their integration into a transnational network of foreign policy experts. The establishment of diplomatic relations with the states of the capitalist West in turn permitted East German foreign policy experts to establish and maintain fairly intensive contact with their counterparts in the capitalist West. As East German experts engaged in a dialog with their numerous and diverse Western partners, the bonds of the rigid, dogmatic understanding of international relations as the unfolding of the class struggle on the international stage that had been inherited from the pre- normalization era perforce slackened. East German experts recognized that the complexities of contemporary international relations, of which they were now gaining first-hand knowledge, were a poor fit for that same understanding. This development represented a key element in what was now becoming the preponderance of the expert over the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise, where Marxism- Leninism continued to serve as the basic framework in which international relations were generally understood, but it was increasingly relegated to this position alone, i.e. of intellectual framing device, while the essential focus of expertise shifted emphatically toward expert analysis of individual issues on the basis of specialist knowledge Yet the GDR?s achievement of foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s?its greatest foreign policy triumph bar none, even if it owed little to the GDR?s own efforts?had led not to the weakening of the experts? GDR-specific class-based understanding of international relations, as one might have plausibly expected, but rather 414 to its reinforcement. For the manner in which normalization was achieved?as part and parcel of the broader gains made by ?international socialism? in the period?confirmed in the eyes of East German experts the purported identity of interests between the GDR and an abstract international socialism, a notion that itself derived from the view that saw ?the clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the defining characteristic of international relations. With the GDR and the Soviet Bloc seemingly stronger than ever, the ?international constellation of forces,? all contrary development notwithstanding, appeared to be moving continually and inexorably in favor of socialism. At the same time, however, normalization altered the basic conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy. With the diplomatic isolation imposed by the Hallstein Doctrine a thing of the past, the GDR now became fully integrated into the international order as a seemingly normal, ?status quo? actor on the international stage. As such, the GDR could no longer retreat to the type of rigid dogmatism and ideological maximalism that had been possible in the conditions of enforced isolation in the pre-normalization period. Just at the time that analysis of the highly favorable developments of the d?tente era, from which no Soviet Bloc state gained more than East Germany, facilitated reification of experts? GDR-specific class-based conception of international relations, the conditions which created the strong correlation between the specific interests of the GDR and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations and which in turn facilitated their fusion into a comprehensive conception in the first place thus grew weaker and weaker. The result was that, with engagement with the world an irreversible fact, the foreign policy fortunes of the GDR were now subject to the vacillations of international 415 relations as never before. The main foreign policy events of the 1970s had indeed been very favorable for the GDR, which had resulted in the reinforcement of the prevailing conceptual paradigm among experts, but, with the option of complete ideological retrenchment and retreat into insularity no longer available, unfavorable developments likewise could?and almost necessarily had to?elicit critical re-assessment of that same understanding, which claimed to explain not only individual events but also international relations in their entirety. And this is indeed what took place at the turn of the decade. A series of foreign policy challenges?chief among them the outbreak of the ?second Cold War??paired with domestic difficulties throughout the Soviet Bloc provoked a turn away from the conceptual confidence present in the output of East German experts in the 1970s. In the first half of the 1980s, the results of expert analysis in individual areas unambiguously pointed to the incongruence of the existing interpretive framework with the existing state of international relations and the GDR?s place therein. In the process, the Marxist-Leninist fa?ade of East German expertise remained largely intact? the existing paradigm was neither completely rejected nor was a comprehensive alternative to it fully enunciated?yet critical views based on expert analysis multiplied beneath the surface. As a result, some of the central pillars of the prevailing conception of international relations?the class nature of foreign policy, the inexorable movement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of socialism, the one-to-one correspondence between the interests of the GDR and those of an abstractly understood ?international socialism??appeared less and less capable of offering true insight into the complexities of contemporary international relations. The process represented a natural outgrowth of East Germany?s system of foreign policy expertise, in which specialist 416 knowledge and professional competency were in the ascendancy, and would only intensify in the second half of the 1980s, when the foreign policy challenges facing the GDR and the Soviet Bloc became no less serious and when Mikhail Gorbachev?s rise to power in the Soviet Union would provide further impulse to innovation in foreign policy thought. Exposure to the Capitalist West and Experts? ?Convergence with Reality? The extensive engagement with the outside world that replaced the imposed isolation of the pre-normalization era represented the key feature of East German foreign policy in the post-normalization era. The basic constellation of foreign issues facing the GDR had changed dramatically?the singe-minded pursuit of diplomatic recognition conducted in the conditions of acute dependency on the Soviet Union and heavy reliance on the unity of action of the Soviet Bloc gave way to a state of relative foreign policy normalcy where the GDR nominally enjoyed the same status as any other sovereign state in the international arena and took on all the trappings of a ?status quo? power. Aside from the general importance of this sea change in the basic framework of GDR foreign policy, foreign policy normalization and the engagement it brought with it also had a crucial impact on East German foreign policy expertise in another, much more tangible manner, by facilitating the explosive growth of contacts between East German foreign policy experts and their counterparts in the capitalist West. Contacts on the part of East German expert institutions with scholarly institutions in the capitalist West in fact existed in some form or another nearly from the very inception of the GDR. And as far back as the GDR?s scholarly contacts with the West 417 went back, so too did instrumentalization of those contacts to serve the political goals of the SED leadership. Thus in the early 1950s, an institution like the German Economic Institute (DWI), one of the predecessor institutions of the IPW, had an important role to play in representing the public face of East German foreign policy scholarship to the outside world. J?rgen Kuczynski and Siegbert Kahn, respectively president and director of the DWI in the early 1950s, were specialists with PhDs in economics who, on the basis of the standing imparted by their scholarly credentials, could provide an invaluable service to the SED by bolstering the legitimacy of the young GDR in the eyes of the West German and foreign public and advancing the specific, ideologically inflected perspective of the SED on a host of issues without appearing as simple shills for party propaganda.1 Contacts on the part of such institutions as the DWI with scholarly institutions in the West or with international organizations in fact possessed particular importance in the pre-normalization era because they allowed the GDR to expand its involvement and influence in the world despite the lack of official diplomatic recognition imposed by the Hallstein Doctrine. This was the case for example when the Institute for International Relations (IIB), after its creation out of the Prorectorate for the Training of Leading Foreign Service Employees in 1964, took over sole responsibility for official correspondence with all the peace research institutes of the world. Research institutes dedicated to the general cause of peace were proliferating widely at the time and offered a promising venue for the newly formed IIB to represent the position of the GDR on the range of questions connected to the topic. J?rgen Kuczynski, director of the Institute for Economic History of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and previously president of the DWI, indicated as much in a letter to Herbert Kr?ger, director of the IIB at the time, 1 See, for example, BArch, DC 202/56. 418 in September 1964: ?This movement has taken on extremely large dimensions in recent years and we are going to become more thoroughly involved in it.?2 While such contacts could help to alleviate the negative aspects of diplomatic isolation, they were incapable of overcoming it altogether. And as long as the diplomatic isolation of the GDR remained in place, the number of opportunities for contacts with the West remained limited. The limited number of such contacts combined with the underdeveloped state of East German foreign policy expertise prevalent in the 1950s and into the 1960s meant that those contacts that did exist were not always handled adeptly and in a manner fully conducive to the political goals of the GDR. In April 1970, for instance, Wolfgang Spr?te, a specialist at the IIB, attended a conference of the European Center of the Carnegie Foundation on the topic of ?International Organizations in Europe and the Changing European System.? On the one hand, his report on the conference highlighted the value of such conferences for the GDR and even the necessity of East German participation given ?imperialism?s? exploitation of such events to serve its own political goals: ?The GDR?s participation proved expedient and useful in light of both the involvement of all European socialist states except Albania and the participation of representatives of the Federal Republic and West Berlin. Such conferences provide us the opportunity to present our own views and to substantiate them while offensively engaging the views of the representatives of imperialist states.? The conference confirmed that the imperialist side intensively uses instruments and methods of various types to gather information, to ascertain differences within the socialist camp, and to test political and economic activities in the realm of theory.?3 On the other hand, Spr?te?s 2 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13211. 3 Ibid. 419 report made clear that the GDR lagged behind its socialist allies in its preparedness for such conferences and that steps needed to be taken in order to bring the GDR?s foreign policy experts up to snuff: ?The future participation [of the GDR] requires more thorough preparation on our part and particularly coordination with the other socialist states?. The membership and participation of the GDR in international organizations presents the GDR with several new and complicated problems and tasks, for whose resolution a particular approach in the area of research and the area of cadres must be created. It is necessary to organize and to continue to develop our research potential and research profile in even greater accord with the rapidly growing demands of the future.?4 But just as the broader condition of underdevelopment within East German foreign policy expertise was finally overcome in the early 1970s, so too were shortcomings in the specific area of scholarly contacts with the West. The thoroughgoing systematization which brought about the institutional completion of East German foreign policy expertise in the late 1960s and early 1970s simultaneously resolved the two largest, interconnected issues hampering the progress of the GDR?s scholarly contacts with the West. First, the process of systematization secured the cadres needed to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by West contacts?those ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? who were well-trained experts with regional specializations simultaneously capable of representing the viewpoint of the GDR from a firm Marxist- Leninist perspective. Second, any vagueness remaining in the official position on scholarly contacts with the West and what purpose they were to serve was finally dispelled. The politicization of such contacts was a given?an IIB memorandum on foreign travel, for instance, stated bluntly that such trips ?serve fulfillment of the goals set 4 Ibid. 420 by party and state?5?but in what that politicization precisely consisted now became unambiguously formulated. First and most importantly, the cultivation of contacts with leading foreign policy research institutes in the West provided the opportunity to gain information and insight into important issues that weighed heavily on international relations that was otherwise unavailable. In this respect, the Western counterparts of East German foreign policy experts also had something to gain since they too could gain insight, however limited, into the inner workings of the East German foreign policy apparatus and its position on a range of important issues. Secondly, the cultivation of contacts with Western scholars and participation in international scholarly conferences afforded East German foreign policy experts the opportunity to present and defend the position of the GDR on a given topic under discussion, which ideally would help facilitate implementation of East German foreign policy. Or as one former leading US expert at the IIB put it, scholarly contacts with the West afforded East German experts the opportunity ?to sell the GDR? abroad.6 This twofold purpose?gaining valuable information otherwise unavailable and aggressively representing the viewpoint and interests of the GDR?became enshrined as the official guiding principle behind all scholarly contacts with the West on the part of East German foreign policy experts. This orientation was unmistakable, for instance, in February 1975, at the height of d?tente and a few short years after the GDR achieved diplomatic recognition, when East German representatives from the IIB took part in the annual conference of the International Studies Association in Washington DC, where a special conference group met for the first time to discuss US-GDR relations. The resolution presented to the 5 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13085. 6 Claus Montag, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 7 May 2008. 421 Secretariat for approval underscored the value attached to East German involvement in such events: ?Participation in this congress offers the opportunity to analyze the views of American scholars and foreign policy experts on the question of the further development of relations between the US and the GDR and constructively and offensively to expound within the framework of the congress the position of the GDR on this set of issues. Since representatives of US research centers who are heavily involved in the process of foreign policy formulation of the US administration and Congress will be present at the ISA congress, participation in the congress offers promising opportunities to become more closely acquainted with and to analyze new developmental tendencies in US foreign policy, particularly in regard to the further course of action of the Ford administration toward the states of the socialist community and its position toward the d?tente process in Europe.?7 From the perspective of the SED leadership, scholarly contacts with the West afforded an opportunity from which they only stood to gain. Through such contacts, the Marxist-Leninist foreign policy experts trained and working within a system of expertise designed to match the exact specifications of the SED leadership could make an important contribution to fulfillment of the GDR?s foreign policy goals. By acquiring valuable information from their Western partners they enriched analysis and aided in the process of foreign policy formulation. Scholarly contacts with the West also served as a one-way conduit for influencing Western opinion and policy, where East German experts could work to gain acceptance for East German foreign policy through offensive representation of the GDR?s position on the most important questions of the day without, nominally, themselves being influenced. 7 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/2614. 422 Normalization provided the context in which the blossoming of East Germany?s scholarly contacts with the West of took place and represented the key factor in the explosive growth of such contacts starting in the early 1970s. With diplomatic isolation a thing of the past, there emerged manifold opportunities for contact with foreign policy institutions in the West that previously had not existed. The vigorous scholarly exchange with Western institutions that the IPW and the IIB then engaged in as the GDR?s leading foreign policy research institutes demonstrated that, while such contacts were never completely free of politicization within the context of the Cold War ?clash of systems? between East and West, a scholarly or expert element was also never completely absent. The numerous scholarly contacts with the West made and maintained by the IPW and IIB took on a variety of forms. The most regular form was direct, sustained contact with an analogous institute in the West. Regular or semi-regular consultations took place between experts from the IPW and their counterparts, for instance, from the Cologne Institute of Economic Research, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the French Institute for International Relations, the International Institute for Peace in Vienna, the Research Institute of the Society for Foreign Policy in Bonn, the Council on Foreign Relations,8 the Institute for East-West Security Studies,9 the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Ebenhausen near Munich, the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies,10 and the Forschungsst?tte der Evangelischen Studiengemeinschaft in Heidelberg,11 among others.12 Starting in the late 1970s, the IPW cultivated a particularly 8 BArch, DC 204, 27. 9 In 1984, IPW Director Max Schmidt even became a member of the institute?s Council of Directors. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ J IV 2/3A/4601. 10 BArch, DC 204, 28. 11 BArch, DC 204, 29. 423 close relationship with the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy of the University of Hamburg. The two institutes engaged in an ?intensive scholarly exchange of opinions? on the most pressing security-related issues of the day, whereby several joint consultations took place between Director Max Schmidt and other leading experts from the IPW on the one hand and Director Egon Bahr and other leading personnel from the IFSH on the other.13 In 1986, Schmidt even became a member of the International Scientific Advisory Council of the IFSH.14 For its part, the IIB stood in contact with a number of Western institutions, including the Institute for Political Science of the Westf?lische Wilhelms-Universit?t, the Center for European Studies in Aachen, the International Institute for Peace in Vienna, the College of Economics and Politics in Hamburg, and the Institute for International Law of the University of Kiel.15 Such scholarly contacts with the West were cultivated by the IPW and IIB in a professional and cordial manner where both concerned parties stood to gain by engaging in a comparatively open and candid exchange of opinions and information. The IPW and IIB?s contacts with Western foreign policy research institutions often extended to include mutual visits between institute directors and other high-ranking personnel. The IPW in particular in its capacity as the GDR?s elite institution for West expertise often hosted the heads of foreign institutes and other leading personnel as guest researchers or visiting scholars. This was the case with the IPW visits of, for instance, William Diebold of the Council of Foreign Relations,16 Karl Ritter of the German Institute for International and 12 For a brief discussion of the IPW?s contacts with institutions from the capitalist West, see also Michael Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft der DDR in seiner Gr?ndungsphase 1971 bis 1974 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999), 131. 13 BArch, DC 204, 91. 14 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ J IV 2/3A/4472. 15 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13237. 16 BArch, DC 204, 27. 424 Security Affairs in Ebenhausen,17 John Mroz of the Institute for East-West Security Studies in New York,18 Jasjit Singh of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi, Gianni Bonvicini and Marco Carnocale of the Institute for International Relations in Rome,19 and Thierry de Montbrial of the Institute for International Relations in Paris.20 The IPW?s wide-ranging contacts with the West included one other high-level target group, namely those politicians who actively had a hand in the formulation of foreign policy. The IPW cultivated contacts with individual representatives from the West German Bundestag from both the SPD and CDU-CSU21 and with fractions of the European Parliament22 as well as the respective foundations of the West German political parties such as the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (SPD)23 and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FDP).24 Contact with foreign politicians was sought and obtained as well, such as when IPW Director Schmidt met with the head of the planning department of the British Foreign Office or a meeting was held with Edward Ifft, the deputy head of the US delegation to negotiations on nuclear and space-based weapons in Geneva in 1988.25 The mission of both the IPW and the IIB also entailed the participation of the two institutes in a wide range of international scholarly conferences on foreign policy-relevant topics, the frequency of which increased sharply following normalization. Some of the better-known conferences at which East German experts pursued their twofold goal of information gathering and offensive representation of the GDR?s position included those held by the 17 BArch, DC 204, 28. 18 BArch, DC 204, 29. 19 BArch, DC 204, 30. 20 BArch, DC 204, 31. 21 BArch, DC 204, 28. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. and BArch, DC 204, 29 and 31. 24 BArch, DC 204, 30. 25 BArch, DC 204, 31. 425 Aspen Institute,26 the Pugwash Organization, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the assembled European Institutes for International Relations,27 the European Community, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Political Science Association, the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, and the assembled Directors and Representatives of Institutes for International Relations of Europe, the US, and Canada.28 The IPW and IIB?s scholarly contacts with the West were rounded out by trips abroad undertaken to conduct research on location. Such Studienaufenthalte or Studienreisen typically lasted from a week to a month, during which time the local GDR embassy would commonly serve as the base for an East German expert to examine local sources and conduct consultations with local scholars and politicians in order to complete a study on a discrete topic. The IIB was particularly active in this area, dispatching its specialists to Western capitals and metropolises like London, Washington, Madrid, Paris, Rome, and Zurich.29 Such research trips to the capitalist West afforded the valuable opportunity to gain firsthand access to privileged information on pressing foreign relations issues while often working in close cooperation with local institutions and individuals. Walter Stock, an expert at the IIB, for example, sojourned in Vienna in winter 1978, where the objective of his trip was described in the following manner: ?The purpose of the research trip consisted in conducting research and consultations at the Austrian Society for Foreign Policy and International Relations and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies in order a) to illuminate the position of Austria and 26 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13237. 27 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13382. 28 BArch, DC 204/28. 29 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13382. 426 neutral states as well as current issues in the context of East-West relations (CSCE and MBFR) and in relevant areas of ?North-South? negotiations and to make them usable for current research at the IIB and b) to take up beneficial relations with the designated Austrian institutions and to clarify the possibility of further contacts.?30 In the important area of Studienaufenthalte, however, the IPW did not at all lag behind the IIB as it too sent its experts out on short-term research trips across Western Europe and North America. In June 1986, for example, IPW Director Max Schmidt, upon invitation of the Institute for Contemporary German Studies of Johns Hopkins University and in accord with a Secretariat resolution on the matter, undertook a lecture and research trip to the US. The subsequent report on his trip evinced the successful completion of the twofold guiding principle behind all scholarly contacts with the West on the part of East German foreign policy expert institutions: ?The goals set forth in the directive [of the Secretariat] were completed in full. At several events, the foreign policy, economic policy, and social policy of the GDR could be presented in detail on the basis of the materials of the XI Party Congress. Meetings with a number of leading US politicians, scholars, and publicists yielded additional information on various aspects of US policy, particularly on questions of foreign policy and security policy.?31 As valuable as such scholarly contacts with the West could be, whether in the form of regular contact with analogous institutes, cultivation of personal relationships with foreign specialists, meetings with politicians, participation in international conferences, or research trips, they also represented a certain dilemma for the SED leadership. On the one hand, they were acknowledged as indispensable tools of East 30 Ibid. 31 BArch, DC 204/28. 427 German foreign policy, particularly in the post-normalization era, since they yielded both an internal and external benefit; an internal benefit because they contributed to a more accurate, refined picture of the complexities of contemporary international relations of which the SED leadership could make use in its formulation of foreign policy, an external benefit because they facilitated the successful implementation of GDR foreign policy by increasing acceptance for it abroad through offensive propagation and substantiation of the East German position on outstanding international relations issues. On the other hand, cultivation of such contacts raised the specter of the baleful effect unadulterated exposure to the West and Western ideas could have on the ideological integrity of the GDR?s foreign policy cadres involved in the maintenance of those same contacts. The threat of ideological dilution was viewed with great concern since a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? maintained its centrality as the defining characteristic of the GDR?s ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy,? the same Marxist-Leninist perspective that provided the basic ideological legitimacy of a separate, socialist German state vis-?-vis its capitalist rival across the border. And although the flow of influence in the context of scholarly contacts with the West was only supposed to go one way?from East to West? the danger of the opposite taking place was seen as acute enough to warrant maintenance of a thoroughgoing system of controls, accompanied by an atmosphere of elevated sensitivity and suspicion, to prevent that outcome from coming to pass. Correspondingly, only a select group of cadres at the IPW and the IIB had any type of substantial, direct exposure to the West and Western ideas, either through personal contacts or access to materials from the West. The meticulous system in place at the IPW regulating access to classified material from and about the West through three 428 different levels of security clearance (GVS for Geheime Verschlu?sache, VVS for Vertrauliche Verschlu?sache, VD for Vertrauliche Dienstsache) was also in force at the IIB. Those cadres from each institute who were approved for travel abroad (Reisekader) represented an even more exclusive group.32 Although officially designated Reisekader were approved for travel to the capitalist West on official business, for individual trips they sometimes required the explicit approval of the Secretariat, which would then typically issue a directive outlining tasks tailored to each specific trip. This was often the case, for instance, with the Studienaufenthalte, or research trips, undertaken by IPW and IIB cadres in the West, where explicit political activities such as establishing contact with local politicians accompanied activities of a ?purely scholarly? nature. By virtue of the very nature of their occupation as foreign policy experts, cadres at the IPW and IIB necessarily adhered to a greater or lesser degree to the GDR?s core political and ideological principles, which had been inculcated in them during their training, and took furtherance of the GDR?s foreign policy goals as the basis for their actions. As a former graduate and employee of the IIB put it, there existed among the personnel of the GDR?s elite foreign policy expert institutions a Grundkonsensus, or basic consensus, on the fundamental character and goals of East German foreign policy, any differences of opinion on individual issues notwithstanding.33 This fact, however, in no way lessened the sensitivity with which scholarly contacts with the West were viewed and the assiduousness with which they were administered. The smallest suspicion on the part of SED higher-ups of the perceived unsuitability of Reisekader to meet the demands and risks of travel to the West could swiftly result in nullification of that status. This was 32 BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 6385. 33 Erhard Crome, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 14 May 2008. 429 the case, for instance, with Klaus Bollinger, a leading expert on the US at the IIB. Bollinger belonged to that generation of East German foreign policy cadres that came up in the rather muddled conditions which prevailed within the GDR?s still-underdeveloped system of foreign policy expertise in the 1950s, when the SED was scrambling to train the new ?socialist foreign policy cadres? it so sorely needed to staff its young foreign policy apparatus. Bollinger began studying foreign policy at the University of Leipzig in the late 1940s and concluded his study at the DVA, one of the forerunner institutions of the IIB, in the early 1950s after the entire course was transferred there from Leipzig. He subsequently worked his way up within East German foreign policy expertise, dividing his time between the PAMaD (the successor of the DVA and the direct forerunner of the IIB) and the MfAA, though not without clashing with SED officials. As detailed above, Bollinger was disciplined in the wake of the Babelsberg Conference at the DASR in 1958 because his dissertation on the ?Negro problem? in the US was cited as a failure to join ?theory with practice? at a time when such shortcomings were considered not only negligent but also borderline-treasonous. Yet the episode proved only a temporary setback for Bollinger?s career as by the start of the 1970s he had risen to become editor- in-chief of the journal Deutsche Au?enpolitik, a member of the Collegium of the MfAA, full professor at the IIB, and head of the institute?s Division for the Foreign Policy of the US and Japan. As the GDR in the early 1970s then began to build up contacts with the US, including scholarly contacts, Bollinger, as one of the GDR?s foremost experts on the US, was therefore set to play an important role. He in fact made several research trips to the US in the time period and apparently even held meetings with representatives from the Rand Corporation, MIT, and the Council on Foreign Relations,34 during which time 34 Klaus Bollinger, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 28 April 2008. 430 he typically traveled together with Claus Montag, another US expert at the IIB and Bollinger?s deputy at the time, who likewise played a key role in establishing the GDR?s first scholarly contacts with the US in the first half of the 1970s.35 In 1975, Bollinger and Montag were slated to attend a conference of the International Studies Association at which a special conference group dedicated exclusively to the topic of GDR-US relations was to meet for the first time. The trip was also intended to allow ?the scholarly contacts, which the IIB in recent years has built up, to be deepened und more purposefully to be made useful for foreign policy information and analysis.?36 Bollinger, however, was suddenly forbidden from making the trip at the behest of Hermann Axen, the Central Committee?s secretary for international relations and head of the APK. A handwritten note from Axen attached to the Secretariat resolution on the trip, which originally foresaw the participation of both Montag and Bollinger, stated tersely: ?Objection to dispatching Comrade Bollinger. Comrade Bollinger?s work and behavior have been subjected to the sharpest criticism. He should be replaced. Inexpedient to send him to the US.?37 Bollinger himself never received an explanation for his abrupt exclusion from the trip, but has speculated that it could have been due to one of two reasons. The first potential explanation was of a personal-political nature. After an earlier trip to the US, Bollinger had criticized East Germany?s USA-GDR Friendship Society, arguing that the resources invested in it could be better used elsewhere since, in his opinion, the society had had little success in propagating a positive image of the GDR in the US. Bollinger?s criticism may have been taken as direct criticism of a member of the Politburo since the USA-GDR Friendship Society fell under the authority of Manfred 35 J?rgen Gro?e, Amerikapolitik und Amerikabild der DDR, 1974-1989 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1999), 166. 36 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/2614. 37 Ibid. 431 Feist, head of the Foreign Propaganda Division of the Central Committee and, perhaps decisively in this case, brother-in-law of Erich Honecker. The second explanation, which Bollinger viewed as more plausible, was of a rather scholarly-political nature. At a meeting of the Scientific Council of the IIB in 1974 or 1975, Bollinger apparently presented the thesis that the US viewed the USSR as an equal in terms of strategic military capacity, but not as a political or economic power. Bollinger further argued that the US would likely increase military spending in order to establish superiority in that area as well. Bollinger?s thesis apparently met with disapproval from Axen and other leading operative foreign policy figures, who viewed the episode as a Wissenschaftler exceeding his station and inappropriately interpolating himself in a matter of high foreign policy where his input was neither welcome nor desired. Whatever the exact reason(s) for Axen?s intervention to exclude Bollinger from the trip, the subsequent consequences were devastating?Bollinger was stripped of all his positions and was downgraded from head of the IIB?s Division for Foreign Policy of the US and Japan to researcher in the Division for the History of International Relations. Not surprisingly, Bollinger was never again allowed to leave the country.38 The 1975 Bollinger episode demonstrated not only the extreme sensitivity and vigilance with which scholarly contacts with the West were administered but also that the much-invoked symbiotic relationship between foreign policy expertise and operative policy, between ?theory and practice,? by no means entailed an equal partnership between operative and research institutions. The case of a leading expert being penalized because his views on a topic falling within his area of specialization?views which coincidentally would prove accurate in light of later 38 Bollinger, interview. 432 developments?found disapproval among his superiors made patent that political and ideological concerns trumped expert concerns. Despite the unambiguous politicization of East German foreign policy experts? scholarly contacts with the West, the scholarly aspect of such contacts and their impact on the views of East German experts should nevertheless not be underestimated. From the perspective of the SED leadership, such contacts were supposed to function as a one- way conduit of influence from East to West, but the very act of engaging in a dialog with Western partners?the political goals accompanying such contacts notwithstanding? perforce led to a broadening of perspective that otherwise could not have taken place. When Michael Klein argues that the maintenance of such contacts by experts at the IPW served the exclusive purpose of propagating a positive image of the GDR and East German foreign policy among their credulous Western partners,39 he correctly highlights the fundamental politicization of such contacts, but his account also oversimplifies the situation by overlooking the fact that, even if such contacts were indeed used to ease implementation of East German foreign policy by ?selling the GDR? in the capitalist West, the other half of the twofold mission guiding the cultivation and maintenance of all such scholarly contacts consisted in gaining a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the West. As East German experts then engaged in a dialog with their numerous and diverse Western partners, the bonds of the rigid, dogmatic understanding of international relations as the unfolding of the class struggle on the international stage that had been inherited from the pre-normalization era perforce slackened as East German experts came to recognize that the complexities of contemporary international relations, of which they were now gaining first-hand and often intimate knowledge, were a poor fit for that same 39 Klein, Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft, 176. 433 understanding. As Claus Montag, the leading US expert at the IIB who personally oversaw the institute?s establishment of wide-ranging contacts with US partners in the 1970s, has put it, the resulting dialog represented ?an enormous enrichment for research on the US? and promoted ?a convergence with reality (Ann?herung an die Wirklichkeit).?40 In short, the essential politicization, to which East German experts? scholarly contacts with the West were unmistakably subjected, was ultimately incapable of producing the one-way flow of influence from East to West desired by the SED leadership since the very purpose of such contacts entailed learning from and about the West, where a realistic assessment of the situation clashed with the strict ideological approach with which East German experts were supposed to enter upon contacts with Western partners and to which the SED leadership expected its foreign policy experts to adhere. The same tension present within East German foreign policy expertise more broadly between the ideological and the expert was thus also present in the specific realm of scholarly contacts with the West as East German experts became integrated into a transnational network of foreign policy specialists. As such contacts experienced explosive growth, the twin goals of gaining valuable information from the West in order to produce a more accurate, refined picture of the complexities of contemporary international relations and offensively representing and substantiating the East German position on outstanding international relations issues became another element in the Spannungsverh?ltnis between those two elements which fundamentally shaped East German foreign policy expertise. The essential character of East German foreign policy expertise?the persistent tension between the ideological and the expert? thereby 40 Montag, interview. 434 remained unchanged as the twofold mission guiding cultivation of scholarly contacts did not entail a fundamental departure from that characteristic tension. Yet the dialog with Western partners such contacts involved?part and parcel of the broader engagement engendered by normalization?favored the professional, expert side of the equation to the detriment of extreme ideologization and decisively contributed to the former?s growing preponderance over the latter within East German foreign policy expertise. The Expert Element Ascendant The ?convergence with reality? fostered by direct exposure to the West and Western ideas, particularly in the form of scholarly contacts, did not alter the fundamental character of East German foreign policy expertise?the dynamic of tension between ideology and specialist knowledge remained in place. What it did rather was shift the balance further in favor of the specialist element at the expense of adherence to unsophisticated ideological precepts. This took place on the backdrop of the successful ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise, complete by the mid-1970s, which had placed renewed emphasis on the importance of specialist knowledge and professional competency in foreign policy expertise. At the same time, the ideological retrenchment that had taken place in the GDR in response to the perceived threat of ideological dilution stemming from post-normalization engagement manifested itself in a renewed emphasis on ideological Abgrenzung and the fortification of Marxism-Leninism as the theoretical bedrock of foreign policy expertise. Thus, the uneasy balance between ideology and specialist knowledge in East German foreign policy expertise persisted in 435 the 1980s, yet the latter element gained more and more in importance vis-?-vis the former. This trend was also present in that key component part of foreign policy expertise: the training of foreign policy cadres. Here, Marxism-Leninism?s position as the essential framework in which international relations were understood and as the putative guide for practical foreign policy activity was maintained, but increasingly greater emphasis was placed on attainment of ever-higher levels of qualification and skill as well as strengthening the orientation of expertise toward keeping pace with the outstanding practical challenges facing East German foreign policy. The high level of specialization and ?expertification? and the strengthened orientation toward practical challenges would both play an important role in East German experts? critical re-assessment of the Marxist- Leninist paradigm in the 1980s as the former element provided the necessary cognitive tools and the latter element provided the venue to identify the decreasing applicability of Marxist-Leninist precepts to the GDR?s foreign relations. The continuing centrality of Marxism-Leninism as the nominal theoretical foundation of East German foreign policy expertise paired with a strong focus on specialization and keeping pace with outstanding practical foreign policy issues ultimately represented a continuation of the essential features of foreign policy training from the 1970s, which had been fully established with the systematization of East German foreign policy expertise in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Continuation in this case, however, was not equivalent to stasis since the thoroughgoing subordination of expertise to operative foreign policy, or the much-invoked ?joining of theory with practice,? meant that training was continually updated in accord with the changing needs and demands of 436 the dictatorially controlled East German foreign policy apparatus. In fact, as a result of the specific configuration of East German foreign policy expertise, ideological schooling represented the more static element and specialist education the more dynamic element in foreign policy training. The approach to foreign policy training at the Institute for International Relations (IIB), well established by this time as the GDR?s unrivaled foreign policy ?cadre forge,? bore this relationship out in the first half of the 1980s. The curriculum at the IIB had been thoroughly overhauled multiple times in the 1970s in order to meet the changing needs, both practical and political-ideological, of operative East German foreign policy, so it was consistent that the initiative for renewed revision of the IIB?s approach to the training of foreign policy cadres at the start of the 1980s once again came from the operative side of the East German foreign policy apparatus. A brigade comprised of members of both the MfAA and the IV Division?the GDR?s two most important operative foreign policy institutions which for this reason had a keen interest in the training of foreign policy cadres at the subordinate IIB, whence the vast majority of their employees came?visited the IIB in 1979 to inspect the institute?s training program first-hand.41 The brigade?s assessment in turn initiated a revision of the IIB?s entire curriculum for its five-year course of foreign policy study, which by this point was firmly established as the IIB?s main vehicle of foreign policy training. One of the main goals of the revision, which saw the IIB working in close cooperation with both the MfAA and the IV Division, was the strengthening of ?the bond between training and practice, in particular the demands of foreign policy-diplomatic practice.?42 While the revision, thus aimed above all at updating foreign policy training in order to improve 41 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13126. 42 Ibid. 437 cadres? later performance in operative positions, was being worked on in the first few months of 1980, the Politburo passed a resolution that decisively changed the tone of the revision process that was already underway. The resolution on ?the tasks of secondary schools and universities in developed socialist society? from 18 March 1980 declared, ?a high level of specialist (fachlich) knowledge and ability, consistent partisanship for socialism, and well-founded ideological education are among the most important conditions for creative labor and the formation of socialist personalities, which develop and employ their knowledge, capabilities, and talents for the benefit of socialist society.?43 Despite the resolution?s general nature, its particular emphasis on ?ideological education? demanded inclusion or at least acknowledgement in the IIB?s overhauled curriculum. An IIB memorandum on the resolution from April 1981, just weeks before the revision was completed, acknowledged as much with its assertion that ?[t]he resolution?requires that conclusions be made in respect to education and instruction in the five-year course of foreign policy study,?44 and Helmut Matthes, deputy director at the IIB responsible for instruction, at a meeting of the institute?s Scientific Council in June 1980 underscored the relevance of the resolution for the work of the institute: ?The resolution unconditionally applies to [the IIB]. It determines the basic orientation, the fundamental elements of our work in its totality, i.e. research, training and continuing education, cadre work, etc.?45 While the revision of the curriculum of the IIB?s five-year course of study had initially been oriented above all toward keeping foreign policy training up to date with the changing needs of the GDR?s two leading operative foreign policy institutions, the intervening Politburo resolution on higher education in March 43 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/2308. 44 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13090. 45 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13058. 