Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR, 1949-1990 9781845458270

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Friendly Enemies

For Fiona and Jutta

Friendly Enemies Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990

Stefan Berger and Norman LaPorte

Berghahn Books New York • Oxford

First published in 2010 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2010 Stefan Berger and Norman LaPorte All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Berger, Stefan. Friendly enemies : Britain and the GDR, 1949/1990 / Stefan Berger and Norman LaPorte. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84545-697-9 (hardback : acid-free paper) 1. Great Britain--Foreign relations--Germany (East) 2. Germany (East)--Foreign relations--Great Britain. 3. Cold War. I. Laporte, Norman. II. Title. DA47.9.G4B47 2010 327.41043’109045--dc22 2010007452

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed in the United States on acid-free paper. ISBN: 978-1-84545-697-9 (hardback)

Contents

List of Tables��� vi List of Abbreviations

vii

Preface

xiii

Introduction: Britain and the Other Germany

1

Chapter 1 Negotiating the Emergence of Two Germanys. British–GDR Relations in the Context of the Evolution of the Post-war Political Order, 1945–1955

26

Chapter 2 From Sovereignty to Recognition, 1955–1973

75

Chapter 3 Normalisation of Relations and New Beginnings, 168 1973–1979 Chapter 4 From the Second Cold War to the Collapse of ��� 225 the GDR, 1979–1990 Conclusion: Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990

301

References

337

Index

365

List of Tables

1.1: British Trade Unions Delegations to the GDR, [Undated] 1954 [?].

46

2.1: Development of Trade Relations between the GDR and Great Britain, 1960–1969.

107

2.2: Number of Western Visitors Staying in FDGB Holiday Homes, 1956–1958.

143

3.1: Contacts between GDR and British Universities.

203

List of Abbreviations



ACC ADN AEU AFL AI ASLEF



ASSET



ASTMS



AUEW BBC BCC BCGD BCPIT



BEK BELFA BGS BL BLC BLHA-P BMG BPA BPC BRIDGE CBI CCN CDU CEU Press CGIL CGT

Archive of Coventry Cathedral Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst Amalgamated Egineering Union American Federation of Labor Amnesty International Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen Association of Supervisory Staff, Executives and Technicians Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staff Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers British Broadcasting Corporation British Council of Churches British Council for German Democracy British Coucil for the Promotion of International Trade Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR British Exhibitors’ Leipzig Fair Association Britain–GDR Society Bezirksleitung Berlin–London Committee Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Potsdam British Military Government Bezirksparteiarchiv der SED British Peace Council British–German Information Exchange Confederation of British Industry Community of the Cross of Nails Christlich Demokratische Union Central European University Press Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro Confédération général du travail

viii

List of Abbreviations

CIA Central Intelligence Agency CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Comecon Council for Mutual Economic Assistance CP Communist Party CPC Christian Peace Conference CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain CPGBAM Communist Party Archives Manchester CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union CSCE Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe D66 Democraten 66 DA Deutschland Archiv DAAD Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DC Democrazia Cristiana Debrig Deutsch–Britische Gesellschaft DEFA Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft DFD Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands DGB Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund DGR Democratic German Report DM Deutsche Mark DTI Department of Trade and Industry Dva Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt ECHE Ealing College of Higher Education EDC European Defence Community EEC European Economic Community EKB Evangelischer Kirchenbund END European Nuclear Disarmament EU European Union EZA Evangelisches Zentralarchiv FBI Federation of British Industry FBU Fire Brigades Union FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office FDGB Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend FDP Freie Demokratische Partei FO Foreign Office FRG Federal Republic of Germany FT Financial Times GC General Council GDR German Democratic Republic GkV Gesellschaft für kulturelle Verbindungen mit dem Ausland GLC Greater London Council HE Higher Education HO Handelsorganisation

List of Abbreviations

HOCP House of Commons Papers HVA Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions ICI Imperial Chemical Industries IFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions ILO International Labour Organization INF Intermediate Nuclear Force IPG Inter-Parliamentary Group IPU Inter-Parliamentary Union IPW Institut für Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft IRD Information and Research Department ISK Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund ITU International Telecommunication Union IWP International Workers’ Party KfA Kammer für Außenhandel KGB Committee for State Security KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands LAB Landesarchiv Berlin LAP Labour Action for Peace LBC London–Berlin Committee LDPD Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands LfV Liga für Völkerfeundschaft LHA- AM Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt Abteilung Merseburg LP/Rich Jo Richardson Papers LPA Liberal Party Archive LPACR Labour Party Annual Conference Report LPA-LSE Liberal Party Archives, London School of Economics LPAM Labour Party Archive, Manchester LPID Labour Party International Department LSE London School of Economics and Political Science MEP Member of European Parliament MfAA Ministerium für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten MI5 British Secutity Service MP Member of Parliament MRC Modern Records Centre, Warwick NA National Archives NATFHE National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NEC National Executive Committee NGO Non-governmental organisation NPD Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands

ix



List of Abbreviations

NUM National Union of Mineworkers NUPE National Union of Public Employees NUS National Union of Students NUT National Union of Teachers NVA Nationale Volksarmee ÖTV Gewerkschaft öffentliche Dienste, Transport und Verkehr OUP Oxford University Press PA AA Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin PAL Parliamentary Archive, London PCF Parti Communiste Français PCI Partitio Comunista Italiano PDS Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus PLO Palestine Liberation Organisation PLP Parliamentary Labour Party PS Parti Socialiste PSI Partitio Socialista Italiano PSOE Partido Socialista Obrero Español PvDA Partij van de Arbeid QC Queen’s Council RBI Radio Berlin International RIAS Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor RMT National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers SAPMO-BArch Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv SED Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands SFIO Section français de l’Internationale ouvrière SIS Secret Intelligence Service SKP Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti SMAD Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland SNUM Scottish National Union of Mineworkers SOGAT Society of Graphical and Allied Trades SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland SSEES School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London Stasi Staatssicherheit STUC Scottish Trade Union Congress SWCC South Wales Coalfield Collection, University of Swansea TASS Technical and Supervisory Staff Section TES Times Educational Supplement TGWU Transport and General Workers’ Union TH Technische Hochschule

List of Abbreviations

xi

ThSA-R Thüringisches Staatsarchiv Rudolfstadt TUC Trade Union Congress UGO Independent Trade Union Organisation UK United Kingdom UMIST University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology UN United Nations UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation US Unites States USA United States of America USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics VfZ Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions WMO World Meteorological Organization WPC World Peace Council

Preface

Over the last nine years we have amassed a number of debts to people and institutions, and we would like to use this opportunity to thank them. Above all, we are grateful to the British Academy for generously funding our research over a number of years. This allowed us to visit numerous archives and libraries in Britain and Germany, where many archivists and librarians were extremely helpful in locating relevant materials (for a full list please see the bibliography). Especially for the more recent period, this book could not have been written without access to some of the East German archives, which shed light even on aspects of the bilateral relations where the British archives remain closed due to the thirty-years’ rule. True, some East German archival material, e.g. the archives of the East German foreign ministry, also are closed under the German variant of the thirty-years’ rule, but other material, especially that of the political parties and mass organisations of the GDR remain open to researchers right up to the very end of the GDR. In some respects this is a unique opportunity, but there is also a danger in relying (increasingly over time) on East German sources. Professional historians trained in archival research of course know that no document should be taken at face value, but this is particularly true for many documents originating from the official apparatus of the GDR’s foreign policy. The GDR officials who wrote these reports were always acutely aware of what the relations between Britain and the GDR were meant to achieve, and therefore their reports do not necessarily reflect what was going on, but rather what was supposed to be going on. There is an element of wishful thinking in these GDR reports, which means that we have tried to contrast them, wherever possible, with British sources – which cannot only be found in the National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) but also in party, trade union and church archives. In addition, we have conducted twenty-nine semi-structured interviews with people who had been central to British–GDR relations, and we have used their information to good effect in the subsequent pages. Again, such forms of oral history are not without their dangers, as people’s memories are different from people’s perceptions at any given moment in the past. Careful contextualisation and juxtaposition with archival

xiv

Preface

material is necessary in order to arrive at a realistic picture of what had been going on. We have had the pleasure of discussing our research findings with a number of colleagues, in particular Marianne Howarth, the undisputed doyenne of British–GDR relations, and Henning Hoff. Our book stands consciously on their shoulders and would not have been possible without the work they have published on the topic. Many thanks also to the many interviewees from both Britain and Germany, who gave generously of their time and expertise to tell us about their views on British–GDR relations. Marianne Howarth and Henning Hoff have read the entire manuscript (in Marianne Howarth’s case, she did so twice); John Sandford and Sheila Taylor read parts of the manuscript and we are very grateful to all of them for their comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors, are, as always, entirely our own. The final reworking of the manuscript was done by Stefan Berger during his time as Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). He would therefore like to thank in particular the two directors of the School of History, Jörn Leonhard and Ulrich Herbert, for allowing him to spend a very productive year 2008/9 at the Institute. Very many thanks also to Isabel Flory and Christopher Volle from the FRIAS for carefully going through the final manuscript, eradicating typographical errors, harmonising the footnotes, helping with the index and providing a list of abbreviations. The last nine years have been an exciting intellectual journey for both of us und it has been a rewarding scholarly cooperation, which hopefully will lead to further joint work in future. Stefan Berger and Norman LaPorte Disley and Cardiff, May 2009

Introduction

Britain and the Other Germany

The Multi-Angular Nature of British–German Relations in the Cold War In 1945, a pervasive mistrust of all things German informed political opinion and the public mood in Britain. Yet within the next two years British policy became oriented towards integrating a separate West German state into the Western alliance against communistdominated Eastern Europe in the nascent Cold War. Indeed, the old German and the new Soviet threat became deeply intertwined in Britain’s policy in Europe, as it increasingly saw its task in managing Germany in order to contain the Soviet Union. Such rapid realignment of British foreign policy was personified by Ernest Bevin, the first post-war Foreign Secretary. Bevin clearly saw the need to accommodate a separate West Germany but found it hard to feel any real sympathy for Britain’s new allies: ‘I tries hard but I ’ates them’. Although a number of close professional relationships developed between individual West German and British politicians – perhaps most noteworthy was the one between Chancellor Schmidt and Prime Minister Callaghan in the 1970s – bilateral relations were never particularly strong. An explanation for this can be found in 

A. Bullock. 1983. The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin. Vol. 3: Foreign Secretary 1945– 1951, London: Heinemann, 56. On Britain’s stance in the Cold War generally, see S. Greenwood. 2000. Britain and the Cold War 1945–1991, Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan.  S. Lee. 2001. Victory in Europe? Britain and Germany since 1945, London: Longman, 5; J. Ramsden. 2006. Don’t Mention the War. The British and the Germans since 1890, London: Abacus, has argued that the British intellectual and political elite was persistently anti-German after 1945 and that anti-Germanism has pervaded both high and low culture. See also: A.J. Nicholls. 2004. Always Good



Friendly Enemies

the countries’ differing post-war priorities. Chancellor Adenauer accepted President de Gaulle’s strategic olive branch, developing this into the Franco-German axis at the heart of the European project. By the later 1950s, Franco-German cooperation in Europe significantly limited British influence on the continent. But in 1945, British foreign policy had other priorities than Europe. In the period immediately following 1945, Britain’s over-ambitious objective of maintaining her status as a world power involved an orientation towards the ‘special relationship’ with the USA and presiding over the transformation from Empire to Commonwealth. It was only after the Suez debacle of 1956 that Britain came to accept her internationally diminished role, began to come to terms with imperial decline and started its reorientation towards Europe. But the latter proved difficult. During the 1960s, two British applications for membership of the EEC were vetoed by the French. British foreign policy became painfully aware that it needed West German support, but, war-time memories died hard and prevented Anglo-German relations from becoming too close. Following British admission to the EEC in 1973, the offshore island all too often took on the mantle of Europe’s ‘awkward partner’, which pushed it further to the continent’s periphery. If Britain’s relations with West Germany were not particularly close, they were virtually non-existent, at least at an official level, with East Germany until 1973. In line with other Western states and the West German Hallstein Doctrine, Britain did not recognise the GDR. However, as we shall explore in chapter 2 below, after 1955 much of British political opinion was increasingly willing to accept Neighbours – Never Good Friends? Anglo-German Relations 1949–2001, London: German Historical Institute. A somewhat more benign view is taken by Anthony Glees. 1993. ‘The British and the Germans: From Enemies to Partners’, in D. Verheyen and C. Soe (eds), The Germans and their Neighbours, Boulder: Westview Press, 35–57.  S.J. Ball. 1998. The Cold War. An International History, 1947–1991, London: Arnold, 24.  J.W. Young and T. Tomlinson. 1997. Britain and the World in the Twentieth Century, London: Arnold.  D. Sanders. 1990. Losing an Empire, Finding a Role. British Foreign Policy since 1945, Basingstoke: Macmillan; D. Reynolds. 1991. Britannia Overruled. British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century, London: Longman.  B. Brivati and H. Jones (eds). 1993. From Reconstruction to Integration. Britain and Europe since 1945, Leicester: Leicester University Press; J.W. Young. 1993. Britain and European Unity 1945–1992, Basingstoke: Macmillan; C. Gifford. 2008. The Making of Eurosceptic Britain. Identity and Economy in a Post-Imperial State, Aldershot: Ashgate. For the development of the Labour Party relationship with Europe, see E. Delaney. 2002. ‘The Labour Party’s Changing Relationship to Europe. The Expansion of European Social Policy’, Journal of European Integration History 8 (1), 121–38.

Introduction 

post-war realities and come to some sort of de facto recognition of the GDR. Until the later 1960s, Berlin’s location as the likely frontline in any super-power conflict ensured that the ‘German question’, with its potential threat to world peace, drew considerable British attention. During the 1970s and throughout most of the 1980s, international acceptance of the existence of two German states under conditions of détente meant that the ‘German question’ lost much of its importance in international relations. Yet British–GDR relations always took place in a triangle, also involving the FRG. Especially if Britain wanted to overcome the French resistance towards British entry into the EEC, it needed to woo West Germany for support. Hence British policy was careful not to let British–GDR relations have a negative bearing on British–FRG relations which were of far greater importance to Britain. Relations with the GDR in general had to ‘remain one step behind Bonn’. From the GDR’s perspective, its policies towards Britain were also pursued with one eye firmly on West Germany. From the beginnings of a GDR foreign policy in 1955 to recognition by West Germany in 1972, all of the GDR’s international relations were dominated by the omnipresent objective of etching East Germany onto the post-war map of Europe. This meant primarily overcoming West German objections to recognition. As Martin Sabrow has pointed out, ‘the GDR always remained inseparably bound up with the Federal Republic and interconnected with it. Political demarcation (Abgrenzung) from the Federal Republic, the competition with it and the secret orientation towards it made up the actual raison d’être of the second German state’. Hence, during the entire period of our investigation, the FRG remained the ‘third player’ in all aspects of British– GDR relations.  M. Bell. (now Howarth) 1977, ‘Britain and East Germany; The Politics of NonRecognition’ (M.Phil.: University of Nottingham), 40, quoting the Foreign Office position. On the coordination of British policy with Bonn, see R. Morgan. 1987. ‘The British View’, in E. Moreton (ed.), Germany between East and West, Cambridge: CUP, 83–97.  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� M. Sabrow. 2001. ‘Die DDR in der deutschen Geschichte’, in U. Pfeil (ed.), Die DDR und der Westen: Transnationale Beziehungen, 1949–1990, Berlin: Ch. Links, 27.  A. Bauerkämper. 2005. ‘It Took Three to Tango. Reflections on the Role of the Federal Republic in the Relationship between Britain and the GDR 1949 to 1990’, in S. Berger and N. LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany. Perceptions and Influences in British–East German Relations, 1945–1990, Augsburg: Wißner, 45–60. It was again Marianne Howarth who first described Britain’s relationship with the two Germanys as an ‘asymmetric triangle’; see M. Howarth. 2002. ‘The Berlin Triangle. Britain and the Two German States in the 1980s’, in A. Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR. Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World, Berlin: Philo, 173–98.



Friendly Enemies

International relations between states are influenced by mutual perceptions.10 Much of this book will be concerned with the development of British perceptions of the GDR from the foundation of the GDR to its eventual dissolution. On balance, there was little public interest in the GDR. It was a country that many Britons knew nothing about and that they imagined as one of the invariably grey and drab Eastern European communist regimes. Yet, especially on the British left, there was a minority who took an interest. Those who advocated socialist measures at home could, and did, investigate the GDR’s policy of ‘constructing socialism’ as a potential political model. There were also those concerned about the possibility of a third world war in Europe: issues of peace and détente acted as an incentive to take an interest in the GDR. As will be demonstrated below, the motivations for taking an interest in the GDR were highly diverse. And yet, anyone showing any interest in, or worse, sympathies for Eastern European communism was quickly dubbed a communist or communist fellow traveller in the West, even if there were actually few who subscribed lock, stock and barrel to ‘actually existing socialism’ behind the Iron Curtain. The official GDR perception of Britain was guided by its analysis of Britain as a declining capitalist country. ‘Proletarian internationalism’ was the official doctrine guiding GDR foreign policy.11 In practice this meant seeking an alliance with all progressive forces in Western capitalist states while denouncing the capitalist regimes and the alleged misery they brought for the working classes. Unfortunately, for the entire period of SED rule, the wider population in the GDR did not believe this negative stereotyping of ‘Western capitalism’. Hence the GDR attempted to quarantine the East German public from the virus of ‘decadent’ Western individualism. All contacts with the ‘non-socialist world’ were subject to state approval and regulation. Sympathies for the ‘capitalist West’ could have serious consequences for personal careers and livelihoods in the GDR. Within the Cold War conflict, it became increasingly difficult for people on both sides of the Iron Curtain to take up a stance between the capitalist West and the communist East, although in the West opposition to the official anti-communism was far less dangerous than opposition to the official anti-capitalism was in the East. 10 The importance of perceptions and transfers in international relations has been stressed by the pathbreaking conceptual volume edited by Eckart Conze, Ulrich Lappenküper and Guido Müller (eds). 2004. Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen. Erneuerung und Erweiterung einer historischen Disziplin, Cologne: Böhlau. 11 ���������������� W. Bruns. 1984. Die Aussenpolitik der DDR, Berlin: Copress.

Introduction 

British–GDR relations during the entire Cold War were also situated vis-à-vis wider concerns of the lead power within both power blocks. British foreign policy towards the GDR not only had to be coordinated with the FRG, but also with the USA and France. West Germany was, after all, not a fully sovereign country. As a result of the post-war settlement, the Western allies retained certain rights. Even if the FRG, especially after 1955, became increasingly a player in its own right,12 the Allied responsibilities – especially in Berlin – acted as a constant reminder that a minimum amount of coordination of the Western powers’ policies towards the two Germanys was necessary. The GDR’s ability to act on the international stage was constrained by Moscow’s ‘leading role’ in the Warsaw pact far more than the FRG’s foreign policy was determined by the Western allies. In 1955, the Soviet Union officially granted East Berlin ‘sovereignty’ in international relations. Yet, public statements of ‘friendship’ and ‘cooperation’ to one side, East German foreign policy had to remain firmly within the framework prescribed by Soviet hegemony. Throughout the GDR’s forty year history, East Berlin did on occasion strive for a degree of autonomy of action. In the early years, this was particularly true where Moscow’s foreign policy appeared to risk trading East German statehood for Soviet security. In the 1980s it was the East German desire to avoid the consequences of the second Cold War, which again brought tension to Soviet–GDR relations. Yet, without the Soviet Union acting as guarantor of a separate East German statehood, the GDR was not viable. This became clear in 1953 and again in 1989. In the language of international relations theory, East German foreign policy had been a ‘penetrated system’.13 As Detlev Nakath put it, the GDR ‘at any [given] time was dependent on the Soviet Union’.14 If the degree of dependency varied slightly, the basic fact of dependency never changed. 12 A good survey of German foreign policy is provided by H. Haftendorn. 2001. Deutsche Aussenpolitik zwischen Selbstbeschränkung und Selbstbehauptung 1945– 2000, Stuttgart: DVA-Verlag. 13 The idea goes back to J. Rosenau. 1966. ‘Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy’, in B. Farrell (ed.), Approaches to Comparative and International Politics, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 65. 14 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� D. Nakath. 1999. ‘Grundzüge und Entwicklungsetappen der DDR Aussenpolitik’, in D. Küchenmeister, D. Nakath and G.-R. Stephan (eds), … abgegrenzte Weltoffenheit. ������������������������������������������ Zur Aussen- und Deutschlandpolitik der DDR, Potsdam: GnnVerlag, 35. On the strong influence of the Soviet Union on GDR foreign policies at all times see also Detlef Nakath, ‘Das Dreieck Bonn–Ost-Berlin–Moskau. Zur sowjetischen Einflußnahme auf die Gestaltung der deutsch–deutschen Beziehungen (1969–1982), in Pfeil (ed.), Transnationale Beziehungen, 99–115; M. Lemke. 2001. Einheit oder Sozialismus. Die Deutschlandpolitik der SED 1949–1961, Cologne: Böhlau; J. Roesler. 1993. ‘Der Handlungsspielraum der DDR-Führung gegenüber der UdSSR. Zu einem Schlüsselproblem des Verständnisses der DDR-



Friendly Enemies

Given the centrality of the ‘German problem’ to diverse Cold War scenarios in Europe, the triangular relationship between Britain and the two Germanys is situated in a wider multi-polar relationship which involves the two leading superpowers, but also other key European states in both Western and Eastern Europe (notably France and Poland). Investigations of Cold War foreign policy, as Friedhelm Niedhart and Oliver Bange point out in relation to their project on ‘détente and Ostpolitik’, have to take account of transatlantic and European networks of communication and cannot be reduced to bilateral analyses.15 This current study, however, is more limited in its ambitions and seeks to shed further light on why Britons took an interest in the GDR and what the GDR hoped to achieve with its policies vis-à-vis Britain. While cognisant of the wider field in which British–GDR relations took place, it is not so much a contribution to illuminating British and GDR foreign policy, as it is a book about the GDR’s strategy towards Britain, and about the British Left’s self-understanding. For it was the British Left which was primarily interested in developing contacts with the GDR. Tracing their motivations and commitments will tell us a good deal about how the British Left perceived itself and its ambitions during the Cold War.

Understanding the Institutional Framework of British–GDR Relations In the GDR, foreign policy was determined by the politburo on the basis of information collected and collated by an extensive bureaucracy spanning both party and state.16 East Berlin’s role in Geschichte’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 41, 293–304; J.C. Behrends. 2006. Die erfundene Freundschaft. Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und der DDR, Cologne: Böhlau. 15 See the exemplary website of Niedhart’s and Bange’s project, which also contains several relevant publications: http://www.ostpolitik.net; accessed 3 April 2009. Also: O.Bange and G. Niedhart (eds). 2008. Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe, Oxford: Berghahn Books; G. Niedhart and O. Bange. 2004. ‘Die “Relikte der Nachkriegszeit” beseitigen: Ostpolitik in der zweiten aussenpolitischen Formationsphase der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Übergang von den sechziger zu den siebziger Jahren’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 44, 415–448; O. Bange. 2006. ‘Ostpolitik – Etappen und Desiderate der Forschung: zur internationalen Einordnung von Willy Brandts Aussenpolitik’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 46, 713–736. 16 The institutional framework of GDR foreign policy is described in detail by A. Dasbach-Mallinckrodt. ������ 1985. Wer macht die Außenpolitik der DDR, Düsseldorf: Droste, 40f, 185ff.; W. Bruns, Aussenpolitik der DDR; M. Bulla. 1988. Zur Aussenpolitik der DDR. Bestimmungsfaktoren – Schlüsselbegriffe – Institutionen und Entwicklungstendenzen, Melle: Knoth; I. Muth. 2000. Die DDR Außenpolitik 1949–1972: Inhalte, Strukturen, Mechanismen, Berlin: Ch. Links, 16–22, 54 ff.; B.-E. Siebs. 1999. Die Aussenpolitik der DDR 1976–1989. Strategien und Grenzen,

Introduction 

international relations was based on what the regime understood as a ‘socialist foreign policy’, encompassing the key components of internationalism, anti-imperialism, peaceful coexistence and solidarity with national-liberation movements in the Third World. The decision-making process was only rarely encumbered by strict adherence to the ideological tenets of Marxism–Leninism. More often than not the implementation of policy took into account political realities, while Marxism–Leninism retained its function as a legitimising narrative.17 The politburo’s foreign policy was put into practice by three tiers of East German bureaucracy. In addition to the party- and state-directed bureaucracies, ‘societal’ (gesellschaftliche) organisations played an important role in setting up partner organisations in the West, and using them to build up contacts with ‘target groups’ and influential individuals in political, economic and cultural life.18 The foreign intelligence organisation of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi), the HVA, also presented the politburo with detailed evaluations of political developments in Britain. In addition to reports assessing the likely direction of British governments’ foreign policy, attention was given to opinion in political parties, trade unions and the peace movement.19 Much attention has been given to the Stasi and its operations inside and outside the GDR. In all foreign relations of the GDR, it was indeed a permanent presence, which shadowed, accompanied and often steered the country’s foreign policy. But can the relations of the GDR with Britain, or, for that matter, the relations of the GDR with any other Western state, be reduced to the Stasi and its dealings? As will become obvious from the subsequent pages, we do not think so. The transnational relations between the GDR and Britain were far too complex and involved far too many actors to be reduced to a story about Stasi spies. Whilst it would be naïve to disregard the Munich, Paderborn: Schöningh; J. Scholtyseck. 2003. Die Aussenpolitik der DDR, München: Oldenbourg, 69 ff.; E. Crome, J. Franzke and R. Krämer (eds). 2003. Die verschwundene Diplomatie. Beiträge zur Aussenpolitik der DDR, Berlin: Berliner Debatte, 34 ff. 17 For political realism in policy during the 1960s, see H. Hoff. 2003. Großbritannien und die DDR 1955–1973. Diplomatie auf Umwegen, Munich: Oldenbourg, 21. For a contemporary analysis of the 1980s, see M. Dennis. 1988. The German Democratic Republic. Politics, Economics, Society, London: Pinter, 188–90. 18 These organisations cannot be termed Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in that they were directly instructed by the SED leadership, were integrated within the party and state power structures and were directed by the MfAA in order to promote East Berlin’s foreign policy objectives abroad. 19 See, for example, Stasi Archive, MfS HVA 78, and 79, which assess the likely impact on foreign relations of the Conservative government taking office in 1979. For the detailed treatment of East German espionage operations in Britain, see A. Glees. 2003. The Stasi Files. East Germany’s Secret Operations against Britain, London: Free Press.



Friendly Enemies

importance of the Stasi, it would equally miss the point of many of the interactions, if one were to look only to the Stasi. Hence we bring in Stasi connections, where they seem relevant to us, but otherwise we are more interested in exploring a highly diverse range of contacts that developed between Britain and the GDR over forty years of postSecond World War history. In what was a strictly centralised foreign-policy apparatus of the GDR, each pillar of the bureaucracy received its policy directives from the SED leadership and was charged with putting party policy into practice.20 In political and ideological terms, the most important layer of the foreign-policy apparatus was headed by the party. At the apex of this organisational hierarchy was the Central Committee’s Secretariat for International Relations, which was headed by Hermann Axen, who, from 1970 was a full member of the politburo. Axen was widely regarded as the key architect of the GDR’s foreign policy from the late 1960s onwards. Below the Secretariat was the Department for International Relations, which, in 1978, had forty departments which liased with the corresponding departments in the state apparatus.21 Within the state apparatus, which was headed by the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MfAA) had primary responsibility for putting foreign policy into practice. From the late 1950s, policy vis-à-vis Britain was the domain of the Ministry’s Fifth European department.22 In the early years, Foreign Ministers were appointed from the nominally independent (i.e., non-socialist) ‘Block Parties’ in order to give the outward appearance of a multiparty system. The practice was abandoned in 1966 with the appointment of Central Committee member Otto Winzer, and his successor, Oskar Fischer, in 1978. Excluded from the discussions in the politburo, however, Foreign Ministers exercised no actual influence on the formation of policy and remained subordinate in the hierarchy to Hermann Axen. In addition to cooperating with the Central Committee’s Secretariat for International Relations in researching and conceptualising foreign policy, the MfAA also oversaw the training of diplomats at the ‘Institute for International Relations’ 20 For a detailed assessment of the three pillars of GDR foreign policy, see Muth, Aussenpolitik, 54–96. 21 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� A. Mallinckrodt. 1980. ‘An Aussenpolitik beteiligte Institutionen’, in H.-A. Jacobsen, G. Leptin, U. Scheuner and E. Schulz (eds), Drei Jahrzehnte Außenpolitik der DDR, 2nd ed., Munich: Oldenbourg, 134–149; Muth, Außenpolitik, 57–68. Until 1956, the Secretariat was known as the ‘Secretariat for Foreign Policy’. The department heads of the Central Committee were, Peter Florin (1952–1966), Paul Markowski (1966–1978), Egon Winkelmann (1978–1980), and Günter Siebert (1980–1989). 22 For the structure of the MfAA 1949–72, see Muth, Außenpolitik, 265–67.

