A Small State’s “Fill-In Policy”
M IDDLE E AST
4.3 The Strategy of the Honest Broker
“As opposed to the anti-Arab policy of the West German Republic’s government which is supporting British colonial terror in Aden morally and materially, the GDR sides firmly with the people of Aden fighting for their right of self-determination.“136
(MfAA official on April 8th 1967) From the very beginning, the two Germanys had been proxy states of their allied superpowers and thus competitors. Bonn’s integration into the capitalist Western hemisphere and affiliation with “imperialism” made it possible for the GDR to successfully promote its propaganda of the “German alternative” among 132 | For example Howell, 1994, 313.
133 | Each GDR citizen had to give 25 marks for solidarity purposes a month, in: Interview with Wolfgang Bator May 27 2011.
134 | Möller, 2004, 43. As Möller rightly remarks, Ethiopia paradoxically is missing in this list.
Möller is referring to Monika Tanzscher’s findings. Tantzscher, in: Timmermann (Ed.), 1996, 614.
135 | See for example Muth, 2001, 40.
136 | Public decl. by MfAA official on April 8 1967, DOK zur AP der DDR XV/2, 1970, 1026f.
the post-colonial states. East Berlin skillfully marketed the GDR as a “better state” through its cultural and educational foreign policy and aimed to create a positive image among the public of its “partner countries.”137 The other aim of this “public relations campaign” was to discredit the “other Germany.” East Berlin emphasized Bonn’s negative reputation to exploit disagreements between the Arab states for its own ends. This attitude can be found regularly in its party organ “Neues Deutschland.” In 1969, the Algerian news agency APS commented on the changes of the Hallstein Doctrine: “Bonn’s institutions appear to disregard the sovereignty of the countries of the Third World.”138 Hence, at least some Arab countries considered the Hallstein Doctrine to have marginalized their very own sovereignty by dictating their preferred diplomatic behavior to the Arab world.
This attitude of course came in handy for East Germany’s campaign against West Germany.
Using the slogans of “anti-imperialist solidarity” once again, East-Berlin aimed to present itself as the more humane version of Germany to the states of the Global South and used this notion to justify its existence. When the GDR gradually accepted German separation, it began to focus on the principle of
“peaceful coexistence” that locates the “struggle” of the two opposite political and social systems not with the military but rather in the field of economic and social development. The socialist scholar Werner Hänisch paints Europe as the “main battlefield for peace and international security [where] the confrontation of the two political systems”139 could be felt the most. He conventionalizes the “BRD” (FGR) as a symbol for the “aggressive policies of world imperialism” led by the United States of America. The GDR, on the other hand, in his view is indispensable for any solution of Europe’s problems of security and cooperation, a “better Germany”
that promotes “progress and peace.”140 Hänisch’s position does nothing more than summarize the regime’s position on the matter.
Foreign trade also tied in with this “strategy of the honest broker.” The GDR did not separate its foreign trade and development policy mostly because development policy was often used either for economic or political ends or both.141 This was the case in the Arab world, where the GDR’s trade policy followed the “pattern of traditional North-South Trade”: Finished products were exported, especially technical equipment and machinery, while raw materials were imported.142 Though East German products were mostly not able to compete in terms of
137 | Das Gupta, in: Wengst/Wentker 2008, 119.
138 | “Interesse für DDR wächst ständig,“ in: Neues Deutschland, Oktober 2 1969, 7.
139 | Hänisch, in: Hahn/Hänisch/Busse/Lingner, 1974, 209f.
140 | Hahn/Hänisch/Busse/Lingner, 1974, 44f.
141 | Wippel, 1996, 5.
142 | Wippel, 1996, 15.
quality with products from other industrialized countries, and in particular West Germany, they were often priced competitively.
Foreign trade with “developing countries” was embedded in the wider framework of development. Developmental policies of the time usually meant a strategy based on investments, credits and technical assistance that were tied to conditions that benefited the donor nation. Despite the often fair conditions for the host states,143 the GDR used the concept of “tied credit” and “tied aid” just like any Western nation. Usually, this meant that the receiving country had to spend aid and credits on GDR machinery and expertise. Wippel suggests that credits were supposed to be repaid with profits obtained from these economic improvements financed by GDR capital.144 Nonetheless, the exchange of investment and finished products for raw materials largely characterized the GDR trade policy in the Global South in general and the Middle East in particular.
All in all, the GDR was able to offer a foreign trade policy which at times appeared to be more beneficial and thus attractive for the economies of post-colonial states: East Berlin was one of the few emerging industrialized nations advocating for the establishment of the “most-favored-nation clause,”145 while it also offered to barter in international trade arrangements significantly longer than other industrialized states.146 Where possible, “traditional North-South trade”
evolved toward cooperation, for example in industrial production. East German foreign trade policy was complemented by “economic and scientific-technical cooperation,” such as by providing tools meant firstly to enable the host countries to use and repair GDR machines and thus be able to sell them, and secondly to strengthen bilateral relations and generate trust. However, East Germany did not abstain from measures that exploited the recipient, either. Its policy toward the
“Global South” by and large was not far off from Western liberal trade policies that the GDR condemned as “imperialist” and “neo-colonialist.”147
143 | Winter mentions governmental loans to Syria with only about 2.5% to 3% interest and a maturity of up to twelve years, Interview with Heinz-Dieter Winter July 3 2013.
144 | Wippel, 1996, 32f.
145 | The “Most-favored Nation Clause” guarantees that any trade advantage granted by one state to another has to be granted to any other state as well. The clause, for example, is valid among the GATT-states today. Socialist International Economic Policy aimed at the implementation of this clause for all of the WTO. Woll, 1990, 609ff.
146 | This traditional foreign trade approach is based on the direct exchange of goods and served the import-demanding economy of the GDR extremely well. Interview with Wolfgang Bator May 27 2011.
147 | Scholtysek, 2003, 36.