438 1980 and the ensuing Fifth Higher Education Conference in September of the same year effected an accentuation of the ideological element in the ongoing efforts, where language found in the Politburo resolution was adopted and served as the theoretical motivation and framework for the revision. The ?intensification of the ideological struggle? between the socialist and capitalist worlds announced at the X Party Congress of the SED in April 1981 in response to the outbreak of the ?second Cold War? provided a further orientation point around which foreign policy instruction at the IIB in the early 1980s had to be oriented. The official party line on the prevailing international situation required acknowledgment at the GDR?s leading site for foreign policy instruction, and the IIB?s response to the announcement was prompt, as a June 1981 letter from IIB Director Stefan Doernberg46 to Manfred Feist, head of the Foreign Propaganda Division of the Central Committee, another institution that employed a fair number of IIB graduates, revealed. The substance of Doernberg?s letter was aimed at ensuring Feist that the new party line would gain due recognition in the IIB?s curriculum. He wrote: ?An essential component of the changes in contemporary international relations, which are of long-term significance, is the intensification of the ideological struggle. Ideological issues are increasingly becoming the object of foreign policy and pervade foreign policy activity, also foreign policy- diplomatic activity?. It is therefore necessary to orient training in all areas of instruction in accord with the capabilities of the respective field much more closely toward the acquisition of knowledge and skills for direct offensive engagement with the enemy 46 Doernberg, previously head of the DIZ and then deputy director at the IPW, was director of the IIB 1977- 1982 while Gerhard Hahn (IIB director 1970-1977 and 1982-1989) served as GDR ambassador to Yugoslavia. Hahn?s rotation to the post of ambassador took place in accord with the MfAA?s regular plan for ?cadre exchange.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/2908. 439 ideology.?47 While Doernberg?s letter highlighted the importance of incorporation of the party?s specific foreign policy line into instruction at the IIB, the institute?s internal report ?Conclusions and Foci of Education and Instruction at the IIB in Academic Year 1980/81? underscored the centrality that adherence to Marxist-Leninist precepts continued to occupy in general in the training of foreign policy cadres: ?Decisive is the ideological fortification of the class perspective of students, which is expressed in an unwavering position toward the policies of the party.?48 The final outcome of the curricular revision of the IIB?s five-year course of study clearly reflected the two main, incongruous influences shaping the process?redoubling the ideological element in foreign policy training on the one hand and renewed emphasis on meeting the practical needs of the GDR?s operative foreign policy institutions on the other, or, as the IIB?s re-worked education and instruction conception from November 1981 would have it, ?the unity of class-based education and practice-oriented specialist instruction.?49 The fundamental orientation of the new curriculum was unambiguously centered on politicization and ideologization of foreign policy expertise within the framework of complete subordination to the demands of the broader East German foreign policy apparatus, an orientation which was fully consistent with that of previous curricula: ?The goal of training consists in the education and instruction of party functionaries who are prepared and capable of fulfilling the tasks entrusted to them by party and state at any time and under all conditions.?50 The basic tripartite division of instruction in the five-year course of study, where the fundamentals of Marxism- 47 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13132. 48 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13306. 49 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13145. 50 Ibid. 440 Leninism, general instruction in foreign policy, and regional specialization were taught alongside obligatory study of Russian and one other foreign language, was preserved. Under the conditions of ?intensified ideological struggle,? an attempt was indeed made to incorporate Marxism-Leninism more thoroughly into the other areas of instruction rather than to treat it in isolation as a separate field: ?The curricula for general and specialized fields of instruction have been more closely concentrated on deepening fundamental knowledge of Marxism-Leninism and on the continuation of the study of the foundations of Marxism-Leninism within the general and specialized fields of instruction. The curricular content of the general and specialized fields of instruction has been better harmonized with the content of instruction in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism.?51 Despite the clear attempt to redouble the ideological element in the IIB?s new curriculum, however, the place of Marxism-Leninism could only remain limited in ?the unity of class-based education and practice-oriented specialist instruction? that made up foreign policy instruction at the IIB since the needs of the East German foreign policy apparatus dictated that just as much, if not more, attention be paid to imparting the skills required to produce sound analysis of international relations based on specialist knowledge than on cultivating a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? among the IIB?s charges. Hans Maretzki of the IIB?s Diplomatic Practice Division acknowledged as much as the revision process was still ongoing when he actually cautioned against orienting instruction at the IIB all too much around the one-sidedly understood demands of ?practical? foreign policy: ?[One must realize] that instruction in the fields of foreign policy?the conveying of a great wealth of theoretical knowledge and specific specialist knowledge?is likewise preparation for foreign policy practice. The increased practical 51 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13058. 441 orientation (Praxisbezogenheit) must not be placed in opposition to the scientific character (Wissenschaftlichkeit) of instruction. The goal is introducing in appropriate proportion more pedagogical elements aimed at preparing students for foreign policy practice into an instructional method that is theoretically guaranteed and organized according to specialized fields.?52 What Maretzki was defending here was not inculcation of the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism at the IIB, but rather the ?scientific? instruction the institute provided in order to create foreign policy experts and, above all, regional specialists, the type of instruction which he thought could potentially be displaced by an all too one-sided emphasis on preparing cadres for ?practical? foreign policy work such as diplomatic protocol. The specialist/wissenschaftlich element in foreign policy training at the IIB remained strong and never became drowned out by a fixation on diplomatic practice, but Maretki?s admonition highlighted the strength of the imperative at the IIB to provide instruction tailored toward the practical challenges of operative foreign policy, not inculcation of ideological maxims detached from reality. The first point in the IIB?s assessment of instruction in academic year 1980/1981 underscored this fact: ?At all times, we must be engaged in critical analysis to ensure that the demands of foreign policy practice represent in all areas the measure for assessment of the quality of education and instruction. It must be guaranteed that graduates leave the institute who are capable of fulfilling their tasks in foreign policy service after a short period of familiarization with high quality and efficacy in the new conditions of the international class struggle and the struggle to secure peace?. The training of the next generation of foreign policy cadres is the most pressing task of the institute.?53 52 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13127. 53 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13306. 442 This orientation was manifest in the IIB?s revised curriculum for 1980/1981, where ?the bond between training and practice, in particular the demands of foreign policy-diplomatic practice,? was reinforced.54 And it is in this area where the greater dynamism of the specialist element in foreign policy training in comparison with the greater stasis of the ideological element received clearest expression. Students were explicitly prepared for ?the demands of the foreign policy of the GDR as part of the socialist community in the 1980s,? where a continuous flow of new information had to be present in order to ensure that instruction kept pace with the shifting challenges facing the GDR such as ?continuation of the d?tente process, its completion through military d?tente, and offensive engagement with the most aggressive imperialist circles? adventurist policy of confrontation.?55 Of those issues with which foreign policy instruction had to keep abreast, economics became one of the most important?and with good reason. At the start of the 1980s, due to a stagnating domestic economy and a more aggressive trade policy on the part of the West (including an embargo on advanced technology), economic considerations began to possess increasingly greater weight within East German foreign policy and the IIB?s new curriculum correspondingly ?accounted more extensively for the unity of economics and politics and the interaction of foreign policy and foreign trade in accord with the growing significance of international economic processes within international relations and the new foreign trade tasks of the GDR.?56 As the Soviet Bloc?s situation in respect to foreign trade would worsen and the importance of economic considerations for foreign policy would correspondingly increase in the course of the 1980s, the IIB would revisit the issue time 54 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13058. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 443 and time again to fine-tune instruction on the topic. This was the case, for example, in December 1982 when Wolfgang Spr?te presented a report to the IIB?s Scientific Council containing a series of measures ?for the more effective organization of economic instruction? in the institute?s five-year course of study to ensure that ?concrete knowledge, background information, and experiences? would be conveyed to students.57 The greater emphasis on instruction in economics at the IIB and the resulting greater familiarity of the institute?s graduates with economic issues would prove crucial to the critical re-assessment of the prevailing understanding of international relations in the 1980s since international trade relations would become one of the main issues on the example of which East German experts would perceive a growing gap between the postulates of Marxism-Leninism and the reality of the international situation. Finally, one of the modifications to the IIB?s curriculum in 1980/1981 clearly favoring the expert element in foreign policy training was further strengthening language instruction. Language instruction was in fact a crucial element in the training of experts at the IIB since specialization in a given region or country depended upon it?one could not hope to gain a nuanced understanding of a given region?s history, culture, and international relations without knowledge of the relevant language(s). This fact did not go unnoticed at the IIB and the 1980/1981 revision accordingly fine-tuned the language program to meet the institute?s updated pedagogical goals. The basic format of language instruction remained unchanged?the study of two foreign languages remained 57 Spr?te?s presentation substantiated the need to improve instruction in economics in the following manner: ?In light of the continued intensification of conditions of foreign trade, the extraordinary significance of foreign trade and the GDR?s foreign trade relations for resolution of the tasks set by the X Party Congress of the SED and honed at the subsequent plenary meetings of the CC of the SED, and the resulting new, greater tasks for the foreign policy of the GDR, it is necessary to deepen and broaden the training of foreign policy cadres at the [IIB] on fundamental questions of foreign trade and the GDR?s foreign trade policies.? UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13135. 444 obligatory, one of which was required to be Russian while the other of which was determined by one?s specialization. But an attempt was made to tie language instruction, which enjoyed great continuity of leadership under Harald Czenkusch (division head 1959-1990),58 more closely to one?s given specialization by strengthening the ?orientation toward subject-specific training in accord with the demands of foreign policy-diplomatic practice? and ?the correlation with the content of the general and specialized fields of instruction.?59 The IIB only provided instruction in Russian, English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, so students whose specialization demanded study of a different foreign language typically did so at MGIMO in Moscow. While the IIB?s five-year course of study remained the main vehicle for training the next generation of East German foreign policy cadres??the most pressing task of the institute??the IIB continued to offer a range of other courses of study consonant with its pedagogical mission of training ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy? and its standing as highly professional, capable, and effective cadre forge. The IIB?s other offerings broke down into two main categories: the continuing education of East German cadres and the training of cadres from other socialist or socialist-oriented countries. In the former category, condensed courses of study for leading and mid-level cadres from the MfAA maintained the importance they had gained in the 1970s. Such courses were intended to qualify mid-level cadres for leading positions and to provide leading cadres with the most up-to-date training in order to keep pace with the changing foreign policy challenges facing the GDR. The condensed course of study for leading and mid-level 58 For Czenkusch?s own discussion of foreign language instruction at the IIB, see Harald Czenkusch, ?Fremdsprachenausbildung,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 105-111. 59 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13058. 445 cadres underwent a re-founding of sorts in 1980, when the stated goal became imparting ?deepened theoretical and practical knowledge?that find expression in higher quality and effectiveness in the resolution of the new state and political-ideological tasks entrusted to cadres.?60 The revamped courses were to have 20 to 25 participants, to be convened bi-annually, and to last for two to three months.61 At about the same time, a new two-and-a-half year course of study was introduced, which however bore a resemblance to the two-year course of study from the 1960s that had been abolished in 1970 to make way for the five-year course of study. The new two-and-a-half year course, in contrast to the five-year course of study, was a supplementary, not a stand-alone course, and was intended to train cadres who had gotten a degree in a different field and were active in another area of the East German party and state apparatus for a foreign policy position. Unlike the five-year course of study, where multiple cohorts were trained at once, only one cohort was trained per two-and-a-half years, with the first course starting in academic year 1980/198162 and the second in 1984/1985.63 At approximately the same time, the IIB also began training East German cadres to serve as advisors to the governments of developing countries like Mozambique, Angola, and Ethiopia, where the GDR was actively engaged in supporting socialist-oriented ?avant-garde? parties. Course participants were to be ?thoroughly familiarized with the foreign policy and foreign trade relations of the GDR with developing countries, particularly with the focus countries of Africa, as well as with the problems, requirements, and perspectives of these relations? and, on the whole, the course was intended ?to better enable the selected cadres to 60 UP, UA, Bestand, ASR, 13101. 61 The first of the re-vamped courses for leading and mid-level cadres took place from September to December 1980. UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13127. 62 Ibid. 63 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13033. 446 contribute in their capacity as advisor to strengthening the GDR?s allied relations with these states, to fortifying the political and economic independence of these states from imperialism, and to effectively shaping the political and economic relations of the GDR with these states in the interest of socialism and peace.?64 The first such course appears to have been held in 1979/1980, but it remains unclear whether or how often subsequent courses were held.65 Within the category of training East German cadres, the IIB?s rounded out its offerings in the 1980s by continued the tradition started in the early 1970s of holding semi-regular condensed courses to train ?UN cadres,? as was the case in early 1985.66 In respect to training non-East German foreign policy cadres, the IIB continued and accelerated the engagement in this area it had begun in the early 1970s. Starting in 1972, the IIB began training foreign policy cadres from ?both socialist states and national-liberated states? with a specialized focus on German-speaking countries (typically for the former group) or oriented toward general foreign policy training (typically for the latter group), but such courses remained of a one-off, provisional nature.67 In late 1978, the Secretariat, in response both to the success of such courses and the growing demand for them, passed a series of measures intended to turn the training of foreign cadres at the IIB from an ad hoc undertaking into a ?permanent task.?68 Alone at the time of the resolution?s passage, courses were ongoing or preparations were underway for the instruction of foreign policy cadres from Yemen, Ethiopia, 64 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13101. 65 While East German advisors of various types were active throughout the 1980s, the involvement of the IIB in their training seems to have remained quite limited. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/3245. 66 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13033. 67 Though initial steps toward systematizing them were being considered. SAPMO-Barch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/2321. 68 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/3210. 447 Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Mongolia, Congo, and Chad.69 The Secretariat therefore decided that the time was ripe ?systematically to create the necessary prerequisites for the designated qualification measures and to organize their implementation according to uniform principles.?70 Although courses for non-East German foreign policy cadres were not held as frequently and did not possess the weight of, for instance, the IIB?s five-year course of study for East German cadres, they became a regular feature of training at the IIB and served the important function of bolstering relations between the GDR and friendly states, particularly in the developing world. For example, during a December 1977 trip to Yemen, Ethiopia, and Libya, Werner Lamberz met with Ethiopian ruler Mengistu and made special arrangements for 25 Ethiopian diplomats to be trained at the IIB in 1978.71 In addition to the countries named above, courses for participants from Cambodia, Laos, and Bulgaria were also held at the IIB in the 1980s.72 The IIB was likewise engaged in the training of non-East German foreign policy cadres in their respective countries of origin. The exact extent is unclear, but already in the 1970s, individual instructors from the IIB and the Academy for the Study of State and Law (ASR), where the IIB was housed, were dispatched to ?several national-liberated states to support the training of state cadres in the realm of domestic and foreign policy.?73 Similar to the development of the instruction of foreigners at the IIB, such activities subsequently expanded and took on a new quality and regularity in the 1980s. In 1984, for instance, a Secretariat resolution was passed that guaranteed ?continuation of 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/2124. 72 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13032. 73 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/3210. 448 the support for the People?s Republic of Mozambique in the field of training cadres? through the end of the decade.74 The initiative stemmed from the express request directed at GDR foreign minister Oskar Fischer by Mozambican foreign minister Joaquim Chissano,75 who ?highly praised? the training and support provided up to that point by instructors from the IIB. The resolution foresaw that the IIB would have an average of three instructors active in Mozambique each year through 1989.76 The GDR stood alone in providing this service to Mozambique, which was viewed as a guarantee for close relations between the two states on a Marxist-Leninist basis, as the resolution highlighted: ?This training, which represents a strategic position, has up to this point occurred exclusively through the support of the GDR. It is an expression of trust in the GDR and simultaneously contributes to the Marxist-Leninist instruction and education of the country?s foreign policy cadres.?77 In light of the multitude and depth of training courses it administered, the IIB more than lived up to its billing as the GDR?s premier foreign policy cadre forge. The ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise completed in the early 1970s had seen the final transformation of the IIB into a highly professional, capable, and effective training site that occupied a crucial position within East Germany?s foreign policy apparatus, a position which only became more consequential and influential in the 1980s. Through its role in training non-East German foreign policy cadres, whether at home in the GDR or abroad in participants? countries of origin, the IIB helped to strengthen relations between the GDR and its socialist allies and ?national-liberated? 74 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/4067. 75 Chissano was co-founder of FRELIMO, the Soviet-allied Marxist-oriented Mozambican national- liberation organization, and later president of Mozambique. 76 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/4067. 77 Ibid. 449 states and to spread the GDR?s Marxist-Leninist-inflected understanding and vision of international relations, all in the context of the ongoing class struggle with the capitalist West. As important as the IIB?s training of non-East German foreign policy cadres was, the importance of the institute?s internal function?the training of cadres for the GDR?s own foreign policy apparatus?possessed even greater significance. Starting in the early 1970s, when the underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus had been conclusively overcome, and continuing on into the 1980s, an enormous number of the cadres employed at the MfAA and the IV Division, the GDR?s most important operative foreign policy institutions of state and party respectively, and a smaller, though still substantial, number at other state and party institutions like the Ministry for Foreign Trade and the Foreign Propaganda Division were graduates of the IIB. And it was upon those IIB graduates with the knowledge and disposition imparted to them through their training at the IIB that the day-to-day functioning and performance of the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus rested. The characteristic tension between ideology and specialist knowledge remained present in training at the IIB in the 1980s. Marxism-Leninism as the essential framework in which international relations were understood and as the putative guide for practical foreign policy activity was paired with a strong focus on specialization and a pronounced orientation toward expert analysis of individual questions. Yet ideological schooling remained the static, even stagnating, element in instruction at the IIB while specialization, fostered by the imperative to produce true experts capable of mastering the complex and changing foreign policy challenges facing the GDR, increasingly became the more dynamic, essential element, and the distance between the two elements 450 increased. A 1979 graduate and former employee of the IIB has described the situation at the institute in the 1980s as one where experts viewed the ideological element of their work as a sort of empty ritual since they recognized that the analytical value of Marxism- Leninism was dwindling in light of the actual foreign policy issues facing the GDR, leading them to focus more and more on the concrete state interests of the GDR.78 Marxism-Leninism is unlikely to have sunk to the level of irrelevance alluded to here other than in exceptional cases considering that the self-understanding and self- legitimacy of the GDR were based upon it, but the comment is helpful in underscoring the shifting balance in the Spannungsverh?ltnis between the ideological and the expert in foreign policy training at the IIB and in East German foreign policy expertise as a whole in the 1980s. Despite continual efforts to promote a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? as the defining characteristic of the GDR?s ?party functionaries in the realm of foreign policy,? Marxism-Leninism became increasingly relegated to the position of intellectual framing device while beneath the Marxist-Leninist veneer the focus shifted emphatically toward expert analysis of individual issues on the basis of specialist knowledge and a pronounced orientation toward keeping pace with the outstanding practical challenges facing East German foreign policy. Marxism-Leninism still maintained a strong presence as the basic framework in which international relations were ostensibly understood, but the actual content of foreign policy training in the 1980s increasingly centered on the expert element. For this reason, it would be mistaken to speak of an absolute dichotomy between the ideological and the expert element since they could co-exist by functioning on different levels of abstraction, where thoroughgoing specialist analysis of a given 78 Jochen Franzke, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 16 July 2008. 451 issue could (and did) occur on the backdrop of a Marxist-Leninist approach to international relations. The key change in the 1980s was that the importance of Marxism- Leninism in training and its explanatory capacity in general steadily was steadily decreasing in light of the increasingly complex foreign policy issues facing the GDR. As the IIB?s 1983 profile of the ideal foreign policy cadre ?for the next two decades? detailed: ?Steadfastness in principles, assured knowledge, and positive experiences are to be joined correctly with flexibility, new knowledge, and the perfection of methods of working.?79 Just as was the case with East German experts? exposure to and contacts with the West, the baseline politicized character of foreign policy training would never disappear?an uneasy balance between the ideological and the expert would continue? but developments tended to favor the professional, expert side of the equation to the detriment of extreme politicization and ideologization, promoting a type of ?convergence with reality? and making a key contribution to East German experts? critical re- assessment of the prevailing Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations in the 1980s. The Second Cold War?s Challenge to the Marxist-Leninist Paradigm The shifting balance within East German foreign policy expertise away from the ideological and toward the expert element exercised a crucial influence on the output of East German experts in the 1980s, but ultimately only represented one half of the picture. The other half was comprised of the GDR?s foreign relations themselves, which provided the object of East German experts? analysis. 79 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13032. See also the IIB?s comprehensive overview of the five-year course of study from 1985. UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13057. 452 In this respect, international relations developments in the 1970s formed the crucial backdrop for expert output in the 1980s. The results of the d?tente process both as they directly affected the GDR (foreign policy normalization) and as they affected the position of ?international socialism? in its entirety (final acknowledgment on the part of the West of the postwar status quo in Europe and de faction recognition of the Soviet Union as the rough equal of the United States) served to bolster belief in the correctness of the prevailing Marxist-Leninist paradigm among East German experts. Fulfillment of the GDR?s central objective of full foreign policy normalization in the context of d?tente?the triumph of the GDR being inseparable from the broader triumph of ?international socialism? in the period?facilitated the reification of experts? GDR- specific conception of international relations that fused the clearly delineated realpolitical interests of the GDR with the Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as a form of the class struggle since the entire process appeared to confirm the identification of the GDR?s interests with those of the Soviet Bloc, understood as the real-world embodiment of the abstract cause of ?international socialism.? Foreign policy normalization in the context of d?tente, however, also brought with it extensive engagement with the outside world, engagement that dramatically and irrevocably changed the basic outlines of East Germany? strategic situation. The foreign policy isolation imposed by the Hallstein Doctrine was now a thing of the past and the GDR took on all the trappings of a ?status quo? state, gaining a position theoretically equal to that of any other state actor in the international arena. Ironically, just as the key features of the pre-normalization era (diplomatic isolation, acute dependency on the Soviet Union, heavy reliance on the Soviet Bloc?s unity of action) that guaranteed a 453 strong correlation between the realpolitical interests of the GDR and a strict black-and- white, class-based understanding of international relations began to weaken, experts? Marxist-Leninist-based understanding of international relations reached its apogee. But this was not mainly due, as in the past, to absence of substantive engagement with the outside world, but rather to the manner in which the GDR ?broke through? the Hallstein Doctrine and realized its supreme objective of foreign normalization. The ideological refuge provided by diplomatic isolation, however, was now gone and never to return and expert analysis of the GDR?s foreign relations had to deal with the vagaries of international relations in all their complexity as experienced by a status quo state. Therefore, just as the foreign policy triumphs of the 1970s could lead to confirmation of the existing understanding of international relations, adverse developments in the 1980s could have the opposite effect, challenging the established interpretive framework in a GDR now fully and irreversibly integrated into the international order. Thus the outbreak of the ?second Cold War? at the turn of the decade and the serious challenges to the position of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc it brought with it almost necessarily had to elicit critical awareness of the decreasing applicability of Marxist-Leninist precepts to the current situation. And since the challenges of the second Cold War bore directly upon relations between socialist East and capitalist West?which occupied the central position in experts? conception of international relations?they could not easily be portrayed as temporary setbacks in the otherwise still-constant movement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of socialism, as unfavorable events in the developing world at the height of East-West rapprochement had been. 454 The so-called second Cold War did in fact dramatically change the content and tenor of relations between the two superpowers and their respective allied blocs from the comparative amity that had existed during the d?tente period. The unraveling of East- West rapprochement came in the one area where no real d?tente had been achieved? military affairs. The extent of the arms limitation measures in place?the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, SALT I?was limited, but the substantial progress achieved in political d?tente between East and West had overshadowed the lack of progress achieved in the military realm. However, NATO?s double-track decision in December 1979, issued in response to deployment of the new Soviet middle-range RSD-10 missiles in Central Europe made it abundantly clear, in once again making confrontation the key feature of relations between East and West, that the modest achievements of d?tente had at best represented a temporary break from the Cold War?s otherwise unabated dynamic of ?systemic? rivalry between the Soviet-led socialist bloc and the US-led capitalist bloc. The double-track decision and the renewed confrontational stance of the West vis-?-vis the Soviet Bloc it inaugurated combined with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the climax of the Soviet-led ?socialist offensive? in the developing world in the 1970s, to hammer the final nail into the coffin of d?tente. The Reagan administration, after taking office in January 1981, took up and intensified the confrontational stance toward the Soviet Union adopted by the Carter administration near the end of its term and initiated a series of measures aimed at directly challenging the Soviet Union internationally as well as domestically: a strict trade embargo through COCOM aimed at preventing Soviet Bloc countries from attaining advanced technologies, a ?counter-offensive? against socialist and/or Soviet-backed governments 455 and movements in the developing world (Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola), the Strategic Defense Initiative (?star wars?), and an arms build-up that fueled a full-fledged arms race between the US and the USSR, all of which was accompanied and made all the more threatening by the sometimes-bellicose rhetoric of the Reagan administration (e.g. Reagan?s characterization of the USSR as an evil empire). Meanwhile, the individual member-states of the Soviet Bloc were faced with increasing difficulties on the domestic front. Economic growth was limited and was lagging far behind the West in terms of productivity and quality of items produced80 and growing segments of the population were unconvinced by the ideological legitimacy offered by Marxism-Leninism and chafed under the dictatorial rule of ?the party of the working class.? The Soviet Union?s decision in 1981 to reduce crude oil deliveries to its client states in Eastern Europe hit the GDR particularly hard, which feared the reduction would further worsen the GDR?s position vis-?-vis West Germany.81 The clearest expression of seething discontent in the Soviet Bloc was the emergence of Solidarno?? in Poland in 1980/81, which highlighted the bankruptcy of communist rule in that country and demonstrated how a localized crisis behind the iron curtain could potentially throw the entire Soviet Bloc into turmoil.82 D?tente and the foreign policy triumph it represented had overshadowed such problems, but the start of the second Cold War cast the situation in a new, unforgiving light and exacerbated it through such measures as restrictive trade and debt policy and insistence on the observation of human rights in the 80 For an in-depth account of the dire economic straits of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc in the 1980s, see Charles Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 59-107. 81 Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 478. 82 Joseph Rothschild and Nancy M. Wingfield, Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe since World War II, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 199-203. 456 Soviet Bloc as outlined in basket three of the Helsinki Accords. The second Cold War therefore not only represented a great foreign policy challenge for the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc but also aggravated an already-problematic domestic situation as well. It was in light of the problems created by this double predicament that East German foreign policy experts engaged in a critical re-assessment of the understanding of international relations they had built up in the previous 30 years. A basic awareness of the weighty international and domestic challenges facing the GDR, which represented a prerequisite for critical re-assessment of the conceptual cornerstones of East German policy, was already in place and well-developed among segments of the GDR?s foreign policy expert community at the start of the 1980s. Clearest and most unabashed expression of this awareness was found in a top-secret report completed in 1980 by a special working group of the Foreign Policy Commission (APK) under the leadership of Hermann Axen, Central Committee secretary for international relations and longtime head of the commission. The working group was comprised of 30 leading East German foreign policy professionals?including Oskar Fischer, minister of foreign affairs, Egon Winkelmann, head of the IV Division, Manfred Feist, head of the Foreign Propaganda Division, Stefan Doernberg, director of the IIB, and Max Schmidt, director of the IPW?and was specially convened to draft a detailed internal analysis of the ?international constellation of forces? as the basis for the party?s report on foreign policy at the upcoming X Party Congress of the SED and ?for the international work of the leadership of party and state.?83 Axen, in a letter to General Secretary Erich Honecker delineating the character and goals of the report, was sure to 83 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/2. The same report, but with additional addenda?mainly comprising statistical information?can be found in the files of the APK and the IV Division: SAPMO-BArch DY 30/IV 2/2.115/21 and SAPMO-BArch DY 30/11343 respectively. 457 emphasize the confidential nature of its potentially explosive findings: ?In this version, which we present to you, an attempt is made to draw attention to several new questions and problems in the development of socialism, imperialism, the movement for national liberation, and the international class struggle. The material serves the purpose of internal self-edification. For this reason, we intentionally formulated some views and conclusions that doubtlessly require further discussion and clarification. Of course, this material in content and form is in no way the draft for the international section of the party?s report [at the upcoming congress], but rather, as mentioned, an internal analysis?. Only the comrades of the small working group84 are familiar with this version of the material. We are handing over this material to you for review and judgment.?85 The report completed by the working group was remarkable for the frankness of its analysis and the minimal ideological gloss it contained. In exhaustive detail?the report numbered over 200 pages?the working group unflinchingly identified the main foreign policy challenges facing the GDR at the dawn of the 1980s as well as the shortcomings and weaknesses of the Soviet Bloc in its continued competition with the capitalist West. The working group took as the starting point of its analysis the position of the Soviet Bloc resulting from ?socialism?s increase in power? in the course of the 1970s. The report?correctly?identified how the achievements of d?tente had lent the Soviet Bloc a previously unmatched level of international influence at the start of the 1980s: ?The coordinated strategy of peace und the coordinated foreign policy action of 84 Axen here referred to the six-person sub-group?comprising Axen himself, his personal secretary Manfred Uschner, Joachim B?hm of the IV Division, Ernst Krabatsch of the MfAA, Werner H?nisch of the IIB, and Harald Neubert, the director of the Institute for the International Workers? Movement of the Academy of Social Sciences?that drafted a special version of the report for Honecker?the version currently under discussion?after a different version had been presented to and discussed by the larger working group. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/2. 85 Ibid. 458 the states of the socialist community have become an increasingly weightier and increasingly more independent factor for changes in international politics and consequently in the international constellation of forces as well?. The 1970s proved to be the most successful period heretofore in the struggle of the fraternal parties for the continued development of the social system of socialism and the unfolding of its potential and its benefits.?86 The political weight of the Soviet Bloc in the international arena by the start of the 1980s had indeed reached a previously unparalleled level and this fact represented the point of departure for the working group?s study, yet, as the report would go on to detail, the international standing of the Soviet Bloc was only part of the picture and other, key elements?economic development within the Soviet Bloc, the strength and strategy of the capitalist adversary, the state of the international communist movement, and the place of the developing world in socialist foreign policy?presaged earnest problems for the GDR and the Soviet Bloc in the 1980s. The report?s analysis of the Soviet Bloc?s economic development in the 1970s was rather dismal and its analysis of prospects for the 1980s not much better. According to the report?s authors, the main economic task facing the bloc was making the shift from the extensive economic production which had predominated in the 1950s and 1960s and in which the state-controlled command economies of the Soviet Bloc had performed rather well87 to intensive economic production, i.e. the improvement of the existing productive base through implementation of new, more efficient processes and advanced technology: ?[The fraternal parties] face the task?even if with varying levels of urgency in individual fraternal countries?of ensuring the dynamic growth necessary to satisfy the 86 Ibid. 87 Barry Eichengreen, The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 131-162. 459 growing and complex social needs by increasingly and primarily relying upon qualitative factors to increase production, by shifting their economies to intensive, expanded reproduction, and by increasing productivity and efficiency, particularly by joining scientific-technical progress with the advantages of the societal order of socialism.?88 The transition from extensive to intensive economic production, however, could not be achieved mechanically?it required a different approach to labor and production on a societal level. Here, the report?s authors seized upon one of the key issues facing the Soviet Bloc in the 1980s?the relationship between production and society?and, in discussing the types of changes that would have to be made in order to ensure success, even endorsed a type of proto-perestroika approach to the problem. They called for ?the more consistent und differentiated implementation of the performance principle and abolition of instances of leveling that hinder stimulation of economic initiative for the achievement of greater efficiency and quality on the part of economic enterprises and workers? and highlighted the necessity of ?securing conditions to increase the mobilization of workers? activities, to unlock their creative power, and to include still broader segments of the population in resolution of the tasks.?89 Economic policy naturally fell outside the authority of the APK working group, yet candid examination of the economic situation in the Soviet Bloc in light of foreign policy considerations impressed upon the report?s authors the seriousness of the situation and led them to propose solutions to the problem that remarkably anticipated certain elements of Gorbachev?s radical reform program of the second half of the 1980s. East German 88 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/2. 89 Ibid. 460 foreign policy experts were becoming increasingly aware that all was not right in the Soviet Bloc. While the report offered a tepidly favorable assessment of Soviet Bloc countries? success in making the transition from extensive to intensive economic production??the socialist countries, to varying degrees, achieved significant results in increasing the efficiency and the rationalization of their socialist economies and in the mastering of scientific-technical progress??it nevertheless attested to a lack of progress in the most important area, in comparison with the West?s economic development: ?[T]he lag vis-?- vis the developed capitalist countries in decisive qualitative indicators could scarcely be reduced in the 1970s and socialism?s share in the production of products that are decisive for advancing productivity and, consequently, socialism?s overall share in international industrial production could not be significantly increased.?90 In accord with the designated task of the APK?s working group?and indeed of East German foreign policy expertise in its entirety?the economic development of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc possessed for the report?s authors no value in and of itself, but rather only as it related to and impacted the prevailing ?international constellation of forces.? And despite the more favorable international political position held by the Soviet Bloc at the start of the 1980s, the ongoing economic challenges faced by the bloc, the report?s authors clearly recognized, exercised a critical influence on the Soviet Bloc?s broader foreign policy fortunes and, most importantly, its rivalry with the capitalist West. As the report put it, Soviet Bloc countries needed ?to resolve the existing contradiction between socialism?s massive and growing international political influence and its still-limited and ineffectively utilized economic and scientific-technical base? in order ?to attain further 90 Ibid. 461 qualitative progress in the transformation of the constellation of forces.?91 From a perspective that identified the international ?clash of systems? as the defining feature of contemporary international relations, the relative economic strength of the Soviet Bloc possessed immediate strategic relevance. Consideration of economic issues and their impact therefore prompted the report?s authors to speak extraordinarily openly about the Soviet Bloc?s relative economic weakness and, on that basis, to draw conclusions directly touching on East German foreign policy: ?Doubtlessly, the goal of changing the constellation of forces between socialism and capitalism in the economic realm will require a period of several five-year plans. This highlights the continued priority that securing the necessary defensive capacity for the socialist countries and further implementation of their coordinated foreign policy offensive will continue to demand in order to ensure the most favorable external conditions necessary for resolution of the designated long-term goal.?92 The special working group?s report also devoted a significant amount of attention to analyzing ?imperialism? at the start of the 1980s. As the report attested that the 1970s had brought socialism a historically unparalleled level of political influence internationally, the reverse was true for capitalism: ?The advance of the forces of socialism and national and social liberation and the successes in the struggle for the implementation of Leninist principles in international relations in the 1970s fundamentally changed the capitalist system?s inner and outer conditions of existence. Even more than previously, proof was delivered that every subsequent decade in the peaceful upwards development of real socialism more lastingly undermines the 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid. 462 existential foundations of the last exploitative order in the history of mankind.?93 Socialism?s gains in the 1970s, the report?s authors claimed, had only intensified ?the general crisis of capitalism,? which unerringly drove the capitalist world ever closer toward the edge of the abyss. Such bombastic declarations of capitalism?s certain doom, however, belied the report?s subsequent clear-eyed analysis of the topic, which ascribed to capitalism enduring strength and dynamism and superiority over socialism in nearly every quantitative measure. Capitalism namely was forging ahead in the one key area where socialism was stumbling: the transition to extensive economic production based on advanced technology. The report?s account enumerated the associated benefits and purported problems of the process: ?In the clash with socialism, in the competitive struggle among capitalist countries, and particularly in the realm of armament, imperialism makes heavy use of scientific-technical progress. This leads on the one hand to a qualitative increase of its productivity and to greater effectiveness in numerous areas of the capitalist economy. At the same time, it is precisely this acceleration of scientific- technical progress that serves as the source of an enormous intensification of existing contradictions and the unleashing of new contradictions.?94 By the report?s own account, however, such ?contradictions? represented no real threat to the capitalist system since capitalist states were quite capable of ably defusing them. Under the cover of Marxist- Leninist language, the report attested to the integrative potential of capitalist political economy: ?The intensification of political instability, however, is a highly contradictory process: in no capitalist country does it entail actual ?ungovernability? or paralysis of the 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 463 state system of rule. It is still capable of dampening contradictions and keeping social conflicts within limits. Ruling circles answer disruptions in the functioning mechanism by redoubling efforts for the expansion and raising the efficacy of the state power apparatus. Imperialism still possesses considerable powers of socio-political appeasement and concessions?. A revolutionary situation does not obtain in any imperialist country.?95 In fact, the report even tacitly acknowledged that the constant stream of ?contradictions? within and between capitalist states actually represented a crucial source of capitalism?s dynamism, inventiveness, and economic productivity. This view was expressed particularly clearly in analysis of the diverging economic and political interests of capitalist states, which flowed naturally from the competitive nature of a free market economy and therefore represented in no way an extraordinary phenomenon, yet which were understood by the report?s authors as ?contradictions? in the Marxist-Leninist sense: ?The internationalization of science and technology stimulates unevenness and rivalry between the imperialist centers [meant here are the US, Western Europe, and Japan?the ?three imperialist centers?]