Introduction 

within the ‘Academy of State and Legal Sciences’.23 After 1949, the East German diplomatic core was constructed from scratch, marking a radical departure from the pre-war diplomatic service. What these new diplomats lacked in experience was compensated for by commitment to the East German state. In the case of KarlHeinz Kern, the first East German diplomat to Britain, a middleclass upbringing did not exclude a top-flight career in the foreign services.24 Although the GDR was never granted an official state visit to Britain, after the normalisation of diplomatic relations, the MfAA did develop close contacts with the British Foreign Office and held a series of meetings between both foreign ministries’ respective research institutions.25 The MfAA, under the direction of the Abteilung Auslands information in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the SED, coordinated the work of an extensive array of departments within the party and state administration, which were charged with pursuing cultural and propaganda activities in the West. The central objective of this aspect of foreign relations was directed towards countering the regime’s negative image abroad by presenting a wide range of ‘socialist achievements’ in the social, cultural and economic spheres. The quintessential component of cultural and propaganda work centred on presenting the GDR as the ‘morally better’ Germany. Not only had the GDR learnt the lessons from the experience of Nazism, it was also a truly ‘anti-fascist’ state pursuing policies for world peace. The FRG, by contrast, was governed by former Nazis and ‘neoFascism’ just waited to re-emerge.26 Although outright propaganda attacks on Bonn subsided somewhat after 1973, they returned at the end of the 1980s when East Berlin again felt the need to assert the regime’s independence.27 By presenting the GDR as a ‘new’ and ‘better’ Germany, it was hoped that ‘target groups’ in the West would become supportive of East German foreign-policy objectives. In a range of Western European 23 ������������������ H.-G. Golz. 2004. Verordnete Völkerfreundschaft. Das Wirken der Freundschaftsgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien und der Britain–GDR Society – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, 24–25. 24 ��������������������������������������������������� Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, Berlin, 12.10.2001. 25 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ See, for example, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (Berlin) [henceforth: SAPMO-BARCH-BArch], DC 20/I/4/5945, ‘Bericht über den Arbeitsbesuch des Minister für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten der DDR, Genossen Oskar Fischer, in Großbritannien am 18.11.1986’, 12–25. 26 ����������������������� A. Mallinckrodt. 1980. Die Selbstdarstellung der beiden deutschen Staaten im Ausland. ‘Image-Bildung’ als Instrument der Außenpolitik, Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 62–74. 27 See, for example, the pamphlet ‘Beware the beginning: Neo-Nazis in the parliaments of the FRG and Berlin (West)’, East Berlin, 1989.

10

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countries, the GDR was able to intensify its cultural and propaganda activities through locally situated cultural and information centres. East Berlin also promoted interest in its version of German culture through the Herder Institutes, which rivalled the West German Goethe Institutes.28 Although none of these institutions operated in Britain, a vast media-based propaganda effort was directed towards Britain.29 From April 1955, the East German State Broadcasting Committee transmitted Radio Berlin International to the outside world. Although the vast majority of broadcasts were domestic, featuring interviews with visiting foreign personalities, by the mid 1970s international transmissions had reached six-and-a-half hours per week. In Britain, one hour of RBI programming could be heard on Sunday evenings.30 In the communist tradition, considerable emphasis was placed on the power of the printed word to convince doubters. At the academic end of the range was the flagship international relations journal Deutsche Außenpolitik, which was issued quarterly by the ‘Institute for International Relations’. Between 1962 and 1975, it was published in English translation. The journal’s expert on British foreign policy was the lifelong English advocate of East German socialism, the onetime Reynold’s News journalist and trade unionist Gordon Schaffer. The East German Press Office also sent out Panorama GDR to British newspapers, published the eight-page Foreign Affairs Bulletin every ten days and cooperated in producing the weekly Horizont. An extensive array of magazines and brochures were also issued by the Dresden-based publishing house Zeit im Bild.31 A number of central themes emerged from what was a truly vast, and costly, undertaking. 28 ���������������������������������� H. Lindemann and K. Müller. 1974. Auswärtige Kulturpolitik der DDR. Die kulturelle Abgrenzung der DDR von der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 102ff. 29 For a detailed treatment of the structure and function of the East German cultural and propaganda apparatus, see B. Becker, Die DDR und Großbritannien 1945/49 bis 1973. Politische, ������������������������������������������������������� wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Kontakte im Zeichen ������������ der Nichtanerkennungspolitik, Bochum: Brockmeyer, 258–63; Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 30–31; A. Mallinckrodt. 1980. ‘Propaganda als Instrument der Außenpolitik’, in H-A. Jacobsen, G. Leptin, U. Scheuner and E. Schulz (eds), Drei Jahrzehnte Außenpolitik der DDR. Bestimmungsfaktoren, Instrumente, Aktionsfelder, Munich: Oldenbourg, 265; Lindemann and Müller, Kulturpolitik, 95ff. For ������������������� the importance of the mass media in the Cold War conflict see T. Lindenberger (ed.). 2006. Massenmedien im Kalten Krieg. Akteure, Bilder, Resonanzen, Cologne, Böhlau. 30 ������������������������������������������������������������������ Interview with Hans Herzberg, Berlin 25.8.2001; A. Fischer. 1980. ‘Aussenpolitische Aktivität bei ungewisser sowjetischer Deutschlandpolitik’, in Jacobsen, Leptin, Scheuner and Schulz (eds), Drei Jahrzehnte Außenpolitik der DDR, 80. 31 A large number of these magazines and brochures are available at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford and the Karl-Marx Memorial Library in London. The private papers of Dorothy Diamond also contain a considerable collection.

Introduction

11

The GDR was primarily presented as a state promoting international peace and disarmament, commitment to anti-fascism, supporting national liberation movements in the Third World, and, last but not least, enjoying ‘socialist achievements’ in the fields of cultural, social and economic life. There was also an attempt to present speeches made by leading members of the SED as important contributions to international relations. Implicit was always the objective of holding up the GDR as a model for the development of socialism abroad. A range of monthly magazines aimed to present positively the activities of the East German trade unions (FDGB Review) and the Peace Council (Information), in addition to magazines promoting trade (Monthly Technical Review), sporting successes (Sport in the GDR), and even women’s fashion in East Germany (Saison). Within this universe of East German literature, two publications were of particular importance in Britain – Democratic German Report (DGR) and GDR Review. From 1952 until 1975, John Peet, the former bureau chief of Reuters News Agency in Berlin, almost single-handedly produced the fortnightly eight-page newsletter Democratic German Report. By exploiting a flair for good journalism, and considerable personal charm, Peet was able to gain a substantial readership among left-wing MPs, trade unionists, journalists and teachers in Britain.32 While the DGR had the appearance of a lowbudget, quasi-autonomous publication, the GDR Review had all the trappings of a would-be central organ of East German propaganda in Britain. Between 1952 and 1989, the magazine, which was translated into seven European languages and distributed in thirteen countries, was printed on good quality paper and carried large numbers of colour photographs in a well laid-out sixty pages which, although not shying away from the overtly propagandistic, avoided communist jargon. Until 1973, GDR Review focused on promoting East German diplomatic recognition in Britain, including considerable emphasis on putative benefits of trade relations, in addition to the standard East Berlin line on the merits of constructing a ‘socialist society’. Thereafter, the emphasis switched to legitimising the GDR by presenting it as a modern, industrial state with a generous cradleto-the-grave welfare state, a comprehensive, equal-opportunities education system, free of unemployment and the inequalities of the ‘capitalist’ FRG and, last but not least, a force for world peace.33 The third tier in the East German foreign policy apparatus was the ‘societal’, or nominally ‘non-state’, organisations. Until 1973, their primary function was to coordinate East Berlin’s campaign for 32 S. Berger and N. LaPorte. 2004. ‘John Peet (1915–1988): An Englishman in the GDR’, in History 89 (1), 49–69. 33 Between 1952 and 1956 the magazine was published as GDR Revue. Although out-housed, it can be read in the British Library, London.

12

Friendly Enemies

recognition in Britain. In doing so, one of their central tasks was to organise exchanges between Britain and the GDR in a policy known as ‘diplomacy by delegation’ (Besuchsdiplomatie). After normal diplomatic relations were established, these organisations continued to play an important, if secondary, role in promoting a positive image of the GDR abroad.34 The historic origins of the ‘societal’ organisations are found in the communist-dominated ‘front organisations’ of the inter-war years, which aimed to transcend communism’s traditional base of support by forming ‘alliances’ among wider groups of prominent personalities and ‘sympathisers’. Although the SED enjoyed fraternal, if sometimes strained, relations with the CPGB, the latter’s marginal political influence meant that, from the East-German perspective, it was desirable to build up wider political contacts. For this purpose, the Inter-Parliamentary Group of the GDR (IPG) was set up in 1955 with the objective of developing contacts with Western parliamentarians. From 1966 until 1973, the IPG cooperated with the House of Commons-based Britain–GDR Committee, under the leadership of left-wing Labour MPs Will Owen and Renée Short. After 1973, the IPG was admitted to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which had been founded in Paris in 1889 with the objective of promoting contact and cooperation between parliaments on a global scale. Until the collapse of the GDR, the IPU served as a channel for dialogue between parliamentarians, extending beyond the ranks of Labour left-wingers to include Liberal and Conservative MPs.35 Party-to-party contacts were also built up by the East German ‘Bloc Parties’.36 The British Conservative Party – with the exception of a small number of MPs involved in East–West trade – proved resistant to East Berlin’s overtures. Yet the East German Liberal Party (LDPD) proved able to open up dialogue with the British Liberal Party, including a number of fact-finding delegations to East Berlin and mutual attendance of party conferences. A number of broadly political contacts were also cultivated by the International Relations departments in the East German ‘mass organisations’, including the official trade unions (FDGB), the youth movement (FDJ) and the women’s movement (DFD), in the form of attendance of East Germansponsored international events and exchanges, with comparable organisations in Britain.37 Although there were no official relations between the East German and British trade union movements until 1973, contacts and connections between trade unionists in the individual unions of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) made up one of 34 ������ Hoff, Großbritannien, 18������������������ –����������������� 19, 23����������� –���������� 24; Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 34. 35 ��������������������������������������������������� Interview with Lord Peter Temple Morris, 5.11.2003. 36 ������ Muth, Außenpolitik, 88. 37 ����������������������������������������������� Mallinckrodt, ‘Propaganda als Instrument’, 266.

Introduction

13

the largest number of delegations to East Germany throughout our period. Before 1973, trade relations were a key component in East Berlin’s foreign-policy drive to establish normal diplomatic relations with the West. The first practical move in this direction was taken in 1955, with the setting up of the Leipzig Fair Agency in London to promote East–West trade. On the fringes of the Trade Fair, East German officials were able to initiate political discussion with foreign – including British – participants. The subsequent, and ultimately more important, development was the opening of an East German Chamber of Commerce (KfA) in London in 1959, when the first semi-official trade agreement was signed with the Federation of British Industry (FBI). Although the annual trade agreements adhered to the letter of Britain’s official policy of ‘non-recognition’, it was increasingly evident that FBI and KfA were fronting trade agreements between the ministries of trade. During the 1960s, the KfA went on to develop important contacts among the business community, journalists and parliamentarians. Its most important role, however, was acting as a channel for crypto-diplomatic relations under the watchful eye of the FCO, which was keen to ensure that KfA did not overstep its limits. However, by the early 1970s, KfA Ltd. was starting to operate as the de facto East German embassy in Britain and included MfAA diplomats among its staff. At the centre of the ‘cultural’ component of the GDR’s Westpolitik was the Liga für Völkerfreundschaft (LfV). Founded in 1961, the Liga largely superseded the earlier Society for Foreign Cultural Relations, founded in 1952. Its main role was to act as an umbrella organisation, housing the various friendship societies that promoted East German diplomatic recognition in the West.38 In 1963, the LfV set up the Deutsch–Britische Gesellschaft (Debrig) to organise cultural work in Britain. Two years later, its British ‘sister’ organisation, the British–German Information Exchange (BRIDGE), was founded in London with a remit of developing contacts with MPs, trade unionists, teachers, local-government officials and journalists.39 Under the chairmanship of Hilda Forman, BRIDGE remained a small, communist-dominated organisation without public profile. In 1971, in what became standard practice in the postrecognition period, East German officials founded the Committee for Recognition from a range of sympathetic public figures, including the Labour MP Richard Crossman, the Liberal MP David Steel and churchman Paul Oestreicher.40 In 1974, BRIDGE was re-founded 38 ������ Muth, Außenpolitik, 90, 92–94 39 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 263ff. 40 M. Howarth. 1999. ‘Großbritannien und die DDR. ���������������������� Beziehungen und NichtBeziehungen’, in H. Timmermann (ed.), Die DDR – Erinnerungen an einen untergegangenen Staat, Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, 511–26.

14

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as the Britain–GDR Society and, until the collapse of 1989/90, it attempted to disseminate a positive image of East Germany by developing a wide range of cultural exchanges, holding exhibitions, film shows, language courses and distributing the English-language literature we discussed above. During the ‘second cold war’ of the 1980s, the Britain–GDR Society saw something of a revival of its importance in East German foreign policy. Above all, it promoted dialogue at the local level, such as town twinning, and developed contacts supportive of the anti-nuclear ‘coalition of reason’.41 The official East German peace movement had a variety of contacts with diverse peace groups in Britain. Founded in 1949, the East German Peace Council acted as the representative of the officially approved peace movement in the GDR. The Peace Council, which was a member organisation within the Soviet-led World Peace Council, focused its energies on garnering support for East Bloc ‘peace’ initiatives, and organising visits by Western peace campaigners.42 In Britain, the Peace Council was able to develop an often close professional relationship with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and peace campaigners within the Churches. The sensitivity of this relationship, which involved contact with peace campaigners critical of the GDR, ensured close surveillance by the East German Ministry of State Security.43 The Peace Council leadership included delegates from the East German Churches, which took an active interest in promoting peace and détente and, during the 1980s, pushed for greater independence from the state. Church contacts between Britain and the GDR flourished more generally in the 1970s and 1980s. A large number of high-profile delegations in both directions represented the tip of an iceberg in what was a surprisingly high degree of dialogue, covering issues from world peace to the ecumenical movement.44 However, here, too, the SED-Staat maintained close control over contacts with British churchmen, using the Christian Democratic Party (East) (CDU-Ost) as the medium and facilitator of these contacts. The gargantuan East German foreign policy apparatus proved to be wasteful and inefficient. Particularly during the campaign for recognition, high expenditure brought meagre results, falling far short of the ambitious aim of using foreign friendship societies 41 On the role of the Britain–GDR Society, see Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 34–36, 42. 42 ������ Muth, Außenpolitik, 88–89. 43 ������� Glees, Stasi Files, 247ff. 44 For developments between 1949 and 1973, see M. Thomas. 2005. Communing with the Enemy: Covert Operations, Christianity and Cold War Politics in Britain and the GDR, Oxford: Peter Lang.

Introduction

15

as ersatz foreign ministries.45 The official slogan of East German ‘diplomacy by delegation’ was to cultivate ‘friendship between the peoples’ of East and West in order to underpin peaceful coexistence. In practice, however, neither the LfV nor Debrig were open to individual membership; instead, they were staffed by hand-picked, party-trained apparatchiks, who took their political instruction in a chain of command descending from the politburo.46 In fact, the leading cadres of the Liga have been described by one official involved in the work of the French friendship society, as ‘cadre tip’ (Kadermüllkippe), arguing that the Liga suffered from poor leadership throughout much of its existence.47 Many Liga officials who dealt with Britain had developed close personal contacts with British friends during their years of exile in Britain. The GDR drew readily on their first-hand knowledge of the language and culture. Horst Brasch, de facto head of the LfV’s activities in Britain, had spent the war years in London. So, too, had Wilhelm Koenen, who played a central role in setting up Debrig, and Hans Herzfeld, whose manifold activities in relations with Britain included heading the department responsible for English-language radio broadcasts into the West, as well as involvement in the Peace Council and the Berlin (East)– London Committee during the 1980s.48 A wide range of mid-level LfV officials also fitted this pattern,49 in what was a development common to all national friendship societies.50 While the loyalty of East German officials was taken as given, delegates selected to represent East Germany abroad were put forward by the local party organisations, and were subject to approval by the central party authorities after extensive screening to ensure political reliability.51 The system used to supervise foreign ‘delegations’ visiting the GDR also operated to isolate them from 45 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� M. Lemke. 2001. ‘Die Außenbeziehungen der DDR (1949 – 1966). Prinzipien, Grundlagen, Zäsuren und Handlungsspielräume’, in U. Pfeil (ed), Die DDR und der Westen, 78. On ��������������������������������������������������������������������� the role of friendship societies as a ‘kind of foreign ministry’, see I. Wallace. 2000. ‘The GDR’s Cultural Activities in Britain’, German Life and Letters 53 (3), 401. 46 ����� Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 28–32. 47 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� R. Litzke. 1999. ‘Erinnerungen an die Arbeit in der Liga für Völkerfreundschaft,’ in D. Röseberg (ed.), Frankreich und ‘das andere Deutschland’. Analysen und Zeitzeugnisse, Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 399. 48 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 126–27, 263–66; Interview with Hans Herzberg, Berlin 25.8.2001; Interview with David Rummelsberg, Berlin 16.8.2001. 49 Interview with Inge Fischer, Berlin 25.10.2001. 50 U. Pfeil, unpublished paper presented to the conference, ‘Das war die DDR’, Oetzenhausen, 2003. 51 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ See, for example, Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Abteilung Merseburg [LHA, AM], Bezirksparteiarchiv der SED [BPA], Halle IV/E-2/3/151, ‘Vorlage an das Sekretariat der BL Halle der FDJ’ [undated: 1984], 1��� –�� 2.

16

Friendly Enemies

‘ordinary citizens’, while seeking to implant a positive image through a highly structured programme of events and visits. The ultimate aim was to ensure that ‘delegates’ became ‘friends’ of the GDR, spreading the word back home of ‘socialist successes’ behind the Wall. The LfV also sought to control the Britain–GDR Society through regular ‘strategy meetings’ in East Berlin.52 Crucially, while the GDR aimed to improve its image in Britain, it intended to do so without the risks involved in a two-way flow of ideas. The SED was all too evidently opposed to any transfer of ideas; indeed, Western culture was treated as a potentially lethal political ‘virus’ from which East German citizens must be quarantined. For this reason, the study of political of cultural transfer would be of limited value,53 although personal contacts could, and did, modify opinions and change perceptions and prejudices on both sides. Thus, the wide range of contacts, from trade unionists and town councillors to academics and churchmen, was not entirely without effect. The British policy of ‘non-recognition’ of the GDR until 1973 was determined by international obligations to NATO and West Germany’s status as an important European ally.54 In the planning and prosecution of Britain’s policy towards East Germany, the Foreign Office stood centre stage. The ‘non-recognition’ of East Germany meant that the ‘Ulbricht regime’ was dealt with by the Foreign Office’s ‘Western Department’ under the rubric ‘Germany’, rather than by the ‘Northern Department’, which had responsibilities for the Soviet Union and the wider East Bloc. The foreign-policy bureaucracy in Whitehall, which had many senior officials with detailed knowledge and first-hand experience of the situation in Germany, exercised considerable influence on government policy. It helped prepare government for what was widely believed to be East Germany’s almost inevitable recognition as the tide of international relations turned in the course of the 1960s. Most notably, in 1971 Geoffrey McDermott, the British Political Advisor in Berlin from 1960–1962, was willing to lend his support to the East German-sponsored Committee for the Recognition of the GDR, which comprised around forty public personalities (e.g., politicians, academics, clergymen and writers). Although this Committee did, after considerable delay, publish an open letter in The Times calling for the recognition of the GDR, it came too late in the day and was of too little significance to matter much. 52 Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, pp. 34–35 53 On the concept see S. Berger. 2003. ‘Comparative History’, in S. Berger, H. Feldner and K. Passmore (eds), Writing History. Theory and Practice, London: Hodder Arnold, 161–182. 54 For the following discussion, see Hoff, Großbritannien, 18–20; id. 2001. ���� ‘“… Largely the Prisoners of Dr. Adenauer’s Policy”. Großbritannien und die DDR (1949–1973)’, in Pfeil (ed.), Transnationale Beziehungen, 191–93.

Introduction

17

A public opinion poll the Committee organised through the Electoral Reform Society asked respondents to express an opinion in favour of or against recognition of the GDR. Of the 21 per cent that replied, the overwhelming majority was in favour, but given that 79 per cent did not bother to reply, the result was a mixed blessing at best. The Committee also undertook lobbying work among government ministers, but overall, by the time it was activated, international policy was already moving swiftly in the direction of the recognition of the GDR. At best one can say that it helped to keep the issue of GDR recognition before the public eye; its influence on the course of British politics, however, was limited.55 The task of ensuring adherence to Britain’s anti-communist foreign-policy objectives, and, more specifically, countering communist propaganda emanating from East Berlin, fell to the Foreign Office’s Information and Research Department (IRD).56 Anti-communist propaganda was also broadcast into the GDR by the BBC’s ‘German Service’, which operated from West Berlin.57 From the end of the 1940s, the ‘External Department’ of the British Embassy in Bonn operated as the Political Department of the British Military Government (BMG) in Berlin, with the department’s ‘Political Advisor’ to the BMG taking on the position of deputy City Commandant. Although personnel in the ‘External Department’ enjoyed, in principle, unrestricted movement, military intelligence in the GDR was run by the ‘British Commander-in-Chief’s Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany’. Berlin, which had become the epicentre of cold-war espionage operations, was also the point of departure for British foreign intelligence (SIS) operations.58 Apart from the Foreign Office and other state-run institutions, in particular the Board of Trade, the Labour Party was a crucial player when it came to relations with the GDR. In particular the Labour Left took a keen interest in ‘actually existing socialism’, as it related the latter’s alleged ‘achievements’ to their own core objectives focused on improving the condition of the working class and state ownership of the means of production.59 In foreign-policy terms, common cause was found in a particularly vociferous opposition to Atlanticism. However, no one opinion emerged vis-à-vis the GDR 55 M. Howarth. 1981. ‘East Germany at Westminster’ in GDR Monitor 5, 9 f. 56 P. Lashmar and J. Oliver. 1998. Britain’s Secret Propaganda War 1948–1977, Thrupp: Sutton Publishing. 57 Interview with Peter Johnson, London 8.3.2001. 58 D. Murphy, S. Kondrashev and G. Bailey. 1997. Battleground Berlin. CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War, New Haven: Yale University Press, 205–38; C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin.1999. The Mitrokhin Archive. The KGB in Europe and the West, London: Penguin, 520–22. 59 P. Seyd. 1987. The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

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even on the Labour left which spanned a spectrum of views, including many which retained critical perspectives on Eastern European communism. Although the following study will devote considerable attention to the pro-Soviet Left, both within and outside the Labour Party, and its strong support for contacts with the GDR, it will also explore the role of other left-wingers who were less in harmony with ‘actually existing socialism’, but favoured dialogue and détente over the hostilities of the Cold War.60 Those gripped most strongly by what Dennis Healey called the Labour Party’s ‘Russia complex’ saw in the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies a political model for socialism. Inconsistencies and contradictions between theory and practice were explained away by the difficulties encountered by Moscow since 1917 – not least of which was Western aggression. In this mindset, the Soviet regime’s faults could be excused as transitional and redeemable, rather than relating to the inherent narrowness of Marxist–Leninist ideology. Accordingly, the ‘Russia complex’ fostered a Manichean worldview, dividing the world into the dark forces of the American-led capitalism and the forces fighting for socialism.61 Among the latter could also be counted Eastern European communism, even if one found fault with certain aspects of it. At least the GDR, like other communist states in Eastern Europe, had abolished capitalism. During the period of ‘non-recognition’, the British Foreign Office officially requested that participants in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as trade unions, peace movements, churches, etc, did nothing to support East Germany’s mushrooming campaign for diplomatic recognition. On the world stage, however, the GDR had a considerable degree of success in gaining entry to international organisations. By 1970, East Germany was a member of some 500 international NGOs, from sport and medicine to astronautics.62 If the GDR could never break free of its negative public image as the grey, hard-line communist Germany, then East Berlin did develop a surprisingly strong network of British ‘friends’ prepared to act as either unofficial ambassadors of ‘actually existing socialism’ or, more commonly, proponents of the politics of dialogue. Hence, in the British case, one has to distinguish carefully between official 60 On pro-Sovietism in the Labour Party see Darren G. Lilleker. 2004. Against the Cold War. The History and Political Traditions of Pro-Sovietism in the British Labour Party, 1945–1989, London: I.B. Tauris. 61 B. Jones. 1977. The Russia Complex. The British Labour Party and the Soviet Union, Manchester: Manchester University Press; E. Meehan. 1960. The British Left Wing and Foreign Policy. A Study of the Influence of Ideology, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press; J. Schneer. 1988. Labour’s Conscience. The Labour Left 1945–1951, London: Allen and Unwin; P. Weiler. 1988. British Labour and the Cold War, Stanford: Stanford University Press. 62 Becker, Großbritannien, 237–38.

Introduction

19

attitudes towards the GDR as reflected in governmental policies and positions formulated by the Foreign Office and the attitudes of a variety of ‘societal’ organisations – from political parties, to trade unions and peace movements, to church organisations. It is the objective of this study to examine the extent, motivation, successes and failures of British–GDR relations from both the governmental, official level and the unofficial societal level.

Researching British–GDR relations The study of British–German relations is a well-established field of historical writing,63 but much of the literature on the post-1945 relations has focused on relations between Britain and the FRG. In examining the full scope of British–GDR relations, this study can build on a comparatively manageable literature, which has mainly dealt with British–GDR relations in the period between 1949 and 1973. In 1977 the Research Institute of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik published a brief account of the GDR’s relations with Britain, which was largely based on the available published material.64 The undisputed pathfinder and doyenne in the field of British–GDR relations is Marianne Howarth. Her 1977 thesis, written under the name Marianne Bell, incorporates extremely valuable information on a wide range of contacts before the period of recognition in 1973, and all subsequent scholars have benefited enormously from her work.65 Bert Becker’s book from 1981, covering the same period, is a good case in point.66 On the eve of the East German revolution of 1989 Axel Bachmann gave a brief survey of the GDR’s policies vis-à-vis the Anglo-Saxon countries.67 And Anne Deighton, in the year of German reunification, provided a comprehensive account of Britain’s role in the division of Germany.68 63 For a recent literature review see R.G. Hughes. 2006. ‘“Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans’: Britain and the German Affair in History’, Twentieth Century British History 17 (2), 257–83. 64 ����������������� J. Eymelt. 1977. Die Tätigkeit der DDR in den nichtkommunistischen Ländern, vol. 4: Great Britain, Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz. 65 M. Bell (now Howarth). ‘Non-Recognition’. Her thesis was supervised by David Childs, who has himself contributed to the field of British–GDR relations. See, for example, D. Childs. 1992. ‘British Labour and Ulbricht’s State. The Fight for Recognition’, in A. Birke and G. Heydemann (eds), Großbritannien und Ostdeutschland seit 1918, Munich: Oldenburg, 95–106. 66 �������� Becker, DDR und Großbritannien. 67 �������������������������������������������������������������������� A. Bachmann. 1989. ‘Die Beziehungen der DDR zu den angelsächsischen Ländern’, in H.-J. Veen and P. Weilmann (eds), Die Westpolitik der DDR. Beziehungen der DDR zu ausgewählten westlichen Industriestaaten in den 70er und 80er Jahren, Melle: Knoth, 129–31. 68 A. Deighton. 1990. Britain, the Division of Germany and the Origins of the Cold War, Oxford: Clarendon.

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With the opening of the archives post-1990, research began to flourish. In particular Henning Hoff’s masterly study of the multifaceted relationships between Britain and the GDR until 1973 has expanded our knowledge of the subject area substantially.69 HansGeorg Golz has provided us with a full account of the activities of the friendship societies.70 Ulrich Pfeil, who has himself worked most extensively on France,71 has also published a valuable collection which compares the relationship of the GDR with a wide variety of Western states drawing on the expertise of a large range of European scholars, including that for Britain of Henning Hoff.72 Pfeil also explicitly considers the period of the 1970s and 1980s on which there is still least information. Once again Marianne Howarth made a first attempt at an overview of British–German relations after 1973.73 Anthony Glees has lavished much attention on the activities of the East German secret service, the Stasi, in Britain.74 Klaus Larres has provided us with intriguing glimpses of economic and political relations up until the fall of the wall. 75 And Arnd Bauerkämper has edited a formidable collection of articles bringing together considerable expertise in British–GDR relations over a wide variety of areas and eras.76 Finally, the authors of this present volume have, over the past eight years provided a range of glimpses into diverse aspects of British–GDR relations.77 69 ������ Hoff, Großbritannien. 70 ������ Golz, Völkerfreundschaft. 71 ���������������� U. Pfeil. 2004. Die ‘Anderen’ deutsch–französischen Beziehungen. Die DDR und Frankreich 1949–1990, Cologne: Böhlau. 72 ������� Pfeil, Transnationale Beziehungen. ���������������������������������������������� A more extensive French version is available: idem. 2000. ������ La RDA et l‘Occident, 1949–1990, Paris: ������������������������� Institut Allemand. 73 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� M. Howarth. 2003. ‘Freundschaft mit dem Klassenfeind. Die Image-Politik der DDR in Großbritannien nach der diplomatischen Anerkennung’, Deutschland Archiv, 36 (1), 25–34; M. Howarth. 2007. ‘Vom Kalten Krieg zum „Kalten Frieden”. Diplomatische Beziehungen zwischen Großbritannien und der DDR 1972/73–1975, in P. Barker, M.-D. Ohse and D. Tate (eds), Views from Abroad – Die DDR aus britischer Perspektive, Bielefeld: Bertelsmann, 149–162. 74 Glees, Stasi Files. 75 K. Larres. 2000. ‘Britain and the GDR: Political and Economic Relations, 1949– 1989’, in K. Larres and E. Meehan (eds), Uneasy Allies: British-German Relations and European Integration since 1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 63–98. 76 A. Bauerkämper (ed.). 2002. Britain and the GDR. Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World, Berlin, Philo. 77 S. Berger and D. Lilleker. 2002. ‘The British Labour Party and the German Democratic Republic During the Era of Non-Recognition, 1949–1973’, The Historical Journal, 45 (2), 433–58; Berger and LaPorte, ‘John Peet’; S. Berger and N. LaPorte. 2005. ������������������������������������������������������������ ‘Britische Parlamentarierkontakte nach Osteuropa 1945– 1989: zwischen fellow-travelling und ostpolitischer Erneuerung’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 45, 3–42; Berger and LaPorte, The Other Germany; S. Berger and N. LaPorte. 2006. ���������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Ostpolitik before Ostpolitik: The British Labour Party and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), 1955–1964’, European History Quarterly 36 (3), 396–420; S. Berger and N. LaPorte. 2007. ‘Being Friendly with the “Other

Introduction

21

With this monograph, they are presenting the first study offering a comprehensive analysis of the development of the GDR’s interrelationship with Britain covering the entire period of the GDR’s existence between 1949 and 1990. It is based very widely on the rich archival evidence in the many archives in Britain and Germany consulted by the authors over a seven-year period and listed in the literature section at the end of this book. In particular the German archives on GDR history have been tremendously helpful, as they are not restricted by any thirty-year rule – dead states do not need to protect their secrets. The authors have also made extensive searches in all of the regional archives of the former GDR, but even in the best kept, such as the one in Sachsen-Anhalt, little documentation on British–GDR relations could be found. This might well be an indicator of how centrally controlled any relations with the West, including Britain, were, leaving little scope for regional autonomy or initiative. The first chapter begins by surveying the post-1945 changes in the British perception of the Soviet Union and Germany which led to the division of Germany and creation of a separate West German state as a bulwark against the westward expansion of the Soviet Union. The Labour government faced considerable opposition to this sea-change in its foreign policy from within the left of its own party which stemmed itself in vain against the bipolar organisation of the post-war world. Given Britain’s pivotal role in the creation of a separate West German state closely allied to the West, it is not surprising that the SED made Britain one of its prime objects for ideological attack, presenting it as a sponsor of political forces hostile to the interests of the German working classes. Thus, chapter 1 pays particular attention to the anti-communism of the TUC, which refused to have official relations with its GDR counterpart, the FDGB. However, the TUC’s stance was undercut to some extent by the position of individual British unions, where a strong communist presence ensured a far more favourable reception of the overtures of East German trade unionists. Unsurprisingly, British Communists were among the most enthusiastic supporters of the Soviet zone of occupation and the GDR and we shall be tracing their early attempts to counter the prevailing anti-communism among the wider British public. However, East-German officials, right from the beginning, attempted to reach out to wider audiences in Britain. No Germany”: Dorothy Diamond and British Support for the GDR, 1949–1961’, in Socialist History 30, 60­81; S. Berger and N. LaPorte. ����������������������� 2007. ‘Die Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Großbritannien, 1979–1989’, in P. Barker, M.-D. Ohse and D. Tate (eds), Views from Abroad. Die ���������������������������������� DDR aus britischer Perspektive, Bielefeld: W. Bertelsmann Verlag, 163–72.

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other issue seemed better suited for this purpose than West German rearmament which raised considerable fears in Britain and badly divided the Labour Party in particular. Another important bait used by the GDR was the issue of trade, which it hoped would meet with considerable interest in Britain. But the GDR’s efforts to present itself as ‘the better Germany’ also received early setbacks with reports in Britain about the arming of East German police in the Soviet sector in 1946, and especially with the brutal suppression of the 1953 rising in the GDR. The second chapter deals with the period from 1955, when the Soviet Union formally granted sovereignty to the GDR and both Germanys joined the military alliances of NATO and the Warsaw Pact respectively, to recognition of the GDR by Britain in 1972. During this period Britain became a target for East German efforts to undermine the West German Hallstein Doctrine and much of the chapter assesses the success of this policy. We shall analyse the GDR’s strategy of discrediting the FRG in Britain and look at the responses of the British governments, Foreign Office, parliamentarians and political parties. During this period trade was identified by the GDR as of major importance in overcoming its diplomatic isolation and we shall trace the development of British– GDR trade relations. Educational and cultural links were at the heart of the GDR’s strategy to improve its image in Britain, but there were also more direct political interventions which will be analysed here. In particular parliamentarians, trade unionists, sympathetic churchmen, and peace activists were given considerable attention by GDR officials. Relations with the Communist Party of Great Britain, by contrast, were characterised by increasing tensions over ideological differences and the GDR’s assessment of it as insignificant – regardless of the fact that Communists belonged to the most steadfast supporters of the GDR. During this period, like during the previous one, attempts to improve the GDR’s image were jeopardised by events which demonstrated all too clearly the dictatorial aspects of ‘actually existing socialism’. The building of the wall in 1961 and the repression of reform communism in Czechoslovakia in 1968 were the most clear-cut occasions which confirmed to many in Britain that the GDR was, above all, an illegitimate and hard-line communist dictatorship. When British recognition of the GDR came in 1972, it did so on the back of West Germany’s Neue Ostpolitik. Chapter 3 will analyse the development of British–GDR relations between recognition in 1972 and the arrival of the second Cold War in 1979. After looking at the respective roles of the embassies in East Berlin and London, we will discuss British recognition of East German citizenship in 1976 and

Introduction

23

the successes of GDR diplomacy in Britain during the 1970s – the highpoint of relations between the two countries. However, there was no real take-off of relations and the chapter will also attempt to analyse why the image of the GDR in Britain remained overwhelmingly negative and why the socialist Germany failed to build on the early successes of recognition. The troubled relationship between the SED and the CPGB spilt over into the Britain–GDR Society, where the GDR fought the considerable influence of Euro-communists, some of whom perceived themselves as ‘critical friends’ of the GDR. ‘Critical friendship’, however, was not what the GDR officials were after. Terrified that more contact with the West might lead to an erosion of communist authority in East Berlin, the regime embarked on a strict policy of Abgrenzung, which left no space for criticism and allowed only those fully in support of all aspects of the SED regime to get into contact with the West. From the SED’s perspective, contacts with the West were useful only where they promised to enhance the prestige and international standing of the GDR, whereas Western organisations from churches to peace movements often intended to further grassroots contacts. In British higher education the GDR’s desire to see itself presented in a more favourable light led to attempts to woo British academics specialising in GDR research and to the sending of East German Lektors to German departments of British HE institutions. The latter had the task of countering the work of West German Lektors, thereby not infrequently prompting veritable ‘culture wars’ in German departments at British universities. The chapter will also review the official teacher-exchange programmes operating after 1978 and ask what experiences British Communists made who had come to live and teach (English as a foreign language) in the GDR. Politically, the long courtship of the Labour Party seemed to pay off during the 1970s when Labour drifted to the left, adopted unilateralism and took up positions which were far to the left of the social democratic mainstream in Europe at the time. Trade union contacts also blossomed in the 1970s and included high-profile contacts of both TUC and STUC leaders. The final chapter of the book will analyse the impact of the second Cold War and the subsequent thaw, following the reform policies of Mikhail Gorbachev, on British–GDR relations in the 1980s. We will ask in particular what consequences the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the suppression of the Polish trade union movement Solidarity in 1981 had on British–GDR relations. The development of formal governmental relations, parliamentary relations, and trade union relations will all be assessed, as will be the disappointment on behalf of East Berlin about the Labour Party’s return to the

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middle ground following its catastrophic 1983 election defeat. As GDR officials remained sceptical of the CPGB and Euro-communist leanings of the Britain–GDR Society, the 1980s saw attempts to develop new organisational channels. In particular the Scotland– GDR Society and the London–Berlin Committee were two attempts to bypass the BGS, which was widely regarded by Liga representatives as ideologically unreliable and organisationally ineffective. Given the BGS’s continued promotion of the GDR’s policies and ‘socialist achievements’, this might seem a little harsh, especially as the at times insensitive self-presentation of the GDR in Britain and its ongoing concern with Abgrenzung had an important role to play in the continued negative perception of the second German state. The GDR still tried hard throughout the 1980s to develop contacts with British higher education, the British peace movement and the British churches. Town twinning between British and East German cities was actively promoted, and the chapter will investigate all these attempts to improve British–GDR relations during the final decade of the existence of the GDR. The chapter will conclude by assessing the reaction of the GDR’s friends in Britain to the collapse of the SED regime in 1989 and the impending reunification in 1990. Overall, the following pages will provide ample evidence that, despite unfavourable conditions, British–GDR relations were perhaps surprisingly diverse and manifold. Especially the British Left had a continuous interest in the GDR which lasted for the entire period of the existence of this second German state. Governmental and diplomatic relations are not the biggest part of the story of British– GDR relations. As the following pages will demonstrate, one needs to extend the investigation to parliaments, political parties, trade unions, peace movements, churches, town twinning arrangements, friendship societies and the educational systems. A key focus throughout our investigation will be to trace what motivated people in Britain to get into contact with the GDR, and inversely, what motivated East Germans in their desire to make contact with Britain. In the latter case, of course, such contacts were severely monitored and directed by the communist dictatorship. Those East Germans in charge of East German policy vis-à-vis Britain were carefully chosen and rigorously screened by the SED and its diverse organs, in particular the infamous Stasi. In Britain, by contrast, people were comparatively free to engage with East Germany, if they so wanted. They might have faced accusations of Communist fellow-travelling, and some might even have experienced professional difficulties (e.g. journalists blacklisted by the BBC for alleged communist sympathies), but no one stopped them from pursuing their interests. And yet, on balance only a small minority took such an interest and,

Introduction

25

as we shall see below, their motivations were highly diverse. It seems difficult to assess the successes and failures of British–GDR relations, if one does not put them into the context of the GDR’s relations with other Western states and the context of wider British–German relations during the Cold War. The conclusion of the book will take up these challenges to provide some glimpses on how the results of this investigation might fit into the broader picture of the GDR’s international positioning during the forty years of its existence.

Chapter 1

Negotiating the Emergence of Two Germanys British–GDR Relations in the Context of the Evolution of the Post-war Political Order, 1945–1955

The defeat of Nazi Germany had stretched Britain to its limits. It would have been an impossible task to achieve without the Soviet Union. Hence gratitude to the Soviet people and even the Communist government was high in war-time Britain, especially among the political Left. However, as the war drew to a close the British political class was increasingly aware of the emerging conflicts of interests with the Soviet ally. This chapter starts off by tracing the impact of this new tension between the Western allies and the Soviet Union on Britain’s perception of Germany. Support for the communist transformation of East Germany was increasingly restricted to a fringe of left-wingers in the Labour Party, the small Communist Party and to left-wing trade unionists. The majority, even on the left, perceived East Germany as a puppet regime of the Soviet Union. The enforced merger between SPD and KPD in the Soviet zone of occupation, the Berlin airlift, the communist coup in Czechoslovakia – all of these events re-enforced the perception of communist Eastern European states as dictatorships under the thumb of the Soviet Union. In its policy towards Germany the British government, alongside the USA, was soon pursuing the aim of the foundation of a separate West German state as an ally in the Cold War. This chapter will discuss the British strategies which eventually led to the non-acceptance of the GDR, when it was founded in 1949, but it will also analyse the continued unease among the British political

Negotiating the Emergence of Two Germanys

27

class, when it came to its West German ally. The strains on British– West German relations gave the GDR the means to appeal to British public opinion and present itself as the better Germany. Yet the 1953 rising confirmed all of the British suspicions vis-à-vis the GDR, so that support for communist Germany dwindled even further. At the time when both Germanys joined their respective military alliances in 1955, British relations with the GDR were extremely limited and fraught with difficulties.

From One Enemy to the Next: Changing British Perceptions of Germany in the Context of the Ensuing Cold War From 1942, the future of a defeated Germany was extensively discussed in British political circles. Whilst there were many who followed Robert Vansittart in describing Germany as an inherently aggressive nation, others attempted to take a more differentiated look at the Germans. The Labour Party, which unexpectedly formed the government in 1945, was most divided on how to judge Germany. At Potsdam, the Allies had agreed to govern Germany as one unit, but this proved impossible in the post-war world. Those British observers most closely involved with these developments had seen it coming. In 1944, Rennie Smith, a former Labour MP who was now a civilian officer with the Control Commission involved in re-educating Ruhr miners and cooperating closely with trade unionists and social democrats, had been hopeful of US–Soviet cooperation in Germany. By the end of 1945, Smith doubted the democratic motives of the Soviets. After only six months in Germany, he noted the possibility of a division of the country, as the Soviet zone of occupation was developing in significantly different ways to the Western occupation  L. Kettenacker. 1989. Krieg zur Friedenssicherung: die Deutschlandplanung der britischen Regierung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht; D. Gossel. 1999. Briten, Deutsche und Europa. Die deutsche Frage in der britischen Außenpolitik 1945– 1962, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.  Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1930– 38 and Chief Diplomatic Advisor to the Foreign Secretary, 1938–41, authored the anti-German tract ‘The Black Record: Germans Past and Present’ (1941).  On the close relationship between Labour Party and SPD before 1933 see S. Berger. 1994. The British Labour Party and the German Social Democrats, 1900–1931. A Comparison, Oxford: Clarendon, especially chapter 6. On the more problematic development of relations after 1933 see A. Glees. 1982. Exile Politics during the Second World War. The German Social Democrats in Britain, Oxford, Clarendon; I. Tombs. 1996. ‘The Victory of Socialist “Vansittartism”: Labour and the German Question 1941–45’, Twentieth Century British History, 7 (3), 287–309.

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zones. While The Times in May and June 1945 was still hopeful that the war-time allies could agree on administering Germany, it also recognised that the division of Germany would mean the division of Europe. By September 1945 the paper was worried that the lack of central authority in defeated Germany might lead to chaos. The growing volume of voices critical of the intentions of the Soviet Union were still intermingled with the voices of those on the left of the political spectrum who admired the Soviet Union for encouraging the growth of a new political culture in their zone of occupation. In the columns of Tribune there was much criticism of the way in which the Allies handled the division of Germany in their zones of occupation. In particular the Western allies’ alleged encouragement of the depoliticisation of Germans and their lack of support for the German Left were heavily criticised. Yet such voices had little impact on the direction of British foreign policy. In 1945, the Labour Party’s electoral victory was accompanied by the expectation that war-time cooperation with the Soviet Union would continue during the post-war occupation of Germany. In 1944, a Labour Party foreign policy manifesto championed the idea of consolidating ‘the great wartime association of the British commonwealth with the USA and the USSR.’10 A year later, in the 1945 election campaign, the party campaigned under the slogan ‘left can speak to left’, indicating that the antagonistic stance between Churchill and the Soviet leadership could give way to a better mutual understanding under a Labour government. By the spring of 1946, however, the meeting of Foreign Ministers in Paris showed how much of the earlier optimism had already evaporated. Close collaboration between the British Foreign Office and the American State Department produced the strategy of containing communism, which included rebuilding West Germany as a bulwark against the further westward expansion of the Soviet Union.11 The division of  Rennie Smith, ‘Europe is our concern. The big three have their plans’, The Murphy News, 18.2.1944; idem, ‘Great Britain, Russia and Germany’, Memorandum, 12.11.1945 and idem, ‘Germany after six months’, Memorandum, no date given [1946?], all in Bodleian Library, Oxford (Dept. of Western Manuscripts), Rennie Smith Papers, MS.Eng.hist.c.467.  ‘Interregnum in Germany’, The Times, 4.6.1945.  ‘The State of Germany’, The Times, 17.9.1945.  ‘The German desert’, Tribune, 14.9.1945; ‘The Russians in Germany’, Tribune, 28.11.1947; G. Schaffer. 1947. The Russian Zone, London: Alan and Unwin.  W. Shirer. 1947. End of a Berlin Diary, London: Hamish Hamilton; G. Arnold, ‘Battle of the zones’, Tribune, 21.11.1947, 14–15.  J. Posener, ‘Germany without politics’, Tribune, 16.7.1948, 10–11. 10 Labour Party Official Statement on foreign policy, September 1944; Labour Party Annual Conference Report [LPACR], (4–9), 5. 11 A. Deighton. 1990. ‘Towards a “Western” Strategy: The Making of British Policy Towards Germany 1945–1946’, in idem (ed.), Britain and the First Cold War Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 9–26.

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Germany was now part of the British and American policy vis-à-vis Germany, thereby reinforcing the separate development of the Soviet and Western zones of occupation.12 By May 1946, the British foreign minister Ernest Bevin was arguing that the Soviet threat was more important than the German danger. Subsequently, the British Labour government intensified efforts to bring the three Western zones closer together. The division of Germany was accepted as the result of the Cold War, but the USSR’s aim to dominate Europe had to be resisted.13 Growing British suspicion of Soviet policy was also expressed by Sir Patrick Deane, head of the German Department in the Foreign Office. In August 1948, Deane stated that, ‘What has in fact happened is that the Soviet authorities have established in the Eastern Zone a totalitarian one party police state, bearing many close resemblances to the Nazi State of 1933 to 1945.’14 By this point, with the exception of the far left, Deane’s views had become almost communis opinio among the British political class, left and right. Since the later nineteenth century, Germany’s geographical position in the centre of Europe had conditioned a Janus-faced foreign policy, which looked either eastwards or westwards depending on circumstance. The West’s ‘Rapallo complex’ – a deep-seated anxiety that Germany could again forge an alliance of convenience, this time with Soviet Russia – served as the incentive to integrate the FRG firmly within the Western alliance. Such integration necessitated the Western allies’ refusal to recognise the parallel foundation of the ‘second German state’, the GDR. Yet, from the policy’s inception, there were voices in the British Foreign Office expressing the view that de facto recognition could not be avoided indefinitely.15 Just a week after the foundation of the GDR in 1949, The Times also argued that it would be unwise simply to ignore the existence of two Germanys: ‘Instead of pretending that it does not exist it is wiser to recognise it for what it is – one more “People’s Democracy”, dependent on Russian support, lacking popular backing, riddled with obvious weaknesses, yet, in spite of these things, imbued with a revolutionary toughness and persistence which may in the end produce results. It widens the division of Germany and is a challenge to the western Powers and to the West German Republic which cannot be ignored.’16 An 12 J. Backer. 1978. The Decision to Divide Germany, Durham/N.C.: Duke University Press. 13 P. Jones.1997. America and the British Labour Party, New York: I.B. Tauris, 42. 14 National Archives [henceforth: NA], FO 1049/1143, ‘P. Dean to C.E. Steel’, 12.8.1948. 15 H. Hoff. 2003. Großbritannien und die DDR 1955–1973. Diplomatie auf Umwegen, Munich: Oldenbourg, 34. 16 Editorial ‘East Germany’, The Times, 15.10.1949.

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explanation for this stance can be found in the actual objective of British policy, which was not reunification, but the containment of Soviet influence. Indeed, Britain was more afraid of a unified Germany coming under Soviet influence than of a divided Germany anchored within opposing alliance systems. The more West Germany became integrated in the West, the more distant prospects of reunification would appear and the easier it would be for Britain to move slowly towards an acceptance of two Germanys.

Dissenters: The Third Force Movement and East Germany The foreign minister’s critics, organised within the Labour Party in the ‘Keep Left’ group, championed a socialist foreign policy based on the idea of a socialist Europe as a ‘third force’ between the ‘twin evils’ of the United States and the Soviet Union. Founded in January 1947, the group’s leading light was Richard Crossman, who wrote ‘The Job Abroad’ section in what amounted to Keep Left’s policy statement. Critical of both the Soviet Union and the USA in postwar international relations, ‘The Job Abroad’ invested its hopes in maintaining independence from both superpowers by cooperating with France in the formation of a united and socialist Europe.17 From this perspective any long-term division of Germany would just cement the division of Europe. Hence, the Labour Left tended to be in favour of dialogue with communist states in Eastern Europe, including the GDR. In the PLP, a small group of MPs around Konni Zilliacus, John Platts-Mills and Julius Silverman thus welcomed the merger of SPD and KPD in March 1946 as the happy ending of the historic division of the workers’ movement in Germany that had enabled Hitler’s rise to power. Twenty-eight of them sent the new party a telegram wishing it ‘success in bringing about the political unity of the German workers on terms fair and just to both Social Democrats and Communists.’18 Despite the PLP’s outright censure of this action, a year later thirteen backbenchers sent a message of support to the SED-sponsored ‘People’s Congress’, welcoming ‘all efforts made in Germany to organise a united representation of all democratic forces of Germany which would be able to state the opinion of German democrats on the future of their country.’19 Again, the PLP 17 J. Schneer. 1988. Labour’s Conscience: The Labour left 1945–1951, London: Allen and Unwin, 60–62 18 Daily Herald, 20.3.1946. 19 Daily Herald, 11.12.1947.

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stridently disassociated itself from this statement. At a meeting of the PLP on 10 December 1947, Herbert Morrison forcefully informed the signatories of the second telegram that their actions had contravened official party policy. In agreement with the official Allied position, the Labour government saw the congress as an undemocratic communist front designed to counter Allied attempts to establish separate political institutions in the Western zones. A lead article in the Daily Herald took the thirteen to account describing the SED as ‘a Communist concoction, brewed in the Soviet Zone of Germany, and intended to poison if possible the minds of the German people against the Social Democratic Party.’20 Those who had signed the original message defended their actions by insisting that the congress would help counter anti-communist propaganda in the West and promulgate peace throughout Europe. Furthermore, they believed that workingclass unity had overcome the ideological split between communists and socialists, which had proved so devastating in interwar Germany, and argued that the SPD was partly to blame for the lack of unity in the Western zones.21 In his reply to the ‘dissidents’, Percy Cudlipp, the editor-in-chief of the Herald, make clear his support for the official Labour attitude towards communism. Communism, he argued, was ‘now openly fighting for the destruction of the Labour Movement … The Soviet zone of Germany was an example of the ruthless anti-democratic methods of Communism.’22 The same basic conclusions were reached by the Foreign Office’s Germany expert, Sir William Strang. In a memorandum to Foreign Secretary Bevin, Strang stressed that the SED was an ‘artificial creation devised by the Soviet administration to produce a single powerful Workers’ Party in which the numerically inferior Communists shall dominate the larger Social Democrat element.’23 And the British military governor in Germany, General Sir Brian Robertson, also denounced the SED as a ‘stooge’ party in the hands of the Soviet Union intent on defeating democracy.24 The Foreign Office’s view of East Germany was often clouded by the chaos of information flowing from East Germany to London. It also had tried to avoid conflicts with the Soviet Union over what went on in the Soviet zone of occupation. But in the course of 1946 and 1947 the Foreign Office became increasingly disillusioned about what went on in the Soviet zone and began to build dams 20 Daily Herald, 11.12.1947. 21 Daily Herald, 12., 16., 18., and 19. 12.1947. 22 Daily Herald, 23.12.1947. 23 NA, FO 1030/162. 24 ‘German Unity Party’, The Times, 11.3.1948.

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against communism. The merger of SPD and KPD in 1946 was an important step in that direction.25 In line with Foreign Office opinion, the Labour leadership vociferously opposed the merger of the SPD and KPD in the Soviet zone.26 Interpreted as the latest manifestation of communist political machination, it contributed significantly to the further growth of anti-communism in the Labour leadership during the second half of the 1940s. Dennis Healey, in his role as international secretary, tried in vain to sustain the various socialist parties in Eastern Europe, despite their own growing recognition that they were ‘doomed to destruction’. Healey saw the suppression of Social Democracy throughout the Soviet bloc as ‘tragically frustrating’. After seeing East Germany for himself, he described it as ‘economically the most successful, but politically the most Stalinist of all the East European countries I have visited.’27 The impact in Britain of the merger in April 1946 was to bring the Labour government closer still to the SPD, which already carried the epithet ‘the British party’. The sea change in the Labour Party’s attitude toward the Soviet Union since 1945 became increasingly obvious. Mills and Zilliacus, the main players in organising the Nenni telegram, offering support to an alliance of Italian socialists and communists in the ‘red scare’ elections of 1948, were called before NEC disciplinary hearings; other signatories were put under pressure to retract their support. It was now clear that the party leadership was prepared to remove its velvet gloves in order to act with an iron fist against those who continued to see a light of socialist hope burning in the East. The ‘third forcers’ were routed at the 1948 party conference in Margate. The party’s General Secretary, Morgan Phillips, built up a file, documenting the activities of those suspected of offering support to Moscow. The ‘soft’ left, including Crossman and Michael Foot, came increasingly to accept Ernest Bevin’s position on the general direction of British foreign policy. Michael Foot, a key player on the left, now stated that ‘the major purpose of Soviet policy has been the complete subjection of as many countries as possible … If the Russians are not prepared to accept a genuinely free and united Germany it is better that the Western zones should proceed with their task of reconstruction than that we should concede all for a renewed fake promise of free 25 H. Maetzke. 1996. Der Union Jack in Berlin. Das britische Foreign Office, die SBZ und die Formulierung britischer Deutschlandpolitik 1945/47, Konstanz: UniversitätsVerlag Konstanz. 26 R. Pommerin. 1988. ‘Die Zwangsvereinigung von KPD und SPD zur SED. ����� Eine britische Analyse vom April 1946’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 36 (2), 319–38. 27 ����������������� D. Healey. ������ 1989. TheTime of My Life, London: Michael Joseph, 88, 527.

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elections.’28 The nascent Cold War had narrowed the foreign policy alternatives available and shaped Britain’s relations with those countries, including the GDR, that fell within the Soviet sphere of influence.29 After 1948, only a minority of the Labour Left continued to call for a socialist ‘Third Force’ and improved relations with the communist states in Eastern Europe.30 Residual sympathy for the Soviet Union had, however, not been extinguished in the Labour Party, as the foundation of the Socialist Fellowship in 1949 demonstrated. It explicitly sought to keep alive the ideals of the ‘third force’ movement, namely a ‘socialist’ foreign policy, anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism. While ‘Keep Left’ had been based on an alliance of political heavy hitters, the Socialist Fellowship, however, was an organisation based on a much narrower, less heavyweight basis.31 One of the most prominent Soviet apologists among leading Labour politicians was Harold Laski.32 Laski was ready to concede that the Soviet Union had done away with ‘bourgeois’ civil liberties and ‘formal’ democracy. Yet he continued to admire a society in which he believed the ordinary citizen was offered a more rewarding life than under Western capitalism. As late as 1952 Crossman penned a Tribune group paper, in which he depicted Tito’s Yugoslavia, a reunified socialist Germany and a socialist Britain as the nucleus of a ‘third force’ on the world stage.33 The pro-Soviet Left in the Labour Party was certainly never entirely eclipsed: it lived on as a penumbra within the labour movement until the end of the Cold War, and beyond.34 28 M. Foot, ‘Socialists and the Atlantic Pact’, Tribune, 20.5. 1949, 7–8. 29 On the effects of the Cold War on West German domestic and foreign policy, see also D. Patton. 1999. Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 147, who rightly points out that, as frontline state of the Cold War, ‘Germany predictably caught pneumonia whenever the superpowers sneezed.’ 30 On the Labour left after 1945 see especially Schneer, Labour’s Conscience, and E. Meehan. 1960. The British Left Wing and Foreign Policy: A Study of the Influence of Ideology, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. On Bevinism see A. Bullock. 1983. The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, Vol. 3: Foreign Secretary, 1945 – 1951, London: Heinemann. On anti-Americanism in the British Labour movement compare C. Goodman. 1996. ‘Who is Anti-American?: the British Left and the United States, 1945–1956’, Ph.D thesis: University of London. On Labour’s foreign policy generally see M. Gordon. 1975. Conflict and Consensus in Labour’s Foreign Policy, Stanford: Stanford University Press. 31 Schneer, Labour’s Conscience, 105–13, 127. 32 M. Newman. 1993. Harold Laski. A Political Biography, Basingstoke: Macmillan. 33 National Museum of Labour History, Manchester: Labour Party Archive [henceforth: LPAM], Jo Richardson Papers LP/Rich/3/2/6, Tribune Group Papers: paper no. 32 entitled ‘Report from Bonn’, signed by Crossman. 34 See, in particular, D. Lilleker. 2004. Against the Cold War: The History and Political Traditions of pro-Sovietism in the British Labour Party, 1945–1989, London: I.B. Tauris.