. On the other hand, this phenomenon continually produces new driving forces for the utilization of science and technology, to close gaps in the competitive struggle, etc., all of which accelerates the tempo of scientific-technological progress.?96 In the crucial area of economic productivity and growth, where the report?s authors depicted the Soviet Bloc as merely treading water, capitalism in contrast was portrayed as thriving and capable of resolving its inherent ?contradictions,? which in fact represented a crucial source of its continued dynamism and growth. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 464 Yet the key issue revolved not around simply providing a descriptive account of the economic vigor of capitalist states, but rather analyzing how ?imperialism? would bring this superior strength to bear in its policy toward the Soviet Bloc. The report?s overall conclusion on the strength and strategy of ?imperialism? at the start of the 1980s did not give East German leaders much reason for optimism. The West?s frontal challenge to the Soviet Bloc was described in unsparing terms as was the immense pressure under which it placed the GDR and the Soviet Bloc, whose foreign policy latitude was dramatically restricted and whose international position was directly threatened as a result. In respect the internal strength of the capitalist states of the West, the obligatory allusion to capitalism?s ?increased susceptibility to crises? was made, yet the special working group?s report unequivocally highlighted the dynamism and potency of the capitalist mode of socio-economic organization, which showed no signs of abatement but rather appeared to be increasing at the start of the 1980s. The report?s authors accordingly made the case that the gravity of the challenge presented by the West in the 1980s needed to be taken very seriously: ?The imperialist system includes the most advanced industrialized countries of the world with the highest labor productivity,? had an enormous lead over the Soviet Bloc in the critical area of microelectronics and other advanced technologies and was determined not to let the Soviet Bloc catch up, was in possession of ?an aggressive military alliance outfitted with the most modern weapons of destruction? (and the US had erected a ?nearly comprehensive system of military bases around the socialist camp?), and had at its disposal ?a technically outstanding, experienced, worldwide system for ideologically influencing the masses.?97 In the face of the grave challenge represented by the second Cold War, the report?s authors therefore 97 Ibid. 465 tacitly broke with one of the central conceptual pillars of the existing understanding of international relations, namely that the international constellation of forces moved continually and inexorably in favor of socialism. Faced with the West?s frontal challenge to socialism?s international position in the 1980s, the question of how the international communist movement would respond to the ?imperialist? onslaught took on particular relevance for the report?s authors. Both within and outside the Soviet Bloc, the report?s examination of the fragmented state of the international communist movement struck few positive notes. The measuring stick for unity remained, as before, ideological and political alliance with the Soviet Union, and the report?s authors therefore viewed with particular concern the development of a kind of ?non-aligned movement? within the communist movement ?under the slogan of the legitimacy of different paths to socialism.?98 Whether emanating from a ?left sectarian? or ?right revisionist? orientation within the communist movement, instances of fragmentation appeared to be multiplying at the start of the 1980s. China was accused of not only betraying Marxism-Leninism but now also openly working together with imperialist powers against the Soviet Bloc: ?[T]he leadership in Beijing no longer, as in the 1960s, aims to subvert communist parties but rather to stimulate all possible tendencies of nationalism and the third path among individual fraternal parties.? Countries like Yugoslavia, North Korea, and Romania, the report claimed, were particularly susceptible to fits of nationalism and, as a result, continually vacillated in their orientation between the Soviet Union and China. On the flip side of the coin, the report?s authors also attested to a particular vulnerability within the communist movement to Western efforts to undermine communist unity: ?At the turn of the decade, 98 Ibid. 466 there exist rather considerable points of contact for the divisive and subversive activities of imperialism.?99 The affect of consumer culture imported through Western mass media into socialist states was depicted as particularly pernicious, especially in the face of persistent shortages of consumer goods and inadequate and ineffective propagation of alternative socialist ideals, which bred discontent and apathy among the population. In respect to questions of party ideology and organization, ?imperialism? was said to have scored a victory with the success of Eurocommunism. Faced with a deeply fractured international communist movement and with little hope of rectifying the situation, the report?s authors stressed the need for a pragmatic approach to the situation that placed practical cooperation over ideological dogmatism: ?In the struggle for the fortification of the unity of the communist movement, the increasing diversity of the conditions of struggle, the growing differences in the political and ideological maturity of individual fraternal parties, and their varying objective and subjective possibilities must be taken into account. This is an objective necessity bound up with the growth of the communist movement?s influence. It is also a question of employing more flexible forms that make it possible, the divergent opinions and differences existing between the fraternal parties notwithstanding, to secure a maximal amount of joint practical action against imperialism.? The report?s analysis of the state of the international communist movement at the dawn of the 1980s was thus consistent with the report?s analysis in other areas insofar as it examined the question in a critical light and with minimal ideological spin. Contrary to the stock Marxist-Leninist understanding, the unity of the international communist movement actually appeared to be decreasing, not increasing, with time. The report?s 99 Ibid. 467 authors, eschewing such high-flown declarations of the historically determined unity and forward movement of the international communist movement in favor of a hardnosed focus on the tangible interests of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc, underscored the need to ensure practical cooperation with other Communist parties wherever the opportunity presented itself in light of the difficult conditions created by the West?s frontal challenge to the Soviet Bloc?s international position in the initial years of the second Cold War. Ideologically inspired plans and concerns thereby took a back seat to a pragmatic focus on what was possible, not what was postulated by Marxism-Leninism. Given the not particularly confidence-inspiring state of the international communist movement in the face of a newly assertive and combative West, the role of the developing world as the great variable element in the ongoing ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism possessed great importance, which represented the final question examined by the APK?s special working group. The pattern of analysis here followed that found in the other sections of the report: rather tepid, superficial optimism heavily tempered by critical analysis of the compatibility of the developing world with the foreign policy strategy of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc. The developing world was no longer ?a direct political reserve for imperialism,? yet ?most liberated states after 20 or more years of political sovereignty are still economically dependent on imperialism, remain integrated into the international capitalist economy, and occupy therein a subordinate, economically unequal, and disadvantaged position. This also applies to states with a socialist orientation.?100 The internal development of individual countries, 100 The report?s comments on how the developing world achieved these modest gains in the first place revealingly highlighted how, from the point of view of its authors, a certain mutual dependency existed between the Soviet Bloc and the developing world, where the Soviet Bloc needed the developing world just as much as the developing world needed the Soviet Bloc in order for each group to assert itself against the 468 the report?s authors continued, was not producing the type of steadfast ?anti-imperialist? allies the GDR and the Soviet Union would have hoped for. Developments were instead trending in the opposite direction, reducing the developing world?s ?objective? opposition to ?imperialism? and thereby narrowing the basis for joint action with the Soviet Bloc. The report expounded this view by once again utilizing Marxist-Leninist terminology: ?Although [the developing world?s] contradiction to imperialism persists, it is beginning to take on new features on the backdrop of inner class antagonisms. This ?anti-imperialism??circumscribed, fickle, willing to make compromises, inconsistent? in particular revolves around the struggle for economic independence. Its limits become particularly clear when existing social and political power relations are directly threatened.?101 The type of anti-imperialism described here, which the authors put in quotation marks to highlight its pseudo character, was a far cry from the traditional Marxist-Leninist conception that viewed the anti-imperialism of the developing world as an objective phenomenon that sprung necessarily and automatically from the law-bound forward movement of history. The states of the developing world were seeking to gain economic independence from the economically advanced states of the West, not from the capitalist system altogether. There existed, as the Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations held, no absolute contradiction between the developing world and the West, but rather a complex set of discrete questions on which the interests of individual states, either of the West or the developing world, could potentially converge or could potentially diverge. common ?imperialist? adversary: ?It was d?tente that in large part made these advances [i.e. of the developing world] possible in the first place; on the other hand, gaining the support of the non-aligned states for the constructive peace project of the community of socialist states was and remains an essential condition for its international implementation.? Ibid. 101 Ibid. 469 The strategic significance of this rejection of an absolute, ?objective? anti- imperialism meant that the GDR and the Soviet Union had to seek to identify and promote shared interests with states of the developing world issue by issue rather than maintaining belief in the automatic and total overlap of interests between the Soviet Bloc and the developing world. The report?s authors were well aware of this fact and, as was the case with their analysis of the international communist movement, advocated adoption of a corresponding approach to ensure maximal practical cooperation with developing states: ?This will place high demands on the fraternal socialist states? formulation of a simultaneously principled and flexible foreign policy vis-?-vis the non- aligned movement in order to keep the majority of these states in positions on fundamental questions of international politics that match the strategic conception of socialism.?102 The report enumerated the GDR?s central policies intended to fulfill these requirements103 and particularly emphasized the ongoing efforts of states of the developing world to establish a ?New International Economic Order? as a crucial ?foundation for the unity of action between the socialist and non-aligned states.? 104 In the report?s analysis of the developing world, then, as in its analysis of the international communist movement, realism carried the day, a realism borne of rejection of Marxist- Leninist axioms?in this case, the ?objectively? anti-imperialist character of the 102 Ibid. 103 The report highlighted: ?The struggle for peace, d?tente, international security, an end to the arms race, arms limitation, and disarmament; defense of the national rights of the peoples and states of Asia, Africa, and Latin America for self-determination, independence, sovereignty, non-intervention (from the outside), free choice of developmental path, free usage of national resources? the abolition of all remnants of racism; the bolstering of security in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; against the establishment of imperialist military bases and against new military alliances; against expansion of NATO; for the resolution of the conflicts and sources of conflict in the Middle East, in southern Africa, and South East Asia and for security in the Indian Ocean and the peaceful resolution of international disputes.? Ibid. 104 ?The formulation of a constructive and offensive position on the democratic re-organization of international economic relations? was deemed ?one of the most important tasks of the 1980s.? Ibid. 470 developing world?in favor of straightforward concern with the tangible foreign policy goals and interests of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc. The gravity of the challenge presented by the West?s renewed combative stance toward the Soviet Bloc militated against adherence to ideological platitudes and pushed the GDR to pragmatically seek out and promote its common interests with the developing world. On the whole, the top-secret report of the APK?s special working group under Axen?s leadership marked a key moment in the broader development of expert output in East Germany in the first half of the 1980s. The report?s analysis focused on those issues that had been at the heart of expert analysis for the previous three decades?economic development within the Soviet Bloc, the strength and strategy of the capitalist adversary, the state of the international communist movement, and the place of the developing world in socialist foreign policy?but contained hardly a trace of the ideological triumphalism characteristic of output in the mid-1970s at the height of d?tente. The West?s frontal challenge to the international position of the Soviet Bloc (i.e. the ?second Cold War?) was the decisive factor in this change. In contrast to the situation in the 1970s, when foreign policy defeats in the developing world could rather easily be dismissed as mere temporary setbacks in the otherwise still-constant movement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of socialism, the very real foreign policy difficulties now facing the Soviet Bloc demanded critical, forthright analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the international position of the GDR and its socialist allies, for now the immediate relationship between socialism and capitalism was at issue. And critical analysis, as was made plain in the report, revealed the seriousness of the challenges facing the Soviet Bloc. This awareness in turn entailed a critical stance toward some of 471 the central conceptual pillars of the prevailing Marxist-Leninist-based understanding of international relations since the reality of each situation under examination diverged from what theory predicted ought to be the case. At the same time, the special working group?s report by no means contained an outright rejection of the prevalent understanding of international relations. The basic opposition between socialism and capitalism was maintained and the competition between the two systems of social organization remained the defining characteristic of international relations in their totality. The notion of the international constellation of forces correspondingly maintained its centrality, but all these conceptions now retained their currency less as a result of ideological dictates than of hardnosed consideration of the tangible realpolitical interests and prospects of the GDR, as was clearly evident in the report. It is difficult to say to what extent such views existed throughout the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise at the start of the 1980s, but the model of analysis present in the special working group?s report would repeatedly be found in expert output in the first half of the 1980s. As East German specialists would bring their expertise to bear on the individual foreign policy questions discussed in the report as well as others, consideration of the weighty challenges facing the GDR as a result of the second Cold War would foster critical awareness of the growing distance between the complex reality of East German foreign relations and Marxist-Leninist presuppositions. One such issue was the so-called peace problematic, or the concern with maintaining peace between socialist East and capitalist West paired with a focus on arms limitation and disarmament in the renewed antagonistic atmosphere of the second Cold War. The peace problematic would play a major role in fostering a critical re-assessment 472 of the prevalent Marxist-Leninist-based understanding of international relations in the 1980s and was one area where the official position of the SED leadership provided a strong impulse for expertise on the topic. Faced with the renewed East-West antagonism of the second Cold War, from which the GDR only stood to lose, the SED leadership followed a course of de-escalation and dialog. The foreign policy program announced at the X Party Congress of the SED in April 1981, which in its turn was oriented toward the XXVI Party Congress of the CPSU, centered on preservation of peace between East and West in the hothouse atmosphere prevailing internationally.105 The SED emphasis on preserving peace was in full accord with the Soviet line on the issue, but Honecker?s subsequent push for a ?coalition of reason? for peace (Koalition der Vernunft) exceeded the bounds of the Soviet approach and provoked Moscow?s ire.106 Honecker?s call ?for all those, who wish to prevent humanity?s glide into a nuclear catastrophe, to join forces in a coalition of reason?107 initially was aimed primarily at preventing the West German Bundestag?s final approval of NATO?s double-track decision, but it remained in force even after the new CDU-FDP coalition under Helmut Kohl gave its final approval to the stationing of the mid-range Pershing II missiles in the FRG in November 1983. The SED leadership was caught between a rock and a hard place because the policy of ideological demarcation from West Germany retained its centrality, but maintenance of good relations with the FRG was becoming increasingly indispensable because the financial 105 Benno-Eide Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR 1976-1989. Strategien und Grenzen (Paderborn: Sch?nigh, 1999), 220-230. 106 The ?coalition of reason? concept was decisively shaped by Herbert H?ber, head of the West Division of the CC. After Soviet General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko brusquely called upon Honecker to put an end to the initiative at a secret meeting in August 1984, H?ber was relieved of all his positions on the pretense of illness and was shunted off to the Institute for Marxism-Leninism. Detlef Nakath and Gerd- R?diger Stephan, eds., Die H?ber-Protokolle: Schlaglichter der SED-Westpolitik 1973-1985 (Berlin: Dietz, 1999), 31. 107 Cited in Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 506. 473 viability of the GDR depended in large part upon credits from the FRG,108 and this at a time when the international climate was worsening dramatically. Faced with this dilemma, where fundamental strategic imperatives were pushing the GDR in opposite directions, the SED leadership set a course for de-escalation between East and West and for continued good relations with West Germany while maintaining a policy of strict demarcation from the FRG and the West founded on redoubled cooperation with the Soviet Bloc and renewed ideological retrenchment. The SED leadership?s call for a coalition of reason and the associated policy aimed at promoting peace and rapprochement between East and West possessed crucial significance for expert output in the first half of the 1980s since experts oriented their work on the topic around the line issued by the party leadership. By its very nature, the peace problematic fostered critical awareness of the growing distance between the complex reality of East German foreign relations and Marxist-Leninist presuppositions because it highlighted how a problem of such gravity as preventing nuclear war might transcend ostensible class lines and class interests and might demand a new approach to outstanding international relations problems. The issue therefore provided another question on which expert analysis increasingly moved toward a critical re-assessment of the prevalent Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations. Even before the outbreak of the second Cold War had brought the d?tente era to an abrupt end, East German experts were aware of how easily progress made in East- West rapprochement could be reversed. A January 1978 report for the GDR?s IIB-led 108 The GDR received mutli-billion-DM loans from the FRG in 1983 and 1984. Manfred Kittel, ?1983. Strau?? Milliardenkredit f?r die DDR. Leistung und Gegenleistung in den innerdeutschen Beziehungen,? in Das doppelte Deutschland. 40 Jahre Systemkonkurrenz, eds. Udo Wengst und Hermman Wentker (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2008), 333-356. 474 Council for Foreign Policy Research underscored the ?obvious deficit in military d?tente? between East and West and demonstrated significant prescience in discussing the path future developments could take. The report warned that, ?even under the conditions of political d?tente, NATO strives to make effective and maximal use of the military factor in the struggle against socialism,? which was manifest in attempts both to attain ?military advantages or predominance? and ?to weaken the socialist states economically with a sustained and augmented arms race.?109 The lack of military d?tente to complement the political d?tente that had been achieved, the report?s conclusion cautioned, could very easily lead to the unraveling of the whole process: ?Although the possibilities of political d?tente and mutually beneficial cooperation have not yet been exhausted, in the longer term there exists the danger that the d?tente process might stagnate and recede if progress in the realm of military d?tente fails to materialize.?110 The unraveling of d?tente played out almost exactly along those lines as an uncompromising and combative attitude and antagonistic political measures directed toward the Soviet Bloc accompanied the United States? initiation of an arms race with the Soviet Union in the first half of the 1980s. With the second Cold War in full swing, the SED?s foreign policy orientation toward keeping the peace between East and West became a key focus at the GDR?s foreign policy research institutes. ?It is now essential to depict in research and instruction the relationship between securing peace and social progress in the world and to emphasize the significance of securing international peace in this interdependent relationship,? as the IIB?s Division on the Foreign Policy of the States 109 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13083. 110 Ibid. 475 of Asia, Africa, and Latin America highlighted.111 And the SED leadership?s adoption of a ?more realistic? line that eschewed a class struggle-inspired, simplistic friend-enemy perspective resonated among experts at the IIB.112 The 1981 response of the IIB?s division on the foreign policy of imperialist states to the XXVI Party Congress of the CPSU and the X Party Congress of the SED, where the preservation of peace between East and West attained programmatic status, foreshadowed how analysis of the issue would not simply be able to resort to the same ideological maxims in response to an issue that had now become a central practical goal of East German foreign policy. While still employing ideological terminology and concepts, the response also spoke of ?the dialectical link between unavoidable struggle and vital (lebensnotwendig) cooperation between the two systems.?113 The initial expert response to the newly acquired centrality of the peace problematic bespoke awareness of the necessity of cross-system collaboration which extended beyond the narrow bounds delineated by ?peaceful coexistence? to include lasting cooperation that transcended the ostensible class character of a given state?s foreign policy in order to resolve the pressing and unique problem of keeping the peace between East and West, an awareness that began to set in among East German foreign policy experts. The peace problematic in the first half of the 1980s introduced another element into the analytical calculus of East German experts that favored a critical approach to the issue and militated against simple reapplication of inherited ideological maxims. The active peace movement that sprung up in Western Europe and the US in response to 111 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13058. 112 Many of the experts who welcomed this development, however, were ultimately disappointed when in 1987 Honecker placed the GDR in opposition to the even more ?realistic? initiatives coming out of Moscow. Montag, interview. 113 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13058. 476 NATO?s double-track decision114 contributed to broadening the perspective of East German specialists on the peace issue in particular and East-West relations in general. As a 1984/85 report from a special analytical group of the APK, which in purpose and composition closely resembled the special working group convened in 1980 for the X Party Congress,115 framed the issue: ?The emergence of a new type of mass movement for peace and disarmament and its continued explosive development is a new phenomenon in international politics.?116 In the group?s eyes, the threat of nuclear war represented an unprecedented challenge that called for an unprecedented response. Not without continuing to employ ideological terminology and concepts, the group?s identification of the peace movement as a new element in international politics pointed in the direction of a qualitatively new understanding of international relations, one where the existence of two large blocs and a certain antagonism between them would continue to exist, but where the class character of foreign policy might take on a secondary role in favor of ?general human? concerns: In the conditions of the international constellation of forces today, it is of fundamental significance for the struggle to maintain peace that, alongside real socialism, the main power for the preservation of peace, the likelihood of peace is considerably strengthened by a politically broad and worldwide movement against a nuclear world war. In the form of this movement, a broad social barrier against an atomic world war has taken shape that, although it is not yet impervious to the aggressive forces of imperialism, possesses 114 The peace movement in response to the double-track decision had a largely spontaneous character, but was influenced at important points by the USSR and GDR. Michael Ploetz and Hans-Peter M?ller, Ferngelenkte Friedensbewegung? DDR und UdSSR im Kampf gegen den NATO-Doppelbeschluss (M?nster: Lit, 2004). 115 The designated task of the group was to draft a detailed overview of the GDR?s international relations leading up to the XI Party Congress of the SED in 1985, upon which the party?s report would be based. Those involved in the APK?s internal deliberations on the issue included APK head Hermann Axen, his personal secretary Manfred Uschner, foreigner minister Oskar Fischer, IV Division head G?nther Sieber, and IIB head Gerhard Hahn. 116 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/3. 477 an influence that is already having a real effect and that continues to grow. The emergence and development of this movement makes it particularly clear that the worldwide contradiction no longer runs only between revolutionary and imperialist forces but rather between all forces interested in the preservation of peace, all humans who want to live and the most aggressive wing of monopoly capital?. Although it draws on traditions of earlier peace movements, the mass movement that has developed since the start of the 1980s has taken on qualitatively new characteristics. In accord with its character as an anti-atomic war and anti-atomic rocket movement, i.e. a general human goal (eine allgemein menschliche Zielsetzung), it has a dimension that transcends class, party, and country (eine klassen-, parteien- und l?nder?bergreifende Dimension).117 The experts of the APK?s analytical group spoke here of the character of the peace movement itself, not necessarily their own perspective. Nevertheless, simple acknowledgment in this case of the possibility of moving beyond class, party, and country represented a key conceptual innovation in the context of East German foreign policy expertise, where the traditional understanding of international relations underscored the class character of all foreign policy and did not permit alternative conceptualizations. What is more, an ascendant pragmatism that assigned secondary importance to ostensible class interests in foreign policy would in fact characterize the perspective of East German foreign policy experts particularly in the second half of the 1980s, as the serious challenges facing the Soviet Bloc continued unabated and the Soviet Union itself would adopt a new approach to international relations. The peace problematic was seen as an issue that was qualitatively different than others and one where the stakes were much higher. The fact that all states, whether socialist or capitalist or oriented toward a ?third way? (which according to orthodox 117 Ibid. 478 Marxist-Leninist theory was an impossibility), were equally threatened by nuclear holocaust?and the GDR particularly so as a result of its position on the front line of the Cold War division of Europe?demanded a more pragmatic approach, where ostensible class interests tended to recede into the background. East German experts knew a nuclear war could not be won and correspondingly explored ways to secure peace with the capitalist world. As a former graduate and employee of the IIB has noted, acknowledging the plausibility (and necessity) of durable peace with capitalism also entailed serious consequences for experts? inherited understanding of international relations since recognition of capitalism?s ?capacity for peace? and the possibility of lasting conciliation with socialism clashed with the notion that the international constellation of forces necessarily moved in favor of socialism, that socialism was innately superior, and that capitalism was doomed to wind up in the dustbin of history.118 At the same time, the pronounced ideological element within East German foreign policy expertise did not simply collapse under the weight of the challenges brought on by the second Cold War. The peace problematic was still largely considered from the perspective that viewed ?imperialism?s? bellicose behavior as a symptomatic characteristic and a natural result of capitalism?s inherently aggressive nature. And not surprisingly considering that the West?s frontal challenge to the Soviet Bloc in the first half of the 1980s was just as likely to elicit knee-jerk ideological retrenchment as serious consideration of alternative approaches. A report for a conference held by the Scientific Council of the IIB on ?Requirements and Problems of Military D?tente and Arms Limitation in Europe? in late 1982, for instance, demonstrated the continued sway of the class-based approach to the topic: ?Rooted in the social character of imperialism, this 118 Erhard Crome, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 14 May 2008. 479 threat [i.e. the general military threat emanating from the West], as a result of the transition of the most aggressive powers, particularly in the US, to a course of confrontation and arms build-up, has taken on a new dimension whose emergence is inseparably connected to the development of modern weapons technologies.?119 An August 1982 report on the first third of Ronald Reagan?s first term as president of the US compiled by the APK for the Politburo adopted a similar approach. The report clearly identified the serious challenges facing the Soviet Bloc as a result of Reagan?s aggressive policies while falling back on ideological explanations for the underlying motives: ?[The Regan administration] is conducting a comprehensive strengthening and expansion of the military might of US imperialism on an international scale and has initiated a new phase of global confrontation with the USSR and the other countries of the community of socialist states that represents a global-strategic counterrevolutionary attack on real socialism and the national-revolutionary movement, on the workers? movement.?120 On the one hand, the US was trying to expand its sphere of influence and make up for past defeats; on the other, ?the new phase in the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism and the enduring, severe cyclical economic crisis? meant that ?international monopoly capital in the interest of preserving its rule? sought ?in expansion and aggression a way out of the enormously sharpened internal and external contradictions.?121 While the peace problematic and issues connected with it favored the foregrounding of concrete, realpolitical concerns in expert output and a corresponding softening of the strict class-based approach to international relations (despite the existing 119 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13135. 120 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/22. 121 Ibid. 480 tendency toward knee-jerk ideological retrenchment) precisely because the SED leadership had identified them as areas of vital concern that warranted comparatively unsparing examination, relative disinterest on the part of party leadership could also produce a similar effect. After attracting a great amount of attention in the second half of the 1970s, the developing world?Africa in particular?lost in the first half of the 1980s a considerable amount of the significance it had earlier held for the SED leadership, whose primary attention was now focused on addressing the challenges stemming from the second Cold War as well as foreign trade issues in light of a dire domestic economic situation. Benno-Eide Siebs has drawn attention to this important development: ?In the case of peace policy and security policy, such latitude emerged as a result of the state and party leadership?s need for argumentation while in policy on the third world it reflected the fact that interest in the third world had decreased in light of the ?socialist orientation? model?s failure.?122 The emergence of a different set of foreign policy priorities at the turn of the decade thus created conditions for expert analysis of the developing world that, as with the peace problematic and related issues?though for different reasons? facilitated prioritization of concrete realpolitical interests over unbending ideological maxims. D?tente and in particular the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975 marked attainment of historic rapprochement between socialist East and capitalist West. From the perspective of Soviet Bloc leaders, however, d?tente did not entail cessation of the international class struggle but rather meant that it would simply be waged by different means and in other areas. The developing world in particular appeared as a promising area for the further advancement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of 122 Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR, 107. 481 socialism for both political reasons?the status quo in Europe, for which the Soviet Bloc had striven so long to gain recognition, was now viewed as sacrosanct?and ideological reasons?the continued belief in the ?objectively? anti-imperialist character of the national liberation movement augured success. On this backdrop, concrete international relations developments in the 1970s?the collapse of the Portuguese empire and Mengistu Haile Mariam?s adoption of a socialist-oriented course in Ethiopia?then provided the opening needed for the direct and at times massive involvement of the Soviet Union, the GDR, and other Soviet Bloc states in Africa in the second half of that decade. The GDR?s involvement in Africa?principally Mozambique, Angola, and Ethiopia?was promoted in particular by Werner Lamberz,123 the energetic Politburo member considered to be next in line to succeed Honecker before his death in 1978. Lamberz?s framing of the situation in Africa drew heavily on ideological concepts and expert output on the subject correspondingly displayed a pronounced class-based approach to the subject. A report for the Politburo from 1979?the year which witnessed the zenith of East German engagement in Africa?Erich Honecker?s visit to Angola, Zambia, Mozambique, and Ethiopia?depicted the situation in the following manner: ?The struggle of the peoples of Africa for freedom, independence, and social progress is an indivisible and ever-more important component of the worldwide struggle. The historic transition of peoples from the order of exploiters to socialism has now seized Africa as well.?124 At the height of the GDR?s involvement in Africa, the predominant understanding of the situation was unambiguously based on the classic Marxist-Leninist 123 Engel and Schleicher describe the enthusiasm among leading SED figures for involvement in Africa as an ?Africa euphoria.? Ulf Engel and Hans-Georg Schleicher, Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika: Zwischen Konkurrenz und Koexistenz 1949-1990 (Hamburg: Institut f?r Afrikakunde, 1998), 112. 124 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/20/30. 482 conception that national liberation was ?objectively anti-imperialist? and that the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic and framework for all international relations developments. This understanding, however, would change substantially in the considerably different conditions that obtained in the first half of the 1980s. The ideologically inspired ?socialist offensive? in Africa experienced a precipitous decrease in importance as the Euro-centric challenges stemming from the second Cold War took center stage alongside a growing focus on international trade as the result of an increasingly acute domestic economic situation. The shift of attention away from Africa was further promoted ?by an increasingly sobered view of the situation in Africa, by the failure of socialist models of development, and by disillusionment over opportunities for economic cooperation.?125 On this backdrop of relative disinterest on the part of the SED leadership toward Africa and partial ideological disillusionment, expertise on the topic markedly moved away from a rigid class-based understanding of the topic.126 Following a 1983 visit to the GDR by Sam Nujoma, president of the Angolan liberation organization SWAPO, the IV Division completed an assessment of the situation in southern Africa that, in light of the enduring, complex problems affecting the region, clearly distanced itself from the paradigm of international class struggle. The IV Division?s report acknowledged that the serious challenges facing Angola and Mozambique?civil war and severe economic underdevelopment?were not simply the result of Western interference, but also 125 Engel and Schleicher, Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika, 124. 126 For in-depth and insightful treatment of the topic as well as the GDR?s relations with southern Africa in their entirety by a contemporary actor intimately involved with the issue, see Hans-Georg Schleicher and Ilona Schleicher, Special Flights: The GDR and Liberation Movements in Southern Africa (Harare: SAPES Books, 1998), especially 221-233, and Engel and Schleicher, Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika, especially 104-138. 483 stemmed in part from the model of socialist development adopted by those countries and actively promoted by the states of the Soviet Bloc in their single-minded concern with advancing the cause of ?international socialism.?127 A large part of the ?sobering? of experts? views on southern Africa in the first half of the 1980s indeed consisted in questioning the appropriateness of the notion of the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the exclusive measuring stick for international relations. Other issues, in this case economic development, came to possess value in and of themselves and not only in relation to the ?international constellation of forces.? This sentiment was clearly expressed to Hans-Georg Schleicher by G?nther Sieber, head of the IV Division, before the former was dispatched in 1983 to his ambassadorial post in Zimbabwe. Schleicher received explicit instructions not to push for a greater socialist economic orientation in Zimbabwe: ?No more failed experiments in socialism!?128 Schleicher himself has written that ?the failure of socialist experiments? in Africa ?was acknowledged in segments of the foreign policy apparatus of the GDR? in the first half of the 1980s and that sole responsibility was not ascribed to ?aggression and destabilization by the West and its allies in Africa;? rather, the very concept of a ?socialist orientation? as a fitting and effective model of economic development for countries in southern Africa was questioned.129 A November 1984 report from the MfAA on ?Current Developments in the Region of Southern Africa and Conclusions for the Foreign Policy of the GDR? likewise displayed elements of a new approach to the region. While its assessment was placed in a Marxist-Leninist framework, the report?s essential content placed a much greater 127SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/2601. 128 Hans-Georg Schleicher, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 16 December 2008. 129 Engel and Schleicher, Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika, 126. 484 emphasis on pragmatic solutions to outstanding problems. The report?s authors recognized the extreme precariousness of the situation in Soviet Bloc allies Angola and Mozambique and that the success of the socialist-oriented avant-garde parties in each country required stability and economic development. Correspondingly, the Lusaka Accords and the Nkomati Accords, concluded in early 1984 between South Africa and Angola and Mozambique respectively, were considered a positive step toward stabilizing the region through constructive engagement with South Africa even if South Africa?s continued attempts at destabilization were viewed critically.130 For the GDR?s policies in the region, a premium was placed on peace and engagement, which corresponded to the GDR?s broader foreign policy goals in the first half of the 1980s: ?Together with the independent African states and the national liberation movements, [the community of socialist states] strives for the suspension of the policies of military violence and destabilization against the states and peoples in southern Africa and for the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the region. This position is a component part of the peace policy of the socialist states and contributes to maintaining the independent African states as an important force in the struggle for peace and to thwart the confrontation course of imperialism. The defense of the progressive course in Mozambique and Angola remains the principal goal of the revolutionary struggle in the region.?131 With the focus of GDR foreign policy now squarely directed toward East-West issues connected with the peace problematic and in light of the disappointing development of Angola and Mozambique in the time since each country had adopted a ?socialist orientation,? the report adopted a more pragmatic approach to the situation. Gone was the heavily ideologically inspired 130 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/25. 131 Ibid. 485 emphasis on offensive expansion in order to gain further victories for ?international socialism,? which had predominated in the second half of the 1970s; in its place was an orientation toward providing realistic solutions to regional problems while supporting the Soviet Bloc?s allies there as the situation allowed??The dominant concern was preventing an escalation of the conflict and restoring peace and security to the region as conditions for its future development.?132 As was the case with the peace problematic, the second Cold War and the shift of foreign policy priorities that accompanied it favored the foregrounding of concrete, realpolitical concerns in expert output on southern Africa and a corresponding decrease in the influence of ideological considerations. And as the applicability of ideological precepts appeared to decrease, so too did belief in the notion that the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations, to which all other phenomena were subordinate. The prioritization within expert output in the first half of the 1980s of concrete realpolitical interests over rigid Marxist-Leninist precepts was in evidence not only in respect to individual countries but also in respect to the developing world as a whole, where the notion of the ?objectively anti-imperialist? character of national liberation had long reigned supreme. A report from G?nter Sieber?s IV Division submitted to the APK in October 1984 captured the essence of experts? changing approach to the topic, where realpolitical considerations clearly took absolute priority over ideological criteria. The orientation of GDR foreign policy, the report argued, could no longer be on offensive expansion and continual movement of the international constellation of forces in favor of socialism; instead a more pragmatic approach to the developing world was needed, where the focus lay on consolidation of the existing position of Soviet Bloc allies and 132 Schleicher and Schleicher, Special Flights, 225. 