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For Labour’s pro-Soviet fringe, Soviet communism was the force for ‘world peace’ in the Cold War world. Leftists such as Konni Zilliacus (MP for Gateshead 1945–50 and Manchester Gorton 1955– 67), John Platts-Mills, William Warbey (MP for Luton 1945–50) and Geoffrey Bing (MP for Hornchurch 1945–55) now led the opposition to remilitarization. In a pamphlet entitled ‘Stop the Coming War’,35 Silverman and Warbey called for the government to either accept the Soviets’ proposals or risk war. Warbey had warned as early as March 1946 against using West Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, as this might lead to another war.36 In his pamphlet ‘I Choose Peace’, published in 1949, Zilliacus argued that seeming Soviet aggression in international relations was explicable when placed in the context of pre-war anti-communism and post-war American imperialism. It was no more than the reaction of a state whose actual intentions had always been peaceful.37 Accordingly, Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was not regarded as Soviet ‘imperialism’, but, rather, the formation of a buffer zone to prevent further Western aggression. Zilliacus wanted to give the Soviet Union the opportunity to develop its ideas under peace-time conditions and was broadly sympathetic to the construction of a socialist society in Russia after 1945. His support for Tito’s experiment in Yugoslavia, however, brought a tirade of Soviet-inspired propaganda against him. At home, the mouthpiece of Moscow’s hostility to Zilliacus’ independent stance was Stalin’s leading apologist, D.N. Pritt.38 Why did the foreign policy arguments of the Labour Left fail to take root in Labour government policy? First and foremost was the group’s lack of ideological homogeneity and formal organisational structures. It represented an amalgam of views bridged largely by hostility to anti-communism. Class background also played a role. The middle-class origins of most of the Labour Left meant that they had few contacts among the non-communist Left in the trade unions. In 1945, belief in some form of ‘popular front’ continued to appear a realistic and realisable continuation of the successful war-time cooperation between socialists and communists that had liberated Europe. Yet, by 1948, two developments pulled the ground from under the feet of this argument. First, the American government’s offer of substantial financial aid to rebuild post-war Europe – in the form of the Marshall Plan – was accepted as an olive branch by many on the Labour left. It now seemed that Moscow was responsible for dividing 35 S. Silverman and W. Warbey. 1948. Stop the Coming War, London: Socialist Europe Group. 36 William Warbey, ‘British Zone in Germany’, The Times, 6.3.1946. 37 K. Zilliacus. 1949. I Choose Peace, Harmondsworth: Penguin. 38 A. Potts. 2002. Zilliacus. A Life for Peace and Socialism, London: Merlin, 112–22.

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the continent. Secondly, the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Blockade, and other dictatorial measures in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe confirmed growing fears about the implications of Soviet intransigence in international relations and the imposition of Stalinist-style political dictatorships.39 During the Berlin blockade of 1948, for example, Labour’s deputy chairman, Sam Watson, who attended the SPD conference that year, made clear Labour’s commitment to the besieged city. In an article written for the Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst, he stressed Labour’s belief that democratic principles would triumph over communist dictatorship.40 This view, however, was not endorsed by all of the Labour Party. An anonymously written Keep Left article in the New Statesman argued that the airlift sustaining West Berlin was untenable in the long term. For this reason, Britain would be well advised to remove all troops stationed in the city and to accept ‘any offer the Russians were willing to make.’41 Although the article had the support of some forty-five Labour backbenchers, its stance split the group. Several prominent ‘Keep Left’ members were moved to proclaim their support for the government’s position. While the New Statesman continued to serve as a platform for the ‘dissenters’, the weekly organ of the Labour Left, Tribune, openly sided with government policy.42 The Berlin blockade convinced many on Labour’s ‘soft’ left that there was no realistic alternative to the anticommunism of the Attlee government. In the heat of the moment, Bevan even called for British tanks to roll into the Russian zone in order to offer ground support to the airlift.43

Anti-communism in the British Zone of Occupation One of the most important objectives of the policies carried out in the British zone of occupation was a re-education programme to reverse the moral degeneration of Germany that had taken place during the Third Reich and to facilitate Germany’s reintegration into the comity of nations.44 This policy involved, among other things, an extensive programme of re-education carried out at Wilton Park in 39 Schneer, Labour’s Conscience, 11, 35ff., 64–65. 40 �������������������������������������� ‘Der grösste Gegner der Kommunisten’, Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst, 20.10.1948. 41 Keep Left statement, ‘The future for Berliners’, New Statesman, 10.7.1948. See also Meehan, British Left, 143–44. 42 Gordon, Conflict and Consensus, 141. 43 Cited in K. Morgan. 1984. Labour in Power 1945–1951, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 389. 44 S. Lee. 2001. Victory in Europe? Britain and Germany since 1945, London: Longman, 15.

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Buckinghamshire, where more than 4,000 Germans took part in courses aimed at educating the elite which was to take power in a new, democratic Germany.45 Many of those selected to take part in the Wilton Park re-education schemes were German Social Democrats with a proven history of opposition to National Socialism. Indeed, it was on Labour’s initiative that the SPD had been reintegrated into the Socialist International in 1947, and relations between the two parties were never as burdened as those between the SPD and the French and Belgian labour movements.46 During the 1930s and 1940s, a number of Labour politicians had forged close links with exiled Social Democrats who had been given asylum in Britain. Foremost among them were Richard Crossman and Patrick Gordon Walker.47 Both had acted as couriers for the SPD on journeys into Nazi Germany. Members of the German socialist ISK were an important influence on the Socialist Vanguard Group within the Labour Party.48 These contacts had produced a blossoming cross-fertilisation of ideas. Exiled German Social Democrats made a significant impact on British socialist groupings, such as ‘Socialist Clarity’. In turn, the enduring strength of the British political system reinforced German Socialists’ commitment to reformism and parliamentary democracy and strengthened their anti-communism. During the war, networks between British and German socialists were constituted which continued to operate after 1945. As Julia Angster has pointed out, these networks suffered from the limited resources available to the British side after 1945 and also from the ideological rifts between sections of the British Labour Party and the SPD. Eventually, the networks between American trade unionists and German Social Democrats became far more important for the post-war development of the SPD than any kind of British contacts. Yet, as Angster maintained, this process of the political transfer of ideas cannot simply be described as Americanisation. She rightly points out that Social Democrats in exile in Britain took with them the experience of a pluralist parliamentary democracy, and it was 45 A. Volle. 1976. Deutsch–Britische Beziehungen. Eine ���������������������������������� Untersuchung des bilateralen Verhältnisses auf der staatlichen und nicht-staatlichen Ebene seit dem zweiten Weltkrieg, Bonn: Philo, 73–100. 46 S. Berger. 2000. ‘Labour in Comparative Perspective’, in D. Tanner, P. Thane, N. Tiratsoo (eds), Labour’s First Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 322f. 47 Patrick Gordon Walker was MP for Smethwick, 1945–64; Leyton 1966–74. Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs 1963–64, Foreign Secretary 1964– January 1965. 48 M. Minion. 1998. The Labour Party and Europe During the 1940s: The Strange Case of the Socialist Vanguard Group, London: South Bank European Papers no. 4.

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this exposure in the West which contributed to the Westernisation of German Social Democracy after 1945.49 A number of British socialists used their influence with the occupation forces in Germany to assist the endeavours of their associates in the SPD. Among the most prominent of these British socialists were Austin Albu (MP for Edmonton 1948–74), Allan Flanders (Reader in Industrial Relations at the University of Warwick and advisor to the party on trade union legislation), Rita Hinden (cofounder and secretary of the Colonial Bureau of the Fabian Society, 1940–1950; editor of Socialist Commentary, 1955–1971), and Rennie Smith. They all played important roles in the reorganisation of the political and trade-union wings of the German labour movement, and took home lessons learned from their experiences.50 There were, however, limits to the extent of support for the SPD within the Labour Party. One expression of anti-German sentiments then current in the country and reflected in Labour politicians, such as Dalton and Laski, was the obstacles put in the path of the SPD leader’s visit to London in 1946. Kurt Schumacher, an abrasive personality and overt German nationalist who had volunteered to fight on the Eastern Front in the First World War and was unwilling to accept the Oder–Neisse line as the new border between East Germany and Poland, did little to remove the obstacles blocking his route to Britain. Re-education and the rebuilding of political and societal life in the British zone of occupation were important strategies of the British government, but in 1945 and 1946 the issue of feeding the population of the British zone of occupation was brought to the fore by ‘Save Europe Now’, an organisation founded and led by the prominent publisher Victor Gollancz.51 The desperate material want that was so prevalent in post-war Germany could only be overcome by rebuilding Germany economically. According to a Times editorial from August 1946 there was widespread agreement in Britain that 49 J. Angster. 2003. Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie. Die Westernisierung von SPD und DGB, Munich: Oldenbourg. The importance of transatlantic networks for anti-communism in the early Cold War is also stressed by V. Berghahn. ������ 2004. Transatlantische Kulturkriege: Shepard Stone, die Ford-Stiftung und der europäische Anti-Amerikanismus, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. 50 R. Löwenthal. 1985. ‘Zur deutschen politischen Emigration in Großbritannien im zweiten Weltkrieg: Wechselwirkungen und Nachwirkungen’, in G. Niedhart (ed.), Großbritannien als Gast- und Exilland für Deutsche im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Bochum: Studienverlag Brockmeyer, 89–116; on the post-1945 period see also Minion, Labour Party and Europe; L. Black. 1999. ‘Social Democracy as a way of life: Fellowship and the Socialist Union, 1951–1959’, Twentieth Century British History, 10 (4), 499–539. 51 V. Gollancz, ‘The Scarcity of Food’, The Times, 27.1.1946; idem, ‘A Visit to Düsseldorf’, The Times, 5.11.1946. For Gollancz’s humanitarian engagement in post-war Germany see also R. Edwards. 1987. Victor Gollancz. A Biography, London: Gollancz.

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a prosperous and peaceful Europe depended on leniency towards the defeated Germany and its rapid rebuilding.52 During debates on Germany in the House of Commons, the high costs of the occupation regime were often criticised, but at the same time there was also a clear commitment to the rebuilding of a democratic Germany.53 Ultimately, Britain’s impact on social and political life in their zone of occupation proved to be limited. Initial enthusiasm for the introduction of a planned economy came to nothing. Similarly, a programme for the reform of local government and the civil service failed to take shape. The all-important educational reforms, which proved highly unpopular among German citizens, also ran into the ground.54 Among those involved with the British occupation regime in Germany, a feeling of disappointment and frustration with the shortcomings of the reform agenda came to the fore. But the attempts to get Germans to engage with the Nazi past and the need for reform were increasingly overshadowed by the perceived need to counter Soviet and East German attacks on the British occupation regime, contain the support for communism and foster anti-communism in the British zone of occupation. With regard to denazification one could even hear the suggestion that it should not get in the way of attracting experts to the Western efforts to run their zones of administration more effectively, as the Soviets were allegedly also not too squeamish about who they used in their zone of administration as long as they declared themselves converts to communism.55 While the SED adopted an early anti-Western orientation in general, Britain was specifically targeted by communist propaganda as the main sponsor of the SPD and principal opponent of the SPD’s unification with the KPD in the Soviet zone.56 The official image of Britain in the East German media was similarly stereotypical. Britain was presented as the ‘classic country of capitalism’. It was alleged that the British withheld reparations from the Soviet Union, that it encouraged neo-Nazism in its zone of occupation and was looking to remilitarise the Germans.57 Considerable emphasis was 52 ‘Policy for Germany’, The Times, 30.8.1946. 53 See, for example, Parliamentary Archive, London: Hansard HOCP, vol. 426, Fifth Series (1946), col. 526–639. 54 See several of the contributions in: I. Turner (ed.). 1989. Reconstruction in Postwar Germany. British Occupation Policies in the Western Zones, Oxford: Berg. 55 L. Gammands, ‘Denazification and its Limits’ The Times, 12.10.1946. 56 H. Krisch. 1980. ��������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Vorstellungen von künftiger aussenpolitischer Orientierung in der SBZ bis 1947 und ihre Auswirkungen auf die spätere Außenpolitik der DDR’, in H.A. Jacobsen, G. Leptin, U. Scheuner and E. Schulz (eds), Drei Jahrzehnte Außenpolitik der DDR, 2nd ed., Munich: Oldenbourg, 48 f. 57 The British press picked up these propaganda salvos quite regularly. See for example, ‘Allied Shares in Reparation’, The Times 20.2.1947; ‘Journey to Moscow’, The Times 4.3.1947.

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placed on Britain’s post-imperial decline. After 1945, the country pioneering the industrial revolution was presiding over the loss of its once powerful empire and sunk into the recurrent economic crises characteristic of the death throws of capitalism. During 1947/49, the British military authorities, in a climate of anti-communist hysteria, felt compelled to ban SED politicians from campaigning in the British zone of occupation and to ban newspapers published in the Soviet zone of occupation.58 It also vetoed the setting up of the SED-inspired Peoples’ Congress Movement in its zone of occupation. Initiated during the meeting of Foreign Ministers in London at the end of 1947, the movement aimed to mobilise popular support in the Western zones of occupation for Moscow’s policy of maintaining a united, Soviet-friendly Germany. Combining communism with nationalism, the People’s Congress Movement seemed a particular worry for British occupation policy in Germany.59 The Foreign Office noted that the movement was a typical ‘popular front tactic’, which aimed to legitimise communist policy by constructing a façade of widespread support for foreign consumption combined with ruthless suppression of dissent at home.60 Whilst the newspapers in Britain carefully monitored the sentiments of the German population in the British zone of occupation and displayed high levels of anxieties over industrial unrest or signs of a revival of German militarism or Nazism, they also increasingly contrasted the way in which the Germans in the Western zones of occupation welcomed the reforms initiated by the Allies with the repression of the East German population by the communists in the Soviet zone of occupation.61 It was noted how basic human rights were disregarded in the Soviet zone of occupation, where, once again, Nazi concentration camps were used in order to imprison enemies of the communist regime and crush any political opposition.62 Time 58 ‘German Voters’ Apathy’, The Times, 19.4.1947; ‘British Zone Newspaper Ban’, The Times, 4.11.1948. 59 ‘German Nationalism in Soviet Zone’, The Times, 3.8.1949. 60 G. Heydemann. 1992. ‘Ein deutsches Sowjetrußland? Zur ��������������������������� britischen Beurteilung der Entwicklung in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone’, in A. Birke und G. Heydemann (eds), Großbritannien und Ostdeutschland seit 1918, Munich: Saur, 89���� –��� 90. 61 ‘Police in the Soviet Zone’, The Times, 4.11.1948; similarly negative assessments of the Soviet zone of occupation as a satrapy of the Soviet Union in ‘Eastern Germany’, The Times, 11.3.1948; ‘Soviet Policy in Germany’, The Times 25.10.1948. 62 ‘British and US Notes to Russia: Repudiation of Soviet Charges’, The Times, 27.3.1948; ‘In Soviet Germany. The Crushing of Political Opposition’, The Times, 30.11.1948; ‘Across the Elbe’, The Times, 23.3.1949. The foreign office was equally concerned about the re-use of Nazi concentration camps to house political opponents of communism. See NA, FO 371/76610, ‘Germany 1949’;

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and again the themes picked up in the British press in connection with the Soviet zone of occupation were lack of political freedom and economic deprivation. The later GDR had to struggle with such negative assessments in British published opinion throughout its existence.

Anti- and Pro-GDR Sentiments in the British Trade Union Movement From the end of the war, the British TUC cooperated with moderate German Social Democratic trade unionists with the explicit objective of limiting communist influence in the re-founded German trade union movement.63 This ever-present aim came to the fore in the TUC’s extensive involvement in rebuilding the decimated German trade union movement, not only in the British zone of occupation but throughout the Western zones.64 The TUC cooperated closely with the British military government in the British zone of occupation and acted often in the service of the British government.65 In 1945 the General Council of the TUC cooperated with the Trade Union Centre for German Workers in Great Britain to organise the early repatriation of Social Democratic trade unionists to the British zone of occupation.66 Fraternal relations between the TUC and the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) aimed to promote post-war reconciliation by using the contacts growing out of British aid for German workers – including holidays for German trade unionists’ children – as a form of social cement. Leading Social Democrats, including Kurt Schumacher, Wilhelm Knothe, Franz Neumann, Fritz Heine and Victor Agartz travelled to London to have talks with the GC of the TUC on 5 December 1946 about how the British movement could most effectively help its German comrades.67 Already at its 1945 congress, the TUC carried a very pro-German motion which reminded trade unionists that the Ruhr miners had been among the staunchest anti-fascists and that German trade unionists had ibid, FO 371/64304, ‘Visit to Russian Political Concentration Camp by R.R. Stokes, MP, 1947’. 63 P. Weiler. 1988. British Labour and the Cold War, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 165–85. 64 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� For details, see Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Bonn: Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund Archiv [henceforth: DGB Archiv], Britische Zone, 5/DGAC000043. 65 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� R. Steininger. 1978. ‘England und die deutsche Gewerkschaftsbewegung 1945/46’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 18, 41–118. 66 Modern Records Centre, Warwick [henceforth: MRC], ‘TUC International Committee Minutes’, 21.8.1945. 67 MRC, ‘TUC International Committee Minutes’, 10.12.1946.

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supported the British most generously during the General Strike of 1926.68 And yet such sentiments were by no means universal. How difficult reconciliation was even between trade unionists is evident from an article in The Times newspaper from November 1945: ‘British miners have always been generous. They send £70000 to the Russian miners and another £70000 to the Spanish miners, but they would not want to send seven pence to help rebuilding Germany.’69 An important role in rebuilding the relations between British and German trade unions was played by the TUC’s German-born liaison officer, Hans Gottfurcht (1896–1982).70 Gottfurcht, an official in the pre-war German white collar workers’ union, had joined the SPD in 1913. Following his arrest in 1937 for illegal trade-union activity, he succeeded in fleeing to Britain in 1938, at which point he joined the Labour Party. From 1941, Gottfurcht was the chairman of the British section of the exiled German trade unionists’ organisation, edited its journal, Die Arbeit, and sat on the party executive of the SPD in exile. His involvement in the British war effort also included working with BBC Radio propaganda broadcasts and acting as a lecturer in the reeducation of prisoners of war at Wilton Park. After 1945 Gottfrucht was at the forefront of containing communist influence throughout the Western European trade-union movement, in particular in miners’ unions.71 In a statement made following the dissolution of the British group of German trade unionists in exile in 1945, Gottfurcht made clear his hope that the unity of the German tradeunion movement could be maintained throughout the country in order to enable union participation in the rebuilding of a democratic Germany. Central to his conception of what this would mean in practice was the nationalisation of industry, land reform and farreaching de-Nazification.72 Cooperation between Gottfurcht and the Communist members of the British section of the German trade union organisation was possible until 1945, when the Communists, 68 Report of Proceedings at the 77ui Annual TUC Congress [henceforth: TUC Annual Congress], Held at Blackpool 10–14.9.1948, London, 1945, 413 ff. 69 ‘British Miners and Germany: Mr Lawther Speaks Out’, The Times, 28.11.1945. 70 A biography of Gottfurcht is in preparation. Its author has provided a brief outline in U. Bitzegeio. 2006. ‘Hans Gottfurcht: Ein gewerkschaftlicher Handlungsreisender’, Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen 35, 29– 44. On Gottfurcht see also R. Behringer. 1999. Demokratische Aussenpolitik für Deutschland, Düsseldorf: Droste, esp. 238 and note 76, 260 ff; Glees, Exile Politics, 69, 81; L. Eiber. 1998. Die Sozialdemokratie in der Emigration, Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, esp. xix and note 76. 71 DGB Archiv, ‘Britische Zone’, 5/DGA C000043 [1945]. 72 Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv [henceforth: SAPMO-BArch), DY 34/240/2326, Hans Gottfurcht, ‘Landesgruppe Deutscher Gewerkschafter in Großbritannien’, Dec. 1945.

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following orders from the Moscow-based National Committee for a Free Germany, started championing positions which were not in line with Gottfurcht’s leadership. In 1948, Gottfurcht adopted British citizenship and became a paid employee of the TUC, and, from 1950 until his retirement in 1960, he went on to work as a senior official in the Brussels-based International Trade Union Federation, where he continued to promote the interests of ‘free’ trade unionism. From 1948 until early 1950, Gottfurcht cooperated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL)-sponsored Independent Trade Union Organisation (UGO) in Berlin in a campaign to prevent the spread of the communist-sponsored trade unions, the FDGB. Following the manipulation of the elections to the Executive Committee of the FDGB by the Soviet occupation authorities, the TUC and British Military Government refused to recognise what was a communist-dominated front organisation. In an article published in Plebs, Gottfurcht detailed how the Soviet authorities had rigged the elections to ensure communist domination of the FDGB. Central to this process was hand-picking the Central Election Committee, intervening in the electoral process at local level in order to exclude non-communist delegates, detaining leading members of the UGO and suppressing the latter’s newspapers.73 Gottfurcht had considerable experience with communist tactics inside the British section of the German trade union organisation during the war, and especially around 1945 relations between him and the communist members of the organisation had started to deteriorate. In 1948 he did his utmost to warn his British and American colleagues of the FDGB. Following a month-long visit in Germany between 22 November and 22 December 1948, Gottfurcht wrote a twenty-seven page report to the TUC, in which he emphasised the hatred of all things Russian in Germany and stressed how, especially in Berlin, the democratic trade unionists had to be strengthened in their struggle against the totalitarian FDGB.74 After attending the 1948 DGB congress in Recklinghausen, the TUC’s emissary, James Bowman, undertook an investigation into ‘irregularities’ of trade union electoral practice in Berlin. After coming to the unequivocal conclusion that the elections had been manipulated to allow communist domination of the trade unions, the TUC refused to recognise the FDGB as the legitimate representative of Berlin workers. Instead, the TUC cooperated with the UGO, which later merged with the DGB, emphasising how it was the only force upholding free trade 73 H. Gottfurcht, ‘The Trade Unions in German’, Plebs [undated: 1948], DGB Archiv, Nachlass Hans Gottfurcht, K23. 74 DGB Archiv, ‘Britische Zone’, 5/DGAC000043, ‘Report on a Visit to Germany’, Dec. 1948.

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unionism in Berlin.75 Once again, various reports by Hans Gottfurcht on the Berlin trade union situation were crucial in influencing the TUC stance.76 The FDGB intended to put its own version of events to the British public in an article published in the Daily Worker, which, however, made little impact outside pro-Soviet circles.77 During the summer of 1948, the dispute was continued in an exchange of letters between the head of the FDGB, Hans Jendretzki, and Bowman. In his replies, Bowman merely reiterated the TUC’s support for the UGO and hostility to the treatment of the unions in the Soviet zone.78 On behalf of the TUC, Norman Willis attended the foundational congress of the UGO in April 1949 and reported back to the TUC that the British unions’ support for free trade unionism in Berlin was greatly appreciated.79 Willis and another TUC delegate, Bartlett, also attended the foundational congress of the DGB in October 1949 and reported with satisfaction that communists had lost all influence within the West German unions.80 During the autumn of 1948, the TUC gave further shape to its anticommunist campaigning with the ‘Declaration on Communism’, which was circulated to all member unions.81 The leading lights in this campaign were Arthur Deakin, General Secretary of the Transport and Workers’ Union, Vincent Tewson, general secretary of the TUC, and Will Lawther, general secretary of the Mineworkers Federation, all of whom were committed to eliminating communist influence in the British trade union movement and opposing its institutionalisation in the trade unions of Eastern Europe. Among the methods promoted by the General Council’s ‘Declaration’ were that trade unionists should leave any communist-dominated organisation, join another suitable, non-communist, union; and ensure that all candidates for executive office gave a declaration of support for the official policies advocated by the TUC.82 The FDGB, however, could take consolation from the degree of resistance to the ‘Declaration’, with entrenched opposition to its stipulations in the Railway Workers Union, Union of Car 75 TUC Annual Congress (1948), 196; see also, MRC, ‘TUC International Committee Minutes’, 27.7.1948. 76 DGB Archiv, Nachlass Hans Gottfurcht, K. 23, ‘Berliner Gewerkschaftssituation’; ibid, ‘Elections of the Free German Trade Unions of Greater Berlin, 1948’; ibid, ‘Berlin Trade Union Elections 1948 – Final Report’. 77 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/240/2326, ‘Hans Jendretzky to Holmes’, 15.9.1948. The letter is addressed to the Daily Workers’ offices in London. 78 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/240/2326, ‘Hans Jendretzky to James Bowman’, 23.7.1948. 79 MRC, ‘TUC International Committee Minutes’, 5.5.1948. 80 Ibid, ‘TUC International Committee Minutes’, 25.10.1949. 81 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/31/100/2000, ‘Zur persönlichen Information, “Trud” 24.3.1949: “Neuer Antikommunistischer Feldzug des Generalrats der britischen Gewerkschaften”’. 82 Ibid.

44

Friendly Enemies

Manufacturers and Trades Councils in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.83 However, despite such resistance the TUC instructed all of its members either to leave communications from the FDGB unanswered or to forward them to the Executive Committee of their respective associations.84 During the second half of the 1940s, the TUC proved to be a bastion of British anti-communism. At the annual conference in 1945, a resolution was passed reaffirming the TUC’s commitment to free trade unionism, free collective bargaining and democratic organisational structures.85 Unlike in France and Italy, where strong, independent communist unions were ready to take up relations with the FDGB, in Britain, East Berlin’s best prospects of establishing contacts lay with those individual unions with a prominent communist presence. Hence, the FDGB targeted the electricians’ union, the miners’ union (NUM), the tobacco workers’ union, the metal workers’ union, the engineering workers’ union (AEU), the bakers’ union, and the union of scientific workers (ASSET).86 Union officials of these unions were often far more sympathetic to communist unions in Eastern Europe and favoured continued membership of the communist-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), which the TUC had joined in 1945. However, the Cold War quickly put paid to the idea of a truly global trade union federation. The non-communist unions pulled out of the WFTU in 1946. Among British trade unionists, both Deakin and Tewson played a leading role in the foundation of the rival International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). In their enthusiasm to contain communism, the TUC leadership acted in consort with the British government and the occupation authorities in Germany. It accepted a remit from the Foreign Office to mentor a new generation of German trade union leaders. This form of cooperation had already been tried and tested in the British colonies during the 1930s, when the TUC served as a conduit channelling labour protest into safer political waters. In response, the FDGB accused the TUC of abandoning workers’ interests by leaving the WFTU and throwing themselves behind the alleged objective of the Marshall Plan to install pro-American regimes in Europe. From the FDGB’s perspective, the role of the TUC could be reduced to that of an adjunct of ‘Anglo-American imperialism’.87 At the same time, East Berlin redoubled its efforts to forge contacts 83 Ibid. 84 ������������������������������������������ DGB Archiv, ‘Britische Zone’ 5/DGAX000043. 85 TUC Annual Congress (1945). 86 See the correspondence between the FDGB and these British trade unions in SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/240/2326. 87 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/31/100/2000, Zentral Vorstand, IG Metal, ‘An den Kollegen E. Tuckfield, London’, 11.8.1950.

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with British trade unionists below the level of the TUC. In order to facilitate a series of approaches to British trade unionists, the CPGB furnished the FDGB with lists of names and addresses of individuals who were either communist union officials or persons considered likely to be sympathetic towards building up fraternal links.88 During 1948 and 1949, a number of letters were sent by the unions organised within the FDGB to their British counterparts inviting them to take up contacts. In the letters, the FDGB stressed concerns about preserving the post-war peace, opposing the ‘restoration’ of capitalism in Western Germany, and making a decisive break with the Nazi past.89 FDGB efforts to put pressure on the TUC leadership ‘from below’ had no tangible impact on the development of relations with the TUC. The General Council remained unimpressed with Soviet-sponsored peace conferences, deriding the World Peace Conference of 1951 as a hollow sham. The following year, efforts were undertaken to prevent British participation in a similar event.90 The tenor of TUC criticisms of Eastern European unions remained firmly fixed on the lack of basic trade-union freedoms in the East Bloc. Yet, among some left-ofcentre unionists, the perception of East Germany as a proponent of world peace was central to their motivation to endorse contact with the GDR. One positive reply to the FDGB’s letter campaign stated that, ‘The London metalworkers know very little about developments in the GDR and conditions there. I believe that, in the interests of preserving peace, it is necessary and worthwhile to establish close contact between colleagues in London and Berlin.’91 Especially where there was considerable communist influence in trade union organisations, sympathies for the GDR led to the setting up of trade union delegations. As table 1.1 demonstrates, by 1954, a considerable number of trade union delegations had visited the GDR. Among the trade unions most ready to engage in relations with East Berlin were the regional miners’ unions, but the documentation also shows that the Foundry Workers’ Union and the Railwaymen’s Union were actively seeking contact with their GDR counterparts. Whilst communist trade unionists in Britain were often the ones instigating the contacts and travelling to the GDR, they were frequently accompanied by noncommunist trade unionists as well, and there is evidence that the 88 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/240/2326, ‘FDGB to Harry Pollitt’, 19.7.1948. 89 See the correspondence between British trade union branches and the FDGB in SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/240/2326. 90 TUC Annual Congress (1951), 221; ibid (1952), 190 f. 91 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/240/2326, ‘Tuckfield [AEU, London] to IG Metall’, 17.6.1950’.

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Friendly Enemies

GDR managed to convey to them a very positive perception of the ‘workers’ and peasants’ state’. And yet, without the communist link in the trade unions, many of these contacts would not have come about in the first place. Table 1.1: British Trade Unions Delegations to the GDR, [Undated] 1954 [?]. Source: SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2241, ‘Representativ-Delegationen aus Großbritannien’ [1954]. British Trade Union Delegations to the GDR

Number

Duration

Date

May Day Celebrations

3

8 days

End April

Fifth FDGB Congress

3

3 weeks

October

‘Study Delegation’

Number

Duration

Date

Scottish Miners

6

14 days

July

Yorkshire Miners

2

12 days

September

Scottish Miners

2

12 days

July

South Wales Miners

2

12 days

May

Northumberland Miners

6

12 days

-

Lithographic, Chemical and Related Workers

4

10 days

March

Printing Workers’

4

10 days

March

Railway Workers

2

14 days

June

Postal Workers

4

14 days

-

Transport Workers

3

14 days

-

Agricultural Workers

4

14 days

September

Factory council of British Motor Corporation

10

10 days

-

British Communism and East Germany If communist trade unionists were, on the whole, supportive of the GDR, much the same can be said for the CPGB and those close to it. As several East German communists had been in exile in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s, many personal contacts existed between them and British communists and fellow travellers. The SED attempted to make use of these contacts in its attempt to win

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support in Britain.92 As Inge Fischer recalled: ‘Many of the leaders in the friendship society had been in exile in Britain and clearly their ability to speak the language and to understand the culture was very important.’93 During the years of exile, the KPD’s front organisation Free German Movement served as a meeting point between British and German communists and left-wingers. John Platts-Mills, QC, the journalist Gordon Schaffer, Eleanor Rathbone, MP, Ebby Edwards, the chairman of the TUC and secretary of the Mineworkers’ Federation, and Norman MacKenzie, the sub-editor of the New Statesman, were among those on the British left regularly attending meetings of the Free German Movement.94 In March 1939, the Free German League of Culture was founded in order to organise cultural events and serve as a further meeting point between British and German left-wingers. The Left Book Club provided an additional forum. During the Second World War London became a temporary home to some three hundred communist émigrés, most of whom returned to East Germany after 1945. During their years of exile, they built up local KPD branches in all of Britain’s major cities and industrial centres, with relative concentration in London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester.95 One of the most prominent of these refugees was Kurt Hager, who became the chief SED theoretician. Others included Horst Brasch, who built up the FDJ in exile and went on to play a leading role in the Liga für Völkerfreundschaft and its British section, the GDR–Britain Society. Wilhelm Koenen was instrumental in the foundation of the Deutsch–Britische Gesellschaft (Debrig) and became an early president of the GDR’s Inter-Parliamentary Group (1956–64). Kurt Kann and David Rummelsberg were both secretaries of Debrig during the 1960s. Hans Herzberg occupied various roles including the position as head of the English-language section of Radio Berlin International. He also worked for the East German Peace Council and the GDR–Britain Society. The contacts these East German communists had forged in Britain were to prove valuable for their later work. They could feed information about East Germany to their British friends and thereby seek to influence the presentation of the GDR in Britain. 92 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/243, ‘Verbindungen mit fortschrittlichen Kreisen in England’, 28.11.1946, (pp.1–3), 1 93 Interview with Inge Fischer, Berlin, 25.10.2001. 94 For a collection of material on the activities of the Free German Movements, see SAPMO-BArch SgY 13/V 239/9/36. 95 B. Leske. 1978. ‘Das ���������������������������������������������������������� Ringen der Organisation der KPD in Großbritannien um die Verwirklichung der Einheits- und Volksfrontpolitik der KPD’, Ph.D. thesis Humboldt University. Berlin [Ost]; see also E. Koenen. ������������������������� 1978. ‘Exil in England’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 4, 556–72.

48

Friendly Enemies

Communist exiles in Britain also built up an extensive network of contacts with the left wing of the Labour Party and the cooperative movement. Alfred Fleischhacker, who was active in the FDJ and the Unity Theatre Movement, acknowledges that the CPGB was politically too peripheral to base relations on these contacts alone.96 David Rummelsberg, an exile who arrived in Britain aged only eleven, felt more acclimatised to British society than most others. Looking back on these years, he remembered being totally assimilated into British society, feeling ‘English’ and speaking with no trace of a foreign accent. He had been converted to Marxism during a period of internment in Canada, where he joined the FDJ. By the time he served in the British army, he had adopted a life-long commitment to communism. As the only member of his family to return to Germany, Rummelsberg was motivated by a desire to contribute to the building of an ‘anti-fascist’ state. However, he did not use his earlier contacts with British citizens in furthering post-war relations between the two countries. Especially during the earlier 1950s, his reluctance to do so appears to have been based on anxieties about the likely treatment of Jewish emigrants who had lived in the West during the war.97 In the late 1940s and early 1950s the GDR purged communists who had been in the West during the 1930s and 1940s, as they were deemed politically unreliable.98 Terms such as ‘English disease’ and ‘English servility to objectivity’ were used in the accusations levelled against those removed from their positions and demoted. Hence, any Western contacts had to be treated with great caution by former emigrées. Hans Herzberg, who spent the war years in London, remembers how the FDJ became an alternative family for himself and other exiles. His political involvements brought him into contact with British activists in the trade unions, the cooperative movement and church circles. Herzberg also served in the British army, motivated by the desire to fight Nazi Germany, and returned to East Germany to participate in the construction of an anti-fascist state. Like Rummelsberg, Herzberg was a secular Jew. For those who 96 Interview with Alfred Fleischhacker, 8.8.2001. Fleischhacker, a Jewish emigrant from Nazi Germany, was interned in Canada 1940–1942, see, A. Fleischhacker. 1996. ‘Annäherung durch einen Hungerstreik’, in A. Fleischhacker (with H. Stoecker) (ed.), Das war unser Leben. Erinnerungen und Dokumente zur Geschichte der Freien Deutschen Jugend in Großbritannien 1939–46, Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 11–25. 97 Interview with David Rummelsberg, 16.8.2001. 98 U. Mählert. 1998. ‘”Die Partei hat immer recht!” Parteisäuberungen ���������������������� als Kaderpolitik in der SED 1948–1953’, in H. Weber and U. Mählert (eds), Terror. Stalinistische Parteisäuberungen 1936–1953, Paderborn: Schoeningh, 351–458; W. Kiessling. 1994. Partner im ‘Narrenparadies’. Der Freundeskreis um Noel H. Field und Paul Merker, Berlin: Dietz.

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survived, anti-fascism must have seemed, quite literally, a matter of life or death.99 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Alfred Fleischhacker still has a family tree on his living-room wall depicting how many family members’ lives ended in Auschwitz. Jürgen Kuczynski, who subsequently became one of East Germany’s foremost historians, developed close relations with influential members of the CPGB during his years in exile. He was especially close to the leading theoretician of the CPGB, Rajani Palme Dutt, and took up a position on the editorial committee of the CPGB journal Labour Monthly, which Dutt edited. Between 1949 and 1958 the two corresponded regularly and Kuczynski referred to himself as Dutt’s ‘pupil in politics and scientific matters’.100 He also enjoyed friendships with members of the CPGB’s Historians’ Group, including A.L. Morton, Maurice Dobb and Dona Torr. Another communist historian in exile was Alfred Meusel, who became a friend of Christopher Hill. One of the fruits of these friendships was the translation of Morton’s People’s History of England into German.101 In 1947, Dutt was invited to attend the SED congress in Berlin, but the already evident polarisation caused by the early Cold War resulted in a ban preventing him attending it.102 As a leading member of the KPD in exile in Britain, Kuczynski’s activities included writing articles and brochures and giving talks, which aimed to enlighten the British public about the situation in Germany. His regular writing on economic themes during these years was published under the pseudonym John Knight. In 1939, under the auspices of the Left Book Club, he travelled the length and breadth of the country talking about German fascism, the threat of war and the ‘heroic’ resistance of German communists. According to his own estimate, Kuczynski gave some 350 talks to British audiences during his eight years in exile.103 Financial assistance from the CPGB made possible the publication of the monthly journal Inside Nazi Germany. The CPGB also assisted German communists who fell foul of the British authorities. Kuczynski was able to build up an impressive 99 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� Interview with Hans Herzberg, 25.8.2001. Further, ���������������������������� H. Herzberg. 1997. ‘Erinnerungen – ein Wagnis’, in Fleischhacker (ed.), Das war unser Leben, 87– 97. 100 LPAM, Dutt Papers, CD/IND/Dutt/04/09, ‘Telegramm Kuczynski to Dutt’, 18.6.1956. 101 On Kuczynski and Meusel see M. Kessler. 1997. Exilerfahrung in Wissenschaft und Politik: Remigrierte Historiker in der frühen DDR, Cologne: Böhlau; on Kuczynski‘s continuing links with British friends see also J. Kuczynski. ������ 1997. Freunde und gute Bekannte. Gespräche mit Thomas Grimm, Berlin: Schwarzkopf und Schwarzkopf. 102 J. Callaghan. 1993. Rajani Palme Dutt. A Study in British Stalinism, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 234. 103 ������������������ J. Kuczyski. 1992. Ein linientreuer Dissident: Memoiren, 1945����� –���� 1989, Cologne: Aufbau-Verlag, 342.

50

Friendly Enemies

network of contacts among the cultural and political left, extending far beyond the narrow circles of British communists. It included Robin Page Arnot, John Strachey, Andrew Rothstein, Victor Gollancz and Allen Hutt. He recalled D.N. Pritt as ‘the comrade lawyer who so touchingly befriended us German anti-fascists in England’.104 After Kuczynski’s internment as an ‘enemy alien’ at the start of the war, Pritt and Harold Laski campaigned for his release. When, after the fall of Nazi Germany, British officials delayed the communists’ return to Germany, British CPGB officials and Communist trade unionists did their utmost to help their German comrades to return.105 Harry Pollitt, for example, wrote a letter to The Times in September 1945 calling on the British authorities to allow the anti-fascist refugees to return to Germany to help in the task of creating ‘a new democratic Germany’.106 One of the earliest accounts of the development of the Soviet zone of occupation was written by Gordon Schaffer, a journalist and leftwing trade unionist who wrote for Reynold’s News. Schaffer was a fellow traveller, who never joined the CPGB, but was sympathetic to its aims. As Reynold’s News was read by hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom were close to the cooperative movement, his influence on left-of-centre public opinion was considerable. Schaffer’s book, Russian Zone, was the product of a series of interviews and observations during a ten-week stay in eastern Germany. On the whole his views can be seen as representative of the wider views of the Soviet zone among British communists. Entirely unable to see how the Soviets were extracting economic reparations from their zone, Schaffer presented a rose-tinted picture of Soviet benevolence in which socialism was being raised from the ruins of war.107 Omitting all reference to political repression, the Russian Zone emphasised the merits of anti-fascism. In place of the Red Army’s regime of rape and terror stood a paragon of impeccable behaviour. Schaffer also passed over Soviet coercion in the foundation of the SED, presenting it, instead, as an expression of ‘spontaneous unity between former Social Democrats and Communists’.108 Following the contemporary communist line, the destruction of capitalism in the Soviet zone was interpreted as the uprooting of the socioeconomic seedbed out of 104 �������������������� J. Kuczynski. 1987. Memoiren. Die Erziehung des J.K. zum Kommunisten und Wissenschaftler, Cologne: Aufbau-Verlag, 307. 105 U. Adam. 1987. ‘Rückkehr nach Berlin. Aus dem britischen Exil zur Teilnahme am anti-faschistich-demokratischen Neuaufbau’, in Jahrbuch für Geschichte 35, 427–85. 106 Harry Pollitt, ‘The New Germany’, The Times, 26.9.1945. 107 Schaffer, Russian Zone, 9. 108 Ibid., 73

Negotiating the Emergence of Two Germanys

51

which Nazism had grown. Moscow, according to this analysis, was not imposing a party dictatorship; it was ‘rebuilding democracy’. The Russian Zone also praised the major role of the trade unions and cooperatives in this process, insisting that, ‘there can be no doubt at all that the average worker feels himself free to voice his viewpoints’.109 Similarly, the rebuilding of the German administration and self-help organisations, such as ‘People’s Solidarity’, was presented as the ‘epitome’ of a ‘new atmosphere of hope’.110 Cultural, educational and social policies were all also related in the most favourable of terms. In particular, Schaffer praised the merits of an ‘anti-fascist’ education and reform of the wider education system, land reform and the abolition of the Junkers’ estates, action against black marketeers, welfare and health-care programmes and, last but not least, the treatment of five million refugees. Schaffer described the Russian occupation regime with great sympathy: ‘Generally speaking it is true to say that the Russians do not act like conquerors … The general attitude of the Russians is to minimise the burden of occupation and not to provoke the sense of humiliation which any people must feel at the consciousness of being under the supervision of a foreign power’.111 In contrast to Western ‘imperialism’, Schaffer argued, Moscow harboured no colonial ambitions. On the contrary, the Soviets were ‘trying to give to the German people an opportunity to regain their self-respect and to rebuild the German nation on a new democratic basis.’112 Schaffer also voiced Moscow’s desire for a united Germany, which, however, had to be based on ‘anti-capitalism’ and ‘anti-fascism’, arguing that capitalism had brought the ruin of the first German democracy. Schaffer had clearly taken his SED and FDGB guides and their accounts at face value. As we shall see, from his first visit to the Soviet zone of occupation right through to the end of the GDR, Schaffer remained one of the most active and vociferous British propagandists for the GDR. His long-standing relationship with the GDR included occupying seats on the executive committees of the National Peace Council and Britain–GDR Society. A regular visitor to the GDR, Schaffer also served as the authority on Britain for the top-ranking East German journal Deutsche Außenpolitik and authored pro-GDR pamphlets in quantities too numerous to 109 Ibid., 85. 110 Ibid., 106. 111 Ibid., 179 112 Ibid, 191.

52

Friendly Enemies

mention. He was thought of as one of the ‘best friends’ the GDR ever had in Britain.113 Another life-long ‘friend’ of the GDR was Dorothy Diamond, a secondary school science teacher with a good knowledge of German. Unlike Schaffer, Diamond was a life-long, paid-up member of the CPGB. In 1949, Diamond was a founding member, and subsequently Honorary Secretary, of the British Council for German Democracy (BCGD). The organisation’s objectives included the elimination of Nazism from German public life, the signing of a peace treaty and the formation of a unified German government. The Council’s raison d’être was to present information about Germany to the British public. Although officially a ‘non-party’ organisation, the BCGD worked within a long-established tradition of communist front organisations. Among its long list of vice-presidents were the Bishops of Bradford and Chichester, the Dean of Canterbury and several churchmen alongside Tom Driberg, Eleanor Rathbone and a host of other MPs and intellectuals such as Harold Laski. The organisation’s London-based meetings attracted an influential, if limited, circle of supporters on the left. They were attended by leftwing trade unionists, including Jim Gardner, the General Secretary of the Foundry Workers’ Union, and left-wingers in the Cooperative Society. A number of politicians were present: John Platts-Mills, S.O. Davies, D.N. Pritt and the young Michael Foot. The meetings also attracted writers and publicists, from the activist Schaffer to the academic historian Eric Hobsbawm.114 The BCGD published Searchlight, a newsletter sent out to some five hundred individuals. Its first editor was Hobsbawm, who remembered ‘a slight tenderness for East Germany’ and described himself as ‘a good friend’ of the East German economic historian Jürgen Kuczynski.115 But according to the Council’s minutes, Hobsbawm dropped the editorship of Searchlight quickly and by 1951 he had dropped out of active involvement with the Council. Although sustaining publication of Searchlight proved problematic, the newsletter did struggle on into the early 1950s. It portrayed an extremely positive view of the GDR and contrasted it with an extremely negative one of the FRG. Thus, for example, it reported how tens of thousands of West Germans fled unemployment in West Germany and went to the GDR, where they discovered ‘that a capitalist and nationalist Germany does not work and an anti-fascist, working-class Germany does.’116 The BCGD also distributed British Peace Council (BPC) leaflets on the GDR, which 113 Interview with Sheila Taylor, 9.3.2001. 114 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Minute Book of the British Council for German Democracy’. 115 Interview with Eric Hobsbawm, 14.2.2001. 116 Searchlight, no. 22, June 1950.

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were written by Schaffer. The BPC – a national member of the Sovietsponsored World Peace Council (WPC) – was seeking to influence the wider British peace movement, one of the most prominent in the Western world during the early 1950s.117 In particular it sought to foster opposition to West German rearmament. Its ally, the BCGD, understood its own role as a means of countering the work of the ‘Anglo-German Friendship Society’ which supported West Germany.118 Born in 1930, Diamond’s early political socialisation was in the fight against fascism during the 1930s, which brought her into contact with left-wing German émigré circles around the League of German Culture (Kulturbund) and the Communist Youth (FDJ) in London. At the same time as she was active in the BCGD, Diamond wrote numerous articles for the New Central European Observer promoting the ‘successes’ of East Germany’s ‘socialist reconstruction’ contrasting it with the misery produced by the return to capitalism in West Germany.119 She also wrote for John Peet’s Democratic German Report (DGR), which she helped publicise in Britain by providing lists of names and addresses of individuals and organisations thought likely to take out subscriptions.120 Her articles in DGR lauded East Germany’s educational and social reforms, such as the housebuilding programme,121 presenting a country in which there were ‘friendly police’ and official atheism did not prevent the rebuilding of churches.122 She also sung the praises of the Soviet zone and early GDR in the Jewish Clarion. According to these reports, not only was the standard of living rising, but synagogues were being rebuilt.123 These themes of socialist ‘successes’ also ran through her journalism in GDR-sponsored publications, including World News and Education Today and Tomorrow. Dorothy Diamond travelled regularly to the GDR, recording her experiences in several hand-written diaries. The diaries indicate that her public statements of support for the GDR were matched by a private conviction that East Germany was paving the way to a 117 L.S. Wittner. 1993. The Struggle against the Bomb, vol. 1: One World or None. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 84 ff. 118 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Minutes of June 1951 Meeting’. 119 D. Diamond, ‘Cologne: Portrait of a West German City’, The New Central European Observer, 21.1.1950; D. Diamond, ‘Contrasts in a Divided Land’, ibid., 11.11.1952; D. Diamond, ‘Farmers in East Germany’, ibid., 2.2.1952. 120 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Letter John Peet to Dorothy Diamond’, 21.5.1953; Stasi Archive, MfS AOP 17752/62, ‘Treffbericht des GI “Laube”’, 25.8.1953. 121 Dorothy Diamond, ‘The German People Give Themselves a Present’, Democratic German Report, 12.9.1952. 122 Dorothy Diamond, ‘Summer Trip to Saxony’, Democratic German Report, 13.3.1953. 123 Dorothy Diamond, ‘Life in the “Russian Zone”’, Jewish Clarion, 1.3.1954.

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Friendly Enemies

new and better society. Diamond was a communist idealist, a ‘true believer’ whose diaries are notable for the absence of any expression of private doubts modifying her public statements. A school teacher by profession, Diamond’s visits to several East German schools reinforced her commitment to the ‘socialist’ education system. She supported banning teachers from schools who engaged in anti-socialist propaganda.124 And she wholeheartedly approved of the East-German system of sponsoring the education of workingclass children to the detriment of those coming from middle-class backgrounds.125 In 1951, while attending the World Youth Festival in East Berlin, Diamond singled out the police for praise. One diary entry admired the ‘young Volkspolizei in charge –wonderful self control – hot, tired, “rushed” by crowds – still doing their job and making and seeing jokes. Helping people … No horses, no truncheons, no hard words.’ Her only criticism is reserved for the British participants, who she described as a ‘scruffy looking lot [carrying] only one Union Jack’.126 Anti-fascism was always central to the motivation of British left-wingers who became involved with the GDR, and Diamond proved no exception. She was evidently impressed with the seemingly thorough nature of de-Nazification, which included purging teachers with a tainted past. The diaries record her social observations of life in the GDR, too. An entry from 1956 exclaims that a department store (HO) on the Alexanderplatz sold ’15 kinds of sausage!’127 Indeed, from Dorothy Diamond’s perspective, the citizens of the GDR had taken to ‘socialism’ like the proverbial German takes to bratwurst and, after every visit, she returned to Britain to spread the good news about life in the GDR. At a meeting with the Minister for Education around Easter of 1954, Diamond proposed the programme of teachers’ exchanges that she was to organise each summer from the mid 1950s until the late 1960s. Leonard Goldman, who spent seven years teaching English in the GDR during the 1950s and 1960s, was affected by the same kind of communist idealism: ‘We [British communists] felt that it was the destiny of mankind to do what was being achieved in Eastern Europe. Namely, setting up a fairer system of society in which all the resources should be used in the interests of society as a whole and not in the interests of profit-making by private individuals.’ In light of such a positive view of ‘actually existing socialism’, anti-fascism was the icing on the cake, which made East German communists morally superior to West German capitalists: ‘The CPGB gave full 124 Dorothy Diamond Archive, Dorothy Diamond, ‘Germany 1951’, Diary entry. 125 Ibid, Dorothy Diamond, ‘Easter 1954’, Diary entry. 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid, Dorothy Diamond, ‘1956’, Diary entry.

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support to the formation of the GDR because it would be the socialist Germany and the leaders were people who had fought against Hitler, whereas West German leaders often had pro-Nazi sympathies.’128 The SED and the CPGB cooperated closely on building a fitting memorial to Karl Marx in London’s Highgate cemetery. In 1955, SED funding – and considerable patience with the authorities in London – allowed the CPGB to place a commemorative gravestone above the remains of the father of communism.129 The memorial served as a ritual port-of-call for subsequent East German visitors to Britain. Yet, despite this collaboration and despite the enthusiasm of individual communists for the GDR, relations between the CPGB and the SED can hardly be described as close. Owing to the CPGB’s limited financial means and the Allied-imposed travel restrictions on East Germans entering the country, contact was largely limited to an exchange of telegrams of solidarity sent to party congresses. It was not until 1959 that the first SED delegate, Kurt Seibt, attended a CPGB conference. One reason underlying the lack of intimacy in relations between the CPGB and the SED was the chronic weakness of British communism. After the Soviet Union joined the fight against fascism in 1941, the British Party benefited from a wider public mood of sympathy, even support, for an allied power. This did not survive the onset of the Cold War. Membership fell from a high point of 46,000 in 1946 to 39,000 in 1955. The party’s electoral fortunes were worse. In the political climate of social solidarity that swept Labour to power in 1945, two communist MPs were elected. When the Labour government fell in 1951, the CPGB stood ten candidates – all of whom lost their deposit.130 Even before the decline of the CPGB became apparent, the SED realised that its political influence was too slight to be of much value.

Britain and the German Question 1949–1955 Outside the circles of British communists and their fellow travellers, support for the GDR remained the exception. When the GDR came into existence in 1949, Britain, alongside the entire Western world, refused to recognise the second German state. The future of what has been called Stalin’s ‘unwanted child’131 remained uncertain. Its continued existence hung in the balance of international relations on scales calibrated to measure Soviet, not East German, 128 Interview with Len Goldman, 12.12.2000. 129 Hoff, Großbritannien, 60–61. 130 N. Branson. 1997. The History of the Communist Party, vol. 4: 1945–1955, London: Lawrence and Wishart; J. Callaghan. 2003. Cold War, Crisis and Conflict. The CPGB 1951–1968, London: Lawrence and Wishart. 131 W. Loth. 1989. Stalin’s Unwanted Child. The Soviet Union, the German Question and the Founding of the GDR, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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advantage. Until his death in 1953, Stalin pursued a two-pronged approach to the ‘German question’. On the one hand, Moscow appeared to be ready to abandon East Germany in exchange for a united, neutral Germany in the centre of Europe. At the same time, Moscow continued to consolidate communist rule in the GDR, while simultaneously integrating the regime more firmly into the East Bloc. In September 1950 East Germany became a member of Comecon, which coordinated the East Bloc’s economic policies; and, less than eighteen months later, Stalin signalled the building up of an East German army to guard the cold-war frontier.132 The SED leadership welcomed this measure. They pushed ahead with the construction of socialism, as they saw this as the best means of stabilising the young GDR. Disillusioned with Soviet policies, Britain, alongside the USA and its Western allies, put its weight behind boosting West Germany and backed the West German policy of isolating the GDR.133 After consulting with the member countries of NATO, Foreign Minster Bevin and the FRG’s first Chancellor, Adenauer, reached an agreement stating that, ‘all Western proposals for European security are contingent on a unified Germany with a freely elected all-German Government, free to choose its own foreign policy.’134 Accordingly, the GDR could not be recognised by the West because it denied the East-German population any form of self-determination. When the GDR was founded in October 1949, many British newspapers drew parallels between the Communist SED and the Nazi Party during the Third Reich.135 Many other articles stressed the lack of democratic 132 For details of Soviet domination before 1949, see G. Wettig. 2001. ‘Die sowjetische Besatzungsmacht und der politische Handlungsspielraum in der SBZ (1945– 1949)’, in U. Pfeil (ed.), Die DDR und der Westen: Transnationale Beziehungen, 1949–1990, Berlin: Ch. Links, 274–89. 133 M. Lemke. 1993. ‘“Doppelte Alleinvertretung”. Die Wiedervereinigungskonzepte der beiden deutschen Regierungen bis 1952/53’, in E. Scherstjanoi (ed.), ‘Provisorium für längstens ein Jahr’. �������������������������� Protokoll des Kolloquiums ������������������ „Die Gründung der DDR“, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 148–55. 134 Quoted in Tribune, 24.6.1949, 2. 135 ‘Communists’ Torchlight Procession in Berlin’, Daily Telegraph, 12.10.1949; ‘Bogus’, Daily Herald, 8.10.1949; Selkirk Panton, ‘Russians Quitting Berlin’, Daily Express, 8.10.1949. Comparisons between Nazi and communist political demonstrations and political practice and between the paramilitary police units in the Soviet zone of occupation and the Nazi Storm Troopers were commonplace even before the foundation of the GDR. See, for example, ‘Demonstrations in Berlin’, The Times, 13.9.1948; ‘Berlin Politics’, The Times, 21.10.1948; ‘Policing East Germany’, The Times, 29.10.1948.