486 harmonization with the GDR?s broader foreign policy goals in the era of the second Cold War: ?In the current constellation of forces and in the foreseeable future, the socialist countries will not be in a position to provide decisive material support on a larger scale for the consolidation of revolutionary developments. Therefore, it is now more essential than ever to aid revolutionary forces in the formulation of realistic plans with which they?on the basis of the developmental level of productive forces and societal consciousness, primarily reliant upon their own powers, and with the aid of unavoidable compromises?can achieve the goals of their struggle and guarantee gradual economic progress and stability.?133 The GDR?s allies and partners in the developing world were called upon to exercise restraint and to focus on fundamental problems of development over ideologically inspired maximalist goals?what one again might call the ?global problems? perspective trumping a strict Marxist-Leninist perspective. The increasingly ?complicated? situation in the developing world (a euphemism indicating a situation was neither especially promising for the GDR nor particularly amenable to ideological analysis) required adaptation not only on the part of ?revolutionary forces? in the developing world but also on the part of the GDR. As the report put it: ?One may assume that the situation of developing countries in the near future will continue to unfold in a complicated manner. In the future, real socialism will nevertheless have diverse opportunities to work together with the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, even if with various gradations from country to country. Greater cooperation with these countries, however, demands that we better adjust to the new conditions.?134 133 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/25 134 Ibid. 487 The report all but acknowledged the bankruptcy of the GDR?s heavily ideologically inspired approach to the developing world in the 1970s and made the case for foreign policy realism in the ?new conditions? of the 1980s. Terms like ?international constellation of forces? were still employed, but they were largely drained of their ideological content; instead of a simplified, black-and-white understanding of the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the defining characteristic of international relations, the term rather denoted above all the actual, complex configuration of power and interests that comprised the international relations system in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy. Finally, the IV Division?s report was much more than an ephemeral change of approach toward the developing world, it rather possessed direct and lasting significance for the future orientation of analysis of the topic. The report made it clear that expertise on the topic had to adjust to match the new reality of the situation in the developing world it had described: ?The far-reaching political, economic, and social changes in developing countries in the 1970s and at the start of the 1980s and [developing countries?] greater role in international politics require that inner processes in these countries be even more thoroughly examined. The results of these analyses should provide further insight into the potential and perspectives of these countries in the international class struggle, in the struggle for peace and social progress, and should produce concrete ideas for political-diplomatic practice and for corresponding societal organizations in the GDR.?135 After events in the developing world had not played out according to the expectations of the heavily ideological approach to the topic prevalent in the 1970s, a growing trend toward foreign policy realism among East 135 Ibid. 488 German experts had emerged in the dramatically different conditions of the first half of the 1980s and was having a substantial and lasting impact on expertise. Conclusion The pronounced tendency within expert output in the first half of the 1980s toward a pragmatic emphasis on realpolitical considerations and away from a rigid class-based approach was the natural result of developments taking place both within and outside of the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise. The system?s defining characteristic?the persistent tension between ideological and expert elements?remained present, yet the center of gravity within East German foreign policy expertise was unambiguously shifting more and more toward the expert side of the equation. The high level of professionalization and ?systematization? achieved in the 1970s, the ever-greater emphasis on specialization in foreign policy training, and increasing exposure to the West, including through direct scholarly contacts, provided a type of ?convergence with reality? that counterbalanced persistent efforts to preserve a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? as the defining characteristic of East German experts. The complete subordination of foreign policy expertise to the operative needs and political-ideological requirements of foreign policy practice as defined by the SED leadership remained thereby the decisive element, yet the imperative to produce factual analysis of international relations based on specialist knowledge increasingly gained priority over the imperative for ideological purity. Marxism-Leninism undoubtedly maintained a strong presence as the basic framework in which international relations were understood, but was increasingly relegated to this position alone, i.e. of intellectual framing device, while 489 beneath the Marxist-Leninist veneer the focus shifted emphatically toward expert analysis of individual issues on the basis of specialist knowledge and a pronounced orientation toward keeping pace with the outstanding practical challenges facing East German foreign policy. It was upon this institutional basis that earnest consideration of concrete foreign policy events in the first half of the 1980s elicited a critical re-assessment of the prevailing Marxist-Leninist-based understanding of international relations. With extensive foreign policy engagement having long ago replaced the diplomatic isolation imposed by the Hallstein Doctrine and having transformed the GDR into a ?status quo? state theoretically equal to all other sovereign states in the international arena, the West?s frontal challenge to the Soviet Bloc in the so-called second Cold War confronted East German experts with a series of problems where class-based analysis proved lacking. The shifting foreign policy priorities of the SED leadership created conditions?whether through its renewed focus on East-West issues or its relative neglect of the developing world?in which sober analysis conducted by experts time and time again revealed a growing incongruence between the existing interpretive framework and the existing state of the GDR?s foreign relations. On some of the most central questions facing the GDR? the peace problematic, the strength of ?imperialism? and socialism in the ongoing international ?clash of systems,? economic development in the Soviet Bloc, relations with the developing world?experts often dispensed with application of ideologically derived axioms and instead adopted a pragmatic approach focused on the concrete realpolitical interests of the GDR. In the context of this greater analytical refinement and differentiation, the basic Marxist-Leninist categories were maintained, but they provided 490 above all the general framework or fa?ade, beneath the surface of which expertise became single-mindedly focused on how best to advance East German interests. As Marxism-Leninism?s value as an analytical tool appeared to decrease, the currency of the hallowed Marxist-Leninist principles of the prevailing understanding of international relations diminished as well. It was conceded that perhaps not all international relations events fit into the Marxist-Leninist framework, where the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations. Issues like the preservation of peace, cooperation with non-communist states and parties, and economic development and the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the developing world, it was acknowledged, could transcend ostensible class interests and class boundaries and could correspondingly possess value in and of themselves, not only insofar as they related to and impacted the ?international constellation of forces.? Schleicher and Engel have even described expert output on southern Africa in the early 1980s as a form of East German ?New Thinking? according to the following definition: ?Processes of ?the New Thinking? were defined by the break-down of confrontational conceptual schemata and simplified notions of socio-economic models for Africa, by a greater emphasis on global problems, by no longer fixing the foci of bilateral relations primarily according to ideological criteria, and by supporting political resolution of regional conflicts.?136 The critical re-assessment of the prevailing understanding of international relations in the first half of the 1980s, however, proceeded piecemeal and unevenly. In some quarters, the serious problems provoked by the West?s frontal challenge to the international position of the Soviet Bloc was as likely to lead to ideological retrenchment 136 Engel and Schleicher, Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika, 124. 491 as to a re-thinking of existing postulates. Even more important, when critical re- assessment did take place, it entailed more an implicit than an explicit challenge to the status quo understanding?the conceptual paradigm that had been built up by experts over the previous thirty years neither was completely rejected nor was a comprehensive alternative to it fully enunciated. Rather, as the Marxist-Leninist fa?ade remained in place, the results of expert analysis in individual areas tacitly yet with increasing clarity pointed to a mounting discrepancy between the reality of international relations and how Marxism-Leninism claimed that reality should look. For this reason, it would be difficult to label the disparate strands which emerged in East German foreign policy expertise in the first half of the 1980s that ran counter to the prevailing understanding of international relations as ?New Thinking? since they lacked the cohesion of a unified body of thought that stood in direct opposition to the established paradigm. The tendency toward pragmatic emphasis on realpolitical considerations nevertheless flowed naturally from the process of East German foreign policy expertise, in its specific institutional configuration, being brought to bear on the outstanding international relations issues the GDR faced in the first half of the 1980s. In this process, the output of East German experts, logically, reflected the internal development of the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise, where the expert increasingly outweighed the ideological element in the 1980s. And while it developed gradually and unevenly in the first half of the decade, the tendency toward a pragmatic emphasis on realpolitical considerations and away from a rigid class-based approach in East German foreign policy expertise would become even more pronounced and more comprehensive in the second half of the decade, when the emergence of an entire corpus of reformist foreign policy thought in the Soviet Union, 492 the motherland of socialism, would provide conditions favorable for its continued growth and acceleration. 493 Chapter Eight East German New Thinking? Introduction In the first half of the 1980s, East German foreign policy experts engaged in a critical re- assessment of the Marxist-Leninist-based understanding of international relations prevalent in the GDR. Both the specific institutional configuration of East German foreign policy expertise and concrete foreign policy developments had proven indispensable for the critical re-assessment. First, the decisive feature of East German foreign policy expertise remained complete subordination to the operative needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership, from which stemmed the persistent tension between the ideological and expert elements, yet the center of gravity within East German foreign policy expertise was unambiguously shifting more and more toward the expert side of the equation as the imperative to produce factual, specialist- based analysis of international relations increasingly gained priority over the imperative for ideological purity. The impact of developments like the high level of professionalization and ?systematization? achieved in the 1970s, the ever-greater emphasis on specialization in foreign policy training, and increasing exposure to the West, including integration into a transnational network of specialists, provided a type of ?convergence with reality? that counterbalanced persistent efforts to preserve a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? as the defining characteristic of East German experts. Marxism-Leninism was increasingly relegated to the position of general framework for expertise beneath the surface of which expert analysis of individual issues on the basis of 494 specialist knowledge and a pronounced orientation toward keeping pace with the outstanding practical challenges facing East German foreign policy dominated. The West?s serious challenge to the international position of the GDR and the Soviet Bloc in the first half of the 1980s (i.e. the second Cold War) represented the key catalyst for East German experts? critical re-assessment. Parallel to the situation in the 1970s, when the extremely favorable developments of the d?tente era had facilitated reinforcement of experts? GDR-specific Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations, earnest consideration of the adverse developments of the first half of the 1980s elicited a critical re-assessment of that same understanding. On the most central questions facing the GDR in the second Cold War?the peace problematic, the strength of ?imperialism? and socialism in the ongoing international ?clash of systems,? economic development in the Soviet Bloc, relations with the developing world?experts often dispensed with Marxist-Leninist categories, which seemed less and less applicable to the complex problems facing the GDR and the Soviet Bloc, and instead adopted a pragmatic approach focused on the concrete realpolitical interests of the GDR. The sum total of such analyses in turn made some of the central pillars of the prevailing conception of international relations?the class nature of foreign policy, the inexorable movement of the ?international constellation of forces? in favor of socialism, the one-to-one correspondence between the interests of the GDR and those of an abstractly understood ?international socialism??appear less and less capable of offering true insight into the complexities of contemporary international relations. Expert output on the adverse developments of the first half of the 1980 stood in increasingly sharp contrast to the class-based approach to foreign policy. 495 The challenge to the class-based understanding of international relations, however, was more implicit than explicit?the existing paradigm was neither completely rejected nor was a comprehensive alternative to it fully enunciated. Rather, as the Marxist-Leninist fa?ade remained in place, the results of expert analysis in individual areas tacitly yet with increasing clarity pointed to a mounting discrepancy between the reality of international relations and how Marxism-Leninism dictated that reality should look. The tendency toward a pragmatic emphasis on realpolitical considerations and away from a rigid class-based approach in East German foreign policy expertise thus proceeded gradually and unevenly in the first half of the 1980s. Under the considerably different circumstances of the second half of the decade, however, this tendency would grow even more pronounced and more comprehensive. The two key elements that had fostered the critical re-assessment of the first half of the decade were still in place. First, amid persistent tension between the ideological and the expert element in East Germany?s highly professional and highly specialized system of foreign policy expertise, the expert element increasingly displaced the ideological element and a hardnosed focus on realpolitical issues predominated. Second, the serious foreign policy challenges facing the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc likewise showed no signs of abatement at the mid-decade mark. Despite some superficial foreign policy successes, like Erich Honecker?s trip to Bonn in 1987, adverse conditions continued to decisively shape the environment in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy and correspondingly demanded sober analysis from experts. The key new development in the second half of the 1980s was Mikhail Gorbachev?s accession to power in the Soviet Union and his promulgation of the New 496 Thinking in foreign policy. Gorbachev?s enunciation of a comprehensive foreign policy vision that stood in stark contrast to inherited foreign policy dogma served to accelerate the preexisting critical tendency in East German foreign policy expertise. The emergence of the New Thinking in the Soviet Union namely catalyzed the critical tendency in East German foreign policy expertise both by providing a favorable environment for its continued and intensified development and by offering an alternative conceptual model on the example of which previously disparate critical tendencies could be bound together into a cohesive whole. With the crucial impulse provided by Gorbachev?s enunciation of the New Thinking, East German experts would carry on the critical re-assessment begun in the first half of the decade, but would do so in a more explicit manner. They would break with a strict class-based approach to international relations and would develop a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought with striking similarities to the Soviet New Thinking without, however, matching its cohesive character and conscious rejection of inherited foreign policy postulates. The Preponderance of the Expert over the Ideological The institutional configuration and the general character of East German foreign policy expertise in the second half of the 1980s were characterized not by a radical break, but by the continuation of trends from the first half of the decade. The decisive element remained, as before, full subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership; this relationship of subordination, however, contained not only the ideological imperative to maintain a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? but also the expert imperative to produce factual analysis of international 497 relations based on specialist knowledge. Out of this two-fold mission sprung the defining characteristic of East German foreign policy expertise, the persistent tension between the ideological and the expert element. This tension, as the result of the very raison d??tre of East German foreign policy expertise, was and would always be present to one degree or another, with the center of gravity tacking back and forth between the two poles, yet the expert element grew dramatically in importance in the 1970s and particularly the first half of the 1980s, displacing the ideological element to a considerable degree. This outcome was produced by the combined impact of a number of factors over an extended period of time: most prominently the GDR?s extensive engagement with the outside world following foreign policy normalization, which eliminated the type of ideological insularity possible in the conditions of imposed diplomatic isolation and which demanded sober analysis of contemporary international relations events; the high level of professionalism and specialization achieved in the wake of the ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise; and a sharp increase in exposure to the West, including in the form of direct scholarly contacts, which fostered a ?convergence with reality? and which revealed the incongruity of a highly ideological, class-based approach to the complexities of international relations. The sum effect of these and other developments facilitated, with the basic Marxist-Leninist framework largely remaining intact, the increasing preponderance of the expert over the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise, which became manifest in the first half of the 1980s in the critical re-assessment of the prevailing Marxist-Leninist-based understanding of international relations. It was namely in the continuation of this trend?the growing preponderance of the expert over the ideological in East German foreign policy expertise 498 in the unchanged context of persistent tension?in which the importance of the institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise for experts? enunciation of a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought in the second half of the 1980s lay. The need to continually refine working processes in order to ensure that research produced by the Institute for International Relations (IIB) and the Institute for International Politics and Economics (IPW), the GDR?s two main foreign policy research institutes, would keep pace with the practical foreign policy challenges facing the GDR was already firmly established.1 In the second half of the 1980s, a series of measures aimed at further increasing the orientation of expertise toward the outstanding practical challenges facing East German foreign policy created favorable conditions for experts? continuing movement away from a strict class-based approach to international relations since the central international relations developments of the period largely revolved around breaking down the opposition between socialist East and capitalist West. Efforts aimed at ?improving the quality and effectiveness of research? at the two institutes were near constant, with the Scientific Council of each institute often deliberating over one or another piece dedicated to the topic.2 A particularly common refrain highlighted the necessity of responding to ?new, higher scientific and political demands.? Such shibboleths, however, were not just empty phrases; they typically produced concrete action aimed at bringing about the desired results, whether related directly to research or to the role and function of research within the context of the GDR?s broader foreign 1 For insider accounts of the research conducted by the different topical and region-based divisions at the IIB into the 1980s, see the various relevant articles in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009). 2 See, for instance: UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13034 and 13135. 499 policy apparatus. Such was the case in 1984, when an internal report on research conducted in the previous year at the IIB demonstrated the link between the two elements, calling for an adjustment to research in order for the IIB to better fulfill its mission. The report called for ?a closer connection between the high analytical quality of many research projects and the formulation of conclusions and suggestions for foreign policy practice? and saw this goal best served by ?development and concentration of [research] capacities and projects on key issues of strategic issues in the international class struggle on the basis of the interests of the GDR.?3 The IIB could only satisfactorily fulfill its mission by keeping pace with the practical foreign policy challenges faced by the GDR?s operative foreign policy institutions. The same report also called for ?a clearer concentration on and a precise scientific reaction to new developments and processes,?4 which highlighted a key component of what keeping pace consisted in for research institutes like the IIB and the IPW. As the GDR?s two leading foreign policy research institutes, the IIB and the IPW were expected to continually provide ?scientific? analysis of new foreign policy developments as they emerged to aid the work of operative foreign policy institutions and thereby to contribute to realization of the GDR?s foreign policy goals. In the second half of the 1980s, many of the ?new developments and processes? that demanded the analytical attention of the IIB and the IPW?the peace problematic, the ?international constellation of forces? between socialism and capitalism, international trade, events in the developing world?did not lend themselves particularly well to class-based analysis. The imperative for the IIB and the IPW to subject such complex issues to scientific analysis in an atmosphere that was 3 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13037. 4 Ibid. 500 increasingly unfavorable for ?international socialism? pushed East German foreign policy experts to foreground realpolitical considerations over simplistic adherence to inherited ideological axioms that now appeared out-dated. And this tendency was reflected in the research orientation of each institute in the second half of the decade. The introduction to the IPW?s Perspektivplan for 1986-1990, while employing ideological terminology, once again highlighted the institute?s strict orientation toward the most important realpolitical issues facing the GDR: ?Research is oriented above all toward those strategic issues that are connected with securing peace, the global clash between socialism and imperialism, and the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism in the conditions of the scientific-technical revolution and its consequences.?5 While this general orientation indeed suggested a strict orientation toward pressing practical foreign policy issues, but not a particular readiness to dispense with an inflexible, Marxist-Leninist approach, the body of the research plan, which expounded upon the IPW?s research orientation in much greater detail, revealed how the operative priority of maintaining peace and advancing disarmament created a favorable environment for elements of New Thinking to take hold: ?At the center of our designated task stands the necessity of continuing to increase science?s contribution to the struggle to secure world peace and for disarmament. This requires substantial contributions to the formulation and implementation of a new thinking and behavior, a new approach to the questions of peace and security in the nuclear-cosmic age.?6 The absolute operative priority given to securing peace in the second half of the 1980s, which with the Warsaw Pact?s Sofia Declaration of October 1985 began to take on 5 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/7367. 6 Ibid. 501 a New Thinking coloration,7 opened the door for experts at the IPW to move away from a strict ideological approach to the issue. And the same was true of the situation at the IIB. As the Soviet Bloc pushed its post-Sofia ?peace offensive,? the IIB followed suit, modifying its research orientation on the issue in accord with the new official line.8 A run-down of measures to increase cooperation between the institute?s Socialist Countries Division and the MfAA from December 1985 underscored the centrality acquired by the new, New Thinking-friendly approach to the issue: ?Analysis and prognostication of new developmental tendencies in fundamental strategic questions of the international class struggle must be strengthened in order to create the prerequisites for a turn (Wende) in international relations in realization of the concept and the recommendations of the Sofia Declaration of the member-states of the Warsaw Pact.?9 Not only did the research plans of the IIB and the IPW for the second half of the 1980s display a strict orientation toward the outstanding practical challenges facing East German foreign policy in that period, but the imperative to subject ?new developments and processes? in international relations? the peace problematic being just one such issue?to scientific analysis also created favorable conditions for the unfolding of the existing critical tendency in East German foreign policy expertise. The tendency toward a pragmatic emphasis on pressing realpolitical considerations to the detriment of a strict ideological approach was present in one final area of the organization of foreign policy research in the second half of the 1980s. As certain issues came to occupy a more and more prominent position in East German 7 Frank Umbach, Das rote B?ndnis. Entwicklung und Zerfall des Warschauer Paktes 1955-1991 (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2005), 431. 8 For further discussion of this dynamic, see Benno-Eide Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR 1976-1989. Strategien und Grenzen (Paderborn: Sch?nigh, 1999), 338-340. 9 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13227. 502 foreign policy considerations in the 1980s, an attempt was made to concentrate the GDR?s research capacities around these discrete issues in order to provide more grounded and focused wissenschaftlich analysis of them. This was part and parcel of ?raising the specific security interests of the GDR out of general subsumption into the Warsaw Pact, which was set by the Soviet Union,? as IIB Director Max Schmidt put it.10 Thus, the Secretariat in November 1982 passed a resolution in order to expand and better coordinate research on socialist states, a topic whose importance grew in tandem with the need for coordinated action, particularly in the economic realm, between socialist states.11 The staff of the Institute for the Economy of the International Socialist System at the GDR?s Academy of Social Sciences, which had been founded by resolution of the Secretariat in 1978,12 was expanded and its name changed to Institute for Economy and Politics of Socialist Countries and a corresponding Scientific Council, a coordinating body akin to the scientific councils on foreign policy and imperialism research headed respectively by the IIB and the IPW, was established under its leadership. The Institute for Economy and Politics of Socialist Countries above all employed economists, historians, and other social scientists and focused on domestic developments more than foreign policy, although the re-founded institute cooperated much more with the IIB than its predecessor institution had and three IIB employees?Werner H?nisch (as a deputy chairman), Siegmar Quilitzsch, and Helmut Matthes?were members of the newly established Scientific Council for Economy and Politics of Socialist Countries,13 which 10 Cited in Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR, 339. 11 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/3867. 12 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/3100. 13 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13035. 503 evinced the seriousness (and success) with which the attempt to better coordinate research on socialist states was undertaken. The drive to concentrate scientific research on individual foreign policy issues at the center of the GDR?s attention likewise led to the expansion and improved coordination of research on the US, whose importance for international relations was self-evident given its position as the leader of the capitalist world and superpower rival of the Soviet Union. A Secretariat resolution from February 1986 asserted that, ?in light of continually increasing foreign policy demands, conditions must be created that allow a more complex analysis of domestic and foreign policy developments in US imperialism and that better expose the interactions between economy, politics, and ideology in the strategy of the US and in its relations with its allies.?14 The resolution tellingly noted how the success of East German policy toward the US, the entire capitalist world, and parts of the developing world as well depended in large part on the penetrating specialist analysis that only experts could provide: ?Realization of the foreign policy and foreign trade interests of the GDR vis-?-vis industrialized capitalist states and large segments of the developing world demands exact analysis of the effects of US foreign, military, and economic policy on the interests and positions of these countries and of the level of commonalities and contradictions with the US.?15 What is more, the Secretariat resolution explicitly demanded that this be ?realistic and sober analysis of longer-term developmental tendencies.?16 In order to achieve the goal of more refined, nuanced analysis of the US, coordination of research on the topic was entrusted to the US Division 14 The resolution was prepared in close cooperation with the IV Division (Joachim B?hm, deputy director of the division, was responsible for drafting the resolution) and the MfAA. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/4368. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 504 of the IIB, a function that was fulfilled by a newly created Problem Council (Problemrat) assigned to the IIB-led Scientific Council for Foreign Policy Research. The council was headed by Claus Montag, longtime US expert at the IIB, with Gerhard Basler of the IPW as deputy. The council brought together members of other institutions as well, such as the Academy of Social Sciences and the ?Bruno Leuschner? College for Economics, and was to work in close cooperation with the IPW-led Scientific Council for Imperialism Research, which attested to the type of cross-institutional coordinating function the Problem Council was supposed to fulfill, bringing together the GDR?s leading US specialists in order to achieve the designated goal of ?realistic and sober analysis.? The council was also made responsible for coordinating contacts with scholarly and political institutions and individuals in the US ?with the goal of influencing emerging research in the US on GDR topics in favor of our policies?and to gain information,?17 a task that was wholly consistent with the dual purpose of East German experts? scholarly contacts with the West as generally practiced. According to Claus Montag, chairman of the council, its members took very seriously the charge of dispensing with ideological dogma in order to produce more nuanced and more accurate analysis of the US and took Georgii Arbatov?s USA and Canada Institute in Moscow, the leading Soviet research institute that made an essential contribution to the formulation of Soviet New Thinking,18 as a type of model for their own work.19 In the short period of its existence, the Problem Council, by 17 Ibid. 18 Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 125-127. 19 Claus Montag, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 7 May 2008. 505 Montag?s own admission, did not completely fulfill this ambitious goal, yet nevertheless achieved partial success.20 The final area in which the drive to concentrate scientific research on individual foreign policy issues at the center of the GDR?s foreign policy attention produced concrete results was the peace problematic. The issue had of course been a, if not the, major foreign policy issue for the GDR starting in the late 1970s with the winding down of d?tente and the flaring up of the second Cold War and had correspondingly been the object of voluminous analysis since that time. Yet it was only in 1987 that a concerted effort was made to centrally coordinate research on the topic. The charge was led by Max Schmidt, head of the IPW, and resulted in the creation of the Scientific Council for Peace Research, chaired by Schmidt himself.21 In the first half of the 1980s, the peace problematic?and the looming specter of indiscriminate nuclear devastation inherently connected with it?was one of the issues most likely to elicit acknowledgment that an approach focused exclusively on ostensible class interests was not sufficient to illuminate foreign policy and that the ?international constellation of forces? did not represent the most appropriate tool by which to measure international relations. In the second half of the 1980s, with the topic now the subject of even greater, more concentrated scientific scrutiny, the complexities of the peace problematic would continue to play a crucial role in combating dogmatism and promoting the critical re-thinking of inherited foreign policy dogma.22 20 For an overview of the council?s activities with a particular focus on ?scientific exchanges? with the US during the first one and a half years of its existence, see BStU, MfS, HA XX Nr. 14138. 21 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/29. 22 Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR, 106. 506 The continuation and intensification of the existing trend toward prioritization of realpolitical over ideological considerations the institutional development of East German foreign policy expertise in the second half of the 1980s was unmistakable. As before, the decisive element remained full subordination to the practical needs and political- ideological requirements of the SED leadership, yet this relationship of subordination contained not only the ideological imperative to maintain a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? and generally toe the party line but also the expert imperative to produce accurate analysis of international relations based on specialist knowledge that was of use to the party leadership. From this two-fold mission sprung the defining characteristic of East German foreign policy expertise, the persistent tension between the ideological and the expert element. Simple political-ideological compliance remained essential?tension between the ideological and the expert was built into the very DNA of East German foreign policy expertise and correspondingly would never disappear?but the expert element gained increasing predominance. The training of East German foreign policy cadres, focused on imparting ever-higher levels of skill and specialization, wide-ranging and intensive scholarly contacts with the West, which played a crucial role in loosing ideological bonds by providing a ?convergence with reality,? and an orientation in foreign policy research aimed at providing trenchant, realistic analysis of the complex problems facing the GDR all contributed to shifting the center of gravity within East German foreign policy expertise decisively toward the expert side of the equation, toward the prioritization of realpolitical over ideological considerations. In the first half of the 1980s, this institutional configuration provided the crucial backdrop for the tentative yet unmistakable critical re-assessment of the prevailing understanding of international 507 relations undertaken by East German experts in light of the serious challenges facing the GDR. In tandem with the rise of a comprehensive body of reformist foreign policy thought in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1980s, as the pragmatic, realistic tendency within East German foreign policy expertise only continued to grow and the GDR faced a no less difficult and no less complex set of foreign policy issues, East German experts would distance themselves ever more from the strict class-based approach to international relations. Soviet New Thinking; East German New Thinking? When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR was beset by a set of serious interlocking domestic and international problems. The West?s frontal challenge to the Soviet Union?s international position (i.e. the second Cold War) placed a heavy strain on domestic politics, particularly as the arms race between the US and the USSR taxed the stagnating Soviet economy, which in its turn limited the Soviet Union?s latitude in foreign affairs. Gorbachev?s ambitious perestroika program of reform intended to improve the performance of the Soviet Economy was announced at the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU in March 1986 and joined in 1988 by the implementation of glasnost?, the wide- ranging democratization of Soviet public life viewed as a necessary corollary for the success on the ongoing perestroika program.23 Gorbachev recognized that the success of the domestic reform program depended in no small measure on achieving substantive d?tente between East and West, which, by reducing or eliminating the chronic 23 Archie Brown, Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 69-134. 508 antagonism between the USSR and the US and their respective blocs, would allow the re- structuring of social and economic life in the Soviet Union upon a more solid foundation. The intellectual blueprint for Gorbachev?s attempt to fundamentally change the nature of the relationship between socialist East and capitalist West was provided by the so-called New Thinking. Soviet New Thinking was not the invention of Gorbachev himself; rather, it evolved gradually within the Soviet foreign policy establishment, particularly at the USSR?s leading research institutions dealing with international relations, like the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) and the US and Canada Institute, headed by Nikolai Inozemtsev24 and Georgii Arbatov respectively.25 Gorbachev?s crucial role lay in formulating and attempting to implement a foreign policy program based upon New Thinking principles, that is, transforming the New Thinking from inoperative theory into practical policy and thereby lending the CPSU?s stamp of approval to a body of foreign policy thought that stood in sharp contrast to the approach that had prevailed up to that point. The essence of the Soviet New Thinking consisted in rejection of the applicability of strict Marxist-Leninist axioms to foreign policy?foreign policy was no longer viewed as simply a form of the class struggle, no inherent contradiction existed between states of a socialist and of a capitalist socio-economic order, the very notion of socialism and capitalism as abstract world-historical forces was questioned, and, correspondingly, the ?international constellation of forces,? insofar as it could be said to exist at all, did not move inexorably in favor of ?international socialism.? All of this amounted to ?a conceptual revolution? that effectively marked ?the demise of 24 Alexander Yakovlev (1983-1985) and Yevgeny Primakov (1985-1989) headed IMEMO after Inozemtsev?s departure in 1982. 25 English, Russia and the Idea of the West, see particularly 159-192. 509 Marxism-Leninism? in the Soviet Union.26 Gorbachev?s adoption of the New Thinking in foreign policy found expression in a series of bold initiatives, pertaining mainly to arms reduction and disarmament as well as renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, aimed at achieving permanent d?tente between the USSR and the US and their respective blocs and overcoming the condition of Cold War tout court. After the Warsaw Pact?s Sofia Declaration of October 1985, which in its call for thoroughgoing arms reduction already pointed in the direction the foreign policy program of the new Soviet leader would take, the New Thinking received more detailed enunciation at the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU in March 1986, whose highlight was the announcement of the sweeping perestroika program. From this point, and increasing in tandem with each new Soviet initiative aimed at achieving substantive d?tente, the New Thinking became the official line of the Soviet Union in foreign policy and was established as a cohesive body of foreign policy thought placed in overt contrast, as the name suggests, to the ?old? class-based understanding of international relations. Gorbachev?s radical break with the established foreign policy paradigm, which in the Soviet Union itself found its fair share of opponents, could not but have tremendous significance for the GDR and its system of foreign policy expertise. The bloc leader and ultimate guarantor of the GDR?s existence not only embarked upon a program that departed from the basic principles guiding Soviet foreign policy from at least the end of the Second World War but did so on the basis of a cohesive body of alternate foreign policy thought. On the one hand, Gorbachev?s promulgation of the New Thinking, both by the specific example it offered and by promotion of innovation in foreign policy 26 Archie Brown, ?Introduction,? in The Demise of Marxism-Leninism in Russia, ed. Archie Brown (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 1-11. 510 thought in general, provided a key impulse to the existing critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise. East German experts felt emboldened and encouraged to continue on with the type of analysis that had amounted to a critical re-assessment of the prevailing understanding of international relations in the first half of the 1980s and to carry it even further.27 The value of Marxism-Leninism as an analytical tool was not increasing in the second half of the 1980s and the complex challenges facing the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc continued to demand sober analysis, not ideological dogmatism, from East German experts, a tendency which was only bolstered by the Soviet Union?s espousal of the New Thinking. On the other hand, the SED leadership, General Secretary Erich Honecker above all, believed?correctly in retrospect?that the Soviet New Thinking as practical policy but perhaps even more so as body of thought represented a grave threat to the interests and even the existence of the GDR. The SED leadership favored a lessening of tensions with the West, particularly in the realm of arms reduction, but held the dramatic decline or even complete abolition of the basic opposition between socialist East and capitalist West, which the New Thinking envisaged, as going decidedly too far. Whether explicitly or implicitly, the SED leadership was cognizant that the complete cessation of cold war would directly undermine the very foundations of the GDR?s existence since it threatened to wipe out the SED?s meticulously constructed and maintained demarcation from West Germany, the central pillar propping up East Germany?s legitimacy. As a result, the SED leadership by early 1987 placed itself in opposition to the Soviet New Thinking, not to mention the 27 Helmut Matthes, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 29 April 2008. 511 USSR?s efforts for internal democratization.28 The GDR?s prohibition of the Soviet news digest Sputnik in 1988 dispelled any hopes that the SED leadership might still follow the CPSU along the path of reform. In the second half of the 1980s, then, Gorbachev?s promulgation of the New Thinking catalyzed the existing critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise, which continued to move away from a class-based approach to international relations toward foreign policy realism, while opposition to the Soviet New Thinking in the highest levels of the SED, which naturally became the binding position within the entire East German foreign policy apparatus, in turn served to dampen this catalyzing effect.29 As a result of the SED leadership?s rejection of the New Thinking, but not only for this reason?other institutional and conceptual barriers will be subsequently examined?a full-fledged ?East German New Thinking? tailored specifically to the interests and concerns of the GDR failed to develop. However, while East German experts did not develop a comprehensive, alternative body of foreign policy thought parallel to the Soviet New Thinking, the critical re-assessment of the prevailing understanding of international relations undertaken in the first half of the 1980s was continued and intensified in the comparatively more favorable conditions of the second half of the decade. The SED?s opposition to the New Thinking could not alone stanch the critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise since the latter derived from the specific conditions that prevailed within the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise, where the growing preponderance of the expert over the ideological element more than ever favored prioritization of concrete realpolitical interests over Marxist- 28 Hermann Wentker, Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 487-492. 29 Siegfried Bock, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 21 July 2009. 512 Leninist precepts in foreign policy analysis. In the second half of the 1980s, right up to the very dissolution of the GDR, East German experts engaged in an intensified re- thinking of international relations that, while lacking the comprehensive, cohesive character and the overt rejection of inherited foreign policy postulates characteristic of the Soviet New Thinking, discarded ideologically derived axioms in favor of a pragmatic approach focused on the concrete realpolitical interests of the GDR.30 The enthusiasm with which the New Thinking was received in some quarters of the East German foreign policy apparatus evinced its supreme compatibility with the existing critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise as well as the desire among some East German experts to shape their own work in accord with its central precepts. G?nther Sieber, since 1980 head of the International Relations (IV) Division of the Central Committee, the party?s leading operative foreign policy institution which since the time of Paul Markowski?s tenure as head had had the reputation of being a bastion of independent, non-dogmatic foreign policy thought, became a particularly zealous proponent of the New Thinking and pushed for its application to the international relations of East German as well. In spring 1986, in the immediate wake of the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU and before the SED leadership set itself in clear opposition to the New Thinking, Sieber, whose approach to international relations was described by one contemporary as unobstructed by ideological ?blinders,?31 actively promoted thoroughgoing adoption of the central tenets of the New Thinking within the GDR. 30 The fact that East German experts? conception of international relations might be changing did not escape certain astute Western observers. Wilhelm Bruns, ?Gibt es in der DDR eine neue Theorie der internationalen Beziehungen?,? DDR-Report 3 (1988): 129-132. 31 Montag, interview. Montag, who as one of the IIB?s leading experts on the US had frequent contact with Sieber?s IV Division, has also described the relationship between the two institutions as ?one of the most productive contacts that we had.? 513 On 25 March 1986, Sieber held a presentation at the Ministry of State Security of all places evaluating the significance of the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU for the GDR (such presentations were routine and were typically held in various party and state institutions after important events likes party congresses and conferences in order to ensure conformity with the newly announced position of the party on a range of questions; in this case, it was rather the content of the presentation that was extraordinary). While expounding upon the main conclusions of the congress, Sieber made the case for their adoption in the GDR: ?International questions must be rethought. New assessments are necessary. All evaluations, analyses, and conceptions made after the XXVII Party Congress must contain this type of new valuation and new approaches. The sources for this are found in the XXVII Party Congress?. It must be most intimately joined with our positions and our struggle. Creative conclusions must be drawn?. The party congress demands from us too a process of re-thinking (Umdenken), a new approach, creative work, and inventiveness.?32 Sieber demonstrated what he understood under ?re-thinking? by drawing?tellingly?a parallel between the perestroika program of domestic economic reform and the new approach in foreign policy. Just as the transition from extensive to intensive production was decisive in the economic realm, a similar shift had to occur in the realm of foreign policy?counterproductive attempts to spread the socialist socio-economic model around the globe and to increase the number Erhard Crome, a graduate of the IIB?s five-year course of study in 1971-1976 who stayed on in the institute?s Division for Socialist States, has likewise characterized Sieber as a proponent of the New Thinking. Crome, interview. 