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legitimacy of the ‘workers’ and farmers’ state’.136 Only the Daily Worker welcomed the foundation of the GDR as a decisive break with German militarist and nationalist traditions and the onset of a peaceful and socialist Germany.137 The Communist daily paper ran a feature on the GDR’s first president, Wilhelm Pieck, emphasising his anti-fascist and working-class credentials (‘son of a carter’), and it reprinted a letter of Harry Pollitt, the CPGB’s general secretary, to Pieck, stressing the CPGB’s support for a socialist and united Germany.138 The first Daily Worker correspondent in post-war Germany was Ivor Montague, who sent a series of articles and also some reports to the International Department of the CPGB, in which he attempted to counter the ‘manically prejudiced and professional anti-Soviet’ stance of the mainstream media.139 Official British policies, however, reflected the more mainstream media sentiments. No official British delegation visited the GDR in the period under discussion,140 and Britain was careful not to offend West German sensibilities concerning the GDR. Indeed, it was the British Foreign Office that coordinated and drove forward the NATOled strategy of ostracising the GDR in the international arena.141 By the spring of 1950, the policy had successfully prevented East Germany from gaining any substantial progress towards diplomatic recognition outside the East Bloc. British foreign policy vis-à-vis the two Germanys was marked by a far-reaching cross-party consensus. Both Labour administrations (1945–1951) and the following Conservative administrations supported the American-led policy of containing the Soviet threat in Europe. Seen in this context, British foreign policy was less an early olive branch extended to Bonn than an outgrowth of London’s belief that acting as Washington’s closest 136 ‘Two Republics of Germany’, The Guardian, 7.10.1949; ‘East German Republic Proclaimed’ and ‘Polemics and Packed Lunch. An Unparliamentary Beginning’, both, in The Guardian, 8.10.1949; ‘Two Germanys’, The Times, 8.10.1949; ‘East German State Set Up’, Daily Telegraph, 8.10.1949; Peter Stursberg, ‘German Yes-Men Start New State’, Daily Herald, 8.10.1949; ‘West Snubs Red German Government on Trade Pact’, Daily Mirror, 8.10.1949. 137 ‘German Republic in Being’, Daily Worker, 8.10.1949; ‘Full Powers are Accorded’, Daily Worker, 12.10.1949. 138 ‘President Pieck. Life-long Fighter for Peace’, Daily Worker, 12.10.1949; ‘President Greeted. Pollitt’s letter to Pieck’, Daily Worker 13.10.1949. 139 CPAM, Communist Party International Department files, CP/IND/MONT/10/66 and CP/IND/MONT/10/05. 140 As we shall see, there were numerous unofficial visits and the GDR propaganda made much of those, but the British government refused to send ‘official’ delegations before recognition in 1973. 141 ������������������������ G. Schmidt (ed.). 2001. A History of NATO: The First Fifty Years, 3 vols. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

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ally in Europe was central to the national interest.142 However, the British political elite was not keen to see a unified Germany, and the practical problems of non-recognition of the GDR soon produced a growing chorus of voices arguing for some kind of de facto recognition of the second German state. Anthony Eden took on a seminal role in the development of British policy towards Germany during the 1950s.143 His experience as Foreign Minister in the 1930s, when Germany had pursued an expansionist foreign policy, convinced Eden that the post-war West Germany had to be firmly integrated within the Western alliance and that German national consciousness should be kept to a minimum. These views coincided with the policy advocated by the Foreign Office, making any idea of a united, neutral Germany unthinkable. The Stalin notes, based on precisely such ideas, were therefore not welcome in British government circles and among Foreign Office officials. Nor were they welcome by the government of the USA or among the Adenauer administration in the FRG. Yet the Labour Party, in line with the SPD, called on the British government to convene Four-Power talks on the future of Germany as set out in the ‘Stalin Note’. The Labour Party’s stance had been strongly influenced by Hugh Dalton, who had been in consultation with SPD leaders in Bonn.144 The ‘Stalin Note’ found a similarly cautious welcome at the annual TUC congress, which called on the government to explore that possibility of negotiating with Moscow.145 After the death of Stalin in 1953, Winston Churchill proposed a summit, which was to explore the possibilities of reaching agreement with the new leadership in Moscow and break the deadlock in the ‘German question’. However, Churchill was isolated in his own government, acting against Foreign Office advice and, crucially, he did not have support in Washington.146 Ultimately the British foreign policy elite was guided by the belief that West Germany should remain integrated into Western alliance systems. 142 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� G. Niedhart. 1990. ‘Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der britischen Politik der fünfziger Jahre: Rea���������������������������������������������������� rmed but once again a healthy member of the Western family’, Historische Mitteilungen 3, 181–92. 143 Y. Kipp. 2002. Eden, Adenauer und die deutsche Frage. Britische ����������������������������� Deutschlandpolitik im internationalen Spannungsfeld 1951–1957, Paderborn: Schöningh. 144 Hoff, Großbritannien, 41. It was not sympathy with a divided Germany which drove the Germanophobe Dalton, but genuine fear of German rearmament. 145 TUC Annual Congress (1953), 83 f. 146 K. Larres. 1995. Politik der Illusionen. Churchill, Eisenhower und die deutsche Frage 1945–1955, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; K. Larres. 1999. ‘Großbritannien und der 17. Juni 1953. ������������������������������������� Die deutsche Frage und das Scheitern von Churchills Entspannungspolitik nach Stalins Tod’, in C. Kleßmann and B. Stöver (eds), 1953 – Krisenjahr des Kalten Krieges in Europa, Cologne: Böhlau, 155–79.

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Debates Surrounding Rearmament Yet it was precisely this attempt to make the FRG a part of a Western military alliance which produced major public debates in Britain. It is interesting that both at the parliamentary level and the public level (as reflected in newspaper coverage), the foundation of the GDR attracted little attention. The activities of the new government in East Berlin were not discussed in the House of Commons until the arming of the ‘People’s Police’ raised concerns about a policy of creeping remilitarization. In May 1950, Ernst Bevin had warned that the arming of the East German police force would allow its use in a ‘brutal civil war’.147 When West German rearmament came along, there were immediate concerns among representatives from all political parties. Yet the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party remained in their vast majorities in favour of a West German contribution to the military defence of the West against communism.148 It was in the Labour Party that plans for German rearmament caused the greatest divisions. As early as 1948, Ernest Bevin raised the contentious question of whether West Germany should contribute to the Western military alliance. In particular the Labour Left, which coalesced around Aneurin Bevan, remained steadfastly opposed to the rearmament of the FRG and favoured West German neutralism as the best means of avoiding military conflict in the Cold War.149 Some in the cabinet were pathologically anti-German, none more so than Hugh Dalton who wrote in his diary, ‘I hate all Germans and regard them all as Huns.’150 Still haunted by memories of the First World War, Dalton stated on a radio programme broadcast in December 1951 that, ‘German rearmament might prove to be an irrevocable step on the road to hell on earth.’151 In alliance with pathological anti-Germans, such as Dalton, the party Left managed to capture the party and make it adopt a stance 147 Parliamentary Archive, London: Hansard, HOCP, vol. 475, 24 May 1950, Col. 2089. 148 The Conservative governments of the 1950s strongly supported German rearmament. See S. Dockrill. 1991. Britain’s Policy for West German Rearmament, 1950 – 1955, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Also, more generally, S. Mawby. 1999. Containing Germany: Britain and the Arming of the Federal Republic Basingstoke: Macmillan. For the Liberals, see London School of Economics Archive: Liberal Party Papers, File 16/76, ‘Liberal Attitude to German Rearmament (1951)’. 149 M. Foot. 1973. Aneurin Bevan 1945–1960, London: Scribner, 302. 150 Diary of Hugh Dalton, Aug. 1951. Cited in Kenneth Morgan, Labour in Power. 430. 151 Cited in S. Haseler. 1969. The Gaitskellites. Revisionism in the British Labour Party 1951–1964, London: Macmillan, 127.

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opposing German rearmament. However, it only managed to do this when in opposition. While in government, those in favour of some kind of West German military contribution to the security of the Western world prevailed. For the party right Herbert Morrison wholeheartedly endorsed a West German military contribution. Prime Minister Attlee adopted the pragmatic view that, whilst ‘there is a very real fear of the re-emergence of German militarism’, other countries could not be expected to ‘pay in manpower and money for the defence of the [West] Germans while the [West] Germans do nothing.’152 In 1950, American pressure secured a Cabinet resolution endorsing German rearmament as a vital component in the defence of Western Europe. Yet, as Emanuel Shinwell (MP for Linlithgow 1922–24; 1928–31; Seaham 1935–50; Easington 1950– 70) recalled, ‘none of us [cabinet ministers] liked it.’153 Among senior Labour politicians who had participated in the war, personal experience was an important dynamic driving their opposition to German rearmament. Above all, witnessing the liberation of the Nazis’ concentration camps left an enduring impact on their perception of Germany. Gordon Walker had been present at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, while Crossman witnessed the horrors of Dachau. Tom Driberg (MP for Maldon 1942–55; Barking 1959–74) and Sydney Silverman (MP for Nelson & Colne 1935–68) saw Buchenwald only days after it had been liberated. The Keep Left Group minutes of 17 July 1951 stated explicitly that the Left should continue to campaign against German rearmament in parliament.154 Bevan’s commitment to this position contributed strongly to his growing alienation from the party leadership. In March 1952, Bevan and fifty-seven fellow MPs defied a three-line whip calling on the PLP to abstain in the Common’s vote on German rearmament. The Bevanite conception of international relations was based on the belief that the Soviet Union did not harbour aggressive intentions. Accordingly, they argued, if Soviet security interests were recognised, an enduring resolution to the ‘German question’ could be found.155 In February 1952 a PLP foreign affairs group narrowly approved a motion forwarded by Eric Fletcher (MP for Islington East, 1945– 70 and a centrist Labour member) rejecting any German military 152 C. Attlee, ‘The best way to peace in Europe’, Daily Herald, 6.3.1952. 153 E. Shinwell. 1973. I’ve lived through it all, London: Gollancz, 204. 154 LAPM, Jo Richardson papers, LP/RICH/2/1/4, ‘Keep Left Group Minutes’, 17.7.1951. 155 A. Bevan, ‘In place of cold war’, Tribune, 17.7.1953, 4; idem, ‘The peasants who dictate to Moscow’, Tribune, 27.7.1953, 4; idem, ‘No settlement of the German problem unless we disarm’, Tribune, 31.7.1953, 4.

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contribution to European security ‘for the time being’.156 The debate within the party continued throughout the first half of the 1950s. Kenneth Younger, alongside Herbert Morrison and key party leaders, was firmly in favour of German rearmament while the Labour Left remained on balance opposed.157 The veteran internationalist Philip Noel-Baker (MP for Coventry 1929–31; Derby 1936–50; South Derby 1950–70) reminded the party that at Conference in 1952, Bevin had stated that ‘Germany must be free to contribute towards a system of collective security’. Now, two years later, he asked, ‘is it consistent with this declaration … to urge that she [West Germany] be neutralised?’158 For the Labour MP Desmond Donnelly, a fact-finding mission to Central Europe led him to reverse his earlier opposition to West German rearmament within NATO. In the autumn of 1954, Donnelly set out why he had changed his mind in a series of articles written for the Daily Mail. Using a form of populist journalism marked by its anticommunism, he informed the newspaper’s readers about the GDR’s mutation into a ‘police state under Soviet influence’, a dictatorship in which ‘there is only one version of truth’.159 It was not that Donnelly had abandoned all criticism of Western Germany. He regretted that former Nazis had returned to public life and deplored the absence of any perceptible mood of post-war contrition.160 Yet with the GDR so completely ‘communised’, Donnelly now believed that West German rearmament within a ‘defence system that we can control’ was the only feasibly option.161 At the same time as Donnelly came round to supporting West German rearmament, Richard Crossman – who also had considerable first-hand experience of Germany – took the opposite view. Two days after the French Assembly downed the bill to establish a European Defence Community (EDC), he wrote a memorandum on the international situation. Crossman was concerned about the implications of the rejection of the EDC for Western unity. According to Crossman’s interpretation, ‘The only way out of the impasse is to stop trying to win Germany over to the West and to go back to the policy of neutralising Germany, i.e. to ensure that her military 156 The vote was carried by 30 votes to 24, Foreign Affairs Group of the PLP, minutes of meeting 28.2.1952. 157 F. Beswick and K. Younger. 1954. German Re-Armament: For and Against, London: Fabian Publications. 158 P. Noel-Baker, ‘Foreign policy and brass tacks’, Socialist Commentary, May 1954, 144–46, 145. 159 D. Donnelly, ‘The Red Voters Had No Choice’, Daily Mail 18.10.1954. 160 D. Donnelly, ‘Nothing Can Stop the Germans Rearming’, Daily Mail 7.9.1954. 161 D. Donnelly, ‘Barriers too Great for a United Germany’, Daily Mail 7.9.1954.

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strength is added neither to the West nor to the East.’162 Crossman’s opposition to German rearmament was long-standing and connected to his fears about the re-emergence of ‘the German menace’, as he put it in a Tribune Group paper in 1952, where he also referred to the ‘nauseatingly reactionary character of the Western German regime’.163 One source of discontent with the Labour leadership’s cautious pro-rearmament policy on the party’s backbenches was its de facto support of the conservative administration in Bonn. Hughes, for example, was outraged at Labour backing for Adenauer after the German Chancellor accused SPD leaders of being ‘in the pay of the Russians’.164 In 1954, defying the party whip, Silverman spoke in the debate preceding the Common’s vote on German rearmament to remind his party that the German Social Democrats opposed the policy they were expected to support.165 Writing in Tribune, Robert Edwards (MP for Bilston 1955–74; Wolverhampton SE 1974–87), a former brigadier, stated that the Adenauer government and its supporters in Britain and the USA were ensuring the permanent division of Europe and acting ‘against the will of the mass of the people of Europe and against the fervent desires of the workers.’166 For many on the Labour left, an underlying anxiety that Prussian militarism, even Nazism, could be reawakened motivated their opposition to the rearmament of the FRG. On the basis of Adenauer’s claim that ‘God has called upon Germany to save Western Christianity’, Edwards implied that Adenauer was a Hitler in Atlanticist clothing.167 The Bevanite pamphlet, It Need Not Happen, which was authored by such heavyweights as Bevan, Crossman, Barbara Castle and Harold Wilson, even alleged that a West German army would be ‘Nazi-led and Nazi-trained’. An anti-German mood also informed the atmosphere at constituency level throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s.168 Roy Jenkins, for example, recalled the unease in his Stechford constituency party about his support for 162 MRC, Richard Crossman papers, MSS.154/3/POL/48–60, ‘Some Notes on Labour’s’ Foreign Policy’, Feb. 1956, (pp.48–60), 48. 163 LAPM, Jo Richardson Papers, LP/RICH/2/2/5, ‘Keep Left Group Papers, 1950– 1952’; Richard Crossman, ‘Note on Back History of German Rearmament’, Group paper number 42; Richardson Papers, LP/RICH/3/2/6: Tribune Group papers, Group paper number 32. 164 Emrys Hughes, ‘How Dr Adenauer did it’, Tribune, 11.9.1953, 3. 165 E. Hughes. 1969. Sydney Silverman: Rebel in Parliament, London: Skilton, 130, 135. 166 ‘God and Dr Adenauer’, Tribune, 10.7.1953, 4. 167 Editorial, ‘What’s happening?’, Tribune, 4.9.1953, 3. 168 D. Watt. 1964. ‘Die Labour Partei und Deutschland’, Europa-Archiv, 22, 860, pointed out that, even in the mid 1960s, attacks on the FRG could expect an enthusiastic response in constituency Labour Party meetings.

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German rearmament.169 Postbags of those Labour MPs opposed to rearmament, such as S.O. Davies, were full of letters supporting their stance and voicing fears about the revival of Nazism in West Germany.170 At Labour Party conferences, emotions ran high on the issue of German rearmament and the party leadership repeatedly faced strong left-wing opposition. At the annual conference in 1954, the leadership’s line received only a bare majority. Ultimately, enduring feelings of disquiet that the new Germany might go the same way as the old ensured that the PLP resolved by just two votes to follow its leaders and support the Brussels Treaty in parliament in February 1954.171 In fact, the Labour leadership followed a deliberate anti-Adenauer course in order to marginalise the left wing of the party most fearful of West German revisionism and most willing to do the GDR’s bidding.172 Others opposed to German rearmament feared a third world war and aimed to de-escalate the Cold War. A small minority had sympathies for what they perceived as the construction of socialism behind the Iron Curtain, and identified the origins of anti-communist propaganda in the arch-capitalist USA. Especially on the far-left fringe of British politics, the CPGB adopted an unequivocal stance against West German rearmament, while maintaining a telling silence on similar developments in the GDR. During the 1955 local and parliamentary elections, the party took the issue to the people in the form of street-corner screenings of the film ‘Never Again’, which was shown on mobile cinema vans across the country.173 When the issue was debated at the 1951 TUC Congress, opposition to German rearmament was led by the communist leader of the firemen’s union, J. Horner, who spoke for a significant minority of delegates.174 When the 1954 TUC Congress voted on the issue, the majority supporting rearmament was marginal.175 British caution about West German rearmament was intensified by anxieties induced by Bonn’s continued claims to the ‘lost territories’ in Eastern Europe, and in the early 1960s the British 169 R. Jenkins. 1991. Life at the Centre, London: Macmillan, 106. 170 South Wales Coalfield Collection, University of Swansea (SWCC): S.O. Davies papers, MNA/PP/16/18 includes several outspoken letters against German rearmament. 171 D. Childs. 1992. ‘British Labour and Ulbricht’s State. The Fight for Recognition’, in A. Birke and G. Heydemann (eds), Großbritannien und Ostdeutschland seit 1918, Munich: Saur, 98. 172 R.G. Hughes. 2002. ‘”We are not seeking strength for its own sake”: The Labour Party and West Germany, 1951–1964’, Cold War History 3 (1), 67–94. 173 B. Hogenkamp. 2000. Film, Television and the Left in Britain, 1950–1970, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 17. 174 TUC Annual Congress (1951), 455. 175 Ibid (1954), 401 ff.

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government was even willing to concede secretly the recognition of the Oder–Neisse line.176 In July 1950, the GDR had already signed treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia relinquishing all claims to territories within their post-war borders. In a manner alienating international opinion, Bonn responded by aggressively accusing the GDR of sacrificing German interests for Soviet advantage. The long shadow of the Second World War was a major obstacle on the road to improved British–West German relations. In Britain, national identity was constructed in terms hostile to the German ‘other’. In the context of imperial decline, the Second World War became Britain’s ‘finest hour’, when she ‘stood alone’ against tyranny. Bonn’s continued claim to have the right to expand into the geographical space occupied by the Third Reich in 1937 served to exacerbate existing unease in Britain, where the media was only too ready to exploit any present-day manifestation of Germany’s malevolent past. After 1945, the British press drew on and developed stereotypes formed in the first half of the century, which presented Germany as the enemy. From left to right, newspapers – particularly the yellow press – juxtaposed images of German arrogance, brutality and aggression with Britain’s self-image as land of tolerance and civility. Pictures, both verbal and visual, were painted in the popular memory of monocle-wearing soldiers in jackboots and spiked helmets decorated with iron crosses. The terms ‘Fritz’, ‘hun’ and ‘Krauts’ were immediately recognisable to generations of British schoolchildren, and etched into the public psyche in film and television productions. What amounted to an anthropological interpretation of ‘the Germans’ as congenitally evil was prevalent in contemporary British public opinion. Articles were also regularly published in the left-wing press, expressing concern about a re-emerging German nationalism and the continued presence of yesterday’s Nazis in today’s public life. The general tenor of these articles was that to forget the lessons of Germany’s past ran the risk of reliving them.

GDR Attempts to Improve its Public Image in Britain British preoccupations with the Nazi past and its afterlife in the FRG as well as concerns over West German rearmament gave East 176 R.G. Hughes. 2005. ‘Unfinished Business from Potsdam: Britain, West Germany and the Oder–Neisse Line, 1945–1962’, International History Review, 27 (2), 259–294. On Britain’s hard-headed realpolitik when it came to the acceptance of borders in Eastern Europe compare also idem. 2005. ‘“Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law”: Britain and the Boundaries of Eastern Europe since 1945’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 16, 723–47.

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German propaganda two of its most important themes. Amongst early East German propagandists none was more skilful and successful in exploiting these British fears than John Peet, the English-born former bureau chief of Reuters News Agency in West Berlin. Peet had crossed the Cold War border in 1950 in order to place his considerable journalistic abilities at the service of the GDR.177 At his press conference on 12 June, Peet, speaking in fluent German, informed the watching world that he could no longer act as a ‘tool of the war machine directed by the Americans’. For the fledgling GDR, this represented a considerable propaganda coup, which was splashed across the front pages of the press in both East and West. From 1952 until 1975, Peet produced the Democratic German Report (DGR), an eight-page newsletter appearing every two weeks, almost single-handedly from his offices in East Berlin. The newsletter, which reached a print run of 38,000, was distributed throughout the English-speaking world. Its main readership was in Britain where it was highly regarded in left-of-centre circles.178 The core readership was found among trade-union activists, journalists, teachers, MPs and other assorted prominent figures. During the 1950s and 1960s, Peet’s value as a propagandist lay in his ability to tap into deepseated concerns on the British left about the development of West Germany and to project an image of the GDR as the new, morally better Germany. A number of interrelated themes ran through the pages of Peet’s newsletter. Firstly, the GDR was presented as an ‘antifascist’ state in contradistinction to the prominent role of ‘old Nazis’ in contemporary public life in West Germany. Second, West German rearmament – including access to nuclear weaponry through NATO – was contrasted with the Soviet Union’s and East Berlin’s putative promotion of ‘peaceful coexistence’. Third, thousands of column inches every year were devoted to neutralising Bonn’s depiction of East German life as drudgery marked by constant shortages of basic necessities and Soviet domination. Peet’s counterclaims trumpeted the GDR’s ‘socialist achievements’, which included technical and economic advances, increases in living standards and comprehensive social and educational provisions. The message was always clear: socialist redistribution and state planning were superior to the 177 For the following, see S. Berger and N. LaPorte. 2004. ‘John Peet (1915–1988): An Englishman in the GDR’, in History 89 (1), 49–69. 178 Interview with Hilda Forman, 1.8.2000. The GDR’s foreign ministry as late as 1968 thought of Peet’s DGR as one of the GDR’s most effective means of propaganda. See Stasi Archive, MfS HA II/13 836. This assessment, however, did not mean that Peet escaped the attentions of the Stasi, who mistrusted him as a Westerner. Between 1952 and 1956 and again after 1959 he was extensively surveyed through his secretary and other spies, with the Stasi suspecting him to work for the British secret service. But they could find no evidence. See John Peet, Stasi Archive, MfS 17752/62.

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exploitation of market capitalism in West Germany. These reports appealed to a Labour Left which was steeped in anti-capitalism and which followed the economic liberalisation of West Germany with deep scepticism.179 Apart from the printed word, the GDR also used film to bring across its message in Britain. One example was the colour documentary ‘Immer bereit’ (Always Prepared), which gave an account of the mass rally of the official East German youth movement (FDJ), held during the Whitsun of 1950. A copy of the film had been presented to the head of a National Union of Students’ delegation to East Berlin by the then head of the FDJ, Erich Honecker. On their return home, the delegation requested an import license in order to hold public screenings. Acting on the basis of a Foreign Office report, which considered the film to be dangerous propaganda, the Foreign Secretary, Herbert Morrison, proposed to Cabinet that the film should be banned. Although the Home Secretary, Chuter Ede, was similarly disenchanted with the film, he successfully argued that censorship would merely hand the GDR a propaganda coup. Morrison had to acquiesce in the screening of a film that he had called the communist equivalent to Leni Riefenstahl’s glorification of the Nazis. The more sober assessment of Ede, however, that the film would remain of marginal interest, proved to be accurate. Yet the incident was not without significance. It served as an important precedent enabling the importation of Eastern European films by two British companies set up in 1951, Plato Films and Contemporary Films.180 These films never reached a mass audience, but were regularly screened in front of trade union, cooperative and other left-of-centre audiences. The GDR not only sent its journals and films to Britain; it also invited Britons to come and see for themselves the socialist achievements of the communist Germany. In 1951, the World Youth Festival attracted many young Britons to the GDR. Among them was a young David Childs, who went on to become a leading British expert on the GDR. Childs, who came from a Labour-supporting, workingclass family in Bolton, described how the Soviet Union and the ‘people’s republics’ in Eastern Europe found considerable sympathy in his parents’ social circles. According to his recollections, the mood on the left was not in favour of a Soviet Britain, but there was a degree of sympathy with the Soviet Union and ‘people’s republics’ in 179 LPAM: Jo Richardson papers, LP/RICH/2/2/2, ‘Keep Left Group paper on Germany: an experiment in Decontrol’, penned by T. Ballogh of Balliol College, Oxford, which amounted to a concerted attack on the economic and social consequences of economic liberalisation. 180 B. Hogenkamp. 1998. ‘Not Quite Prepared for Always Prepared: Herbert Morrison and the Film of the 1950 East Berlin Youth Rally’, Contemporary British History 12 (1), 131–38.

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Eastern Europe in their efforts to build socialism. Childs’ visit to the GDR left a lasting impression. He experienced Western border guards trying – unsuccessfully – to prevent him crossing into East Berlin. He participated in a huge peace rally attended by as many as one million young people from across Europe. His return journey was made in a sealed train, which, when crossing France, was welcomed by communist railway workers displaying the clenched-fist salute. Childs subsequently wrote, ‘I returned to Britain stirred by the GDR, which despite the ruins of East Berlin and Dresden, appeared to be moving ahead.’181 The World Youth Festival of 1951 resulted in the publication of the Workers’ Music Association’s ‘Songbook for British Youth’. The Songbook included a message from the British communist composer Alan Bush, who spoke of the importance of music in uniting the youth of the world in the struggle for peace. The Festival was also the subject of a film made by the British left-wing production company New Era, which focused largely on the many obstacles placed in the path of young Britons attending it. An official colour film, coproduced by the Soviet Union and the GDR, entitled ‘We are for Peace’, was also issued to mark the event. Both of these films were distributed in Britain by Plato Films.182 In November 1953, the Labour MP Emrys Hughes was the first British citizen to visit the East German town of Stalinstadt. According to the East German press he saw in the city ‘an overpowering example of what a socialist Germany could achieve’.183 Hughes was also deeply impressed by what he believed to be evidence of social and economic progress, and a commitment to peace and anti-fascism. From 20 November until 9 December 1954, a delegation from the left-wing electricians’ union visited the GDR. It was headed by Tom Vincent, who was a member of the Labour Party’s Executive Committee. The other participants were Frank Foukes, the union’s communist general secretary, Tom Vetterlein, who sat on the Executive Committee of the CPGB, and William Cowood, a local union secretary and member of the Labour Party. In an interview for East German radio, Vincent voiced deep concerns about West German rearmament. According to him, he was representing the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members. Vincent, who had been expelled from the PLP for refusing to sanction rearmament in a Common’s vote, also praised East German social and economic 181 D. Childs. 2002. ‘The Changing British Perception of the GDR’, in A. Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR. Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World, Berlin: Philo, 375–96. 182 Hogenkamp, Film, 16. 183 ������������������������������� ‘Ein Engländer sieht die DDR’, Tägliche Rundschau, 10.12.1953.

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achievements and the GDR’s commitment to peace. 184 For Vetterlein, a veteran member of the CPGB, his first trip abroad reaffirmed ‘what he had struggled for in the Communist Party since 1925’. Cowood was the most sceptical of the delegates, but he too left the country impressed by what he had seen. The report triumphantly concluded that ‘a doubter had become a convinced supporter.’ The delegation proved to be a model success for the GDR’s early overtures to the British Left, not least as it returned home to publish an illustrated brochure emphasising East German anti-fascism while imploring union members to do everything possible to prevent West German rearmament. Attempts to present the GDR in a more favourable light were dealt a major blow by the anti-communist rising of 17 June 1953.185 It reinforced the already prevalent negative view of the GDR. The East German regime’s dependency on Soviet tanks confirmed the dominant British view that communist rule in the GDR represented little more than a puppet government. In the British labour movement, the crushing of workers’ protest by Red Army tanks was almost universally condemned. Aneurin Bevan expressed Labour’s consternation. A letter of protest, carrying the signatures of fiftyfour MPs, sponsored by the trade unions, was sent to the Soviet ambassador, Malik, condemning the use of military force to suppress the protest. The letter stressed the signatories’ support for the principles of free trade-unionism, informing the Soviet ambassador that, ‘The rights of the workers to organise, strike and demonstrate against grievances have always been recognised principles of trades unionism … To send troops against the unarmed workers who went on strike … is a stain on your Government.’186 The TUC annual conference condemned the move against striking workers and called on the regime to release all political prisoners.187 Two workers’ representatives from East Berlin and the GDR attended the conference and gave eyewitness accounts of the rising. Communists, such as J. G. Grahl from the Fire Brigades Union, defended the GDR’s action against striking workers claiming (with the DGR) that the strikers had been fascist sympathisers, but this was rejected by Arthur Deakin, on behalf of the General Council. In 184 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13/437/3147, ‘Bericht über die Studiendelegation der britischen Elektriker-Gewerkschaft’, [1954], (1–10), 2. 185 U. Mählert. 2003. Der 17. Juni 1953. Ein Aufstand für Einheit, Recht und Freiheit, Bonn: Dietz; V. Koop. 2003. Der 17. Juni. Legende und Wirklichkeit, Berlin: Siedler; T. Diedrich. 2003. Waffen gegen das Volk. Der 17. Juni 1953 in der DDR, Munich: Oldenbourg. 186 Quoted in The Times, 26 June 1953, 6. 187 TUC Annual Congress (1953), 194 f., 456. See also, MRC, ‘TUC International Committee Minutes’, 21.7.1953, where the Soviet and East German actions against the workers is wholeheartedly condemned.

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1954, the TUC contributed £1,000 to an ICFTU fund to assist workers in East Berlin.188 A mood of disdain for the events in East Germany was also expressed by the Labour Party conference in 1953, which officially stated its ‘deep sympathy and admiration for the workers of East Berlin … in their courageous protest against oppression’. The statement went on to appeal ‘for an end to arbitrary executions and reprisals, and call[ed] for a four-power conference to endeavour to obtain free elections throughout Germany preliminary to the reestablishment of a united, free and democratic Germany.’189 While few observers in the British Foreign Office or government circles showed any genuine concern for the East Germans and instead emphasised the need for stability at the Cold War frontier,190 the 1953 rising served as a convenient pretext for those who wanted to postpone all talks with the Soviet Union until after West Germany had joined a Western Alliance. The Labour Left took a different view. In his analysis of the events, Crossman condemned the repression of the protest, which he recognised had been widespread and represented a ‘spontaneous working-class affair and not organised in advance by Western agents.’ Yet, at the same time he praised the Russians for having ‘behaved with great restraint, suppressing the movement with the minimum casualties.’ His ultimate intention was to avoid doing anything that risked discouraging the Russians from continuing the ‘process of liberalisation and from engaging in fourpower talks.’ Crossman believed that it was only in consultation with the Russians that the Western allies might be able to avoid ‘the risks of permitting a divided Germany to become a monstrous European Korea ….’191 In line with the SPD, he argued that rearmament of West Germany would cement such a division of the country for the foreseeable future. He was not alone in expressing such views. A Tribune editorial condemned the Soviet suppression of the workers’ rising, but approved further talks with Moscow to achieve the protesters’ goal of a united Germany: ‘The workers in Germany have risked their lives to end rule by foreign armies and to secure the unity of their country. That end can only be gained by genuine negotiation with the Soviet Government. That is the demand of the German Social Democrats. It is a demand which should be supported by every Socialist all over the world.’192 188 TUC Annual Congress (1954), 204. 189 Labour Party Annual Congress Report [henceforth: LPACR] (1953), 24. 190 K. Larres. 1994. ‘Preserving Law and Order. Britain, the United States, and the East German Uprising of 1953’, Twentieth Century British History 5 (3), 320–50. 191 MRC: Richard Crossman papers, MSS.154/3/AV/1/343, ‘Notes on the German Situation’. 192 ‘Confessions of a stooge’, Tribune, 3.7.1953, 1.

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Only the Communist Daily Worker supported the repression of the workers’ rising in East Germany. Following the standard line issued by Moscow, the newspaper insisted that the rising had been staged by a grouping called German Youth, which was ‘a CIA sponsored … West German pro-fascist organisation.’193 Further British support on the left was limited to Labour MP S.O. Davies (Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil 1934–72), a left-wing Welsh miners’ leader, whose visit to the Soviet Union in 1922 left a profound and lasting impact on him. He inquired whether the government was aware of the evidence that ‘Nazis and agent provocateurs from the West Zone of Berlin have been bribed … to join in and help create disturbances in the Eastern Zone.’194 William Lawther, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, which sponsored Davies in parliament, disassociated the union from his argument. In an official statement of 26 June 1953, Lawther pointed out that ‘every one of the 38 miners’ MPs have signed a declaration appealing to the USSR to cease their dragooning and murdering of the East German miners and other trade unionists’ and urged the CLP to deselect Davies.195 Donnelly, a member of Gaitskell’s shadow cabinet, spoke for the vast majority opinion in the British labour movement when he lambasted the GDR as a ‘Communist police state under considerable Russian influence.’196 The British response to the crisis was determined by the Foreign Office’s objective of maintaining the status quo. While this policy allowed for public statements of sympathy for the East German people, nothing was to be done that might escalate the situation.197 Much of this policy was shaped by the aim of preserving British control of its sector of Berlin. Since 1952, Germany, Austria and Korea had been identified as ‘real danger areas’. The prescribed response to international crises in these, and all other, spheres was guided by four overarching aims: consolidating non-communist regimes everywhere; containing the USSR; preserving Britain’s status as a world power; and transforming the Federal Republic of Germany from an enemy into a predictable, controllable partner. It was a conservative strategy markedly different from American ideas of ‘roll-back’, which aimed at pushing the Soviets out of Eastern Europe. At the same time, caution continued to inform policy vis-à-vis both Germanys, assuming that they could fall back into old nationalist 193 ‘Berlin Agents from West try provocations’, The Daily Worker, 18.6.1953, 3. 194 Parliamentary Archive, London: Hansard, HOCP, 24 June 1953, Col. 1908. 195 R. Griffiths. 1993. S O Davies: A Socialist Faith, Dyfed: Gomer Press, 226–27. 196 Desmond Donnelly, ‘Barriers too great for a united Germany’, Daily Mail, 7.9.1954, in National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Donnelly Papers, F10. 197 Y. Kipp. 2002. ‘Willkommener Ausbruch ostdeutschen Freiheitsstrebens oder Störfaktor? Der 17. �������������������������������������������������������������� Juni 1953 im Urteil der britischen Regierung’, in Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR, 83–112.

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and anti-democratic ways at any moment. This fear underlay the continued aversion to a neutral, non-aligned Germany in Foreign Office circles. Given the all-too-evident risk that developments in Germany could precipitate some form of international crisis, the specific incident of the June 1953 workers’ rising came as an unwelcome surprise to government ministers and foreign policy experts alike. After 1953, support for the GDR in Britain was even more a fringe phenomenon than before. And yet proponents of dialogue with the Soviet Bloc were not confined to those looking for a political light from the East to eclipse capitalism in the West. Many pacifists feared the outbreak of a third world war, which threatened to be a nuclear holocaust. Others opposed the escalation of international tensions ratcheted up by McCarthyism in the USA and its anti-communist echoes across Western Europe. The inflexible stance of the Adenauer administration in Bonn also alienated many in the mainstream of British politics. Importantly, a lack of sympathy for West Germany brought for the first time tentative demands for the recognition of the GDR into the open. This was not motivated by a change of heart about the regime in East Berlin, but, rather, by a desire to bring stability to central Europe through overcoming the ‘German question’. Many on the moderate left, too, wanted to end Bonn’s ability to prevent a post-war settlement. Michael Foot later complained that the British government allowed ‘Dr. Adenauer a veto over all progress towards a European settlement.’198 The Chancellor’s policy was described in Tribune as a ‘prescription for war’ in Europe.199

Early Trade Relations Trade was seen by many on the British left as one way of initiating dialogue and securing the world from edging closer to a third world war. East German foreign policy attempted to use trade as an important means to increase East Germany’s contacts with the West. In 1952, the first steps towards British trade relations with the GDR were initiated through Moscow. In June 1952, this led to an unofficial trade delegation to East Berlin, which was headed by the overtly pro-Soviet MP, Sydney Silverman. Not only was Silverman critical of the anti-communist political environment in which his party operated, he was also a leading critic of West German rearmament.200 A further major development in trade relations was 198 Foot, Aneurin Bevan, 554. 199 ‘God and Dr. Adenauer’, Tribune, 10.7.1953, 4. 200 Hughes, Sydney Silverman, 122–38.

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the reopening of the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1947, which functioned as an important meeting place. By the early 1950s, the British Board of Trade supported some one hundred companies, which displayed their products at the fair. Among the regular exhibitors were Massey Ferguson, Standard Motors and Rolls-Royce. In the autumn of 1953, the first major trade agreement with the GDR, totalling some three million pounds, was concluded by Burnaby Drayson, a Conservative MP who was the director of Dominion Export Ltd–- a company owned by Lord Plurenden.201 The deal allowed for the import of East German potash and export of food stuffs. In the following years, Dominion Export Ltd remained the leading player in British trade relations with East Germany. In the hope of easing the flow of goods, Drayson petitioned the Foreign Office; his overtures, however, led to nothing.202 At this time, a small but active group of advocates of trade with East Germany took up this issue in Britain. At the forefront of the campaign were Rudy Sternberg, Silverman, Will Owen, Drayson, Terence Clarke and Lord Boothby. Drayson proved to be a valuable contact, not just financially, but, more importantly, politically: he is listed in the Stasi files as one of the East German secret police’s major British contacts.203 Owen was accused of being a spy for East European Communism, but he was acquitted in 1970.204 Interestingly, the GDR did not want to mix business with international communist politics. The SED spurned the advances made by the British Council for the Promotion of International Trade, which was an umbrella organisation housing companies close to the CPGB. In 1954, an official complaint made by Harry Pollitt failed to alter the situation. East Berlin’s reasoning was determined by economics: the offer made by Dominion Exports was more lucrative. For the GDR, the main aim of trade relations was not economic per se, although any financial advantage was never unwelcome. Trade represented a wedge in the political doorway en route to the eventual diplomatic recognition of the ‘other’ German state. On an incremental basis – starting with unofficial trade deals, then official agreements covering longer and longer periods – it was hoped that de facto recognition would precede de jure recognition. Before the 201 M. Bell (now Howarth). 1977, ‘Britain and East Germany; The Politics of NonRecognition’, M.Phil.: University of Nottingham, 136 f. On British policies to keep East–West trade open during the late 1940s and early 1950s see also I. Jackson. 2001. ‘”Rival Desirabilities”: Britain, East–West Trade and the Cold War’, European History Quarterly 31 (2), 265–287. On the importance of the Leipzig trade fair for East–West contacts more generally, see K. Rudolph and J. Wüstenhagen. 2006. Grosse Politik, kleine Begegnungen. ����������������������� Die Leipziger Messe im Ost–West Konflikt, Berlin: Vorwärts-Buch. 202 Hoff, Großbritannien, 62 f. 203 Glees, Stasi Files, 71. 204 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 141.

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end of 1955, a number of developments indicated that East Berlin’s objectives were not wholly unrealistic. In October 1954, the Conservative Minister for Trade, Peter Thorneycroft – in reply to a parliamentary question raised by Emrys Hughes – told the House that his Ministry would give greater support to trade with East Germany, so long as this did not bring into question the government’s official policy of non-recognition.205 On the British side, in the course of 1954/55, discussions between the Board of Trade and the FBI looked into ways in which trade relations with the GDR could be improved in order to satisfy interest by British companies. By 1955, this led to discussions held in Geneva between the Board of Trade, the British Council and the East German Chamber of Commerce.206 In April 1955, the first semi-official East German institution opened its doors in London in the form of the Leipzig Fair Agency run by the British communist, Denis Hayes. In July 1955 the first trade agreement was signed between Britain and the GDR which foresaw an exchange of goods to the value of £5.4 million.207

Conclusion By the time the Soviet Union bestowed ‘sovereignty’ on the GDR in 1955, relations between the ‘second German state’ and Britain had been developing along several axes. The Labour Left had considerable sympathies for the socialist Germany and favoured dialogue with the GDR over rigorous non-acceptance. As the Labour Party was a potential party of government, the GDR was keen to develop those contacts, whilst, by comparison, it somewhat neglected its relations with the CPGB, which it regarded as too insignificant to merit much attention. However, the CPGB on balance proved a reliable ally of the GDR, lauding its foundation and justifying its existence and development to the small group of communist believers in Britain. Communist trade unionists, in particular, sought to counter the official anti-communist stance of the General Council of the TUC. Whereas the latter cooperated closely with the West German unions to defeat communism, communist-influenced unions took up the FDGB’s offer of mutual exchanges. Relations between the British 205 ����������������� B. Becker. 1991. Die DDR und Großbritannien 1945/49 bis 1973. Politische, ������������ wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Kontakte im Zeichen der Nichtanerkennungspolitik, Bochum: Brockmeyer, 198 f. 206 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin [henceforth: PP AA], Ministerium für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten [henceforth: MfAA] 9506, ‘Bericht über die Beziehungen zu Großbritannien im Jahre 1955’, 1.2.1956, (pp.1–6), 3–4. 207 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 80.

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labour movement and the GDR could be justified on grounds of ideological proximity – after all both aimed to represent workingclass interests. But the GDR also used the issues of peace and of trade to appeal to British audiences well beyond the Left. In all of its dealings with Britain the GDR realised that it had to overcome a major image problem: British published opinion regularly portrayed it as lacking political freedom, failing economically and being a grey and drab society regimented by communist totalitarianism. Hence the GDR spent considerable time and energy in presenting itself as the morally better Germany, which had learnt its lessons from the Nazi past and where anti-fascists were now in political control. Furthermore, the ‘socialist achievements’ of the GDR were meant to appeal to a British public which had, after all, given the Labour Party a mandate in 1945 to carry out socialist reforms in British society. Yet the obvious power of the Soviet Union over decisions taken by the GDR government and especially the brutal repression of the 1953 workers’ rising made it almost impossible for the GDR to improve its image in Britain. However, where the GDR propaganda was more successful was in exploiting fears over the rearmament of West Germany. Whilst it would be fair to say that these themes rang a chord with the British political class and the wider public, the GDR did not succeed in driving a serious wedge between Britain and the FRG. Britain had been unwavering in its support for the setting up of the FRG, and British politicians in government were careful not to upset their West German counterparts over East Germany. The British government dismissed the Stalin notes in line with the Adenauer government and it supported plans for West German rearmament. However, below the level of official government pronouncements, one can notice a subtle change in British attitudes towards the GDR in the decade after the end of the Second World War. An increasing number of politicians and political analysts recognised the need for some form of recognition of a state, which, to all intents and purposes, existed on the map of Europe. Pretending that the GDR was not there made stable and reliable relations with other Eastern Block countries difficult and contributed, especially in Berlin, to a constant threat of war. This was a risk that fewer and fewer in Britain were willing to take. After 1955 the GDR could hope to build on those sentiments to achieve what should become its main foreign policy goal: diplomatic recognition.

Chapter 2

From Sovereignty to Recognition, 1955–1973

After 1955, British–West German relations came at times under considerable pressure over the question of how to handle the de facto existence of the GDR. The second German state realised that there were differences of opinion between the British and West German allies and attempted to strengthen those political forces in Britain most in favour of recognising the GDR. In the absence of official diplomatic relations, it was forced to use other channels of communication. It was particularly keen to develop its relations with the British Left, especially the Labour Left, and it also actively sought to promote trade to enhance the points of contact between Britain and the GDR. A British–East German friendship society was actively trying to promote the GDR in Britain and to campaign for diplomatic recognition. Its members were involved in setting up a whole host of educational and cultural links. The GDR even tacitly accepted a developing Marxist–Christian dialogue from the second half of the 1950s onwards. The SED officials lost no opportunity to promote the Eastern bloc’s ‘peace policies’, and they were keen to establish relations with the Western peace movement, especially where the latter was highly critical of Western government’s defence and military policies. Yet the building of the Berlin wall in 1961 seemed to confirm all the negative Western stereotypes about the GDR and Eastern European communism more generally. However, in an ironic twist, this confirmation of the inhumane character of the SED regime went hand in hand with a growing recognition that the Berlin wall would further stabilise the GDR. This, in turn, made it even more paramount for the West to find some means of dealing with this state which went beyond just ignoring it on the world stage,

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especially as a continued policy of non-recognition became a serious threat to policies of détente and disengagement in Europe.

British reactions to the Hallstein Doctrine The year 1955 marked a turning point in the development of the two post-war German states, with Bonn and East Berlin becoming firmly anchored within the Eastern and Western blocs. Militarily, the integration of the Federal Republic into NATO in 1955 was followed by the integration of the GDR into the Warsaw Pact, which was created in reaction to West German rearmament. In July of that year, Khrushchev – speaking in East Berlin – announced the ‘two states theory’. Reunification could only come about if East Germany retained its ‘socialist achievements’ – a stipulation Bonn was unlikely to accept. In September, a treaty between East Berlin and Moscow conferred ‘full sovereignty’ on the GDR and, in 1956, the East German army – the NVA – was founded. The paradigm of East Berlin’s foreign policy now changed from half-heartedly pursuing reunification to wholeheartedly promoting the recognition of the GDR as a separate state. The FRG reacted by implementing the Hallstein Doctrine, which threatened to break off relations with any state which chose to recognise the GDR. The ‘soft power’ of West Germany’s financial muscle proved a hard obstacle to surmount outside the East Bloc and states with an existing ‘eastern orientation’ in the Third World. In 1957, Bonn broke off relations with Yugoslavia; in 1963, Cuba became the second state to be shut out in the diplomatic cold. In response to the Hallstein Doctrine the GDR initiated an incremental policy of taking small steps toward the final goal of diplomatic recognition in international law. It focused its efforts on non-aligned states in the developing world, but it also identified some prime targets for its propaganda in Western Europe, notably France, Italy, Finland, 

W. Loth and G.H. Soutou (eds). 2008. The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War 1965–75. London: ������������������ Routledge.  V. Mastny and M. Byrne (eds). 2005. A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact 1955–1991. Budapest: CEU Press.  ����������������� W. Kilian. 2001. Die Hallstein-Doktrin. Der diplomatische Krieg zwischen der BRD und der DDR 195–1973, Berlin: Duncker & H����������������������� umblot; W. Gray. 2003. Germany’s Cold War. The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany 1949–1969, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.  U. Engel and H.-G. Schleicher. 1998. Die beiden deutschen Staaten in Afrika. Zwischen Konkurrenz und Koexistenz 1949����� –���� 1990, Hamburg: Institut fur AfrikaKunde; A. Troche. 1996. Ulbricht und die Dritte Welt, Erlangen: Palm und Enke.

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Sweden and Britain. The latter was, as we shall see, a promising target for such a policy of small steps. As early as 1955, the East German Ministry of Foreign Affairs identified a disparity between the British government’s public foreignpolicy pronouncements vis-à-vis the GDR and the private analysis of policy experts. While the government officially supported Bonn’s stance of showing strength in order to bring about reunification on Western terms, the Foreign Office anticipated that two German states would continue to inhabit a divided Europe. In turn, this realisation raised questions about whether the policy of non-recognition could be maintained and, if so, at what costs to British interests and for how long. The general hostility of British public opinion to German reunification also worked in East Berlin’s favour. However, any good will that the GDR had been able to build in Britain was sorely tested again by events in Hungary in 1956. The Soviet suppression of what the General Council of the TUC defined as the Hungarian ‘democratic revolution’ of 1956 reaffirmed the anticommunism that defined the post-war leadership of the Labour Party and the TUC. For the Daily Herald, the events of 1956 confirmed that socialism without democracy was not worth its name. In an official statement, the General Council of the TUC declared its solidarity with the Hungarian revolution against Soviet rule. It donated £5,000 to the ‘International Solidarity Fund’ managed by the ICFTU, and called on all member unions to break off relations with the communist-dominated unions in Eastern Europe. This was endorsed by every affiliated union with one prominent exception – ASSET, whose General Secretary, Harry Knight, was a regular visitor to East Berlin. The Labour Party condemned the invasion, and in June 1958 it organised a mass protest rally on the occasion of Imre Nagy’s execution in Budapest.10 Among Labour politicians, the support of John Baird (MP for Wolverhampton East, 1945–50; Wolverhampton North-East, 1950–64) for the Soviet Union and the invasion was the exception.11  ������������������������������������������������������������������������ PA AA, MfAA, A 13068, ‘Zweiparteiensystem in Großbritannien’, [undated: 1955], 1–47; also: Stasi Archive, MfS, HVA 205, ‘Einzel-Information über einige Probleme der Innen- und Aussenpolitik’, [undated: 1964], (pp.1–7), 5.  TUC Annual Congress (1957), (pp.195–98) 197–98.  Basil Davidson, ‘What Goes on in Eastern Europe?’, Daily Herald, 25.10.1956.  TUC Annual Congress (1957), 195.  Ibid., 196. 10 LPAM, LP/ID/HUN/19, ‘International Sub-Committee of the National Executive Committee, Minutes’, 17.6.1958. 11 John Baird, ‘The Counter Revolution was Truly a Counter Revolution’, article published in Nepszabadsag, 31.8.1957; translation in LPAM, LP/ID/HUN/18.

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A number of prominent communist trade unionists in Britain left the CP over Hungary, including the president and general secretary of the fire brigades union, Horner and Parry.12 The Daily Worker defended the invasion of Hungary, comparing the defeat of the ‘counter-revolution’ in Budapest with the Soviet liberation of Hungary at the end of the Second World War.13 Writing in the Daily Worker, Eric Hobsbawm, a prominent academic and life-long party member, approved ‘with a heavy heart, of what is happening in Hungary,’ but called on the Soviet Union to ‘withdraw its troops from the country as soon as this is possible.’14 This form of de facto apologia found no resonance outside the circle of the CPGB and even here it was not adopted by many party members, who turned away from communism in disgust. Even leading cadres of the CPGB professed their criticism of the invasion of Hungary in private party documents.15 The British press reports on Hungary in 1956 were full of moral outrage at this latest example of communist inhumanity. It duly noted that the East Germans belonged to the most dogmatic hardline supporters of the invasion and that the SED regime was rattled by reports about spontaneous expressions of solidarity with both the Polish and Hungarian reform communist movements in some East German factories.16 There were direct comparisons between the suppression of the East German rising in 1953 and the events in Hungary, but it was noted that whereas most East European societies retained sections of the population unhappy with communism, in East Germany those strata had long gone to the West making it the most docile of the Soviet satellite countries. However, East German docility was also explained with reference to ‘socialist achievements’, such as an all-embracing welfare state.17 Given the continued problems of legitimacy of communist regimes in Eastern Europe more generally and the adamant refusal of the 12 SAPMO-BArch, 34/2269, ‘Plan für die politische Arbeit und für den Aufenthalt der englischen und schottischen Bergarbeiter-Delegation für die Zeit vom 30.9 bis 14.10.1954’, [undated: 1954], (1–3), 2. 13 ‘Stand By Them’, Daily Worker, 25.10.1956; Philip Bolsover, ‘Hungarian Workers Answer’, Daily Worker, 25.10.1956; John Gollan, ‘Hungary – The Choice for the Socialist’, The Daily Worker, 7.11.1956. 14 Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Suppressing Facts’, Daily Worker, 9.11.1956. 15 For Gollan’s and Pollitt’s criticism of the invasion of Hungary see CPAM, CP/ IND/Goll/02/05. 16 ‘Insurrection in Budapest’, The Times, 25.10.1956; ‘Brakes Applied by East Germans’, The Times, 27.10.1956; ‘Show of Strength in East Germany’, in The Guardian, 27.10.1956; compare also: ‘No Titoist to Hand in East Germany’, in The Guardian, 24.10.1956. 17 Douglas Brown, ‘Hungarian Rising Like East German’, in Daily Telegraph, 25.10.1956.

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West Germans to allow any recognition of the GDR to take place in the West, East Berlin’s attempts to gain entry to international organisations made little headway in the second half of the 1950s. There were some exceptions to the rule, e.g., at the turn of 1954/55 the East German Red Cross was admitted into the League of Red Cross Societies, and the GDR railways joined the International Railway Association. But East Germany made no substantial progress in its efforts to join such prominent international organisations as the UN, UNESCO, ITU, ILO and WMO, which continued to exclude the GDR until after its diplomatic recognition by the West in 1972/73.18 And yet Hungary can also be seen as only a temporary set-back for the GDR. Within the British political elite, too many factors ultimately seemed to work in favour of some kind of recognition of the GDR. The second Berlin crisis of 1958–1963, which witnessed the building of the Wall in 1961, served only to intensify the desire to stabilise the Cold War in Europe.19 Any such stabilisation involved some form of recognition of the ‘other Germany’. And yet, despite the slowly changing nature of Britain’s foreign-policy prognosis, official policy continued to follow the course set by the FRG. In 1957, the British Foreign Minister, Selwyn Lloyd, lamented that, ‘in this matter [i.e., policy vis-à-vis the GDR], we are for the time being largely prisoners of Dr Adenauer’s policy’.20 Attempts to break out from this prison provoked serious friction with West Germany. Thus, the increasing concern of British foreign policy for détente led Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to seek negotiations with the Soviet Union over the second Berlin crisis in 1959 which would have included concessions on the question of recognising the GDR. Despite Macmillan’s attempt to tread cautiously with regard to the GDR, his visit to Moscow in 1959 triggered the deepest crisis in British–West German relations after the Second World War.21 Ultimately Britain did not have to force the question of recognition, but Macmillan’s stance was indicative of the increasing unwillingness of Britain to let the German question stand in the 18 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� For details, see H.-A. Jacobsen, G. Leptin, U. Scheuner and E. Schulz (eds). 1980. Drei Jahrzehnte Aussenpolitik der DDR. Bestimmungsfaktoren, ���������������������������������� Instrumente, Aktionsfelder, Munich: Oldenbourg, 759 f. and 867 ff. 19 On the SED’s positioning in the Berlin crises see especially M. Lemke. 1995. Die Berlinkrise 1958 bis 1963. Interessen und Handlungsspielräume der SED im OstWest-Konflikt, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. 20 Cited in H. Hoff. 2003. Großbritannien und die DDR 1955–1973. Diplomatie auf Umwegen, Munich: Oldenbourg, 199. 21 K. Larres. 2002. ���������������������������������������������������������� ‘Die Politik der Nachgiebigkeit. Harold Macmillan und die britische Strategie in der Berlinkrise 1958–1961’, in H. Timermann (ed.), 1961: Mauerbau und Aussenpolitik, Münster: Lit-Verlag, 163–188.

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way of détente.22 This stance was entirely in line with British public opinion. In 1948, in the midst of the first Berlin crisis, 64 per cent of British citizens opted for staying in Berlin even if it meant war with the Soviet Union; in 1959, only 16 per cent supported such an apocalyptic option. By the mid 1950s, British opinion regarded the permanent division of Germany primarily as a means to reduce the risk of Germany striving once again to become the dominant power on the continent. By the later 1950s, anxieties about the balance of power on the continent and the Federal Republic following the Third Reich’s expansionist path were compounded by envy of the West German ‘economic miracle’, which became the symbol of Bonn’s revival at a time of Britain’s post-imperial decline. The new allies’ relationship was further strained by unanswered questions surrounding who was to shoulder the burden of stationing British troops in the FRG.23 In this context, it is easier to understand Macmillan’s criticism of the FRG and its leading politicians’ intransigent insistence that only Bonn could be regarded as the legitimate representative of the German people.24 In the Labour Party, too, conceptions of a more cooperative, flexible policy vis-à-vis the GDR gained ground. Hugh Gaitskell’s thoughts on cold-war coexistence endorsed the concept of a nuclear-free central Europe populated by a group of neutral states.25 He approved in principle the Rapacki Plan (1959) – an Eastern European proposal – for the formation of a nuclear-free zone in central Europe, and the limited recognition of the GDR the plan implied.26 In 1956, Richard Crossman informed the party’s foreign policy committee that détente, disarmament and dialogue would do more to bring about German reunification than the hostilities engendered by Bonn’s Hallstein Doctrine.27 His analysis is remarkably similar to the ideas developed, around the same time, by Willy Brandt, who, as Wolfgang Schmidt has shown, dismissed any thought of immediate reunification as illusory, making small steps on the road to German– German rapprochement the only viable policy option.28 If that is the 22 J. Gearson. 2002. Harold Macmillan and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 1958����������� –���������� 1962: The Limits of Interests and Force, Basingstoke: Macmillan. 23 D. Gossel. 2002. ‘Die ��������������������������������������������������� Berlinkrisen 1948/49 und 1958/62: Wendepunkte britischer Deutschlandpolitik’, in ���������������������� A. Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR. Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World, Berlin: Philo, 113–28. 24 H. Macmillan. 1969. Tides of Fortune, 1945–1955, London: Macmillan, 651 25 H. Gaitskell. 1957. The Challenge of Co-existence, London: Methuen. 26 LPACR (1961), 192. Gaitskell stated that ‘some measure of de facto recognition for the East German government is perfectly possible.’ 27 MRC, Crossman Papers, MSS.54/3/POL/48–60, Richard Crossman, ‘Some Notes on Labour’s Foreign Policy’, Feb. 1956. 28 ������������������ W. Schmidt. 2001. Kalter Krieg, Koexistenz und kleine Schritte. Willy Brandt und die Deutschlandpolitik 1948–1963, Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

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case then Crossman’s and Brandt’s thoughts ran parallel and were perhaps the result of exchanges between the two social democrats, which paved the way to the famous July 1963 speech by Egon Bahr in which the phrase ‘change through rapprochement’ was coined. All in all it is clear that from early on Britain wanted to go further down the road of a de facto acceptance of the GDR, but it was held back by its West German allies who crucially retained the backing of the Americans. After July 1961, when Macmillan announced British intentions of joining the European Union, British foreign policy was also acutely aware of its need for West German support on entry to the EU, especially as the French government seemed determined to continue vetoing any such British plans.29 While Britain’s relations with Western Europe took centre stage, the GDR could play only a cameo role. The East German Ministry of Foreign Affairs was fully aware of Britain’s need for West German favour and that there was little hope of a British recognition of the GDR before progress had been made with Bonn.30 It tried to strengthen Euro-sceptic sentiments in Britain by portraying the EU not just as a trade group but an anti-communist tool of the Cold War which was out of step with sentiments of détente.31 Intriguingly, the British Foreign Office, despite its own growing willingness to come to some form of de facto acceptance of the GDR, was to play a major role in ensuring that the world continued to ostracise East Berlin, especially in the member states of the British Commonwealth, where it had considerable influence.32 But occasionally it also intervened with neutral European states, such as Sweden in 1949, to ensure that the GDR would not be accepted in international law. The Labour governments under Harold Wilson maintained the foreign policy direction of the previous Conservative administrations. Despite the Labour Party conference having called for de facto recognition of the GDR in 1961, Wilson after 1964 made no attempt 29 For the continuously helpful policy of West Germany regarding Britain’s entry into the European Union, see N. Ludlow. 2002. ‘Constancy and Flirtation: Germany, Britain, and the EEC, 1956–1972’, in J. Noakes, P. Wende and J. Wright (eds), Britain and Germany in Europe 1949–1990, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 30 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA C 169/73, ‘Leipziger Frühjahrmesse 1969. ���������������� Länderblatt zur Handelspolitischen Direktive LFM 1969’, (������������������ pp. 146–54), �������������� 150. 31 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, PA AA, MfAA C 200/71, ‘Zum Aufenthalt des britischen Premierministers Heath in Westberlin und der DDR [undated: April 1971]’, 71–74. 32 ����������������� B. Becker. 1991. Die DDR und Großbritannien 1945/49 bis 1973. Politische, ������������ wirtschaftliche und kurturelle Kontakte im Zeichen der Nichtanerkennungspolitik, Bochum: Brockmeyer, 57, 76ff.