32 BStU, MfS, HA IX Nr. 5282. The transcript of Sieber?s presentation at the MfS is in fact a Mitschrift, which is more of a condensed summary than a protocol that exactly reproduces the speech being held. Given the absence of quotation marks as well as the German subjunctive 1 in the Mitschrift, it is therefore unclear which segments of the transcript, if any, represent direct quotations and which segments represent condensed summaries of Sieber?s remarks. The curtness of many individual remarks suggest that most fall into the latter category. 514 of socialist-oriented countries??or however one might like to call them,? as Sieber added dismissively?had to be abandoned in favor of improving the quality and efficiency of the international relations of the Soviet Bloc in their existing configuration. Achieving far-reaching, substantive cooperation between socialist East and capitalist West was the centerpiece of this desired improvement (and a key plank of the New Thinking) and was viewed as absolutely necessary in order to address the most pressing problems of contemporary international relations, particularly war and peace, an idea behind which Sieber threw his full support. Particularly in light of the continued strength of ?imperialism,? which demonstrated ?no absolute stagnation despite all crises,? the resolution of ?cross-system questions? (system?bergreifende Fragen) demanded cross- system cooperation: ?The party congress clarified that these questions must be solved not after the worldwide victory of socialism, but rather beforehand?now. The old position can no longer be maintained. The development and worsening of problems, e.g. ecological problems, may proceed more quickly than socialism triumphs. Therefore, the international communist movement requires a new strategy and new tactics.?33 In his presentation at the MfS, Sieber called for a new approach in relations with the developing world as well. It had too often been the case in the past, he bemoaned, that the socialist world had approached the developing world in a dogmatic manner, expecting reality to conform to theory. It was now time, he asserted, to take the opposite approach, to demonstrate awareness to the immense variety of cultural traditions and customs present in the developing world: ?We have to learn to be at home in the history of these peoples, to think in their categories of thought, and to feel within their cultural traditions. One example of this is the Englishman Lawrence, who as an agent of British imperialism 33 Ibid. 515 became leader of the Arabs in their struggle against the Turks and achieved great success because he was capable of thinking and feeling in Arab categories.?34 Sieber finally attempted to highlight the applicability of the New Thinking (a phrase which incidentally was not used in the speech) to the GDR by tracing its lineage back to East German support for a ?coalition of reason? in the initial years of the second Cold War: ?Our assessment of the [international] situation, which was promulgated in 1983 for the first time by Comrade Honecker at the Karl Marx Conference, can be sustained in its entirety. The notion of a coalition of reason, which he substantiated at that time for the first time ever, played?without being named directly?an important role at the [XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU].?35 By linking Gorbachev?s push for a new approach in foreign policy, which went considerably further than Honecker?s limited coalition of reason initiative had, to a policy of the SED leadership, Siebert hoped to demonstrate the compatibility of the two positions and to facilitate acceptance of the former among an East German leadership extremely wary of diluting its policy of strict demarcation from the capitalist West. Just a month later, Sieber presented his emphatically pro-New Thinking views to an audience for whose work the topic possessed even more direct and greater significance?the assembled foreign policy elite of the GDR. Sieber, as head of the IV Division, held an address at the joint consultation of the GDR?s ambassadors and party secretaries held in Kleinmachnow just outside Berlin from 22 to 28 April, which, in addition to 87 East German ambassadors, nearly 100 other leading and mid-level foreign 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 516 policy cadres, mainly though not exclusively from the MfAA, attended.36 Before this audience responsible for the day-to-day conduct of East German foreign policy, Sieber issued a clarion call for the application of the Soviet New Thinking as presented at the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU to East German foreign policy and did so even more explicitly and forcefully than he had in his presentation at the Ministry for State Security. As in his speech a month earlier, Sieber took pains to portray the New Thinking as in line with and essentially an extension of the GDR?s earlier coalition of reason initiative. Sieber argued that if the rationale behind that initiative had been correct, which certainly no one in attendance at the consultation would dispute, it followed that the call to re-think the prevailing foreign policy paradigm issued at the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU was also justified: ?The central idea of the Karl Marx Conference was that the maintenance of peace has become a question of the survival of mankind and that, as a result, far-reaching strategic questions of our struggle must be re-thought and must be made the foundation of our action.?37 Sieber continued on with this line of argumentation by approvingly citing the address delivered by Adalberto Minucci, a member of the Secretariat of the Italian Communist Party and a proponent of the Eurocommunist tendency favored by Italian General Secretary Enrico Berlinguer, at the XI Party Congress of the SED, which had been held just days earlier: ?Today, no political power, no grouping, however large it may be, can by itself prevent war. Consciousness of this fact demands that many analytical paradigms and ways of thinking must be changed. We should want, [Minucci] continued, to advocate for renewed rapprochement between the great currents in which the workers? movement has long been divided in order to beat 36 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/11355. 37 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/11356. 517 back the neo-conservative offensive in the capitalist West, in order to provide new answers to the great challenge to peace, development, and the restructuring of production.?38 It was namely the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU, Sieber averred, that delivered those new answers, that ?undertook those urgently needed evaluations of fundamental issues and generalizations for which the communist movement has long waited.?39 In line with the position presented at the XXVII Party Congress and echoing his earlier speech at the MfS, Sieber ascertained no signs of absolute stagnation in the capitalist world and ascribed to capitalism as socio-economic system a remarkable capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and to master successive challenges. Sieber still characterized the transition from capitalism to socialism as gesetzm??ig, or a necessary result of the laws of historical development, but immediately downplayed the importance of the notion by claiming that said transition would take place ?in a long- lasting process, longer as has been generally assumed? and that, ?if we soberly assess the conditions of the constellation of forces as they actually exist in the world and in the main capitalist countries, we see that abolition of the rule of monopoly capital cannot be the immediate and decisive task that determines the strategy of Communist parties.?40 Thus while not in principle rejecting the notion that the emergence, spread, and ultimate victory of socialism were guaranteed by the laws of historical development?a position in full accord with Gorbachev?s exposition of the New Thinking at the XXVII Party Congress?Sieber rejected it in practical terms by denying the notion?s applicability to contemporary international relations. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 518 While distancing himself in this manner from the notion of the Gesetzm??igkeit of socialism?s victory in its ?world-historical clash? with capitalism, which as a central theoretical axiom had long served as a main conceptual wellspring for the socialist world?s antagonistic position toward the capitalist world, Sieber created the foundation to advance a new set of foreign policy priorities. If the socialist world could not simply sit idly by and wait for realization of the laws of history to bring about capitalism?s historic end, Sieber argued, material progress, particularly in the realm of science and technology, took on the decisive role in the continued development of socialism?an insight which both had far-reaching consequences for practical foreign policy and simultaneously built upon and fostered further conceptual innovation: Among the criteria that influence the constellation of forces between the two social systems as also the relationship between capitalist countries and their international organizations, the capability and the opportunity to achieve outstanding results in the realm of science and technology and to apply them in production occupy a primary, a decisive position. Today, the processes of the scientific-technical revolution and their mastery are not a factor for the transformation of the world per se. They have become the key question in the continued clash of systems. This fact alone, comrades, prompts us to move away from simplified, from sterile, from self-satisfied views on the continual, automatic, and invariable movement of the international constellation of forces in our favor. The ability to guarantee military-strategic equilibrium with imperialism, with NATO, increasingly depends, like all other fundamental issues, upon to what degree socialism succeeds in mastering the challenges of our era through sweeping intensification of the reproduction process, through raising productivity in the breadth of the entire economy?. The upshot of all this is that peaceful coexistence between the two social systems has transformed from a form of the class struggle, as we used to say, to the sine qua non of humanity?s existence for which there is no alternative. Here, we thus are 519 witnessing a transformational process within the strategic-tactical arsenal, where a tactical element in the course of time has become a strategic element of policy in its entirety, indeed of continued development in general. At the same time, however, this means that the a military clash as the result of imperialism?s instigation of a new world war would in no way facilitate social revolution?as after the First or Second World War?due to the destruction of our planet [italics added].41 Sieber here boldly aligned himself with some of the central tenets of the New Thinking and argued for their universal applicability within the socialist world. He disputed the notion that the international constellation of forces moved always and automatically in favor of socialism and, as was the case with his treatment of the Gesetzm??igkeit of socialism?s ultimate victory, essentially rejected the concept itself by denying its applicability to contemporary international relations; he portrayed peaceful coexistence between socialism and capitalism not as a mere tactical element in the otherwise unabated, inexorable clash between the two social systems but as a permanent feature of international relations of strategic importance and in doing so sought to replace ideologically inspired antagonism and rivalry between socialism and capitalism with a pragmatic focus on substantive d?tente, which again took on the status of a permanent and strategic, not an ephemeral and tactical element;42 finally, Sieber highlighted how this new approach to foreign policy, which clearly broke with the hallowed notion that viewed the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the defining characteristic of international relations, was indispensable so that socialist states could devote their attention to the urgent task of mastering the pressing economic and structural problems they faced in order to better realize the potential of socialism. 41 Ibid. 42 This corresponded to the broader change in the GDR where the class element of peaceful coexistence became increasingly less important. Siebs, Die Au?enpolitik der DDR, 340. 520 Sieber in turn built upon this basis of theoretical innovation to further develop his line of argumentation in support of the New Thinking. If, in Sieber?s portrayal, the notion that saw the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism as the defining characteristic of international relations was quietly discarded, the question then became: What would take its place? What issue or set of issues would take over its function as exclusive point of orientation for the foreign policy of the socialist world? The answer was that there was no single answer. Logically, Sieber, whose entire presentation was aimed at moving away from ideological dogmatism in foreign policy, did not advocate for the establishment of any single consideration to provide the overarching orientation for all of East German foreign policy just as rigidly and cumbersomely as the notion of the ?clash of systems? previously had, but rather favored a pragmatic approach that would deal with the outstanding international relations problems of the day on an issue- to-issue basis in accord with the existing, tangible foreign policy interests and capacities of the GDR and the socialist world. With material progress having displaced the Gesetzm??igkeit of socialism?s victory and with the entire concept of the international constellation of forces relegated to a position of minor importance, Sieber identified a series of outstanding international relations issues that clearly evinced his non-dogmatic approach to foreign policy: As a result of the general development of economy, science, and technology in the world, the global problems that pertain to civilization?s actual existential foundations gain new weight and new significance. Preservation of humanity, protection of the environment, safeguarding the inhabitability of the planet, and the rational use of natural resources have become as a result of scientific-technical development a problem whose resolution objectively and indispensably must be begun jointly under existing societal relations without imperialism as the main initiator of these problems being replaced by a new 521 social order, as we believed to be the case in the past?. The acute danger of the destruction of the globe, the threat to the manifold general fundaments of life on our planet, the emergence of so-called all-encompassing (ganzheitlich) problems is the first, the decisive, and the essential element of our era, which bears upon the strategy and tactics of the international communist movement and each individual party.43 After denying the applicability of the concept of the ?international constellation of forces? to contemporary international relations and rejecting the notion that the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations, Sieber presented here the logical extension of his argument. He argued that objective developments, fueled by growing international interdependency, had led to the emergence of a set of ?global problems? that by their very nature concerned all humanity and transcended ostensible class interests or boundaries.44 The existence of such ?global problems? highlighted the need for a decisive turn in international relations away from permanent antagonism and rivalry and toward substantive d?tente and cooperation between socialism and capitalism. Identification and cognizance of the situation as such represented another key element in the paradigm shift in foreign policy thought aspired to by the New Thinking and promoted here by Sieber. Sieber completed his address to the assembled foreign policy elite of the GDR with an appeal to realize the essential thrust of the New Thinking, the rejection of ideological dogmatism in foreign policy in favor of prioritization of realpolitical considerations, in their own work. Sieber maintained: ?It is necessary to plumb the rational core of this or that point of view and impartially to assess what best fits contemporary conditions and requirements. We need, as Comrade Gorbachev said, 43 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/11356. 44 In this, Sieber borrowed his terminology from Gorbachev. 522 inventiveness, innovativeness, the ability to go beyond the limits of familiar yet already obsolete ideas. We are less than ever in need of dogmatism and sectarianism.?45 To what extent the GDR?s leading foreign policy professionals would heed Sieber?s call following his emphatically pro-New Thinking presentation was still an open question just one short month after Gorbachev had laid out his bold new foreign policy vision at the XXVII Party Congress of the CPSU and before the SED leadership conclusively positioned itself in opposition to it. Gorbachev?s espousal of the New Thinking had the potential to exercise a key catalyzing effect on the existing critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise, but decisive for the further course of developments would ultimately be prevailing conditions and dynamics within the GDR itself. Sieber?s enthusiastic and vocal advocacy for the New Thinking was an exceptional case?the addresses held by the other speakers at the consultation in Kleinmachnow clearly demonstrated that the New Thinking was received considerably less warmly by other leading East German foreign policy figures, whose thought largely remained caught up in the ?old,? class-based categories.46 Indeed, the response to the New Thinking in the broader East German foreign policy apparatus, not only in the most elite circles, was divided, just as was the response in the Soviet Union itself. Some East German experts, based on their own experiences and own views, fully supported the New Thinking as the only viable option given existing conditions and viewed it, as Sieber had put it, as the solution ?for which the communist movement ha[d] long waited;? others 45 Sieber continued: ?For us, it cannot be enough to classify some as good just because they portray themselves as more class-oriented and to classify others as bad because they pose new questions and in the process sometimes slide into class-indifferent positions?. It does not help us much to stamp a priori the position of this or that party with an ideological label, to divide them according to ?right? and ?wrong,? or not even to take the trouble to look at the specifics of the situation because one has heard that that is not approved of at home.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/11356. 46 G?nter Mittag, Oskar Fischer, Gerhard Beil, and Manfred Feist also held speeches at the consultation. Hermann Axen delivered the closing remarks. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/11355. 523 saw the New Thinking?s de-emphasis of ideological postulates in foreign policy and its goal of thoroughgoing and permanent d?tente with the capitalist world as a serious danger given the importance of strict demarcation between socialism and capitalism for the GDR, and adopted a correspondingly critical position. One former expert who was active in the Socialist States Division of the IIB has detailed the emergence of informal factions within the division as well as throughout the institute according to one?s opinion on the New Thinking and its applicability to East German foreign policy, which interestingly coincided with an increased window at the institute to voice internal criticism of foreign policy.47 IIB Director Gerhard Hahn, who returned to the position of institute director in 1982 after a five-year hiatus as ambassador to Yugoslavia,48 is said to have been a proponent of the New Thinking, if not necessarily with the same zeal as Sieber,49 as was Max Schmidt, longtime director of the IPW.50 Foreign Minister Oskar Fischer, in contrast, was not considered a serious supporter51 nor was Hermann Axen, longtime head of the Foreign Policy Commission (APK), whose capacity for critical analysis was constrained by his obsequiousness toward the SED leadership, Honecker in particular.52 In terms of the East German foreign policy apparatus as a whole, one?s generational cohort often had a significant impact on one?s reception of the New Thinking. Individuals who came up within the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise from the time of its rationalization (starting in the late 1950s) and onward and for whom 47 Jochen Franzke, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 16 July 2008. 48 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ J IV 2/3A/3542. 49 Franzke, interview. 50 Siegfried Schwarz, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 9 June 2008. 51 Crome, interview. 52 Uschner, Die zweite Etage, 53. 524 the GDR?s post-normalization position as a ?status quo? actor on the international stage appeared self-evident were much more likely to greet the New Thinking as not only desirable but necessary. In contrast, individuals who experienced the first two decades of the Cold War and the GDR?s struggle to break through the Hallstein Doctrine firsthand as employees within the East German foreign policy apparatus were conversely much more likely to maintain allegiance to the ?old,? class-based approach to international relations,53 though generational cohort alone did not determine one?s view toward the New Thinking. Determining who within the East German foreign policy apparatus could be considered a full-fledged proponent of the New Thinking and who could not be, however, does not ultimately get to the heart of the matter. After the SED leadership by early 1987 had placed itself in opposition to the Soviet New Thinking, openly voicing support for its tenets as vociferously as Sieber had in the immediate wake of the XXVII Party Congress amounted to defying the wishes of party leadership, which naturally was not a viable option for anyone working within the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise, whether in an operative institution like the MfAA or the IV Division or a research institution like the IIB or IPW. Gerhard Herder, for instance, received a reprimand for suggesting that an infusion of New Thinking could benefit East German diplomacy. After the end of the Cold War, Herder, who had held a number of high- ranking positions within the East German foreign policy apparatus (including head of the GDR trade representation in Lebanon and ambassador to the US), attributed his servility toward the party in large part to a fear of ultimately harming the GDR?s interests: ?What really kept me from openly criticizing several aspects of the GDR leadership?s policies 53 Members of the older generation commonly felt that the New Thinking represented a direct threat to their life?s work. Bock, interview. 525 was the fear of ultimately aiding the class enemy. So, I wanted changes in the GDR, but not at any price, not by causing damage to the party and the state in the process.?54 Prior to Gorbachev?s espousal of the New Thinking, East German experts had already engaged in a significant, if largely tacit, critical re-assessment of the prevailing class-based understanding of international relations. Sieber in his landmark presentations in March and April of 1986, where he enthusiastically proclaimed his support for the New Thinking and advocated for its adoption in the GDR, to a considerable extent did little more than give expression to theoretical conclusions already verified by the results of numerous studies on individual issues in the first half of the 1980s (on economic development within the Soviet Bloc, on the strength and strategy of the capitalist West, on the state of the international communist movement, on the place of the developing world in the foreign policy of the Soviet Bloc, etc.), whose conceptual import?the challenge to the Marxist-Leninist paradigm in East German foreign policy thought?had, however, remained implicit rather than explicit. In the second half of the 1980s, propelled by the growing preponderance of the expert over the ideological element within East German foreign policy expertise, which more than ever favored prioritization of concrete realpolitical interests over Marxist-Leninist precepts in foreign policy analysis, and still faced with a complex set of serious international relations challenges for which Marxism- Leninism proved a poor analytical tool, East German experts continued to engage in a critical re-assessment of the prevailing class-based understanding of international relations and did so with even greater emphasis than in the first half of the decade. In 54 Gerhard Herder, ?Honecker mu? weg,? in Der Letzte macht das Licht aus. Wie DDR-Diplomaten das Jahr 1990 im Ausland erlebten, ed. Birgit Malchow (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1999), 266-267. 526 doing so, East German experts, whether fully cognizant and willful or not, de facto heeded Sieber?s call ?to go beyond the limits of familiar yet already obsolete ideas.? One of the key characteristics that distinguished expert output in the second half of the 1980s from expert output in the first half of the decade was fairly direct treatment of conceptual issues alongside empirical ones. The greater attention paid to conceptual issues in the second half of the 1980s, a tendency to which the simple act of promulgation of the New Thinking naturally provided an important impulse, was on display in a special report from September 1986, which addressed a number of the empirical and conceptual issues that would subsequently be at the heart of East German experts? critical re- assessment in the period. The report was drafted by a five-person working group that brought together leading figures drawn from the GDR?s most important operative and research foreign policy institutions: Bruno Mahlow, deputy head of the IV Division, Joachim B?hm, also of the IV Division, Ernst Krabatsch, head of the Fundamental Questions Division of the MfAA,55 Gerhard Hahn, head of the IIB, and Harald Neubert, director of the Institute for the International Workers? Movement of the Academy of Social Sciences. The group provided ?Considerations on the New Approach to Problems of International Politics? in light of an article published by Anatolii Dobrynin in the June issue of the Soviet periodical Kommunist.56 Dobrynin took over from Boris Ponomarev the powerful International Division of the Central Committee of the CPSU under Gorbachev after serving for nearly a quarter-century as Soviet ambassador to the US. The 55 In 1976, Krabatsch replaced Siegfried Bock as head of the division in the course of a personnel shake-up at the MfAA after Oskar Fischer had replaced Otto Winzer as foreign minister in 1975. SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/2927. 56 Dobrynin?s article, in addressing the peace issue, provided a detailed exposition of the central tenets of the New Thinking. Anatolii Dobrynin, ?Za bez??iadernyi mir, navstrechu XXI veku,? Kommunist 9 (June 1986): 18-31. 527 report of the working group, which notably displayed considerable personnel overlap with the special working group of the APK that had produced the unsparing overview of the SED?s international relations before the X Party Congress in 1980, reiterated the animating idea behind the New Thinking, namely that ?a new approach to the problems of international politics? was necessary because ?the realities of the nuclear-cosmic era, in particular the consequences of the scientific-technical revolution in the military sphere, have made the self-destruction of humanity a real danger.?57 In light of the scope and seriousness of the problem, the report?s authors underscored that only cooperation between the socialist and capitalist world could ensure a satisfactory resolution to the issue: ?It is evident that socialism and other revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces are not in a position to guarantee peace and to defuse other pressing global problems alone. For this, corresponding behavior and cooperation on the part of states of both systems as well as the active involvement of broader forces of the masses are required [italics in original].?58 For the report?s authors, however, the necessity of securing peace and the cross-bloc cooperation it demanded possessed neither extraordinary nor ephemeral significance; the peace problematic represented, rather, simply the issue which made it most clear, on account of the undeniable gravity and magnitude of the problem, that a new approach to international relations was needed. The key underlying characteristic of contemporary international relations linking together the peace problematic and all other issues that demanded cross-bloc cooperation was the rapid growth in international interdependence. The report?s highlighting of interdependence demonstrated the importance the concept possessed within the framework of a new approach to 57 SAMPO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/27. 58 Ibid. 528 international relations: ?The interdependence of states and peoples has taken on a qualitatively new dimension. This is evidenced not only in the mutual dependency needed to ensure the survival of humanity [from the risk of nuclear war]; other problems as well have obtained global dimensions and carry the danger of ?creeping catastrophes? [quoting Dobrynin] that undermine the existential foundation of humanity and the inhabitability of the planet.?59 The ?global problems? named in the report include use of natural resources, environmental degradation, sustenance of the world?s population, and the ?catastrophic? situation in some developing countries. The fact of international interdependence and the resulting global problems, in the portrayal of the report?s authors, potentially had far-reaching consequences for the practical foreign policy of the socialist world as well as its conceptualization. While maintaining that the notion of the ?contradiction? between socialism and capitalism retained its position as the defining characteristic of international relations?as even the most zealous adherents of the New Thinking did?the report?s authors, on the basis of the qualitatively different international situation they had outlined, downplayed both the conceptual and practical importance of the notion, nearly to the level of disavowing it altogether: ?Today, given that we are dealing with all-embracing questions of humanity (?bergreifende Menschheitsfragen), our policies may less than ever simply confine realities to manifestations and forms of movement of the fundamental contradiction of the epoch. This contradiction, the prime contradiction for the entire epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism, is being increasingly displaced by the more acute and politically more extensive worldwide contradiction between forces interested in peace? extending into the monopoly bourgeoisie?on the one hand and the most aggressive wing 59 Ibid. 529 of monopoly bourgeoisie, particularly that of the US, on the other.?60 In the context of a qualitatively different international situation, where increasing international interdependency had given rise to a set of ?global problems? transcending narrow class bounds, the report?s authors demonstrated the need for a new outlook that radically distanced itself from the notion that the ?contradiction? between socialism and capitalism represented the defining, determinative element of international relations, going so far in this case as to include a call for cooperation with ?the monopoly bourgeoisie,? the traditional, implacable nemesis within the Marxist-Leninist foreign policy paradigm. The successful realization of this drastic shift in approach to international relations required a corresponding adjustment to foreign policy analysis. The report?s authors highlighted what Dobrynin?s treatment of the topic meant for East German expertise: ?Current international political conditions demand that Communist and other anti-imperialist, revolutionary parties recognize and reassess (?berdenken) the new situation and engage in sober, precise analysis of the conditions of their struggle for social progress and of the constellation of forces in their countries and internationally?. An important aspect of the article is the appeal to scientists (Wissenschaftler) for more exact and more accurate analysis of societal reality. The continual qualification of foreign policy analysis, its continual substantiation is an important demand on us as well. Shortcomings in our work are in large part the result of analyses not being made or not being sufficiently grounded.?61 The report?s authors had drawn the logical conclusion from their exposition of the topic: the qualitatively different international situation sketched out in the report, which gave rise to a new type of cross-system international 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 530 relations problem, in turn demanded a new type of foreign policy analysis, one that eschewed rigid dogmatism in favor of sober, impartial analysis. The report, drafted by selected leading figures from the GDR?s most important foreign policy institutions, addressed some of the key issues raised by the New Thinking and did so in an outwardly sympathetic, if not fervently affirmative, manner; yet the report?s contents should not be understood as a statement of unequivocal support for the New Thinking. Its character was not so much prescriptive as descriptive and, given the authors? stated objective of presenting an exposition of ?the new approach to problems of international politics? in light of Dobrynin?s recent article in Kommunist, which vigorously presented the case in support of the New Thinking, it is impossible to fully differentiate between the authors? own views and those of the individual whose position they explored. Furthermore, the report was drafted in the interim period when the SED leadership had not yet decisively positioned itself in opposition to the New Thinking, which doubtlessly contributed to the inconclusive tone and rather descriptive approach adopted by its authors, who maintained a guarded, ambivalent position throughout the report. They cited, for instance, on multiple occasions statements made by Erich Honecker in order to demonstrate the supposed compatibility of East German foreign policy with the new Soviet line, a compatibility that in reality was completely absent, which, however, would only become fully apparent in the course of the next few months. Even if the special report from September 1986 therefore cannot be read as a statement of unequivocal support for the New Thinking and its adoption in the GDR, its ultimate significance for East German foreign policy expertise in the second half of the 1980s should nevertheless not be discounted for it displayed key features that would become 531 characteristic of foreign policy analysis more generally for the rest of the 1980s. Its overt handling of conceptual issues alongside empirical ones would become the decisive quality distinguishing expert output in the second half of the 1980s from expert output in the first half of the 1980s. Furthermore, the specific conceptual issues addressed in the group?s exploration of the New Thinking?international interdependence, the primacy of peace, cross-system global problems, realism in foreign policy analysis?would come up time and time again in expert analysis of individual empirical issues, and critical treatment of the same conceptual issues would form the essential content of East German experts? move away from a class-based understanding of international relations in the second half of the 1980s. Indeed, the same general practical issues that had been at the center of East German experts? attention in the first half of the 1980s?East-West relations, the peace problematic, economic development in socialism and capitalism and its consequences for the strength of each bloc, the developing world?were also at the center of the intensified critical re-assessment of the second half of the 1980s since they had retained their importance, if not grown more acute, in the course of the decade. Gorbachev?s reform- friendly volte-face in Soviet foreign policy and an institutional configuration within East German foreign policy expertise that was inclined more than ever toward professional analysis based upon specialist knowledge represented the decisive contextual factors shaping East German experts? output in the period. In this framework, the outstanding international relations challenges facing the GDR and the socialist world, less amenable than ever to unbending class-based analysis, called for a sober, pragmatic approach. The capitalist West?s frontal challenge to the international position of the Soviet Bloc in the 532 first half of the 1980s (i.e. the second Cold War) had demonstrated that socialism had little, if anything, to gain from the orientation toward inexorable, irreconcilable conflict with capitalism that up to that point had been the central element in the socialist world?s attitude toward the West. ?International socialism? was unmistakably falling behind in its competition with ?imperialism,? which threw into question the very sustainability of the socialist socio-economic order in the Soviet Bloc under the conditions of unremitting, systemic antagonism. As a result, East German experts increasingly recognized the necessity of overcoming the condition of cold war altogether in order to gain greater latitude to address socialism?s pressing domestic problems, a position which corresponded to the basic rationale adopted by Soviet proponents of the New Thinking, who described this relationship as a dialectical one between foreign and domestic policy. One of the areas in which socialism?s lag behind the capitalist West was most apparent was economic development.62 Already in the first half of the 1980s, analyses conducted by East German experts highlighted the comparative economic weakness of the Soviet Bloc vis-?-vis the states of the advanced capitalist West and drew attention to the economic problems that would plague the GDR and the rest of the Soviet Bloc for the entire decade and that would contribute greatly to the crisis and final collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Thus a study assessing the development of international socialism in the 1970s completed by Siegmar Quilitzsch of the IIB pointed to ?a series of complicated problems that emerged in the economic development of the majority of socialist countries in the second half of the 1970s.?63 The transition to intensive economic growth ?had 62 For a discussion of the foreign policy-relevant aspects of the GDR?s increasingly difficult economic situation, particularly in regard to the GDR?s growing financial dependency vis-?-vis the FRG, see Wentker, Au?enpolitik, 500-503. 63 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13227. 533 proven more difficult than expected,? the goals of ?scientific-technical progress, of raising the effectiveness of investments and production, as well as improving the quality of goods? had not been fulfilled ?to the necessary extent,?64 obtaining the required amount of raw materials and energy sources had become increasingly difficult and complicated, growth rates in production had ?decreased considerably,? and economic plan targets had gone unfulfilled ?almost without exception.?65 Furthermore, the growing indebtedness of socialist states was becoming an ominous problem: ?The utilization of external sources (credit) to square payment balances and to balance internal economic forces has created foreign trade liabilities for future economic development without contributing in equal measure to the development of the foundations of production.?66 While the report offered the consolation that ?the plans to raise national welfare were better fulfilled than the production plans,?67 the broader conclusion could not be escaped: the states of the Soviet Bloc were living on borrowed time. Studies on economics and international trade in the second half of the 1980s carried this line of analysis forward. The greatest problem was not so much the absolute economic strength of the Soviet Bloc, but rather how it stacked up against its capitalist antagonist, whose economic potency, as numerous reports attested, remained robust. In mid-1987, the IPW began issuing semi-annual reports for the party leadership on the economic development of ?the most important industrialized capitalist countries and the economic effects of scientific-technical advancement.? The reports, which possessed a 64 The report bleakly noted: ?In the realm of labor productivity and the development of those branches of production that are of particular significance for scientific-technical advancement, the lag [behind the West] could hardly be reduced; in some cases, it even became larger.? Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 534 rather matter-of-fact, descriptive character that avoided policy recommendations, continually depicted formidable economic growth in the advanced capitalist West that by no means corresponded to the traditional, ideologically derived image of a decrepit capitalism beset by a general crisis. The IPW?s first report of this type in June 1987 highlighted how capitalism?s inherent dynamism allowed it to overcome cyclical economic crises and even to fortify the capitalist socio-economic system in the process: ?The uniqueness of industrialized capitalist states? economic development in the present consists in the fact that, the continuation of crises in various areas notwithstanding, certain adaptive forces in the state-monopoly system have emerged since the start of the 1980s. They privilege qualitative changes in economic potential and can also open new space for economic development.?68 The report identified two developmental tendencies that accounted for capitalism?s ability to adapt and to grow stronger in the process of overcoming cyclical crises: ?a decided acceleration of the process of scientific-technical advancement, measured according to the tempo by which innovation in products and processes proliferates, and a marked intensification of the capitalist process of reproduction as a result of scientific-technical advancement.?69 What is more, the application of scientific and technical innovations to industrial processes ensured for the leading capitalist countries an economic dynamism that had the potential to continue to expand exponentially: ?The scientific-technical potential of the strongest monopolies and the leading imperialist powers is growing extraordinarily quickly and is rigorously being used to realize, respectively, specific profits and the expansion of interests. These processes generally open up new markets and spaces for expansion. As these 68 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/28. 69 Ibid. 535 revolutionary changes in science and technology are only just beginning, it cannot be ruled out in the longer term that capital?s opportunities for accumulation in the process will receive impulses that in turn lead to greater economic growth, as an important condition to expand the economic and social latitude of the monopoly bourgeoisie.?70 In short, the leading capitalist states were succeeding in exactly those crucial areas where socialist states were failing. Advances in science and technological and their implementation in processes of production bestowed a dynamism upon capitalist states that promised robust future growth, a dynamism that was sorely lacking among socialist states.71 The unmistakable strength of the capitalist adversary in the economic realm and socialist states? relative weakness in comparison represented a major factor that facilitated East German experts? decisive move away from a class-based approach to international relations in favor of hardheaded prioritization of realpolitical interests in the second half of the 1980s?if the historical end of capitalism as postulated by Marxism- Leninism was postponed indefinitely, then immediate, tangible foreign policy interests took on much greater importance. And, as a report from 1986 demonstrated, East German experts knew that the capitalist West, despite occasional disagreements, quarrels, and divergent interests, would continued to present the Soviet Bloc with a united front on the most important questions: ?It cannot be expected that the consensus between the fundamental military, economic, and political interests of the US and its West European 70 Ibid. 71 The subsequent semi-annual reports from the IPW on the economic development of leading capitalist states depicted the topic in no less positive terms (or, rather, no less dire terms from the perspective of the Soviet Bloc). See SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/11637; SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/30; BArch, DC 204/87. 536 NATO allies can be breached.?72 Finding itself in such a constrictive situation, the Soviet Bloc was in no position to pursue a policy of unremitting antagonism toward the West. Cognizance of the implausibility of unremitting antagonism, however, did not directly flow from socialist states? general economic lag behind the capitalist world, whose impact on international relations could after all be attenuated by other factors, such as was the case with approximate military parity and political rapprochement between the two blocs in the d?tente era; a concrete issue was needed upon which that implausibility could become unmistakably apparent, and that issue in the 1980s was the peace problematic. The very tangible consideration of not being able to keep up economically with the West in a prolonged arms race and the less tangible though no less germane consideration of avoiding the nuclear annihilation that would result from a military conflict between the two blocs combined to make the peace problematic the single most forceful factor motivating critical re-assessment of the Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations both in terms of practical foreign policy (aimed at achieving substantive, lasting d?tente with the West) and in the conceptualization of foreign policy (centered around prioritizing common, cross-bloc interests over ostensible class interests), with both elements being intertwined and mutually reinforcing one another. The peace problematic proved such a forceful factor motivating critical re- assessment of the prevailing class-based understanding of international relations in the GDR because the policy of thoroughgoing military rapprochement with the West adopted by the Soviet Bloc in the second half of the 1980s?a change of strategy, not just 72 The report defined in what their common interests consisted: ?Solidarity with the US, integration into the policy of arms build-up and confrontation, participation in the pursuit of military superiority, interest in the weakening, roll-back, and defeat of socialism, attempts to smooth over and render inoperative contradictions, and compulsion for all-imperialist cooperation embody the dominant tendency in the inter- imperialist relationship between the US and Western Europe.? SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/13657. 537 tactics?rested upon at least partial rejection of the traditional Marxist-Leninist notion of an inherent, unbridgeable contradiction between states of a socialist and a capitalist socio-economic order. As East German experts analyzed the peace problematic and assessed the success of the Soviet Bloc?s efforts to achieve substantive, lasting d?tente with the West, they therefore necessarily also engaged in a re-thinking of the conceptual underpinnings of that policy which, while gaining an important initial impulse from the constellation of issues surrounding the peace problematic, ultimately went far beyond that single topic to affect East German experts? understanding of international relations in its entirety. This dynamic was particularly apparent in a pamphlet published by the IIB in 1988 entitled Europe: How many Weapons are Enough? The pamphlet was authored by Andr? Brie, an enigmatic figure who was simultaneously one of the most vocal proponents of the New Thinking at the IIB and a known informant of the Ministry of State Security,73 and Manfred M?ller, head of the IIB?s Fundamental Questions Division. Brie and M?ller hailed the signing in December 1987 of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the USSR and the US,74 which essentially resolved all the issues borne of the Soviet Union?s deployment of RSD-10 missiles in Central Europe in the mid-1970s (including NATO?s response in the form of the Double-Track Decision), and recent progress made in negotiations on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) as important arms reduction steps within the broader process of improving 73 The pairing of these two seemingly incongruous attributes have led some to suggest that Brie may have worked as an agent provocateur for the MfS. This conclusion, however, is unlikely, if not out of the question, considering Brie?s reformist perspective remained consistent even after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of East Germany, when he acted as one of the main theorists behind the SED?s transformation into a party of democratic socialism. 74 For a detailed overview of the process, see George L. Rueckert, Global Double Zero: The INF Treaty from its Origins to Implementation (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993). 538 relations between the two superpowers and their respective blocs. Brie and M?ller, however, asserted that these steps represented just a start and that a fundamental paradigm shift was required to facilitate continued progress: ?Yet [these measures] were possible, in contrast to far-reaching disarmament in Europe, without fundamentally changing the policies and strategy of any state. They are in accord with the arms build-up policy that the US continues to pursue, the quest for military advantages, and adherence to the anachronistic doctrine of nuclear deterrence. Substantial disarmament in Europe demands, in contrast, fundamental changes to states? security policies and military strategies and joint political assurance of security.?75 Brie and M?ller, taking up Gorbachev?s notion of a ?common European house,? maintained that technological advances in weapons systems, both in the nuclear and conventional realm, had rendered modern war too destructive to be waged: ?War in Europe would make the continent uninhabitable, would know neither victors nor vanquished, and would no longer be the continuation but rather the end of politics.?76 The ultimate goal of arms reductions therefore had to be the ?mutual incapacity for attack?: ?At issue is no less than declaring war in Europe (and worldwide of course) impossible. The world has become too small, too vulnerable for arms races, confrontation, and war.?77 According to Brie and M?ller, however, this goal could not be achieved in willy- nilly fashion, as a series of disjointed steps lacking an underlying, cohesive rationale and a clear vision for the future. In short, a decisive break with the logic currently governing international relations had to occur and a new approach had to take its place: 75 Andr? Brie and Manfred M?ller, Europa: Wieviel Waffen reichen aus? (Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1988), 11. 76 Ibid., 108. 77 Ibid., 109. 539 Armament is an expression of politics. If a war were to take place in Europe today, even ?accidentally? as the result of technical or human failure, it would be a continuation of a politics oriented toward deterrence, military advantages and superiority, and the profits of the arms industry (and of course simultaneously the end of this and all other politics). This is why it is necessary to eliminate the political roots of the arms race as well and especially to turn away from current conceptions of nuclear and conventional deterrence. Joint assurance of security, cooperation in all areas?political, economic, scientific- technical-ecological, cultural, humanitarian?make an essential contribution to the creation and strengthening of the trust, political stability, and material basis necessary for the disarmament process. Steps toward arms limitation and disarmament as well as military confidence-building in Europe have an effect on the political climate that is as enduring as it is positive. As our experiences in the 1970s showed, political d?tente and cooperation rest on unstable foundations without disarmament.78 Having established the impermissibility of war and the primacy of maintaining peace, Brie and M?ller here argued for the need to adopt a radical new approach to international relations. In their portrayal, there was not a trace of the ?old? class-based approach that viewed ?imperialism? as the implacable adversary of ?international socialism? and that posited an inexorable, fundamental contradiction between the two competing systems of socio-economic organization; instead, comprehensive, enduring cooperation between socialist and capitalist states gained priority so that a goal that was larger than either system?preventing the outbreak of war?could be fulfilled. Rapprochement between the socialist and capitalist worlds had to extend beyond the superficial, ephemeral agreements of the d?tente era to change the very nature of the relationship between East and West, to overcome the baseline antagonism characteristic of cold war. In Brie and M?ller?s analysis of the issue, it was clear how consideration of a single issue?the peace 78 Ibid., 112. 540 problematic in this case?could have far-reaching consequences for East German experts? understanding of international relations in its entirety by prompting thoroughgoing re-consideration of the conceptual foundations of the GDR?s foreign policy. The conceptual fallout of East German experts? consideration of the peace problematic extended to some of the central pillars of the class-based understanding of international relations. In particular, the emphasis placed on cooperation and substantive rapprochement with the West fostered analyses of capitalism that diverged sharply from the traditional image of ?imperialism? promulgated by the Marxist-Leninist approach to international relations. For many East German experts, capitalist states were no longer the sworn enemy but rather a potential partner with which socialist states could work together in order to resolve global problems that transcended class interests, the issue of war and peace being just one. A September 1988 study on ?Securing Peace, International Security, and Peaceful Coexistence in the Policies of Socialist Countries? completed by Harald Neubert, director of the Institute for the International Workers? Movement of the Academy of Social Sciences, for instance, espoused this position. In his study, which highlighted the importance of peaceful coexistence as the guiding vision of the foreign policy of socialist states, Neubert stressed the Leninist lineage of the concept only to simultaneously intimate that his discussion would reveal a peaceful coexistence significantly different than the early Soviet version of the 1920s: ?In recent decades, the substance [of peaceful coexistence] has of course experienced a process of transformation, of enrichment. The struggle for its realization brought with it useful 541 insights.?79 Consistent with this approach, Neubert offered the routine, requisite caveat that peaceful coexistence did not mark the cessation of the class struggle??peaceful coexistence cannot represent the end or negation of the historic clash between socialism and capitalism because social contradictions and ideological differences of opinion persist?80?yet such assertions came across as little more than lip service with minimal relevance in light of the actual substance of Neubert?s subsequent exposition of the issue, which painted a picture of peaceful coexistence?and the capitalist ?adversary? therein? far removed from any of its previous manifestations. Neubert began his analysis by noting, in line with other proponents of a more New Thinking-oriented approach in East German foreign policy, how a qualitatively new international situation had emerged in the 1980s as the result of technological advance and growing interdependence across the board?in military affairs, politics, economics, ecology, and communications. Such global problems, the threat of nuclear annihilation chief among them, could not be resolved by the socialist community or any other grouping on its own; their resolution demanded cooperation without regard to socio- economic order or political allegiance: ?As the alternative to the destruction of civilization (in the case of an atomic war), one must gain on both sides the ability to live with one another. The concept of peaceful coexistence as it is understood today includes recognition of the legitimate security interests of both sides and the notion of common security. In this way, the basic idea of a security partnership, i.e. attaining peace and security only with one another and no longer against one another, is contained in peaceful 79 SAPMP-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/14. 80 Ibid. 542 coexistence.?81 Cooperating with the capitalist West in a security partnership, however, entailed departure from the Marxist-Leninist belief that capitalism was an inherently bellicose form of social organization that had reached its highest stage?aggressive imperialism?in anticipation of its final exit from the historical stage. East German experts had already acknowledged the continued strength and dynamism and potential for future growth of capitalism as a form of socio-economic organization and Neubert now also rejected the idea of capitalism?s intrinsic bellicosity: ?Peaceful coexistence includes the idea that each of the two sides attributes to the other the basic aptitude for peaceful coexistence (and does not deny it by demonizing the other system as an evil empire). The position of the socialist states in this is clear and unambiguous: they consider the armament and war policies of imperialist states as resident in the [capitalist] system, yet not as necessary for it, i.e., not as an existential necessity for the capitalist system. Seen in this way, the capitalist system can be adapted to the requirements of peaceful coexistence; the NATO powers? renewed abandonment of their confrontation course is thus by all means attainable [italics in original].?82 An understanding of capitalism not as the mortal enemy of socialism but as capable of peaceful existence allowed cooperation between the two social system on the most important issue of the day?maintaining peace. It is important to note, however, that Neubert?s formulation of peaceful coexistence, which no longer promulgated the idea of an inexorable ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism, also opened the door for cross-system cooperation on the entire range of global problems that had emerged by the 1980s and that, like the peace problematic, demanded cooperation between socialism 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid. 543 and capitalism: ?The counterposed social orders? cooperation is a necessary and stabilizing element of peaceful coexistence. The opportunities, substance, and prospects for peaceful coexistence result from both sides? constellation of interests, in which there are manifold parallels and points of contact, and from growing accountability toward the serious cross-system problems facing humanity (system?bergreifende Menschheitsprobleme).?83 Neubert?s analysis of peaceful existence as the guiding vision for the foreign policy of socialist states on the backdrop of the qualitatively new international situation that had arisen in the 1980s thus promulgated an image of capitalism that diverged sharply from the traditional image espoused in Marxist-Leninist theory and previously adhered to among East German experts. While Neubert offered the de rigueur affirmation that peaceful coexistence did not mark the cessation of the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism, the actual substance of his exposition essentially endorsed the opposite position?that no fundamental, unavoidable contradiction between socialism and capitalism existed. Neubert?s capitalism was not inherently aggressive and possessed the basic aptitude to coexist peacefully with socialism for an indefinite period of time. The attribution of such features to capitalism, however, not only permitted passive coexistence but also promoted active cooperation between the two social systems, which Neubert described as an absolute necessity in order to address the pressing cross-system international relations challenges facing a world that was growing increasingly interdependent. The views expressed in Neubert?s analysis were not exceptional; on the contrary, they were becoming more and more widespread within East German foreign policy expertise as real progress was made between the USSR and the US in arms reduction 83 Ibid. 544 negotiations and as substantive and wide-ranging rapprochement between East and West appeared more and more plausible, in a sense confirming East German experts? increasingly less dogmatic understanding of international relations that dispensed with the application of rigid Marxist-Leninist categories to foreign policy. A study completed by the IPW in August 1989, for instance, powerfully echoed the conclusions found in Neubert?s analysis. The report?s authors noted how ?altered external and internal conditions have led to changes not only in the appearance but also in the character of [capitalism?s] development.?84 Increasing international dependence and in particular the ?new quality of the peace question? meant that the capitalist world recognized as well as the socialist world the necessity of ?coming to a new, cooperative relationship not only with states of its own system but also with the states of the world with a different social structure.?85 The report?s authors in turn described how the qualitatively new situation demanded a new understanding of capitalism and incorporation of that understanding into the socialist world?s strategic approach: The determination of our prospects and strategic goals cannot?as has become apparent?be based upon expectation of the ineluctable demise of capitalism in the sense of absolute bounds of its development. In light of this, our understanding of the general crisis of capitalism must also be critically examined. The principal issue is that we more cogently grasp the place and developmental tendencies of capitalism in the fundamental processes of our epoch. The notion of the constant intensification of the general crisis, which necessarily leads through successive stages to the downfall of capitalism, not only does not take into account its innate potential to develop and ability to adapt but also obstructs our understanding of the possibility of the development of a capitalism that is peaceful and open to reform as a historical bridge for future transitions to socialism. Our 84 SAPMP-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/6. 85 Ibid. 545 analysis and our strategy must therefore account for new transformational processes in capitalism, establish a link with them, and make use of growing opportunities to influence them.86 The report?s authors, like Neubert before them, affirmed that capitalism as a socio- economic order was indeed capable of making peace. Although they asserted that ?we have a long way to go before reaching a ?civil? capitalism???this goal cannot be achieved immediately, rather only as the result of many individual steps and multiple stages??the report?s authors believed that it nevertheless could be ultimately achieved, as recent progress in negotiations between the USSR and US had demonstrated: ?The continuation of the process of disarmament and rapprochement, preservation of the respective results achieved in these areas are the best evidence that a peaceable capitalism is an attainable goal.?87 The report?s authors concluded that capitalism had qualitatively changed in tandem with the qualitatively new international situation of the 1980s. In an increasingly interdependent world where cross-system problems rendered the erstwhile ?contradiction? between socialism and capitalism secondary and correspondingly demanded cooperation between the two opposed social systems, capitalism was no longer seen as inherently bellicose or doomed by the laws of historical development to exit from the historical stage, but rather as moving in the direction of a capitalism that was ?capable of peace (friedensf?hig) and compatible with civilization ( zivilizationsvertr?glich).?88 The international entanglements of East German foreign policy experts only contributed to the spread and fortification of such New Thinking-oriented views. The general moderating effect had by integration into a transnational network of foreign 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 546 policy experts has been described above?entering into a dialog with their Western counterparts perforce led to a broadening of perspective and a ?convergence with reality? that otherwise could not have taken place?yet tangible scholarly engagements in the second half of the 1980s specifically bolstered East German experts? ongoing critical move away from a class-based approach to international relations. East German experts namely took part in this era in a series of conferences and exchanges revolving around arms reduction negotiations between the US and the USSR and the broader issue of general rapprochement between socialist East and capitalist West. Since the Soviet New Thinking provided the decisive impulse for the diplomatic initiatives at the heart of East- West rapprochement, its central tenets featured prominently in discussions at such conferences, where East German experts were bolstered in their repudiatory stance toward the application of rigid Marxist-Leninist tenets to international relations. Beginning in early 1988, Harry W?nsche, head of the IIB?s International Law Division, began?with special approval of the Secretariat89?taking part in the consultations of the Working Group for European Cooperation-Political Club (Arbeitskreis f?r Europ?ische Zusammenarbeit-Politischer Club) based in West Berlin and headed by Hans-J?rgen von Kries. The consultations brought together leading political, economic, and scholarly figures from both East and West to discuss outstanding issues of contemporary politics in monthly meetings at varying locations on both sides of the iron curtain. The theme for the group?s consultations in 1988??Initiatives for the Stabilization of Peace in Europe?? perfectly matched Gorbachev?s New Thinking-based diplomatic offensive aimed at East- West rapprochement. W?nsche?s report on the meeting of the club held in Moscow in September 1988, at which representatives from 12 European socialist and capitalist states 89 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/4688. 547 were present, demonstrated how participation in such consultations could help catalyze East German experts? ongoing critical move away from a class-based approach to international relations: The entire debate on this complex of themes [i.e. determinative political factors for Europe?s future] was conducted in the first part of the discussion in accord with the metaphor of ?a common European house.? The representatives of the socialist states made it clear that the essential issue is jointly fulfilling on the basis of the New Political Thinking the objective?s contours plotted out by this metaphor. In particular, the fundamental transformation of the conceptual vision of Soviet foreign policy accomplished in recent years makes it henceforth possible to give expression to and bring to bear integrative factors more than contradictions between East and West in East-West relations in their entirety. Maintaining security in Europe is a political task that is first an intellectual, then a material process in which a new order of cooperative security must be created.90 Even with the SED leadership obstinately opposed to the dual program of domestic and foreign policy reform undertaken by Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, East German foreign policy experts on occasions such as these gained exposure to the full breadth and depth of the Soviet New Thinking and the pragmatism at its core. In their eyes, furthermore, the accuracy of the vision of international relations presented by the New Thinking was confirmed as substantive progress was made in practical realization of the East-West rapprochement envisaged by the New Thinking, that is, that its theoretical content rested on solid objective foundations. The SED leadership?s opposition to the official line of its patron and head of the Soviet Bloc appeared all the more anachronistic and out-of-touch on this backdrop, a fact which East 90 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13238. 548 German experts recognized at the time and found highly problematic.91 As the SED positioned itself against substantive East-West rapprochement and thereby appeared to be swimming against the tide of history, East German experts? growing cognizance of the inapplicability of rigid Marxist-Leninist tenets to the complexities of East-West relations and contemporary international relations in general was bolstered by their ongoing scholarly engagement with the world outside the GDR?s borders. Another such occasion was a conference held by the International Studies Association in August 1988 in Williamsburg, Virginia, on the topic ?Research on Continuity and Change in Global Affairs: On the Way to a Transnational Community of Scholars.? A delegation of East German experts took part, including Gerhard Hahn, head of the IIB, Walter Stock, a US expert at the IIB, and Peter Klein, a division head at the IPW. Their presentation depicted an explicitly favorable orientation toward the New Thinking in East German foreign policy expertise: A characteristic feature in the current development of international studies in the GDR is the intensive effort to illuminate on an interdisciplinary basis those factors and processes, sources and driving forces through which a new type of international relations is beginning to form?relations of common security and cooperation between the most varied states of the international community in order to resolve global problems paired with the simultaneous persistence of the contest of social systems. At issue here is discernment of the new quality of dependence of one?s own existence and interests on the condition of the ?totality of the world,? including substantiating the priority of general human values and interests (allgemein menschliche Werte und Interessen) above that of individual classes and states. Penetrating the dialectic of the totality of the world and, on the one hand, necessary cross-system cooperation in the general interest of humanity and, 91 Matthes, interview. 549 on the other, the continuing contest of social systems is understood as an urgent necessity in the philosophical, worldview, and ethical substantiation of the principles of the New Political Thinking and in the formulation of new conceptual approaches in foreign policy and international relations on the basis and in the framework of peaceful coexistence.92 While the institutional prerequisites for the formulation and adoption of a full-fledged ?East German New Thinking? were lacking in the GDR (above all a party leadership open to reform), East German experts still articulated a series of positions that were fully congruent with the essential thrust of the Soviet New Thinking, the liberation of foreign policy thought from the strictures of Marxist-Leninist dogma. Similarly, while the re- conceptualization of foreign policy engaged in by East German experts in the second half of the 1980s did not possess the same comprehensiveness as the Soviet New Thinking, their move away from a class-based approach to international relations did not simply consist in investigation of disparate individual empirical problems whose broader conceptual import was not fully articulated (as was largely the case in the first half of the decade), but rather displayed a certain cohesiveness where the issues considered were seen as interrelated with one another and where that very interrelatedness occasioned and included a re-thinking of the conceptual foundations of experts? understanding of international relations. Indeed, East German experts? move away from a class-based approach in their work was predicated upon viewing international relations as interconnected in a manner that was foreign to the traditional Marxist-Leninist paradigm. While the latter established the supposed contradiction between socialism and capitalism and the class character of foreign policy as the definitive features of international relations, in relation to which the 92 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13211. 550 significance of all developments was to be measured, the ?qualitatively new situation? described by East German and Soviet experts in the second half of the 1980s rested upon a dynamic view of the interconnectedness of the world that in terms of theory prioritized realpolitical considerations over ostensible class interests and in terms of practice placed international rapprochement above unremitting antagonism. Capitalism?s unbroken dynamism as well as its capacity for peace, the grave weaknesses of the socialist world (especially in the economic realm), the primacy of maintaining peace and the emergence of other cross-system ?global? problems that displaced the alleged intrinsic antagonism between socialism and capitalism, and the need for a new orientation that took these findings into account were all component parts of an approach to international relations that broke with the Marxist-Leninist understanding and by virtue of their interrelatedness mutually reinforced one another. The implications of one issue already contained the seeds for substantiation of the next. A major issue that, by linking all the other elements together, played a crucial role in experts? turn away from a class-based understanding of international relations was the notion of the totality (Ganzheitlichkeit) of the world. This concept and the ?global problems? it brought with it were explicitly theorized by East German experts alongside the other key issues of the second half of the 1980s. In the view of East German experts, the international interdependence given rise to by the new, historically unparalleled situation of the 1980s had permanently changed the character of international relations. Exclusive class interests had been supplanted by a new supra-class ?totality? that had arisen as the result of advances in the realm of science and technology, as a September 1988 report by Gerhard Powik of the Institute for the International Workers? Movement of the Academy of Social Sciences argued: ?The 551 formation of the totality of a world that in itself is contradictory and socially heterogeneous is proceeding on the basis of the scientific-technical revolution to which the tendency toward universal revolutionary reconfiguration (Umgestaltung) of the material-objective conditions of society?s existence and development is unique.?93 Powik, as others before him had done, offered the routine affirmation that the fundamental opposition between the two social systems would continue unabated, but the essence of his presentation, again similar to others, rendered such statements of little to no practical consequence. Powik?s understanding of the ?totality of the world? unmistakably elevated cross-class issues above class interests: The capitalist system by its very essence is not in a position to successfully deal with global problems by itself. Yet socialism is also incapable of rectifying global threats on its own. Marxist-Leninist forces had never anticipated that such a constellation would ever arise, where the two contradictory systems are dependent upon one another in such a way so as, under penalty of joint physical destruction, to have to work together, purposefully to unify their efforts so that they may continue to exist as antipodes. The challenge today lies in creating a conscious totality of the world by jointly addressing problems. Socialism and imperialism must join together to become a uniformly acting human subject, namely through state relations. The entire system of inter-state international relations must therefore be re-oriented around the unity of the world and cooperation, even between social adversaries. Our inherited views on international affairs were almost exclusively oriented toward the social division of the world and fixated upon resolution of problems through conflict with the other side. For the more complex tasks of today, for taking into consideration the elements of totality, interdependence, and the 93 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/14. 552 necessity for certain cross-class (klassen?bergreifend) cooperation, a great amount of theoretical grounding is still lacking.94 Powik by no means denied the existence of discrete class interests or of the alleged fundamental contradiction between socialism and capitalism yet in his portrayal these elements were overlaid by a stratum of supra-class interests borne of a historically unparalleled totality of the world. These supra-class interests, by virtue of the fact that they by their very nature touched upon the interests of all mankind and not just individual classes, transcended and took priority over narrow class interests, a condition which in turn demanded the re-orientation of East-West relations away from unremitting antagonism toward substantive cooperation. The IPW?s report from August 1989 (discussed above) likewise highlighted how supra-class interests to a significant degree displaced exclusive class interests. The report?s authors asserted that in an increasingly interdependent world both socialism and capitalism had to abandon singe-minded pursuit of their respective class interests and had to do so out of their own self-interest since the two social systems were equally threatened by global problems that transcended class. As with Powik?s assessment, overcoming chronic antagonism and attaining substantive rapprochement/cooperation consequently became imperative: The pursuit of specific, mutually exclusive interests now occurs under fundamentally changed conditions. Their essence consists in the fact that all classes are affected by global problems and that the resolution of these problems is impossible on a unilateral basis and instead demands cross-class and cross-system cooperation (klassen- und system?bergreifende Kooperation). This establishes new interest-constellations for all classes. A new ?type? of shared interests that can be characterized as the interests of 94 Ibid. 553 humanity in its totality (gesamtmenschheitliche Interessen) is developing. [These interests] make clear that the coordinated action of varying social subjects, above all classes, is a precondition for the continued development of humanity as a whole.95 The position expressed here echoed that of Powik and indeed had already become the characteristic view among those East German foreign policy experts who distanced themselves from the strict class-based approach to international relations. Socialism and capitalism remained opposed social systems, each with its own set of discrete class interests, yet the importance of these conclusions was greatly diluted by the emergence of global problems that affected both systems equally and that transcended class. Ostensible class interests were in effect eclipsed in light of the unparalleled ?totality? of the world that resulted from international interdependence. This notion of the totality of the world served as a key binding element that linked together all the other component parts of East German experts? critical re-assessment of the traditional Marxist-Leninist approach to international relations in the second half of the 1980s. The idea of the fundamental and irreconcilable contradiction between socialism and capitalism lost its centrality and was replaced by the imperative for East-West rapprochement and cross-system cooperation. On this foundation, issues that might have otherwise been seen as unrelated and whose conceptual import could have therefore been overlooked were recognized as intrinsically connected with one another. The perceived interrelatedness of the most important foreign policy issues facing the GDR and the Soviet Bloc in the second half of the 1980s, when considered within the matrix of the ?totality? of the world, allowed the agglomeration of perspectives critical toward not only disparate empirical issues but also the conceptual underpinnings of the understanding of 95 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/6. 554 international relations prevalent in the GDR as a whole and created a situation where the critical conclusions reached on one issue reinforced those reached on others. This dynamic comprised the essential content of experts? rejection of the traditional class- based approach to international relations. The perceived interrelatedness of the issues at the center of East German experts? critical re-assessment of the class-based understanding of international relations extended beyond the realm of mere theory, finding highest expression in calls for the implementation of practical foreign policy based upon the conclusions of their conceptual re-thinking. East German experts, as demonstrated above, individually highlighted the importance of general East-West rapprochement and of discrete policy initiatives, particularly in the realm of arms limitation/reduction, yet some, drawing the practical consequences of the notion of the totality of the world, also issued calls for comprehensive cooperation between East and West. The IPW, as the GDR?s leading research institute on ?imperialism,? was particularly active in this respect. And this was another area in which the IPW?s scholarly contacts with the West played an important role in fostering a turn away from rigid Marxist-Leninist axioms. Since the late 1970s the IPW had maintained close contact with the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) of the University of Hamburg, headed by Egon Bahr, the architect of the FRG?s ?new Ostpolitik? under Willy Brandt aimed at ?change through rapprochement.? Then starting in 1985, the two institutes engaged in an ?intensive scientific exchange of opinions? in the form of a series of consultations centered around ?the problems of a new and expanded understanding of security in Europe.?96 The IPW?s May 1988 report on the consultations, where high-level delegations from the two institutes, headed by the 96 BArch, DC 204/91. 555 respective directors, met, underscored the primacy of maintaining peace with the type of statements that had become standard for the time, such as: ?The basic idea of joint security is viewing the adversary in the East-West conflict as partner in one?s own security.?97 The IPW?s report, however, proceeded significantly further than the standard declarations of the time. Given the qualitatively new situation of the 1980s, the representatives of the IPW in their consultations with their counterparts from the IFSH made the case for sweeping cooperation between socialism and capitalism: ?The mutual dependence of peoples and states in the existing contradictory world must be shaped into a network of reciprocal interdependencies that exclusively serves peaceful competition for the resolution of humanity?s problems. The representatives of the IPW explained further that peaceful coexistence aims at the creation of an all-encompassing (allumfassend) system of international security in which all core areas of international relations are included. Through the inclusion of political, military, economic, and humanitarian problems in the process of strengthening security, it must be achieved that none of these areas is neglected and thereby becomes an obstacle to the progress of the process in its entirety.?98 A commentary99 from the same month penned by IPW Director Max Schmidt and Deputy Director Lutz Maier expressed the same sentiment?affirming the desirability and even necessity of ever greater international interdependence and comprehensive cooperation between East and West?while focusing in particular on the economic and international trade aspects of the situation: ?If the compulsion toward a balance of 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid. 99 The commentary was written for a highly peculiar occasion?as the IPW?s contribution to a festschrift for the seventieth birthday of Otto Wolff von Amerongen, the leading West German entrepreneur who pioneered the establishment of trade relations between the FRG and the Soviet Bloc in the 1960s. 556 interests, sustained by military means, particularly military-strategic equilibrium, is to be reduced step by step, the connected, desired lowering of the military factor?s weight must be compensated for and completed by other, non-military means and in other areas. Without an increasingly broader and deeper mutual interweaving of interests (gegenseitige Interessenverflechtung) among states, above all between East and West, for which first and foremost the economy and material interests with their essentially unlimited potential for expansion are available, the international security of states and the advancement of the disarmament process ultimately have no real chance in the world of today [italics in original].?100 Schmidt and Maier, both of whom were specialists in economics, believed that international trade relations and economic interactions could not be excluded from the increasingly interdependent character of international relations, but rather represented a key element that promoted cross-bloc cooperation and bolstered peace and security. Schmidt and Maier expounded their rationale: ?Out of mutual economic dependence grows a certain mutual interest in the economic development of the respective other and in the stability of the international economy as a whole while the continuation of or regression into old ?beggar you neighbour? [sic] practices in effect exacerbates one?s own problems [italics in original].?101 With growing interdependence identified as the key characteristic of the era, Schmidt and Maier asserted that advancement of the process in the economic realm as well had a key role to play in promoting rapprochement and the convergence of interests between East and West. The IPW?s position as expressed here and above went far beyond simply advocating East-West cooperation in individual areas or limited rapprochement between 100 BArch, DC 204/91. 101 Ibid. 557 socialism and capitalism. Leading figures at the GDR?s central institute for research on ?imperialism,? including the director and deputy director, rather presented a vision of the definitive convalescence of relations between the two blocs through attainment of substantive, enduring rapprochement. The IPW?s call for comprehensive cooperation between socialist East and capitalist West in effect was a call to overcome the condition of ?cold war? once and for all, to overcome the basic and chronic antagonism between socialism and capitalism that had defined East-West relations since the conclusion of the Second World War. Relations between East and West represented the focal point of East German foreign policy in the 1980s and, correspondingly, of East German foreign policy expertise in the period as well. East German experts? turn away from a strict class-based approach to international relations, however, also extended to the topic that had traditionally been viewed as a vital area in the struggle against imperialism and that still retained great, albeit reduced, importance in the 1980s: the developing world. Already in the early 1980s, the ideological edge of expert output on the developing world had been significantly dulled following the decidedly mixed results of the Soviet Bloc?s ?socialist offensive? in Africa and other areas of the developing world and after the second Cold War had flared up, which prompted the SED leadership once again to direct its primary attention squarely at Europe and East-West relations.102 In this context of ideological disillusionment and relative neglect on the part of the party leadership, East German experts came to prioritize realpolitical interests over unbending ideological maxims in their output on the developing world as Marxism-Leninism?s utility as an analytical tool 102 Ulf Engel and Hans-Georg Schleicher, Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika: Zwischen Konkurrenz und Koexistenz 1949-1990 (Hamburg: Institut f?r Afrikakunde 1998), 112. 558 appeared to wane in the first half of the 1980s. As the applicability of ideological precepts appeared to decrease, so too did belief in the notion that the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations, to which all other phenomena were subordinate, and that the developing world was ?objectively? anti-imperialist. This movement away from the Marxist-Leninist paradigm in expert analysis on the developing world was continued and intensified in the second half of the 1980s. In the second half of the decade, the two factors that had been most important in facilitating this trend in the first half of the decade were still in place?events in the developing world were no more amenable to ideological analysis than previously and more than ever called for sober analysis and, with the attention of the SED leadership still directed squarely at East-West issues, official interest in the developing world was comparatively low?but now a new factor was added to the mix. As was the case with expert output on East-West issues, Gorbachev?s promulgation of the New Thinking, both by the specific example it offered and by promotion of innovative analysis in general, provided a key impulse to the existing critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise on the developing world, which displayed a more explicit and far-reaching break with a strict class-based approach to the topic that paralleled the situation in expert analysis of East-West relations. Indeed, experts? critical approach to the developing world in the second half of the 1980s often started from the same point of departure as expert analysis of East-West relations, namely that a qualitatively new international situation characterized by unparalleled and irreversible international interdependence had emerged in the 1980s. The new situation in turn demanded a new approach to relations with the developing 559 world, as a think piece composed in February 1988 by Gerhard Thole and Klaus Schmidt of the IIB?s International Economy division asserted: ?Growing interdependence in international relations not only demands a new approach to inter-system relations but also compels imperialism to re-conceptualize its interests and policies toward [the developing world].?103 In establishing ?imperialism?s? interests and policies toward the developing world as the object of their analysis, Thole and Schmidt set up their piece to examine the character of each socio-economic grouping and the relationship between the two in the changed conditions of the 1980s, which naturally possessed great import both for experts? understanding of contemporary international relations in general and the place of the GDR and the socialist world therein in particular. And while still employing ideological concepts like ?imperialism? and ?neo-colonialism? to frame their analysis, the substance of Thole and Schmidt?s piece presented a picture of their chosen topic that sharply diverged from the strict Marxist-Leninist view. The relationship between the advanced capitalist West and the developing world, Thole and Schmidt pointed out, had not proceeded along the lines of pure exploitation, where the benefit to the former issued exclusively from the cost of the latter. Instead of this scenario, which accorded with the Marxist-Leninist position on the issue, economic relations between the capitalist West and the developing world, which provided the focus of examinations of ?neo- colonialism? after the direct political domination of the colonial era had receded, had proven mutually beneficial on multiple occasions. Thole and Schmidt even suggested that the intrinsic dynamic of capitalist economic expansion precluded attempts on the part of ?imperialism? to keep countries of the developing world in a state of underdevelopment and abject poverty; it rather lay in the best interest of advanced industrialized states to 103 UP, UA, Bestand ASR 13406. 560 promote economic growth, the establishment of an industrial infrastructure, the maintenance of viable states based upon the rule of law, and the resolution of environmental problems in countries of the developing world in order to secure their own economic interests. The result was a situation where both advanced capitalist states and states of the developing world possessed opportunities to adapt to the changing conditions and demands of the relationship between the two socio-economic formations: ??[These opportunities] can contribute to the intermittent mitigation of existential problems in [the developing world] and the international capitalist economy. It therefore lies within the potential capacities and possibilities of the economic laws of capitalism under the conditions of state monopolyism to mitigate these problems in the interest of long-term capital investment.?104 Just as analysts of East-West relations had employed intricate argumentation to present conclusions on the topic that ran contrary to orthodox Marxist-Leninist theory while still maintaining a Marxist-Leninist fa?ade, Thole and Schmidt utilized ideological terms and concepts to arrive at a decidedly heterodox conclusion: that the relationship between advanced industrialized states and states of the developing world was not necessarily antagonistic and even had the potential to be mutually beneficial. This type of non-dogmatic approach to analysis of the developing world was also present in expert output on specific regions and countries in the second half of the 1980s. The trend was particularly apparent in expertise on Africa, where the corner toward prioritization of concrete realpolitical interests over unbending ideological maxims had already been turned in the early 1980s. No single assessment better epitomized this trend than the MfAA?s landmark February/March 1989 report on ?Africa?s Significance in 104 Ibid. 561 International Relations at the End of the Twentieth Century. Tendencies of Political, Economic, and Social Development.? The report?s strikingly sober, clear-eyed appraisal of the topic hardly contained a trace of the ideologically inspired analysis characteristic of the ?old? thinking. Instead, the realpolitical interests of the GDR and those of respective African states, whose concerns and challenges, it was now fully acknowledged, possessed significance in and of themselves, not merely insofar as they related to and impacted the so-called international constellation of forces, took center stage. The report?s theoretical point of departure echoed that of other reform-oriented output produced by East German experts in the second half of the 1980s, namely, that the dramatic increase in international interdependence had created a situation where the greatest international relations challenges facing the world were interconnected and where progress on one issue correspondingly required progress on all others. Africa consequently had a crucial role to play in the most pressing international relations issue of the era?the struggle to preserve peace?because the prevention of armed conflict in the world, which could easily degenerate into nuclear war, depended upon a strong Africa that could take active part in the peace process following the idea that the states of the world could only achieve lasting security in cooperation with one another, not against one another. The report explained its approach to the issue: The struggle for peace in the world and for the enduring convalescence of international relations requires the active participation of the peoples and states of Africa, particularly to guarantee peace, security, and development in Africa itself. A reciprocal relationship exists between the situation on this continent located on the southern flank of Europe, with which it is linked by manifold connections, and the struggle for European security and cooperation as well as between development in Africa and the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, and the South Atlantic, important for international peace as they are?. At 562 the end of the twentieth century, Africa with its potential and its problems occupies an important position in the international community and is becoming an increasingly active partner in the resolution of global questions of humanity (globale Menschheitsfragen).105 This statement on the African continent?s broader significance for international relations in turn provided the basis for the report?s authors to consider the challenges facing Africa as important in their own right, not simply as a corollary to the broader ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism, and to evaluate within this framework how those challenges could best be resolved, not how Africa could best be instrumentalized to serve the purposes of ?international socialism.? The list of challenges plaguing Africa identified in the MfAA report was long and daunting, including ?the elimination of hunger, guaranteeing a humane existence for the dramatically increasing population, preservation of natural wealth, and overcoming backward economic and social structures that impede the development of productive forces.?106 Just as the report?s authors decoupled their approach to Africa?s international relations significance from the notion of a ?clash of systems,? their consideration of avenues to resolve the challenges facing the continent likewise dispensed with ideologically inspired considerations in favor of pragmatic ones: ?These challenges, which are ever more urgently joined with the struggle for peace, international security, and disarmament, demand above all a greater independent contribution from Africa as well as international, cross-system cooperation.?107 Given that development in Africa was identified as the continent?s paramount concern and that a non-dogmatic approach foregrounding Africa?s own interests, not those of the socialist East or the capitalist West, 105 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/30. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 563 was acknowledged as best, the report?s authors pulled no punches in their discussion of the continent?s prospects to meet this challenge. They conceded that, when viewed from the perspective of the new priorities outlined above, the socialist experiment in Africa had fared poorly: ?The objective and subjective prerequisites for the creation of the foundations of socialism in Africa today do not exist. Some countries that proclaimed progressive development [i.e. adopted elements of socialism (e.g. Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola)] have hitherto resisted the brunt of imperialism?s offensive in Africa directed against them only with great support from the socialist states. Development in these countries is proceeding in an extraordinarily complex manner and remains reversible. For far-reaching changes, in the course of which the living conditions of the people?s masses would have to improve, a much longer period of time is required.?108 With scoring points against the ?imperialist? adversary displaced by socio-economic development as the paramount concern in Africa, the report?s authors acknowledged socialism?s poor showing in helping African states to meet this challenge. The formulation of government policy (particularly in the economic realm) on the basis of unbending ideological axioms rather than pragmatic analysis of a state?s concrete possibilities and prospects had likely played a role in actually retarding development in those African states that had adopted a socialist orientation. Capitalism, in contrast, although its track record in Africa was by no means flawless, had proven itself as a system of socio-economic organization with the potential to facilitate the economic growth and development sorely needed in Africa. The authors of the MfAA report, while offering the obligatory caveat on the contradictions it could produce, portrayed capitalism as the system of socio-economic organization on the 108 Ibid. 564 basis of which ?opportunities for social progress in Africa can be unlocked over a lengthier period of time.?109 The analysis presented in the MfAA?s March 1989 report on the significance of Africa in international relations at the end of the twentieth century was extraordinary in its abandonment of the class-based approach to its topic. It went far beyond simply challenging the notion that an objective antagonism existed between the advanced industrialized states of the capitalist west and the developing world to reject the primacy of the ?clash of systems? paradigm in Soviet Bloc-Africa relations outright. This dramatic shift in priorities entailed the prioritization of economic growth and development in Africa over advancement of the ?international constellation of forces? on the continent in favor of socialism. The new orientation even entailed admission that a path of capitalist rather than socialist socio-economic development was likely better suited to fulfill the newly identified set of priorities. The non-dogmatic, pragmatic approach adopted in the report, which was signed off on by Foreign Minister Oskar Fischer and submitted to Hermann Axen?s APK,110 represented a vision of East German foreign policy toward Africa and the broader developing world that all but completely excised class-based ideological considerations from its calculus. The report itself put it best: From changed global political priorities, from new demands stemming from societal development in the socialist states, and from the fact that socio-economic development in Africa is proceeding differently than had been expected after the collapse of the imperialist colonial system, there emerges a series of new considerations for the structuring of relations between the socialist and African states. In the future, relations 109 Ibid. 110 The IIB received a copy as well. UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13166. 565 will be conducted independently of African states? developmental path and will be characterized above all by political dialog and mutually beneficial economic cooperation. For the societal progress and the economic development of African states, correct policies on the part of political leaders and the work of their peoples are first and foremost decisive.111 With this bold rejection of the applicability of the Marxist-Leninist paradigm to the place of the developing world in international relations, East German experts? critical re-assessment of the class-based approach to foreign policy was complete. On the basis of examination of the most pressing practical foreign policy issues facing the GDR and the Soviet Bloc, East German experts time and time again came to the conclusion that the reality of the foreign relations they were charged with analyzing sharply diverged from the Marxist-Leninist postulates they were expected to apply. In an atmosphere made generally more receptive to innovation in foreign policy thought by Gorbachev?s promulgation of the New Thinking and in accord with the growing predominance of the expert over the ideological within East German foreign policy expertise, sober analysis conducted by experts repeatedly revealed an unbridgeable gap between the existing class- based interpretive model and the existing state of the GDR?s foreign relations. The value of the Marxist-Leninist paradigm as an analytical tool had been in steep decline since at least the era of foreign policy normalization and its inability to make sense of international relations developments now prompted East German experts to re-think its conceptual underpinnings. One by one, the hallowed principles propping up the GDR- specific conception of foreign policy that fused the clearly delineated realpolitical interests of the GDR with a class-based understanding of international relations were 111 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.115/30. 566 overturned?the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism no longer represented the defining characteristic of international relations; the ?international constellation of forces,? which no longer moved continuously and inexorably in favor of socialism, was drained of its ideological content to refer simply to the complex constellation of forces, actors, and interests shaping the system of contemporary international relations; the concept of a monolithic ?international socialism? proceeding steadily toward certain victory lost all currency as the severity of the Soviet Bloc?s domestic and international problems was acknowledged; correspondingly, recognition of the strength, dynamism, and ultimate sustainability of capitalism led to abandonment of the notion of a ?general crisis? that would in due course result in capitalism?s final exit from the historical stage; finally, the developing world was no longer viewed as ?objectively anti-imperialist? and its interests and problems were acknowledged as important in their own right, not only insofar as they as they related to and impacted the international constellation of forces. Taken together, East German experts? re- conceptualization of East German foreign policy represented a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought that largely carried out the central premise of the Soviet New Thinking?the rejection of ideological dogmatism in foreign policy thought in favor of prioritization of realpolitical considerations. Yet East German experts? re- conceptualization failed to take on the comprehensive, cohesive character of Soviet New Thinking on the resistance of an SED leadership determined to uphold the fundamental opposition between East and West at the heart of the Marxist-Leninist foreign policy paradigm, which meant that East German experts? reformist views also found limited implementation in foreign policy practice. 567 Coda: After the Fall With the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and the broader democratization of the GDR that accompanied it, the main obstacle impeding development of a body of full- fledged reformist East German foreign policy thought akin to the Soviet New Thinking? a dictatorial SED leadership unwilling to countenance the slightest divergence from its anti-reform position?was removed. In the short period of time between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first (and last) democratic elections to the East German Volkskammer on 18 March 1990, at which point it became clear that a union of one sort or another between the two German states was all but certain, the IIB and the IPW, now free from the compulsion to conform to the party line, produced a flood of materials oriented toward establishing East German foreign policy on a completely new, non- Marxist-Leninist basis112?the ?renewal of East German foreign policy? was seen as necessary to complement and support the ?renewal of socialism? taking place within the GDR itself. A think piece from Claus Montag?s USA Division at the IIB issued in late November 1989 identified the re-orientation of East German foreign policy as imperative: ?The processes of reform that have begun in the GDR make it necessary to re-define the country?s constellation of foreign policy interests. The starting point of all considerations must be [the realization] that the GDR will only emerge from its deep societal crisis if it succeeds in bringing its foreign relations into agreement with the societal processes of renewal.?113 A study on the GDR?s relations with the developing world drafted by Renate W?nsche and Raimund Kr?mer, also in late November 1989, adopted the same position: ?The GDR is currently experiencing its heretofore most 112 For the IIB, see UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13228, 13290, 13291, and 13358; for the IPW, see BArch DC 204/82, 83, and 87. 113 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13291. 568 severe societal crisis. The necessary process of renewal, which should create the preconditions for a humanistic and democratic socialism on German soil, must also include the foreign policy and security policy of this state.?114 East German experts? vigorous advocacy for a ?renewal of foreign policy? to complement and support the ongoing ?renewal of socialism? in the GDR was doubtlessly motivated in part by considerations of professional self-preservation in the midst of a highly unpredictable situation where the East German populace?s rejection of the old system and most things associated with it was nearly absolute. However, the internal constitution and dynamics within East German foreign policy expertise ultimately played a more important role in experts? attempt to establish East German foreign policy on a new footing. Ever since the full ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise in the late 1960s/early 1970s, the expert element centered around specialist knowledge and professional competency had continually gained in importance as the ideological element that revolved around unsophisticated adherence to unbending ideological maxims steadily declined in importance until Marxism-Leninism in the 1980s became little more than a fa?ade beneath which sober expert analysis was conducted by thoroughly trained specialists. It was namely on the basis of this internal configuration that East German experts in the 1980s had engaged in a re-conceptualization of East Germany?s foreign relations that produced a body of de-ideologized foreign policy thought that bore important similarities to the Soviet New Thinking. The critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise that had elicited this re-conceptualization under a party leadership vehemently opposed to reformist thought in foreign policy was subsequently allowed to gain full expression once that same leadership had been swept 114 Ibid. 569 away and thereby provided the key wellspring for East German experts? attempt, however short-lived, to bring about a ?renewal of foreign policy? in the GDR. A statement issued by the IIB in fall 1989 powerfully demonstrated that East German experts were motivated more by a genuine belief, stemming from their training and the insights they had gained into contemporary international relations as active specialists, in the necessity to establish East German foreign policy on completely new footing than considerations of professional self-preservation. On 2 November, after Egon Krenz had replaced Erich Honecker as head of party and state, but one week before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Scientific Council of the IIB, chaired by new Director Helmut Matthes, who had replaced Gerhard Hahn in May of that year,115 passed a declaration that was issued publicly on 6 November, still three days before the unexpected opening of the border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse. In its declaration, the IIB?s Scientific Council, just as the broader East German populace itself was in the process of doing,116 took the concept of turn (Wende), coined by Krenz to indicate a limited, SED-controlled process of reform in the GDR that was intended to placate the restive population, and ran with it. The declaration called for a thoroughgoing transformation of political life in the GDR and described the role foreign policy expertise would have to play in that transformation: We emphatically support the turn (Wende) that has been set in motion and that must lead to the fundamental transformation of socialism in our land. As social scientists of the GDR, we will advocate for the renewal of socialism in the GDR. The GDR?s effectiveness in international relations and its foreign policy, the object of our scientific work, depend decisively upon its inner development and stability. At the same time, this foreign policy is responsible for creating the most favorable international conditions for 115 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/3A/4830. 116 Charles Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 139-149. 570 the internal process of renewal. The fundamental renewal of our party, our state, our entire political system and its capability to function democratically, the reform of our economy, the transformation of our intellectual life, the modification of our system of information, and a new path of responsible environmental policies must be conceptualized and realized without further delay. For this purpose, we take active part with our experiences, our knowledge, our convictions, and our entire intellectual capacities in the debates exacted by our people (Volk) and borne by the most varied societal forces of our people. In particular we would like to work so that our party recovers the strength and trust needed to resolutely lead the process of the fundamental renewal of socialism. This is predicated upon the re-organization (Umgestaltung) of intra- party democracy and reliance upon the intellectual capacities of the entire party.?117 The declaration of the IIB?s Scientific Council, while expressing the wish that the SED take the lead in ?the fundamental transformation of socialism? in the GDR, emphasized the absolute necessity to democratize both party and state. Foreign policy expertise had a key role to play in the process, namely re-conceptualizing East German foreign policy both to support and to reflect the broader ongoing renewal of socialism in the GDR. In the crisis conditions of fall 1989, but before the floodgates of change had been irrevocably opened, the IIB, one of the GDR?s two leading foreign policy research institutes, actively and by its own volition promoted a renewal of foreign policy that would subsequently become the predominant concern of East German foreign policy expertise in the short period of time between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the point at which it became clear that a union of some kind between the two German states was inevitable. 117 UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13165. 571 Experts? attempt to establish East German foreign policy on a completely new footing, however, was impeded not only by the severe institutional instability and uncertainty hanging over their heads but also by the loss of conceptual certainty that accompanied the revolutionary developments within and outside East Germany in 1989/1990. Whereas the GDR?s experts had previously been able to distance themselves from a rigid class-based understanding of international relations on the assumption that the existence of the Soviet Bloc, even if moving in the direction of non-dogmatic socialism, was a permanent feature of international life and that, however international relations developments might unfold in the future, the GDR was a viable, legitimate state, the opposite situation had now set in?the advance of democratization in Central and Eastern Europe had decisively undermined the basic features that had provided the political framework in which East German experts had hitherto carried out their work, depriving them of a solid foundation on which to base the envisaged renewal of foreign policy. How, after all, were the foreign policy interests of a state to be defined that was in the throes of an identity crisis from which it would never recover and where events had shown the certainties of the old order to be obsolete and out of touch with reality? East German foreign policy experts were cognizant of this problem even before revolutionary developments in the GDR had reached their highpoint. On 9 November 1989, mere hours before the Berlin Wall was breached for the first time, Manfred M?ller, the head of the IIB?s Fundamental Questions Division with clear reformist proclivities, led a discussion round at the IIB dedicated to the topic of the foreign policy interests of the GDR in the 1990s. M?ller described how the current ?existential crisis? facing the GDR raised critical questions regarding the legitimacy and identity of the GDR. M?ller?s 572 treatment of the issue foreshadowed the centrality it would possess in the following months for East German foreign policy expertise: ?From this emerges a question that demands clarification: What is the identity of the GDR? Is it a national problematic or a social problematic? Is the identity of the GDR bound to socialism or to other questions? At the moment, the answers to these questions are fully unclear. For the institute, the key issue is exploring which contribution foreign policy can make to this clarification of identity.?118 Despite the proclaimed desire of the GDR?s foreign policy experts to bring about a renewal of East German foreign policy, the GDR?s identity crisis and the ensuing conceptual uncertainty engendered by the dramatically altered situation in the GDR as well as in the (rapidly dissolving) Soviet Bloc represented insurmountable obstacles to doing so. Bold, cohesive visions of what an alternate socialist foreign policy might look like such as the one presented by IIB graduate and employee Andr? Brie119 were the exception to the rule. In early 1990, as the likelihood of the continued existence of an independent, socialist GDR approached the zero point, expertise produced by the IIB and IPW displayed an ever more guarded, descriptive character, providing competent coverage of topics relevant to the future foreign policy of a re-unified Germany like the European Common Market, the foreign policy of the US, Eastern Europe and the German question, and the CSCE process while largely avoiding discussion of any broader strategic or conceptual issues.120 118 BStU, MfS, BVfS Potsdam, Stellv. Operativ 3. 119 Andr? Brie et al., Sozialismus am Scheideweg: Fragen an eine neue Konzeption (Berlin: Neues Leben, 1990). The subsequent problems encountered by the PDS/Die Linke in formulating a cohesive and constructive foreign policy program attest to the difficulty of devising a comprehensive vision of a distinctly socialist foreign policy in a multi-polar world. 120 See UP, UA, Bestand ASR, 13288 and 13290. 573 The political events that had first engendered the GDR?s post-November identity crisis and the resulting conceptual uncertainty among East German foreign policy experts, however, ultimately proved decisive for the final outcome of experts? attempt to bring about a renewal of East German foreign policy?by putting an end to East German foreign policy expertise altogether. But this did not occur before a series of institutional reforms had been undertaken in a preemptive attempt to ensure that some elements of the East German expert infrastructure might be taken over in a Germany re-unified along the model of the FRG. On 2 February 1990, the Council of Ministers, led by Prime Minister Hans Modrow, passed a resolution that transformed the ASR, of which the IIB made up a component, if largely autonomous, part, into a College for Law and Administration (Hochschule f?r Recht and Verwaltung).121 Raimund Kr?mer, a 1977 graduate of the IIB who had spent 1985-1989 working and researching in Nicaragua and Cuba, was elected director of the newly created Section for Political Science/International Relations of the college. Kr?mer?s replacement of Helmut Matthes, who had only taken over the directorship of the IIB in May 1989, was supposed to facilitate the overhaul of the institute under a new, younger leadership team in accord with the drastically changed situation within the GDR.122 The effort, however, ultimately failed owing to the resistance of the government of Brandenburg, which dissolved the college in December of that year.123 The IPW was also dissolved in the course of 1990.124 The decision of 121 BArch, DC 20/I/3/2911. 122 For accounts of the effort from Kr?mer himself as well as others who were intimately involved in the process see Raimund Kr?mer, ?Von Aufl?sung, kreativer Anarchie und nicht aufh?rendem Optimismus,? in Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, ed. Erhard Crome (Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009), 187-194; Raimund Kr?mer et al., ?Zum neunmonatigen Versuch eines Aufbaus der Politikwissenschaft in Potsdam im Jahre 1990,? in ibid., 205-216. 123 For an excellent account of the failed efforts of the IIB in particular and the ASR in general to ensure their continued existence in a reunified Germany, see Sven Olaf Jacobsen, Von der Deutschen Akademie 574 Hans-Dietrich Genscher?s foreign ministry to refuse employment to any and all foreign policy personnel from the GDR meant that East Germany?s numerous foreign policy professionals, whether working primarily in the operative realm or in research and training, were left out in the cold in reunified Germany, an outcome over which many, unsurprisingly, have expressed disappointment.125 In a world where the Cold War and its key characteristic of ideologically inspired systemic antagonism between East and West had been overcome, all sense of a distinct East German foreign policy expertise had been lost. f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? zur Juristischen Fakult?t der Universit?t Potsdam. Zur Wissensgeschichte der Wendezeit (Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2006). 124 A lack of documentation makes it difficult to discern to what degree the leadership of institute tried to reform the IPW, if at all, to fit into a reunified Germany. BArch, DC 20/6556. 125 Joachim Kr?ger, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 23 April 2008; Klaus Bollinger, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 28 April 2008; Matthes, interview; Montag, interview; Bock, interview. Indeed, the red thread running through a collection of former East German diplomats? recollections of the end of the GDR is the sentiment that re-unification could have been carried out in a more equitable fashion. See numerous contributions in Der Letzte macht das Licht aus, ed. Malchow. 575 Conclusion The development of a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought among East German experts and their break with a strict class-based approach to international relations?quite astonishing at first glance given the deserved reputation of the GDR, or at least the SED leadership, for strict ideological orthodoxy?appear less extraordinary when one takes into account the development of East German foreign policy expertise in its entirety. East German experts? formulation in the 1980s of a conception of international relations that mirrored the Soviet New Thinking in important ways was propelled by a drive that stemmed from the very raison d??tre of foreign policy expertise in the GDR and that represented one of its two essential characteristics?the imperative to produce sound analysis of international relations based upon specialist knowledge. This imperative existed alongside the imperative to uphold a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? and the two objectives taken together comprised the dual mission of East German foreign policy experts. This dual mission in turn derived from the defining feature of East German foreign policy expertise?subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership. The tension between intellectual autonomy and intellectual subordination produced by these two contrasting, if not fully contradictory, objectives became a permanent feature of foreign policy expertise in the GDR, where neither tendency would (or could) gain complete supremacy over the other, but where the center of gravity could shift in either direction. Specialist knowledge and professional competence steadily gained in importance over simplistic adherence to crude Marxist- Leninist schema as the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise became increasingly rationalized and professionalized until, in the 1980s, the preponderance of expert over the 576 ideological element became overwhelming. On this backdrop, consideration of the serious foreign policy challenges facing the GDR and the Soviet Bloc in the 1980s prompted East German foreign policy experts to recognize that sound assessment of international relations was not best served by application of rigid Marxist-Leninist categories. Instead of viewing international relations as expression of the inexorable class struggle, they prioritized the realpolitical interests of the GDR. The institutional beginnings of East German foreign policy expertise were extremely modest as a system of expertise, like nearly everything else in the SOZ and the young GDR, had to be built up essentially from scratch. From the creation of the SED in 1946 until the late 1950s/early 1960s, foreign policy in general and the institutional development of foreign policy expertise in particular possessed comparatively little importance for an SED preoccupied with the tasks of establishing itself as a Stalinist cadre party ?of the new type,? cementing its exclusive control over East German politics and society, and moving ahead with ?the construction of the foundations of socialism? in the GDR. The GDR?s near complete dependency on the Soviet Union in foreign policy paired with the diplomatic isolation imposed by West Germany?s Hallstein Doctrine in the context of the Cold War conflict between socialist East and capitalist West further reinforced the SED?s relative neglect of foreign policy matters in the period. Under these conditions, the construction of a foreign policy apparatus and corresponding expert institutions proceeded in fits and starts and not according to a cohesive, long-term plan, but rather haphazardly in response to the shifting needs and priorities of the SED. The state and party organs created in the period were oriented toward satisfying the party?s immediate needs in the realm of international relations, consisting principally in 577 supplying essential information to provide basic foreign policy orientation, production of propaganda for domestic and foreign consumption, the creation of the ?socialist foreign policy cadres? desired by the party leadership to staff its nascent foreign policy apparatus, and managing the still-limited foreign relations of party and state. While an array of institutions was created to carry out these tasks, a state of marked institutional underdevelopment prevailed in the GDR?s foreign policy apparatus throughout the 1950s, the main features of which were ineffectual leadership and deficient coordination between different bodies, unclear delineation of responsibilities, extreme ideologization and politicization, a shortage of material resources, and an acute lack of qualified personnel. The end result of the East German foreign policy apparatus?s institutional underdevelopment and the SED?s enduring cadre problem was a system of foreign policy expertise marked by grave deficiencies. The quality of expertise produced in the course of the 1950s was consistent with this state of institutional (under)development, typically possessing little analytical value and generally being characterized by a combination of shrill ideological overstatement, unfounded wishful thinking, and a shortage of information that went much beyond basic facts. Most significant was the absence among experts of a comprehensive conception of the place of the GDR in the international arena that clearly delineated the GDR?s specific foreign policy interests. Although the 1950s saw the crystallization of the basic foreign policy facts that determined the geo-strategic situation facing the GDR?national division, diplomatic isolation, acute dependency on the Soviet Union, pronounced reliance on the Soviet Bloc?the prevailing institutional and cadre-related underdevelopment of the East German foreign policy apparatus prevented the full 578 enunciation and consistent expression of a comprehensive GDR-specific understanding of international relations among East German experts. It was only in the course of the 1960s that the institutional and personnel prerequisites were fulfilled that would allow this deficit to be overcome. Starting already in the late 1950s, after Walter Ulbricht had cemented his position as unquestioned leader in East Germany, and in intensified manner after August 1961 behind the security and stability provided by the Berlin Wall, the SED leadership directed its attention to the construction and coordination of foreign policy expertise in a much more focused and systematic manner. The rationalization of the work of both operative institutions like the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the International Relations Division of the Central Committee and research and teaching institutions like the Institute for International Relations, the German Economic Institute, and the German Institute for Contemporary History went hand in hand with their full subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership. The process of rationalization in service of subordination was intended to bring about the complete ?joining of theory with practice? (i.e. complete politicization and ideologization), where operative institutions and expert institutions would stand in a symbiotic relationship with one another and where the functional differentiation existing between these diverse institutions would be subsumed under the unity of purpose provided by unambiguous subordination to advancing the GDR?s centrally dictated foreign policy goals. By the end of the 1960s, this process had brought about the transformation of the hastily created patchwork of institutions arbitrarily reacting to momentary exigencies and lacking thoroughgoing coordination inherited from the 1950s into a well-organized, increasingly 579 professional, and efficiently functioning system of foreign policy expertise where ?the joining of theory with practice? had indeed largely been realized. This institutional basis would in turn give rise to the enunciation of a comprehensive, GDR-specific conception of international relations among East German experts that fused identification of the GDR?s concrete geo-strategic interests with ideological precepts drawn from the Marxist-Leninist canon. Thus, the ?clash of systems? (Systemauseinandersetzung) between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations, foreign policy was a direct reflection of social system and accordingly a form of the class struggle (Au?enpolitik als Klassenpolitik), all international relations developments possessed significance only insofar as they related to and impacted the so-called international constellation of forces (das internationale Kr?fteverh?ltnis), which moved inexorably in favor of socialism, and the developing world correspondingly was viewed as ?objectively anti-imperialist.? Further, the foreign policy interests of the GDR were understood as one and the same with the interests of an abstractly understood ?international socialism,? which was embodied in concrete form by the Soviet Bloc. Owing to the peculiar foreign policy conditions facing East Germany into the first half of the 1970s?national division, diplomatic isolation, acute dependency on the Soviet Union, pronounced reliance on the Soviet Bloc?the GDR?s concrete foreign policy interests were uniquely compatible with the tenets of Marxism-Leninism, to a degree unmatched in other Soviet satellite states. East German experts? GDR-specific understanding of international relations rested on strong objective foundations. The process of rationalization that had established subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership as the defining feature 580 of East German foreign policy expertise and that had created the institutional framework necessary for experts? enunciation of a GDR-specific Marxist-Leninist understanding of international relations, however, contained a certain ambiguity. On the one hand, East German experts were required to demonstrate compliance with the party line at all times and to apply Marxism-Leninism as the theoretical foundation of their work; on the other hand, they were expected to conduct their analysis on the basis of specialist knowledge and professional expertise in order to provide the party leadership with valuable information that could fruitfully be used in the formulation of foreign policy. The result of these contrasting objectives was a persistent tension between intellectual subordination and autonomy that lent foreign policy expertise in the GDR its own distinct developmental dynamic and decisively shaped its functioning and output. Since this tension?not an absolute dichotomy?between the imperative to maintain a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? and the imperative to produce factual analysis of international relations based on specialist knowledge derived from the very raison d??tre of East German foreign policy expertise, it became a permanent, unavoidable feature of foreign policy expertise. As long as the GDR remained largely excluded from the international order and its engagement with the outside world severely restricted, the preponderance of the ideological element over the expert element in East German foreign policy expertise was favored and the tension between the two largely remained latent as diplomatic isolation facilitated and reinforced ideological dogmatism and intellectual insularity. The effects of foreign policy normalization in the first half of the 1970s, however, upset this equation. The GDR?s establishment of diplomatic relations with the majority of 581 the world?s states after two decades of Hallstein Doctrine-imposed diplomatic isolation represented East Germany?s greatest foreign policy triumph, even if it issued much less from its own efforts than the broader shift to d?tente in East-West relations in the 1970s, and gained for the GDR the recognition of the non-socialist world it had so long sought in order to demonstrate its legitimacy to its own population and vis-?-vis its West German rival. East Germany no longer appeared as an artificial construct of the Cold War but rather as a ?status quo? actor on the international stage theoretically equal to any other sovereign state. What this meant for East German foreign policy expertise was that the previously strong correlation between the objective conditions in which the GDR had to conduct foreign policy?national division, diplomatic isolation, acute dependency on the USSR, pronounced reliance on the Soviet Bloc?and a strict, dichotomous approach to international relations began to dissolve. The GDR was rid, for good or ill, of its previous insularity and was now fully exposed to the vagaries of international relations and the transition from imposed insularity to expansive foreign policy engagement would make impossible the high level of ideologization that thrived in the 1950s and 1960s by attenuating the strong correlation between the GDR?s specific interests and the dichotomous Marxist-Leninist conception of international relations that viewed socialism and capitalism as monolithic, contradictory blocs fighting out the inexorable class struggle on the international stage. Along with the GDR?s integration into the international order came another key development that militated against ideological dogmatism in East German foreign policy expertise?greater exposure to and contact with the capitalist West. Starting in the 1970s and continuing into the 1980s, the Institute for International Relations and the Institute 582 for International Politics and Economics, the GDR?s two leading foreign policy research institutes, took up and maintained contact with scholars from analogous institutions in the capitalist West and thereby became integrated into a transnational network of foreign policy experts. Such contacts were intended to serve the dual goal of gaining valuable information from the West in order to produce a more accurate, refined picture of the complexities of contemporary international relations, of which the SED leadership could make use in its formulation of foreign policy, and offensively representing and substantiating the East German position on outstanding international relations issues in order to facilitate the successful implementation of GDR foreign policy by increasing acceptance for it abroad and thus became another element in the broader Spannungsverh?ltnis between the expert and the ideological in East German foreign policy expertise. While in the view of the SED leadership such contacts were supposed to function exclusively as a one-way conduit of influence from East to West, the essential politicization, to which these contacts were unmistakably subjected, was ultimately incapable of producing this outcome since the very purpose of such contacts entailed learning from and about the West, where a realistic assessment of the situation clashed with a strict ideological approach. The simple act of engaging in a dialog with Western partners perforce led to a broadening of perspective that otherwise could not have taken place. As East German experts engaged in a dialog with their numerous and diverse Western partners, the bonds of the rigid, dogmatic understanding of international relations as the unfolding of the class struggle on the international stage that had been inherited from the pre-normalization era necessarily slackened as East German experts recognized that the complexities of contemporary international relations, of which they 583 were now gaining first-hand, often intimate knowledge, were a poor fit for a rigid class- based approach to foreign affairs?integration into a transnational network of foreign policy specialists facilitated a crucial ?convergence with reality? among East German experts. Concurrent with foreign policy normalization, a final push for the ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise took place and cemented subordination to the practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the leadership of the SED as the defining characteristic of East German foreign policy expertise, which would remain in place for the remainder of the GDR?s existence. Yet the successful ?systematization? of East German foreign policy expertise, similar to the process of rationalization in service of subordination before it, brought with it an even greater emphasis on professionalization and specialization. In foreign policy research and training, the focus was placed on attaining ever higher levels of skill and qualification in order to maximizing their utility for foreign policy practice and in order to keep pace with the changing international relations challenges faced by the GDR, which following foreign policy normalization became incomparably more varied and complex than those accompanying the single-minded focus on diplomatic recognition of the pre- normalization period. Marxism-Leninism lost none of its centrality as the ostensible theoretical foundation and practical template for foreign policy, yet it now was becoming the static, even stagnant, element in the equation while specialization and professionalism gained in dynamism and importance. The distance between the general Marxist-Leninist framework of foreign policy expertise and the concrete substance of specialized foreign policy analysis was growing greater and greater. And the gradual but unmistakable shift 584 of the center of gravity toward the expert element in foreign policy expertise was only reinforced by expansive international engagement as the new set of complex challenges facing the GDR demanded the skills and knowledge possessed only by foreign policy specialists. However, the international relations developments of the d?tente era, extremely favorable for both the GDR and the broader Soviet Bloc, postponed East German experts? recognition of the growing distance between the reality of the foreign relations they were charged with analyzing and the Marxist-Leninist postulates they were expected to apply. The two most important factors shaping the analytical output of experts had always been the institutional framework in which expertise was formulated and the state of the GDR?s foreign relations at any given moment in time. Up until foreign policy normalization, the internal constitution of expertise in the GDR had exercised a greater influence on expert output as the scope of GDR?s foreign relations remained highly circumscribed, which in turn restricted the potential scope of expert output?the tendency within East German expertise toward ideological dogmatism was only promoted and reinforced by diplomatic isolation. Foreign policy normalization brought about East Germany?s integration into the international order and thereby dramatically broadened the scope and depth of its foreign relations. With the institutional framework of East German foreign policy expertise essentially fixed and its key characteristics firmly in place following the final ?systematization? of expertise, all further changes within East German expertise itself would be in degree, not in kind. The GDR?s newly normalized international relations now became the more important element in the mix of factors affecting the output of East German foreign policy experts?expert output would henceforth shift in response 585 principally to the international relations developments East German experts were charged with analyzing. This is why in the 1970s, despite the GDR?s integration into the international order as a more or less ?status quo? international actor and despite the fact that the expert had already begun to overtake the ideological element within the GDR?s system of foreign policy expertise, East German experts? GDR-specific conception of international relations that fused identification of the GDR?s concrete geo-strategic interests with ideological precepts drawn from the Marxist-Leninist canon experienced the highpoint of its development. The manner in which the GDR realized its most ardently pursued foreign policy objective, where the attainment of normalization was inseparable from the d?tente-era achievements of the GDR?s superpower patron and the entire Soviet Bloc, appeared to confirm rather than challenge East German experts? ideologically inspired dichotomous understanding of international relations as defined by the Systemauseinandersetzung between socialist East and capitalist West. The achievement of foreign policy normalization as part of the broader gains made by ?international socialism? in the period perpetuated the notion that the GDR?s interests were one and the same with the cause of international socialism and reinforced experts? ideologized understanding of international relations since the entire process appeared to play out in conformity with the defining feature of that same understanding, namely, the fusion of the GDR?s realpolitical interests with the Marxist-Leninist notion of foreign policy as a form of the class struggle. Thus the perception of fundamental agreement between the GDR?s strategic interests and the foreign policy precepts of Marxism-Leninism reached its apogee among East German experts just as the strategic situation in which the no 586 longer-isolated GDR found itself began to correspond less and less to a strict black-and- white, ideological understanding of international relations and just as the expert began to outweigh the ideological element within East German foreign policy expertise. Yet with the GDR irrevocably integrated into the international order and divested, for good or ill, of its previous insularity, East German experts were compelled to analyze and illuminate the GDR?s increasingly complex foreign relations without being able to retreat to ideological dogmatism. The foreign policy fortunes of the GDR were now subject to the vacillations of international relations as never before and, just as highly favorable foreign policy developments had reinforced the prevailing conceptual paradigm among experts in the 1970s, adverse developments could and almost necessarily had to elicit critical re-consideration of that same understanding, which claimed to explain not only individual events but also international relations in their entirety. And this was exactly what occurred in the 1980s. Domestic stagnation paired with the capitalist West?s frontal challenge to the international position of the Soviet Bloc in the form of the ?second Cold War? provoked a critical re-assessment of the prevailing foreign policy paradigm among East German experts, who now became acutely aware of the growing distance between the reality of the foreign relations they were charged with analyzing and the Marxist-Leninist postulates they were expected to apply. In the first half of the 1980s, on some of the most central questions facing the GDR?the peace problematic, the strength and strategy of the capitalist West, economic development and political cohesion in the Soviet Bloc, relations with the developing world?experts often dispensed with application of ideologically derived axioms and instead adopted a pragmatic approach focused on the concrete realpolitical interests of the GDR. In the 587 context of this greater analytical refinement and differentiation, the basic Marxist- Leninist categories were maintained, but they provided above all the general framework or fa?ade, beneath the surface of which expertise became single-mindedly focused on how best to advance East German interests. As Marxism-Leninism?s value as an analytical tool appeared to decrease, the currency of the hallowed Marxist-Leninist principles of the prevailing understanding of international relations fell as well. It was conceded that perhaps not all international relations events fit into the Marxist-Leninist framework, where the ?clash of systems? between socialism and capitalism represented the defining characteristic of international relations. Issues like the preservation of peace, cooperation with non-communist states and parties, and economic development and the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the developing world, it was acknowledged, could transcend ostensible class interests and class boundaries and could correspondingly possess value in and of themselves, not only insofar as they related to and impacted the ?international constellation of forces.? Yet the process of critical re-evaluation of the conceptual foundations of East German experts? understanding of international relations proceeded piecemeal and unevenly in the first half of the 1980s?the existing paradigm was neither completely rejected nor was a comprehensive alternative to it fully enunciated. Rather, as the Marxist-Leninist fa?ade remained in place, the results of expert analysis in individual areas tacitly yet with increasing clarity pointed to a mounting discrepancy between the reality of international relations and how Marxism-Leninism claimed that reality should look. In the second half of the 1980s, the two key elements that had fostered the critical re-assessment of the first half of the decade were still in place?the preponderance of the 588 expert over the ideological within East German foreign policy expertise and the gravity of the unresolved foreign and domestic policy challenges facing the GDR and the entire Soviet Bloc?but Gorbachev?s accession to power in the Soviet Union added a new element to the mix. Although the SED leadership?s opposition to it somewhat dampened its impact in the GDR, the Gorbachev?s promulgation and adoption of the ?New Thinking? in the Soviet Union, the ?motherland of socialism? and the leader of the Eastern Bloc, nevertheless catalyzed East German experts? questioning of the Marxist- Leninist paradigm in foreign policy thought both by providing a favorable environment for its continued and intensified development and by offering an alternative conceptual model on the example of which previously disunified critical tendencies could be bound together into a cohesive whole. One this backdrop, as the results of empirical studies on individual topics repeatedly and unambiguously pointed to the incongruence of the existing interpretive framework with the existing state of international relations and the GDR?s place therein, the hallowed principles propping up the GDR-specific conception of foreign policy that fused the clearly delineated realpolitical interests of the GDR with a class-based understanding of international relations were overturned one by one. Although East German experts? critical re-evaluation of the conceptual foundations of the prevailing understanding of international relations largely lacked the comprehensive, cohesive character and the conscious rejection of inherited foreign policy postulates characteristic of Soviet New Thinking, it by and large realized its essential thrust, the rejection of ideological dogmatism in foreign policy thought in favor of prioritization of realpolitical considerations. 589 One must note, however, that the East German foreign policy experts who espoused a non-dogmatic understanding of foreign policy in the 1980s in no way rejected the GDR or socialism itself. On the contrary, they remained completely loyal to ?real- existing socialism?1 as general worldview and the GDR as state.2 They acted in full accord with the training they had received and with the imperatives of the system they inhabited?providing specialist analysis of international relations in order to advance the specific foreign policy interests of the GDR. Their break with a rigid class-based conception of international relations was the natural result of bringing their accumulated expert knowledge to bear on the adverse foreign policy developments facing the GDR and the Soviet Bloc. As Marxism-Leninism proved less and less capable of offering true insight into the problems they were responsible for analyzing, East German experts distanced themselves from its dogmatic tenets and adopted a more flexible understanding in order to fulfill their designated charge of safeguarding and advancing the interests of the GDR in an international environment that was changing dramatically. While the outlook of East German foreign policy experts remained ?ideological? in the broadest sense of the term, a rather generally defined ?socialist? GDR operating within specific constraints and possessing certain interests superseded the narrow, Marxist-Leninist, class-based conception of international relations as the orientation point for expertise. Ingrid Muth has highlighted how this development was intimately connected with both professionalization and internationalization: ?The ?party functionary on diplomatic 1 The term ?real-existing socialism? is instructive here because it highlights how the state itself and its ?real-existing? interests had supplanted adherence to Marxist-Leninist dogma as the locus of identification and orientation for East German foreign policy experts. 2 The results of a survey of former East German Au?enpolitiker after re-unification are revealing on this point as they clearly demonstrate that identification with a generally defined ?socialist? East German state and its concrete interests far outweighed identification with abstract Marxist-Leninist dogma. Raimund Kr?mer and Wolfram Wallraf, ?Diplomat oder Parteiarbeiter? Zum Selbstbild einer Funktionselite in der DDR,? Deutschland-Archiv 26 (1993): 326-334. 590 parquet,? particularly after international recognition of the GDR in the mid-1970s, increasingly became a professional diplomat who out of conviction served his state and party to the best of his abilities. Until the end of the GDR, the overwhelming majority of employees in the foreign service felt themselves to be loyal representatives of their state who held doubts about many decisions of the SED leadership and on individual manifestations of the socialist model of society, yet hardly doubted the basic notion of socialism as an alternative, just vision for the future.?3 At the same time, however, it would clearly be an overstatement to declare, as some former employees of the East German foreign policy apparatus have,4 that perestroika and glasnost? could have become known by their German names under different circumstances. Reformist currents among East German foreign policy experts never went as far (and could not got as far) as among their Soviet colleagues since both institutional and conceptual barriers existed in the GDR that limited, first, the crystallization of a full-fledged ?East German New Thinking? that matched the comprehensiveness and thoroughgoingness of the Soviet original and, second, the adoption and implementation of a re-conceptualized foreign policy paradigm in practice. And just like East German experts? break with a strict class-based approach to international relations itself, the existing institutional and conceptual barriers were connected above all with specific East German conditions and concerns. In terms of conceptual barriers, the basic geo-strategic situation faced by the GDR served as a key brake on the formulation of an ?East German New Thinking.? No matter 3 Ingrid Muth, Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001), 194. 4 Manfred Uschner, for instance, argues that this could have been the case had individuals like Werner Lamberz and Paul Markowski taken the reins of power in the GDR. Manfred Uschner, Die zweite Etage. Funktionsweise eines Machtapparates (Berlin: Dietz, 1993), 35. 591 how much latitude the GDR could obtain in the formulation of its foreign policy and no matter how much the characteristic Cold War feature of persistent, systemic antagonism might abate, East Germany was at no time fully free of its dependency on the bloc leader, the Soviet Union, and close cooperation with other Soviet Bloc states. These elements after all comprised the existential foundations of the GDR that in turn provided the basic orientation for East Germany?s foreign relations, which stood at the center of East German experts? analysis. The fact that the GDR comprised one half of the divided German nation and was located at the very forefront of the clash between socialist East and capitalist West only lent the situation additional volatility and created a tendency to resort to simplified ideological positions that simply did not exist to the same extent in other Soviet Bloc states, which were free of the problem of national division. Furthermore, in contrast to the Soviet Union, which as bloc leader was confronted with a hugely diverse set of foreign policy challenges and upon which the onus of finding innovate solutions lay, the GDR was a subordinate bloc member and the range of its foreign policy concerns was correspondingly much narrower. The formulation of bold new approaches to bloc-wide or cross-system problems was therefore much likelier to come from the superpower Soviet Union than the restricted GDR, which was in fact exactly what occurred in the 1980s. As significant as these factors were, the single most important barrier to the development of a full-fledged East German New Thinking was the internal constitution of East German foreign policy expertise itself. While the dual mission of maintaining a ?firm Marxist-Leninist perspective? and producing sound, specialist analysis of international relations?itself the result of the complete subordination of expertise to the 592 practical needs and political-ideological requirements of the SED leadership?led to the eventual preponderance of the expert over the ideological element in East German foreign policy expertise (which in turn propelled experts? rejection of a strict class-based approach to international relations in the 1980s), the basic fact of subordination ultimately proved decisive in keeping this critical tendency within bounds. In the East German dictatorship, the sine qua non of employment in the East German foreign policy apparatus, irrespective of whether in a more operative- or research-oriented position, was adherence to the given party line and submission to its will in practice. This led the GDR?s foreign policy experts to exercise a form of self-censorship of their actions and views so as not come into conflict with the prevailing position of the party leadership or to challenge its authority (a classic case of ?Schere im Kopf?).5 In contrast to the situation in the Soviet Union, where Gorbachev enthusiastically tapped the critical potential accumulated within the Soviet system of foreign policy expertise and actively promoted its implementation in foreign policy practice, an East German version of Gorbachev was sorely lacking?the ?dynamic, innovative leadership? indispensable for the actualization of the New Thinking in the USSR was absent in the GDR.6 Erich Honecker and the top leadership of the SED viewed maintenance of the ideologically inspired fundamental antagonism between East and West as imperative and resolutely opposed dilution of the strict Abgrenzung (demarcation) separating the two blocs from one another and East 5 Numerous former East German Au?enpolitiker have personally attested to this. Joachim Kr?ger, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 23 April 2008; Erhard Crome, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 14 May 2008; Jochen Franzke, interview by author, Potsdam, Germany, 16 July 2008; Hans-Georg Schleicher, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 16 December 2009; Siegfried Bock, interview by author, Berlin, Germany, 21 July 2009. 6 Robert English has highlighted how ?crisis? in the 1980s created an opportunity for reform in the USSR but was not sufficient in and of itself to guarantee reform?for that, a willing leadership was required. Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 3. 593 Germany from West Germany. It thus should not have come as a surprise, when they placed themselves in strict opposition to the New Thinking and Gorbachev?s other reformist initiatives shortly after they were announced. The catalyzing effect Gorbachev?s promulgation of the New Thinking had on the critical tendency within East German foreign policy expertise was thereby partially counterbalanced as explicit support for the application of New Thinking principles to East German foreign policy then came to entail opposition to the party line. The story of East German foreign policy expertise thus also tallies with Catherine Epstein?s explication of East German history through a biographical approach to the SED leadership. The GDR, she describes, was decisively shaped by the Stalinist old guard which held power for the duration of the state?s existence and which, on the basis of their particular life experiences, could only view the world in the Marxist-Leninist categories of class struggle.7 This generation?s monopoly on power in the GDR stunted the development of an ?East German New Thinking? among reform-oriented foreign policy experts, who had internalized the image of the ?status quo? GDR and who in their vast majority (though not exclusively) belonged to the younger generation, and effectively precluded its translation into policy. As Max Schmidt, director of the Institute for International Politics and Economics (IPW) 1973-1990, put it before the Bundestag?s Enquete-Kommission: ?By all means, there was an alternative thinking (alternatives Denken) [in our work]?. What was ultimately missing was implementation.?8 7 Catherine Epstein, The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and their Century (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 8 ?Zeitzeugen: ?Strategie und Taktik der SED in den innerdeutschen Beziehungen,?? in Materialien der Enquete-Kommission ?Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland? vol. 5: Deutschlandpolitik (Baden Baden: Nomos, 1995), pt. 1, p. 897. 594 In light of the significant conceptual and institutions barriers to the development of a full-fledged ?East Germany New Thinking? that existed, it was that much more remarkable that East German foreign policy experts in the 1980s enunciated in the place of the Marxist-Leninist class-based approach a body of non-dogmatic foreign policy thought that displayed key parallels to the Soviet New Thinking. With that said, the story of East German foreign policy experts is not without its share of irony as those experts who broke with the Marxist-Leninist paradigm were not cognizant of the fact that thoroughgoing implementation of such principles in practice would likely lead to the end of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe9 and, in light of flagging domestic support, would result in the incorporation of the GDR into the FRG? the exact fate East German leaders had unswervingly struggled to prevent for the previous four decades. The experts in this respect essentially moved beyond the Cold War in their thinking, failing to realize that, despite its domestic and international achievements, the GDR remained a creation of the Cold War: the rump of the artificially divided German nation that was existentially dependent on the support of the Soviet Union and reliant on the Soviet Bloc?s unity of action. And it was only in such conditions that the GDR could survive. As a ?normal? foreign policy actor, East Germany was not a viable state?as soon as the Cold War ended, so too did the existence of the GDR. 9 Brown?s account of the Soviet New Thinking reveals a parallel situation when he attributes to Gorbachev a ?misplaced confidence in the reformability of the Soviet system which enabled him to embrace new ideas far more boldly than any previous general secretary.? Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 96. 595 Sources and Bibliography Archival Sources Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde Abteilung Deutsche Demokratische Republik DC 15 Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission DC 20/I/3 Ministerrat der DDR ? Sitzungen des Plenums DC 20/I/4 Ministerrat der DDR ? Sitzungen des Pr?sidiums DC 201 Deutsches Institut f?r Zeitgeschichte DC 202 Deutsches Wirtschaftsinstitut DC 204 Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv DY 30/IV 1 Parteitage und Parteikonferenzen DY 30/IV 2/2 Politb?ro, 1949-1952 DY 30/IV A 2/2.024 B?ro Hager, 1963-1971 DY 30/IV 2/2.035 B?ro Axen DY 30/IV 2/2.1 Zentralsekretariat, 1946-1949 DY 30/IV 2/2.110 Kommission f?r Staats- und Rechtsfragen DY 30/IV 2/2.115 Au?enpolitische Kommission DY 30/IV 2/4 Zentrale Parteikontrollkommission DY 30/IV A 2/9.01 Ideologische Kommission DY 30/IV 2/9.04 Abteilung Wissenschaften, 1945-1962 DY 30/IV A 2/9.04 Abteilung Wissenschaften, 1963-1972 DY 30/IV B 2/9.04 Abteilung Wissenschaften, 1972-1980 DY 30/vorl. SED Abteilung Wissenschaften, 1981-1989 DY 30/IV 2/13 Abteilung Staats- und Rechtsfragen, 1945-1962 DY 30/IV A 2/13 Abteilung Staats- und Rechtsfragen, 1963-1971 DY 30/IV 2/20 Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen, 1946-1962 DY 30/IV A 2/20 Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen, 1963-1971 DY 30/IV B 2/20 Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen, 1972-1980 DY 30/vorl. SED Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen, 1946-1990 DY 30/J IV 2/2 Politb?ro, 1953-1989 DY 30/J IV 2/2A Politb?ro Arbeitsprotokolle, 1953-1989 DY 30/J IV 2/2J Politb?ro Informationen DY 30/J IV 2/3 Sekretariat DY 30/J IV 2/3A Sekretariat Arbeitsprotokolle DY 30/J IV 2/3J Sekretariat Informationen NY 4182 Nachlass Walter Ulbricht NY 4304 Nachlass Hermann Axen Bundesbeauftragte f?r die Unterlagen des Staatsicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit 596 BVfS Potsdam Stellv. Operativ 3 Hauptabteilung IX Hauptabteilung XX Politisches Archiv des Ausw?rtigen Amts Bestand Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten der DDR Universit?tsarchiv der Universit?t Potsdam Bestand Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft der DDR Interviews Joachim Kr?ger, Berlin, Germany, 23 April 2008 Klaus Bollinger, Potsdam, Germany, 28 April 2008 Helmut Matthes, Potsdam, Germany, 29 April 2008 Claus Montag, Potsdam, Germany, 7 May 08 Erhard Crome, Berlin, Germany, 14 May 08 Siegfried Schwarz, Berlin, Germany, 9 June 2008 Jochen Franzke, Potsdam, Germany, 16 July 2008 Detlef Nakath, Potsdam, Germany, 3 November 2008 Hans-Georg Schleicher, Berlin, Germany, 16 December 2008 Siegfried Bock, Berlin, Germany, 21 July 2009 Published Primary Sources Periodicals Deutsche Au?enpolitik Dokumentation der Zeit DWI-Berichte Horizont IPW-Berichte IPW-Hefte Neues Deutschland Unsere Zeit Books Adolphi, Wolfram. ?F?nf-Jahres-Studium Au?enpolitik.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 81-88. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Assmann, Walter and Ulrich D?hn. Die Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft der DDR, 1948-1987. Abri?. Potsdam: Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft der DDR, 1988. 597 Axen, Hermann. Ich war ein Diener der Partei. Autobiographische Gepsr?che mit Harald Neubert. Berlin: Edition Ost, 1996. Bock, Siegfried, Ingrid Muth, and Hermann Schwiesau, eds. Die DDR-Au?enpolitik im R?ckspiegel. Diplomaten im Gespr?ch. M?nster: Lit, 2004. ___________, eds. Alternative deutsche Au?enpolitik? DDR-Au?enpolitik im R?ckspiegel (II). M?nster: Lit, 2006. Brie, Andr? and Manfred M?ller. Europa: Wieviel Waffen reichen aus? Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1988. Brie, Andr? et al. Sozialismus am Scheideweg. Fragen an eine neue Konzeption. Berlin: Neues Leben, 1990 Busch, Helmuth. ?Ausl?nderstudium.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 97- 103. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Crome, Erhard et al. ?Zum neunmonatigen Versuch eines Aufbaus der Politikwissenschaft in Potsdam im Jahre 1990.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 205-216. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Czenkusch, Harald. ?Fremdsprachenausbildung.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 105-111. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Dengler, Gerhard. ?Die Abteilung Auslandsinformation.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 177-180. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Dobrynin, Anatolii. ?Za bez??iadernyi mir, navstrechu XXI veku.? Kommunist 9 (June 1986): 18-31. Doernberg, Stefan. Au?enpolitik der DDR. Drei Jahrzehnte sozialistische deutsche Friedenspolitik. Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1979. ___________. Fronteinsatz: Erinnerungen eines Rotarmisten, Historikers und Botschafters. Berlin: Edition Ost, 2004. Dokumente zur Au?enpolitik der Regierung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Multiple vols. Berlin: R?tten & Loening, 1954-1989. Ersil, Wilhelm. ?Forschungen zur westeurop?ischen Integration.? In Die Babelsberger 598 Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 135-142. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009 Ettinger, Helmut. ?Der letzte Zweijahreslehrgang.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 65-69. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009 Florin, Peter. Zur Au?enpolitik der souver?nen sozialistischen DDR. Berlin: Dietz, 1967. Franzke, Jochen and Lutz Kleinw?chter. ?Das f?nfj?hrige Au?enpolitikstudium.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 71-79. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Grunert, Horst. F?r Honecker auf glattem Parket. Erinnerungen eines DDR-Diplomaten. Berlin: Edition Ost, 1995. Hahn, Gerhard. Au?enpolitik der DDR ? f?r Sozialismus und Frieden. Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1974. ___________. Die Au?enpolitik der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik in der Welt von Heute. Two vols. Potsdam-Babelsberg: Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft der DDR, 1989. H?nisch, Werner. Geschichte der Au?enpolitik der DDR. Abri?. Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1985. ___________. ?Wurde die Au?enpolitik der DDR wissenschaftlich begr?ndet?? In ?abgegrenzte Weltoffenheit? Zur Au?en- und Deutschlandpolitik der DDR, edited by Daniel K?chenmeister, Detlef Nakath, and Gerd- R?diger Stephan, 57-67. Schkeuditz: GNN, 1999. Herder, Gerhard. ?Honecker mu? weg.? In Der Letzte macht das Licht aus. Wie DDR- Diplomaten das Jahr 1990 im Ausland erlebten, edited by Birgit Malchow, 265- 289. Berlin: Edition Ost, 1999. Kapr, Klaus. ?Exkurs: Studium der internationalen Beziehungen in Moskau (1973- 1978).? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 89-95. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Kegel, Gerhard. In den St?rmen unseres Jahrhunderts. Ein deutscher Kommunist ?ber sein ungew?hnliches Leben. Berlin: Dietz, 1983. Kohrt, G?nter. Auf stabilem Kurs. Stationen der Au?enpolitik der DDR. Berlin: Dietz, 1980. 599 Kr?mer, Raimund. ?Von Aufl?sung, kreativer Anarchie und nicht aufh?rendem Optimismus.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 187-194. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Kr?ger, Joachim. ?Die ersten Jahre der Lehrt?tigkeit.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 45-56. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. ___________. ?Sozialismusforschung.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 127-134. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Leonhard, Wolfgang. Die Revolution entl??t ihre Kinder. Leipzig: Reclam, 1990. Malchow, Birgit, ed. Der Letzte macht das Licht aus: Wie DDR-Diplomaten das Jahr 1990 im Ausland erlebten. Berlin: Edition Ost, 1999. Maretzki, Hans. ?Das Lehrgebiet ?Diplomatische Praxis.?? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 113-119. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Markov, Walter M. and Peter Florin. Probleme des Neokolonialismus und die Politik der beiden deutschen Staaten gegen?ber dem nationalen Befreiungskampf der V?lker. Berlin. Dietz, 1961. Matthes, Helmut. ?Forschungen zur Weltwirtschaft und den internationalen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 161-167. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Mitdank, Joachim. Berlin zwischen Ost und West. Erinnerungen eines Diplomaten Berlin: Kai Homilius, 2004. Mittag, G?nter. Fragen der Parteiarbeit nach dem Produktionsprinzip in Industrie und Bauwesen. Berlin: Dietz, 1963. Montag, Claus. ?Forschungen zur USA-Au?enpolitik.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 143-152. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. M?ller, Manfred. ?Die Abteilung Grundfragen.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 121-125. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Nitsche, Rudolf. Diplomat im besonderen Einsatz. Eine DDR-Biographie. Schkeuditz: 600 GNN, 1994. Pfeiffer, Otto. ?Erfahrungen im 1. Vierjahreslehrgang.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 57-63. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Schalck-Golodkowski, Alexander. Deutsch-deutsche Erinnerungen. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2000. Schulz, Joachim. ?Zur V?lkerrechtswissenschaft.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 166-175. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Seidel, Karl. Berlin-Bonner Balance. 20 Jahre deutsch-deutsche Beziehungen: Erinnerungen und Erkenntnisse eines Beteiligten. Berlin: Edition Ost, 2002. Ulbricht, Walter. Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 8 vols. Berlin: Dietz, 1966. Uschner, Manfred. Die zweite Etage. Funktionsweise eines Machtapparates. Berlin: Dietz, 1993. Winkelmann, Egon. Moskau, das war?s. Erinnerungen des DDR-Botschafters in der Sowjetunion, 1981 bis 1987. Berlin: Edition Ost, 1997. W?nsche, Renate. ?Das IIB und der ZENTRAAL.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 181-185. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. ___________. ?Die Abteilung ?Entwicklungsl?nder Asiens, Afrikas und Lateinamerikas.?? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 153-160. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. ?Zeittafel IIB.? In Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR, edited by Erhard Crome, 218-231. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. 601 Secondary Literature Alisch, Steffen. Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft. ?Imperialismusforschung? und SED-Westpolitik. Berlin: Arbeitspapiere des Forschungsverbunds SED-Staat, 1996. Amos, Heike. Die Westpolitik der SED 1948/49-1961. ?Arbeit nach Westdeutschland? durch die Nationale Front, das Ministerium f?r Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten und das Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit. Berlin: Akademie, 1999. ___________. Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale 1949-1963. Struktur und Arbeitsweise von Politb?ro, Sekretariat und ZK-Apparat. M?nster; Lit, 2003. Aran, Oded. The Mezhdunarodniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in Soviet Foreign Policy. Tel Aviv: Turtledove Publishing, 1979. Augustine, Dolores L. Red Prometheus: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1945-1990. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. Balbier, Uta. Kalter Krieg auf der Aschenbahn. Deutsch-deutscher Sport 1950-72, eine politische Geschichte. Paderborn: Sch?ningh, 2007. Bange, Olaf and Gottfried Niedhart, eds. Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008. Barkleit, Gerhard. Mikroelektronik in der DDR. Dresden: Hannah-Arendt-Institut f?r Totalitarismusforschung, 2000. Becker, Dorothea. Zwischen Ideologie und Autonomie. Der DDR-Blick auf die deutsche Filmgeschichte. M?nster: Lit, 1999. Behrends, Jan C., Thomas Lindenberger, and Patrice G. Poutrus, eds. Fremde und Fremd-Sein in der DDR. Zu historischen Ursachen der Fremdenfeindlichkeit in Ostdeutschland. Berlin: Metropol, 2003. Bernhardt, Ulrich. Die Deutsche Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? 1948-1971. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1997. Bj?rnstad, Stein. ?Soviet German Policy and the Stalin Note of 10 March 1952.? Diss. phil., University of Oslo, 1996. Blacker, Coit D. Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Security Policy, 1985- 1991. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993. Blum, Douglas. ?The Soviet Foreign Policy Belief System: Beliefs, Politics, and Foreign Policy Outcomes.? International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (December 1993): 602 373-394. Bress, Ludwig. ?Die Berichte des Instituts f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft 1973 bis 1977. Das theoretische Fenster zur Bundesrepublik und zur westlichen Welt.? In Systemwettstreit als Signatur des Zeitalters. Festschrift f?r Hans Lades, edited by Clemens Burrichter and Hans Lades, 59-82. Erlangen: Institut f?r Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft an der Universit?t Erlangen-N?rnberg, 1978. Brown, Archie. ?Introduction.? In The Demise of Marxism-Leninism in Russia, edited by Archie Brown, 1-11. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. ___________. Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. ___________. The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. vom Bruch, R?diger. ?A Slow Farewell to Humboldt? Stages in the History of German Universities, 1810-1945.? In German Universities Past and Future: Crisis or Renewal?, edited by Mitchell G. Ash, 3-27. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1997. Bruns, Wilhelm. Die Au?enpolitik der DDR. Berlin: Colloquium, 1985. ___________. ?Gibt es in der DDR eine neue Theorie der internationalen Beziehungen?? DDR-Report 3 (1988): 129-132. Checkel, Jeffrey T. Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Childs, David and Richard Popplewell. The Stasi: The East German Intelligence and Security Service. New York: New York University Press, 1995. Clavin, Patricia. ?Defining Transnationalism.? Contemporary European History 14, no. 4 (2005): 421-439. Connelly, John. Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945-1956. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Conze, Eckart. ?Abschied von Staat und Politik? ?berlegungen zur Geschichte der internationalen Politik.? In Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen. Erneuerung und Erweiterung einer historischen Disziplin, edited by Eckart Conze Ulrich Lappenk?per, and Guido M?ller, 15-44. Cologne: B?hlau, 2004. Conze, Eckart, Ulrich Lappenk?per, and Guido M?ller. ?Einf?hrung.? In Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen. Erneuerung und Erweiterung einer historischen 603 Disziplin, edited by Eckart Conze Ulrich Lappenk?per, and Guido M?ller, 1-14. Cologne: B?hlau, 2004. Crome, Erhard, ed. Die Babelsberger Diplomatenschule. Das Institut f?r Internationale Beziehungen der DDR. Potsdam: WeltTrends, 2009. Crome, Erhard, Jochen Franzke, and Raimund Kr?mer, eds. Die verschwundene Diplomatie. Beitr?ge zur Au?enpolitik der DDR. Festschrift f?r Claus Montag. Berlin: Berliner Debatte, 2003. David-Fox, Michael. ?On the Primacy of Ideology: Soviet Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers (In Response to Martin Malia).? Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 5, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 81-105. ___________. Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. David-Fox, Michael and Gy?rgy P?teri, eds. Academia in Upheaval: Origins, Transfers, and Transformations of the Communist Academic Regime in Russia and East Central Europe. Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 2000. Duda, Gerhard. Jen? Varga und die Geschichte des Instituts f?r Weltwirtschaft und Weltpolitik in Moskau, 1921-1970. Zu den M?glichkeiten und Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Auslandsanalyse in der Sowjetunion. Berlin: Akademie, 1994. Ebenfeld, Stefan. Geschichte nach Plan? Die Instrumentalisierung der Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR am Beispiel des Museums f?r Deutsche Gescichte in Berlin (1950-1955). Marburg: Tectum, 2001. Eichengreen, Barry. The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Engel, Ulf and Hans-Georg Schleicher. Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika: Zwischen Konkurrenz und Koexistenz 1949-1990. Hamburg: Institut f?r Afrikakunde, 1998. English, Robert D. Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. ___________. ?The Sociology of New Thinking: Elites, Identity Change, and the End of the Cold War.? Journal of Cold War Studies 7, no. 2 (2005): 43-80. Enzyklop?die der DDR. CD-ROM. Berlin: Directmedia, 2004. Eppelmann, Rainer, Bernd Faulenbach, and Ulrich M?hlert, eds. Bilanz und Perspektiven der DDR-Forschung. Paderborn: Ferdinand Sch?nigh, 2003. 604 Epstein, Catherine. The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and their Century. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Ernst, Anna-Sabine.?Die beste Prophylaxe ist der Sozialismus?: ?rzte und medizinische Hochschullehrer in der SBZ/DDR 1945-1961. M?nster: Waxmann, 1997. Evangelista, Matthew. Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. Evans, Alfred B., Jr. Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideology. Westport: Praeger, 1993. Fink, Carole and Bernd Schaefer, eds. Ostpolitik, 1969-1974: European and Global Responses. Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2009. Fricke, Karl Wilhelm. ?Der diplomatische Dienst der DDR.? Deutschland-Archiv 4 (1971): 35-42. Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Geiger, Hansj?rg. ?Das Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit und der Leistungssport.? In K?rper, Kultur und Ideologie. Sport und Zeitgeist im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, edited by Irene Diekmann and Hans Joachim Teichler, 217-247. Bodenheim: Philo, 1997. Gerhardt, Volker and Hans Christoph Rau, eds. Anf?nge der DDR-Philosophie. Anspr?che, Ohnmacht, Scheitern. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001. Gerovitch, Slava. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. Gieseke, Jens. Mielke-Konzern. Die Geschichte der Stasi 1945-1990. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001. Gr?fe, Sylvia. Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen im ZK der SED, DY 30, 1946- 1990. Berlin: Stiftung der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv, 2008 Graham, Loren R. The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. ___________. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ___________. What Have We Learned About Science and Technology from the 605 Russian Experience? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. Gro?e, J?rgen. Amerikapolitik und Amerikabild der DDR, 1974-1989. Bonn: Bouvier, 1999. Haas, Peter M. ?Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination.? In Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination, edited by Peter M. Haas, 1-35. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. Harrison, Hope. Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953- 1961. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. Hein-Weingarten, Katharina. Das Institut f?r Kosmosforschung der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Ein Beitrag zur Erfassung der Wissenschaftspolitik der DDR am Beispiel der Weltraumforschung von 1957 bis 1991. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2000. Herf, Jeffrey. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. ___________. ?East German Communists and the Jewish Question: The Case of Paul Merker.? Journal of Contemporary History 29, no. 4 (October 1994): 627-661. ___________. The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. ___________. War by Other Means: Soviet Power, West German Resistance, and the Battle of the Euromissiles. New York: Free Press, 1991. Herzberg, Guntolf. Aufbruch und Abwicklung. Neue Studien zur Philosophie in der DDR. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000. Hodos, Georg Hermann. Schauprozesse. Stalinistische S?uberungen in Osteuropa 1948- 1954. Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 1988. Hoffmann, Alfred. ?Mit Gott einfach fertig.? Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Praxis des Atheismus im Marxismus-Leninismus der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Leipzig: Benno, 2000. Holloway, David. Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939- 1956. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Holzwei?ig, Gunter. Die sch?rfste Waffe der Partei. Eine Mediegeschichte der DDR. Cologne: B?hlau, 2002. 606 Holzwei?ig, Gunter. Klassenfeinde und ?Entspannungsfeinde.? West-Medien im Fadenkreuz von SED und MfS. Berlin, 1995, Schriftenreihe des Berliner Landesbeauftragten f?r die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR. Ihme-Tuchel, Beate. Das ?n?rdliche Dreieck.? Die Beziehungen zwischen der DDR, der Tschechoslowakei und Polen in den Jahren 1954 bis 1962. Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1994. Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf. Drei Jahrzehnte Au?enpolitik der DDR. Bestimmungsfaktoren, Instrumente, Aktionsfelder. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1980. Jacobsen, Sven Olaf. Von der Deutschen Akademie f?r Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft ?Walter Ulbricht? zur Juristischen Fakult?t der Universit?t Potsdam. Zur Wissensgeschichte der Wendezeit. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2006. Jarausch, Konrad H., ed. Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR. New York: Berghahn Books, 1999. Jessen, Ralph. Akademische Elite und kommunistische Diktatur. Die ostdeutsche Hochschullehrerschaft in der Ulbricht-?ra. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999. John, Bernd. Ideologie und P?dagogik. Zur Geschichte der Vergleichenden P?dagogik in der DDR. Cologne: B?hlau, 1998. Jones, Anthony, ed. Professions and the State: Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Josephson, Paul. Red Atom: Russia?s Nuclear Program from Stalin to Today. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2000. Keiderling, Gerhard, ed. ?Gruppe Ulbricht? in Berlin April bis Juni 1945. Von den Vorbereitungen im Sommer 1944 bis zur Wiedergr?ndung der KPD im Juni 1945. Eine Dokumentation. Berlin: A. Spitz, 1993. Keohane Robert O. and Joseph S. Nye, eds. Transnational Relations and World Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Klein, Michael B. Das Institut f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft der DDR in seiner Gr?ndungsphase 1971 bis 1974. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999. Kilian, Werner. Die Hallstein-Doktrin. Der diplomatische Krieg zwischen der BRD und der DDR 1955-1973. Aus den Akten der beiden deutschen Aussenministerien. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001. 607 Kittel, Manfred. ?1983. Strau?? Milliardenkredit f?r die DDR. Leistung und Gegenleistung in den innerdeutschen Beziehungen.? In Das doppelte Deutschland. 40 Jahre Systemkonkurrenz, edited by Udo Wengst und Hermman Wentker, 333-356. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2008. Kl?tzer, Sylvia. ?Zeitungsausschitte als historische Quelle: Das Presseausschnittarchiv des Instituts f?r Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft der DDR (1971-1990).? In Vom Instrument der Partei zur ?Vierten Gewalt.? Die ostmitteleurop?ische Presse als zeithistorische Quelle, edited by Eduard M?hle, 279-284. Marburg: Herder-Institut, 1997. Kojevnikov, Alexei. Stalin?s Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists. London: Imperial College Press, 2004. Kotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Kowalczuk, Ilko-Sascha. Legitimation eines neuen Staates. Parteiarbeiter an der historischen Front. Geschichtswissenschaft in der SBZ/DDR 1945 bis 1961. Berlin: Ch. Links, 1997. Kr?mer, Raimund and Wolfram Wallraf. ?Diplomat oder Parteiarbeiter? Zum Selbstbild einer Funktionselite in der DDR.? Deutschland-Archiv 26 (1993): 326-334. K?chenmeister, Daniel, Detlef Nakath, and Gerd-R?diger Stephan, eds. ?abgegrenzte Weltoffenheit?Zur Au?en- und Deutschlandpolitik der DDR. Schkeuditz: GNN, 1999. Kull, Stephen. Burying Lenin: The Revolution in Soviet Ideology and Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview, 1992. Leffler, Melvyn P. ?The Cold War: What Do ?We Now Know??? American Historical Review 104, no. 2 (April 1999): 501-524. Leinauer, Irma. Das Au?enministerium der DDR. Geschichte eines politischen Bauwerkes. Berlin: Institut f?r Stadt- und Regionalplanung, Technische Universit?t Berlin, 1996. Lemke, Michael. Die Berlinkrise 1958 bis 1963. Interessen und Handlungsspielr?ume der SED im Ost-West-Konflikt. Berlin: Akademie, 1995. ___________. Einheit oder Sozialismus? Die Deutschlandpolitik der SED 1949-1961. Cologne: B?hlau, 2001. ___________. ?Prinzipien und Grundlagen der Au?enbeziehungen der DDR in der Konstituierungsphase des DDR-Au?enministeriums 1949-1951.? In 608 Sowjetisierung und Eigenst?ndigkeit in der SBZ/DDR (1945-1953), edited by Michael Lemke, 233-274. Cologne: B?hlau, 1999. Loth, Wilfried. ?Die Entstehung der Stalin-Note.? In Die Stalin-Note vom 10. M?rz 1952. Neue Quellen und Analysen, edited by J?rgen Zarusky, 19-115. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002. L?thi, Lorenz M. The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Macrakis, Kristie and Dieter Hoffmann, eds. Science under Socialism: East Germany in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. M?hlert, Ulrich. Vademekum DDR-Forschung. Ein Leitfaden zu Archiven, Forschungseinrichtungen, Bibliotheken, Einrichtungen der politischen Bildung, Vereinen, Museen und Gedenkst?tten. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2002. Maier, Charles. Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Malycha, Andreas. Die SED. Geschichte ihrer Stalinisierung 1946-1953. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 2000. Materialien der Enquete-Kommission ?Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland.? Nine vols. Baden Baden: Nomos, 1995. McLellan, Josie. Antifascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the International Brigades, 1945-1989. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Mende, Hans-J?rgen and Reinhard Mocek, eds. Gest?rte Vernunft? Gedanken zu einer Standortbestimmung der DDR-Philosophie. Berlin: Luisenstadt, 1996. Mendelson, Sarah. Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. Meuschel, Sigrid. Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft in der DDR. Zum Paradox von Stabilit?t und Revolution in der DDR 1945-1989. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992. M?ller, Horst. ?1949. Zwei deutsche Staaten, eine Nation? Zum nationalen Selbstverst?ndnis in den Verfassungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR.? In Das doppelte Deutschland. 40 Jahre Systemkonkurrenz, edited by Udo Wengst and Hermman Wentker, 15-34. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2008. Morina, Christina. ?Legacies of Stalingrad: The Eastern Front War and the Politics of Memory in Divided Germany, 1943-1989.? PhD diss., University of Maryland, 609 College Park, 2007. ___________. ?Vernichtungskrieg, Kalter Krieg und politisches Ged?chtnis: Zum Umgang mit dem Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion im geteilten Deutschland.? Geschichte und Gesellschaft 34 (2008): 252-291. Muth, Ingrid. Die DDR-Au?enpolitik 1949-1972. Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000. Nakath, Detlef. Deutsch-deutsche Grundlagen. Zur Geschichte der politischen und wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und der Bundesrepublik in den Jahren 1969 bis 1982. Schkeuditz: Schkeuditzer Buchverlag, 2002. Nakath, Detlef and Gerd-R?diger Stephan, eds. Die H?ber-Protokolle: Schlaglichter der SED-Westpolitik 1973-1985. Berlin: Dietz, 1999. Nakath, Monika. SED und Perestroika. Reflexion osteurop?ischer Reformversuche in den achtziger Jahren. Berlin: Gesellschaftswissenschaftliches Forum, 1993. Naimark, Norman. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995. Ostermann, Christian M. ?Die USA und die DDR (1949-1989).? In Die DDR und der Westen, Transnationale Beziehungen 1949-1989, edited by Ulrich Pfeil, 165-184. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001. Patel, Kiran-Klaus. ??berlegungen zu einer transnationalen Geschichte.? Zeitschrift f?r Geschichtswissenschaft 52, no. 7 (2004): 626-645. Pfeil, Ulrich. Die ?anderen? deutsch-franz?sischen Beziehungen. Die DDR und Frankreich 1949-1990. Cologne: B?hlau, 2004. ___________. ?Die DDR und der Westen 1949-1989. Eine Einf?hrung.? In Die DDR und der Westen, Transnationale Beziehungen 1949-1989, edited by Ulrich Pfeil, 7-20. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001. ___________, ed. Die DDR und der Westen, Transnationale Beziehungen 1949-1989. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001. Ploetz, Michael and Hans-Peter M?ller. Ferngelenkte Friedensbewegung? DDR und UdSSR im Kampf gegen den NATO-Doppelbeschluss. M?nster: Lit, 2004. Praxenthaler, Martin. Die Sprachverbreitungspolitik der DDR. Die deutsche Sprache als Mittel sozialistischer ausw?rtiger Kulturpolitik. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2002 610 Radde, J?rgen. Der diplomatische Dienst der DDR. Namen und Daten. Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1977. ___________. Die au?enpolitische F?hrungselite der DDR. Ver?nderungen der sozialen Struktur au?enpolitischer F?hrungsgruppen. Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1976. Renouvin, Pierre and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Introduction ? l?histoire des relations internationals. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1964. Rodden, John. Textbook Reds: Schoolbooks, Ideology, and Eastern German Identity. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Rosenfeld, G?nter. ?Zum Geleit. Die Problematik der sowjetischen Au?enpolitik zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen.? In Zwischen Tradition und Revolution. Determinanten und Strukturen sowjetischer Au?enpolitik 1917-1941, edited by Ludmila Thomas and Viktor Knoll, 9-30. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000. Ross, Corey. The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR. London: Arnold, 2002. Rothschild, Joseph and Nancy M. Wingfield. Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe since World War II. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Rubin, Eli. Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Rueckert, George L. Global Double Zero: The INF Treaty from its Origins to Implementation. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993. Ruggenthaler, Peter. Stalins gro?er Bluff: die Geschichte der Stalin-Note in Dokumenten der sowjetischen F?hrung. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007. Rummler, Gerold. ?Der au?enpolitische Apparat der Sowjetzone.? SBZ-Archiv 3 (1952): 183-184. Sabrow, Martin. Das Diktat des Konsenses. Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR 1949- 1969. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001. Schaefer, Bernd. Staat und Katholische Kirche in der DDR. Cologne: B?hlau, 1998. Sch?fers, Bernhard, ed. Soziologie in Deutschland. Entwicklung, Institutionalisierung und Berufsfelder, Theoretische Kontroversen. Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1995. Schleicher, Hans-Georg and Ilona Schleicher. Special Flights: The GDR and Liberation 611 Movements in Southern Africa. Harare: SAPES Books, 1998. Schmid, Josef. Kirchen, Staat und Politik in Dresden zwischen 1975 und 1989. Cologne: B?hlau, 1998. Seliktar, Ofira. Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures: Why So Few Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. Siddiqi, Asif. Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2000. Siebs, Benno-Eide. Die Au?enpolitik der DDR 1976-1989. Strategien und Grenzen Paderborn: Sch?nigh, 1999. Staadt, Jochen. Die geheime Westpolitik der SED 1960-1970. Von der gesamtdeutschen Orientierung zur sozialistischen Nation. Berlin: Akademie, 1993. Stange, Thomas. Institut X. Die Anf?nge der Kern- und Hochenergiephysik in der DDR. Stuttgart: Teubner, 2001. Steiner, Andr?. Die DDR-Wirtschaftsreform der sechziger Jahre. Konflikt zwischen Effizienz und Machtkalk?l. Berlin: Akademie, 1999. Stolberg, Eva-Maria. ?People?s Warfare Versus Peaceful Coexistence: Vietnam and the Sino-Soviet Struggle for Ideological Supremacy.? In America, Vietnam, and the World: Comparative and International Perspectives, edited by Andreas W. Daum, Lloyd C. Gardner, and Wilfried Mausbach, 237-258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Teichler, Hans-Joachim. ?Herrschaft und Eigensinn im DDR-Sport.? In Transformationen des deutschen Sports seit 1939, edited by Michael Kr?ger, 233- 249. Hamburg: Czwalina, 2001. Timm, Angelika. Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern. Das gest?rte Verh?ltnis der DDR zu Zionismus und Staat Israel. Bonn: Bouvier, 1997. Timmermann, Heiner, ed. 1961 ? Mauerbau und Au?enpolitik. M?nster: Lit, 2002. Ulam, Adam. Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1973. 2nd ed. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974. Umbach, Frank. Das rote B?ndnis. Entwicklung und Zerfall des Warschauer Paktes 1955-1991. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2005. Vollnhals, Clemens. Der Fall Havemann. Ein Lehrst?ck politischer Justiz. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2000. 612 Walker, Mark, ed. Science and Ideology: A Comparative History. New York: Routledge, 2003. Weber, Hermann. Geschichte der DDR. 2nd ed. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1999. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. Bundesrepublik und DDR 1949-1990. Vol. 5 of Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2008. Wentker, Hermann. Au?enpolitik in engen Grenzen. Die DDR im internationalen System 1949-1989. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007. Werner, Birgit. Sonderp?dagogik im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ideologie und Tradition. Zur Geschichte der Sonderp?dagogik unter besonderer Ber?cksichtigung der Hilfsschulp?dagogik in der SBZ und der DDR zwischen 1945 und 1952. Hamburg: Kovac, 1999. Werner, Michael and B?n?dicte Zimmermann. ?Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung. Der Ansatz der Histoire crois?e und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen.? Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28, no. 4 (2002): 607-636. Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Wettig, Gerhard. ?Die Note vom 10. M?rz 1952 im Kontext von Stalins Deutschland- Politik seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.? In Die Stalin-Note vom 10. M?rz 1952. Neue Quellen und Analysen, edited by J?rgen Zarusky, 139-196. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002. Winkler, J?rgen. ?Zum Verh?ltnis von Partei und Staat in der DDR.? In Die SED. Geschichte Organisation Politik. Ein Handbuch, edited by Andreas Herbst, Gerd- R?diger Stephan, and J?rgen Winkler, 159-176. Berlin: Dietz, 1997. Woitzik, Karl-Heinz. Die Auslandsaktivit?t der sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands. Organisationen, Wege, Ziele. Mainz: Hase und Koehler, 1967. Zatlin, Jonathan R. The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Zarusky, J?rgen, ed. Die Stalin-Note vom 10. M?rz 1952. Neue Quellen und Analysen. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002. Zimmermann, Wolfgang. Die industrielle Arbeitswelt der DDR unter dem Primat der sozialistischen Ideologie, exemplarisch untersucht am Schrifttum ?ber Nacht- und Schichtarbeit. M?nster: Lit, 2000. 613 Zubok, Vladislav and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin?s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Zubok, Vladislav. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union from Stalin to Gorbachev. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.