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to promote such policies.33 This was a major disappointment to the GDR, where officials had been hopeful that Wilson would be significantly more pro-GDR than his predecessors in Number 10 Downing Street. After all, Wilson had travelled to East Berlin and met with GDR representatives several times during the late 1950s and early 1960s.34 In December 1961 Wilson spoke in favour of ‘some recognition that East Germany exists as a fact’, yet he added the proviso ‘whatever the strength of our desire may be for a united Germany’, and he referred to the GDR as a ‘prison’.35 In July 1962, he called on the government again to be more flexible ‘in the matter of some measure of recognition of the East-German administration’, but he added that any such recognition would be tenable only ‘as a purely factual arrangement … pending, and without prejudice to, the ultimate reunification of Germany.’36 In the same speech, Wilson commended the restraint of West Berliners in the wake of the Wall being built and the strength of Berlin’s mayor, Willy Brandt, in keeping the people of Berlin together. Overall, Wilson’s statements on GDR recognition were quite contradictory, but it may be fair to surmise that his calls for some form of recognition were motivated not by genuine sympathy for the GDR, but by his concern for the peaceful coexistence in Europe. Wilson was partially enamoured by Soviet planning and held the opinion that the planned economies of ‘actually existing socialism’ had genuine advantages to the capitalist system in the West, but these views did not bring him to advocate openly recognition of the GDR. He certainly was extremely cautious never to commit himself to any promises when in office. But he welcomed the move to a more flexible West German policy vis-à-vis the GDR after Adenauer had resigned as chancellor.37 In March 1965, as Prime Minister, he in fact travelled to West Germany and West Berlin to endorse the West German right of sole representation as put down in the Hallstein Doctrine and to reaffirm British security guarantees for West Berlin.38 No major concessions were made to the GDR during Wilson’s period as Prime Minister. Despite the best efforts of the GDR to enamour itself to 33 The East German foreign office noted this with considerable disappointment. See SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12337, ‘Übersicht über den Stand der Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Gro������������ ß����������� britannien, [undated: 1965], (pp.1–7), 1. 34 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� H. Hoff, ‘“Largely the Prisoners of Dr. Adenauer’s Policy”: Gro���������������� ß��������������� britannien und die DDR (1949–1973), in U. Pfeil (ed.), Die DDR und der Westen: Transnationale Beziehungen 1949–1989, Berlin: Ch. ����������������������� Links, (185–206), 203. 35 PAL, Hansard HOCP, vol. 651, 20 Dec. 1961, Col. 1468. 36 PAL, Hansard HOCP, vol. 662, 5 July 1962, Col. 780–83. 37 H. Wilson.1964. ‘Britain and World Peace’, speech 3 March 1964, published in The New Britain: Labour’s Plan, Middlesex: Penguin, (90–100), 95. 38 M. Bell (now Howarth). 1977, ‘Britain and East Germany. The Politics of NonRecognition’, M.Phil.: University of Nottingham, 37.

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Britain and notwithstanding the occasional irritation over the GDR’s long-standing support for Irish nationalism in Ulster,39 British–GDR relations remained in the shadow of the third player, the FRG. The close relations between Brandt’s SPD and the Labour Party helped to ensure that Labour governments never acted out of step with Bonn’s relations with East Berlin, and supported Brandt’s ‘Neue Ostpolitik’.40 In fact, when Brandt had doubts about the continuation of Ostpolitik after the ending of the Prague Spring in 1968, there was considerable British hand-holding for Brandt, encouraging him to continue.41 The Scheel doctrine, formulated in 1969 to prevent West European nations to overtake West Germany in its moves towards Ostpolitik,42 never faced serious problems in London even if the motivations of the West German Ostpolitik at times raised suspicions and produced unease in Britain. In 1966, East Berlin could only look on when the Foreign Minister, George Brown, visited West Berlin to reiterate his government’s commitment to defend ‘freedom’ in the divided city.43 At the same time the Foreign Office issued a statement stressing that, as East German policy was dependent on Moscow, there could be no moves towards recognition of the regime’s sovereignty, whether de facto or de jure.44 At governmental level, little had changed to lift the weight of West German influence on British relations with the ‘other’ Germany. The annual reviews of the Foreign Office on the GDR in the early 1970s highlight the inability of the GDR to achieve recognition on its own terms.45 39 D. Mac Con Uladh. 2005. ‘Relations between the Left in Northern Ireland and the GDR’, in S. Berger and N. LaPorte (eds). 2005. The Other Germany. Perceptions and Influences in British��������������������������������� –�������������������������������� East German Relations, 1945����� –���� 1990, Augsburg: Wißner, 91–106. 40 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Compare the publications of the project entitled ‘détente and Ostpolitik’, headed by Gottfried Niedhard at the University of Mannheim. The strength of this project is that it considers many international actors together and thereby moves away from bilateral studies. See G. Niedhart and O. Bange. 2004. ‘Die “Relikte der Nachkriegszeit” beseitigen: Ostpolitik in der zweiten aussenpolitischen Formationsphase der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Übergang von den sechziger zu den siebziger Jahren’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 44, 415–48; O. Bange, ‘Ostpolitik as a Source of Intra-Bloc Tensions‘; http://www.ostpolitik. net (accessed 19.7.2008)����������������������������� . See also, A. Hofman. 2007. The Emergence of Détente in Europe. Brandt, Kennedy and the Formation of Ostpolitik, London: ���������� Routledge�. 41 C. Haase. 2004. ‘In Search of a European Settlement. The Königswinter Conferences and West German–Allied Relations 1949–1973’, D.Phil.: University of Oxford, 271. 42 ����������������� T. Gerber. 2002. Das Kreuz mit Hammer, Zirkel, Ährenkranz: Die Beziehungen zwischen der Schweiz und der DDR in den Jahren 1949–1972, Berlin: Verlag A. Spitz, 215. 43 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/ 12456, ‘Hinweise für den Brief an den Präsidenten der Parliamentarischen Gruppe GB–DDR, Will Owen’, 11.11.1966, (pp.1–5). 44 Ibid. 45 See the ‘Annual Reviews’ in NA, FCO 33.

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Yet, despite British foreign policy taking its lead from the direction set by Bonn, it became apparent that the GDR was increasingly treated as a ‘normal’ Eastern European state in a climate supportive of interbloc dialogue. In 1964 at the NATO Council, for example, Britain proposed less restrictive controls of travel permits for East Germans officials, which was precisely what the GDR had petitioned for since its foundation in 1949. In 1969, the annual Foreign Office report detailed how ‘the new generation [in the GDR] increasingly sees its hopes for a better life being realised under a strong and independent East German state, no longer inferior in status, which can call its own tune.’46 At the same time, however, the Foreign Office observed how the SED policy-making elite identified Ostpolitik as a threat to the regime’s stability. The popularity of Brandt’s visit to Erfurt in 1970 among ordinary East German citizens underlined the potential dangers of German–German relations, above all in the vexed issues of foreign travel and family contacts across a divided country. In this context, the Foreign Office recognised that the GDR’s policy of ‘demarcation’ (Abgrenzung) was a defensive measure intended to reinforce East German stability and shore up the beginnings of a nascent national identity.47 The reality of such a nascent national identity was, however, assessed very sceptically by the Foreign Office. Informed British observers dismissed contemporary theories of a ‘separate East German nation’. In contrast to other Eastern European states, it was readily recognised that, in times of crisis, the GDR would not have the political prop of nationalism to fall back on. Yet, as far as the GDR was concerned, the British government was keen to leave the initiative to West Germany. Nothing was done to offend an essential ally in Bonn. As late as 1972, James Callaghan, then Shadow Foreign Secretary, visited West Germany to make it clear that a Labour government would not pre-empt any decisions taken by West Germany vis-à-vis the second German state.48 In November 1972, when the first state-level negotiations were held with the East German Foreign Minister, Otto Winzer, he was initially 46 NA, FCO 33/905, ‘Annual Review’ (1969). 47 See in particular Annual Reports, 1970 and 1971. That the SED was indeed wary of Ostpolitik is confirmed by many internal documents. See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/ 12457, ‘Protokoll über die Zusammenkunft mit der Vorsitzenden der Parlamentarischen Gruppe Großbritannien–DDR im britischen Unterhaus, Abg. ���������������������������������������������������� R Short, und dem Sekretär der Gruppe, Abg. W. Wilson, am 15.1.1970’, 12.3.1970, (1–8). On ������������������������������������������� East German anxieties connected to West German Ostpolitik see M.E. Sarotte. 2001. Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, Détente and Ostpolitik 1969–1973, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 48 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 117.

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received as a private individual.49 The process of official negotiation, which began on 23 January 1973 and was concluded little over two weeks later on 8 February, left little to be hammered out in discussion. Rather, after two decades of non-recognition imposed by Bonn, Britain’s relationship with the GDR – as we will see below – followed signposts already marked out by a long-standing desire to bring détente to German–German relations.50 In 1972 the Foreign Office officially welcomed ending nonrecognition, which was regarded as a time-consuming policy, heavy on resources yet without prospect of permanence. The Foreign Office’s realpolitik, including support for developing trade relations and promoting cultural connections, did not imply a stance of indifference towards the most repressive aspects of SED rule. Of particular concern remained the East German ‘shoot to kill’ policy at the Berlin wall: ‘While we have implicitly accepted in the Berlin Agreement that we shall have to live with these facts of life and death, it will be impossible to ignore them. They will be a constant irritant to Anglo-GDR relations.’51 Nevertheless, the Foreign Office anxiously observed the November 1972 elections in the FRG. If Brandt’s SPD fell from office, a new CDU-led administration would depart from the diplomatic path pursued by Ostpolitik. Similarly, concerns in the West German Foreign Office that public opinion was sharply polarised over Ostpolitik led Bonn to ask the British government to help downplay the issue of the recognition of the GDR in order to prevent it becoming the major issue in the domestic election debate.52 In fact, the British government even attempted to exert some pressure on the CDU to support Brandt’s Ostpolitik and help ratify the Eastern Treaties.53 Despite the steadfast refusal of Conservative and Labour governments alike to accept the GDR diplomatically before the FRG had made any moves in that direction, many British politicians and opinion-formers came to question a policy that placed loyalty to the FRG above eliminating obstacles to reinforcing peace in Europe. From the mid 1950s onwards Britain had been pursuing a policy of détente in Europe, for which the German intransigence in accepting 49 ‘Britain Invites East Germany to Open Negotiations to Establish Diplomatic Relations’, The Times, 23.12.1972, 3; also: Annual Review for Germany (East) for 1973, NA, FCO 33/2361. 50 For a discussion of Britain’s final recognition of the GDR, see Hoff, Großbritannien, 452ff. 51 NA, FCO/33/1736, ‘Secret. After Recognition: British Policy Towards the GDR’ [undated: March 1972]. 52 Ibid.; NA, FCO/33/1737, ‘Telegram. Relations with the GDR’ [undated: December 1972]. 53 Haase, Königswinter Conferences, 280.

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the GDR and the post-1945 borders were a major obstacle.54 Those in Britain willing to adopt a strategy of positive engagement included many who were far from sympathetic to the East German model of ‘socialism’. Reuters correspondent Peter Johnson, the first officially accredited non-communist reporter from the West to set up an office in East Berlin, and a Labour party member, reflected in his diary on how ‘outworn’ Adenauer’s policy of strength appeared. Although highly critical of the communists in the GDR, he recognised that the West must talk to the GDR – that is to recognise it – if it wanted to ensure peace and greater freedom for East Germans.55 Gradual change in the GDR, he argued, would only come about as a consequence of dialogue with the West. Johnson’s reflections on West Germany’s intransigent attitude towards the GDR were an articulate expression of much wider British criticisms of the ethos encapsulated in the Hallstein Doctrine. It did not include elements of sympathy for ‘actually existing socialism’: ‘After many talks with East Germans I have come to the conclusion that the worst thing about this system is that it denies a people the right to develop in the way it wants, by putting them in an ideological straitjacket called Marxism–Leninism.’ But it did entail a belief that the GDR was a stable state: ‘My main conclusion is that a terrific amount has been achieved in the past few years and that there is no question of West Germany absorbing East Germany, as some dreamers in Bonn appear to think. That means that one has to consider, at least in the long run, recognising East Germany and making some practical arrangement regarding Berlin.’56 Johnson’s impatience with Bonn’s inflexible stance on the GDR was shared by influential circles of informed opinion in Britain. Neal Ascherson, a foreign correspondent reporting from Germany during the 1960s, recalled how he was keen for West Germany to give up its claim for the sole representation of all Germans: ‘I wanted the acceptance of two German states. I thought that two German states would exist for the foreseeable future’.57 Although far from sympathetic to Ulbricht’s regime of authoritarian ‘socialism’, Ascherson did identify a measure of social progress that had been achieved against the odds. In particular, he noted that, ‘I would have 54 R.G. Hughes. 2007. Britain, Germany and the Cold War. The Search for a European Détente 1949–1967, London: Routledge. 55 P. Johnson. 2000. Reuter Reporter among the Communists 1958–59, London: Tagman Press, 24, 42, 44, 85. As John Ramsden has noted, the press in Britain more generally never warmed to Adenauer and was likely to be highly critical of his politics. See J. Ramsden. 2006. Don’t Mention the War. The British and the Germans since 1890, New York: Little Brown. 56 Ibid., p. 217. 57 Interview with Neal Ascherson, 22.5.2002.

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liked to see East Germany as the “better” Germany. It had a harder road to plough, but I did find that there were some innovations. At a lower level, I did find certain aspects of East Germany to be progressive. There was good health care, comprehensive schooling of a type absent in West Germany, admirable schemes for apprentice training and the like.’ Yet, if East Germany could be seen as progressive in terms of welfare provision, Ascherson identified the regime as a bastion of reactionary social relations. His experience of the GDR led to the observation that, ‘East German society was oldfashioned. It was actually in East Germany, not in West Germany, that you met the old-fashioned German papa with his two daughters banging away Beethoven duets on a piano, being screamed at when they made a mistake. This was like Germany in the 1920s, and it survived in the GDR. Xenophobia also survived in East Germany … Polish students in Dresden told me what a terrible time they had there because of xenophobia.’

The GDR’s Attempts to Discredit the FRG in Britain The continued ability of the Hallstein Doctrine to keep the GDR shut out in the diplomatic cold ensured that East Berlin had to fall back on a form of ‘crypto-diplomacy’,58 using the contacts and connections built up with the GDR’s British sympathisers. Together they tried, above all, to build on the considerable mistrust of all things German in Britain59 and present the FRG as a potentially fascist successor state to Nazi Germany.60 By painting Bonn in the colours of the Third Reich, East Berlin hoped to divide Britain from its West German ally and make it more receptive to overtures from the GDR. The central theme running through the GDR’s manifold English-language publications was the presentation of the FRG as the present day incarnation of the traditions of German militarism, imperialism and anti-Semitism that had led to – and would again lead to – war. In 58 ���������������� M. Bulla. 1988. Zur Aussenpolitik der DDR. Bestimmungsfaktoren ���������������������������������������� – Schlüsselbegriffe – Institutionen und Entwicklungstendenzen, Melle: Knoth, 31. 59 For the treatment of the FRG in the British press, see W. Böttcher. 1972. Deutschland aus britischer Sicht 1960–1972, Wiesbaden: Humanitas-Verlag, 26– 48. 60 This strategy of the GDR was observed warily by both the West German and the British foreign offices. See, �������������������������������������������������� for example, PA AA, Referat 30 [Bestand 31], Bd. 188, ‘Das Deutschlandbild in der öffentlichen Meinung und die Propaganda der SBZ in England’, 5.5.1960; NA, FO 371/160650 CG 1681/4, ‘East German Propaganda to Britain’, October 1961. See also M. Lemke. 1993. ‘Kampagnen gegen Bonn. Die Systemkrise der DDR und die Westpropaganda der SED, 1960– 1963’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 41 (1), 151–74.

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contrast, the GDR was depicted as a ‘peace-loving’ and ‘anti-fascist’ state, asking no more of the international community than to be recognised. In April 1958, tapping into the ongoing, angst-laden public debate on whether the FRG should gain access to nuclear weaponry through NATO, the Volkskammer sent the House of Commons an appeal for common action to prevent a third world war emanating from German soil.61 On the Labour left, such fears were echoed by MPs such as Frank Allaun. Writing in Reynold’s News, he argued that the remilitarisation of West Germany would encourage the reemergence of fascism. His concerns were driven by the belief that it would be a ‘tragic farce if history repeated itself with world war starting, for a third time, in Germany.’62 The TUC opposed West German nuclear rearmament because of fears about the continued presence of Nazi ideology in Bonn.63 These concerns were also raised on the political right, especially after a rash of neo-Nazi incidents hit the headlines during 1959/60. The Daily Express’ Sefton Delmer, who was known for his anti-German views, took a stance in favour of permanent German division. On the democratic left, too, informed observers were receptive to the GDR’s self-presentation as a state committed to ‘peace policies’ and ‘anti-fascism’. In a diary entry from March 1959, Reuters’ reporter Peter Johnson wrote that: The more I talk to such people, the more I am of the view that the East German Communists are trying to do good and that one should seek to understand this, while rejecting their dictatorial methods, in the hope that these will, in time, be modified. I believe that such people genuinely desire peace and that they genuinely regard the West German army as a threat, as it is now being equipped with weapons capable of firing nuclear warheads and is commanded by generals who served under Hitler.64

The continued presence in Bonn of former high-ranking Wehrmacht officers – and the anxieties this unleashed in Britain – left the door open for East German propaganda to walk through. In 1957, Drayson arranged a private screening of the East German film ‘The German Story’ in the House of Commons to some sixty MPs. The film set out to contrast Bonn’s alleged continuities with the Third Reich with the new socialist society being built in the GDR.65 The event’s 61 Becker, DDR und Großbritannien, 25–27. 62 Reynolds News, 1.3.1966, 2. 63 TUC Annual Congress (1960), 411 ff. Similar motions against the nuclear armament of West Germany were carried by ibid. (1959), 415ff. and ibid. (1964), 537 ff. 64 Johnson, Reuters Reporter, 72 f. 65 B. Hogenkamp. 2000. Film, Television and the Left in Britain, 1950–1970, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 74–84.

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coverage in the national press opened up a means of speaking to an audience beyond the walls of private screenings. Another example of this form of propaganda was the film ‘Operation Teutonic Sword’. The film was released following the appointment of General Hans Speidel as Commander-in-chief of NATO ground forces in central Europe. Its central message was that allied forces were now under the command of a former Nazi responsible for – among a catalogue of other war crimes – the murder of hundreds of French resistance fighters and Jewish citizens. In February 1960, the East German official David Rummelsberg – with the assistance of Drayson and Mikardo – was able to show a film about the Nazi past of Theodor Oberländer, the Minister for Displaced Germans in Adenauer’s government, again in the House of Commons. According to East German documentation, sixty MPs watched the film.66 Interest in the film by ITV initially revived East German hopes of reaching a wider audience before the Foreign Office acted to prevent the film being broadcast.67 Nevertheless, the GDR considered the Oberländer affair of sufficient value to publish a book of documents in English translation entitled The Truth About Oberländer. There can be no doubt that the continued presence of former members of the Nazi Party in public life remained a source of tension in relations between Britain and the FRG during this period. In 1961, another scandal blew up, this time concerning the Minister of State in the Chancellor’s Office, Hans Globke. Referring to Globke’s legal commentary on the racist Nuremberg Laws (1935), the British Foreign Office conceded that, ‘his career under the Nazis unfits him for his present job … [It] has done harm to the FRG at home and abroad’. A private report commissioned by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan stressed the existence of genuinely held and widespread public fears about West Germany, which were intensified by the burning issue of Bonn’s nuclear rearmament. The single most important factor underpinning these views was that nobody knew how many former Nazis held positions of influence in the army, civil service or judiciary.68 During the 1950s and 1960s, a small but vocal group of Labour MPs participated in repeated campaigns to discredit the FRG by linking Bonn with Germany’s Nazi past. The organisation initially responsible for coordinating these campaigns was the Committee for the Peaceful Solution to the German Question, which was run by 66 M. Howarth. 1999. ‘KfA Ltd. Und Berolina Travel Ltd. Die DDR-Präsenz in Großbritannien vor und nach der diplomatischen Anerkennung’, Deutschland Archiv 32 (4), 595. 67 Interview with David Rummelsberg, 16.8.2001. 68 Hoff, Großbritannien, 310–13, quote on p.31.

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the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Paul Wandel.69 According to both British government sources and influential German-language media insiders, John Peet was feeding left-wing MPs the information used to ask unwelcome parliamentary questions.70 One particularly prominent example of these campaigns was the case made against Adolf Heusinger. Heusinger, who had been a senior military figure during the Third Reich, now represented West Germany in the NATO Council. The campaign was spearheaded by left-wing Labour MPs Stephen Swingler71 and Will Owen. However, focusing fire on the dark side of West Germany was doing little to illuminate East Germany in British public perceptions. During a visit to Britain in 1959, Wilhelm Koenen expressed dismay at how little was known about the GDR.72

Presenting East Germany to Britain In a policy document written in July 1959 following a visit to London, Horst Brasch recommended that, in order to present the GDR in a more positive light, a broad-based committee should be set up under SED leadership, which would liaise with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the mass organisations, the Peace Council and the National Council of the National Front.73 Brasch also emphasised the importance of drawing on the first-hand knowledge of British culture and language held by former exiles. Three central strategic objectives emerged in East Berlin’s policy vis-à-vis Britain at this time. First, it was hoped that a new committee against West German militarism could ensure greater media coverage. This foundered on the rock of opposition among the GDR’s British supporters, who felt that another committee would do little to further the cause. Secondly, a delegation of British intellectuals was to be recruited with the aim of counteracting public perceptions of religious persecution in the GDR. This aim was actively supported by the English Methodist Minister, Dr Donald Soper, who agreed to send a five-man delegation of churchmen of various denominations to East Berlin. Finally, the GDR intended to extend its network of contacts from London into the provinces, increasing the volume of sympathetic voices among 69 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 204. 70 Ibid., 196–97. 71 MP for Stafford 1945–50 and Newcastle-under-Lyme 1951–69 and Chairman of Victory for Socialism 1958–68. 72 Hoff, Großbritannien, 280. 73 ����������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12480, ‘Bericht des Vorsitzenden des Büros des Nationalrates Horst Brasch über seine Reise nach England vom 20.6. bis 3.7.1959’, (1–12).

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MPs, journalists and trade unionists as well as new recruits among municipal politicians who could open up a wider range of cultural contacts. In November 1959 the GDR and its British friends staged a number of events to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the ‘other’ German state.74 But GDR attempts to improve its image in Britain were dealt a severe blow by the defection of Gotthard Eberlein to West Germany at the end of 1959. In 1958, Eberlein had been at the centre of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs drive to set up a committee in the House of Commons in order to give greater shape to the support of left-wing MPs to deal with the GDR, including participation in the all-important delegations to East Germany.75 In February 1960, Gerhard Waschewski – a senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – visited London to assess the mood among Labour MPs and British communists. At a series of meetings – with, among others, Zilliacus, Mikardo, Swingler, Lewis, Owen and ‘Red Renée’ Short – East Germany’s British ‘friends’ reaffirmed that their sympathies still lay with the GDR. In 1961, the GDR acted to streamline the organisation of relations with British parliamentarians. Under the leadership of Wilhelm Koenen, the Inter-Parliamentary Group was set up as an answer to the regime’s exclusion from the InterParliamentary Union – a body set up in 1896 to promote contacts between the world’s parliaments.76 Under the auspices of the InterParliamentary Group, a steady flow of British parliamentarians came to the GDR, where they were presented with an extremely favourable picture of the country’s ‘socialist achievements’. Already at the 4th Congress of the SED in 1954, Ulbricht had called for an increase in the number of Western parliamentarians and businessmen visiting the GDR.77 Diplomacy by delegation aimed to overcome the GDR’s inability to hold official, governmental-level dialogue with Western states. Especially Labour MPs were targeted as an influential clientele which could help the GDR achieve its overriding objective of recognition. In numerical terms, the policy proved a rapid success. By 1959, one-quarter of the PLP had visited the GDR.78 Yet, although the East German press published highly positive accounts of the visitors’ experiences, the reality was more complicated. Many delegates’ criticisms of aspects of the regime’s political repression and foreign-policy prescriptions had been 74 Hoff, Großbritannien, 279–91. 75 Ibid, 166–69. 76 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 243–44. 77 ����������� SED. 1954. Protokoll der Verhandlungen des IV. �������������������������������� Parteitages der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands, vol. 1, Berlin [Ost], 32. 78 H. Hoff, ‘The GDR and the Labour Party, 1949–1989’, in Berger and LaPorte, The Other Germany, pp. 75–99.

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expunged, even altered, in the cause of promoting East German recognition.79 The first of these visits by Labour Party MPs took place in March 1956, when a five-man delegation of left-wingers under Arthur Lewis accepted an invitation issued by Dr Eberlein’s Berlin Bureau to spend eight days in the GDR.80 From the first delegation until the collapse of the GDR, the programme of events followed a set-piece pattern. Delegations arrived in East Berlin before setting off on a tour of provincial cities, visiting social and educational institutions, sampling the high culture of ballet, opera, theatre and classical music performances as well as factories and building sites. Not only were there discussions with the tour guides (Betreuer) and party and state officials, but also stage-managed ‘meet-the-people’ events aimed to counteract the prevailing image of East German authoritarianism. There were also visits to former concentration camps – frequently Buchenwald, which was located close to the historic city of Weimar – where the burden of the Nazi past was conveniently placed on Bonn’s shoulders and contrasted with East German anti-fascism. The visits concluded in East Berlin, where the red carpet was rolled out for delegates who met leading party and state officials – including Ulbricht, Grotewohl and the president of the Volkskammer, Johannes Dieckmann – at plush receptions. The all-important coup de grace was a press conference, at which, at least according to East Berlin’s intentions, the visitors would express admiration for the regime’s welfare state and ‘socialist construction’, and make supportive statements about the East German proposals to solve the ‘German question’. The message to be broadcast was clear: as the GDR was a ‘sovereign state’ and permanent feature on the map of post-war Europe, non-recognition was not only futile but in nobody’s interest. After a visit to the GDR in July 1956, eight influential members of the British Labour Party admired the ‘magnificent social and industrial progress’ made by the GDR. Lewis added, ‘As far as social institutions are concerned I must honestly say that what has been achieved here cannot be surpassed by any other country.’ Yet the delegation also raised the issue of free elections, human rights and Social Democratic prisoners. Lewis spoke about ‘certain things I did not like at all … What I like least of all is that the people have no 79 According to Becker, DDR und Großbritannien, 241 ff., the GDR authorities misrepresented and falsified statements made by MPs to fit East German propaganda. For an example of one delegate, Labour MP Robert Mellish, publicly disassociating himself from the East German version of his statement on German–German relations, see Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 211. 80 Hoff, Großbritannien, 131–35.

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possibility of setting up a political opposition to the Government at the highest level.’81 The regularity with which delegates raised questions about civil liberties issues and political rights ensured that East Berlin tried even harder to get delegates who would be prepared to give the SED the all-clear on those issues. For example, the question of religious persecution in the GDR had become a topic of major international interest. In the spring of 1957, a delegation of Labour MPs and churchmen from Wales visited the GDR to explore the issue. In a statement printed in Neues Deutschland, they judged that having spoken ‘freely and frankly to people from the most varied classes and districts … the men and women are just as unconstrained as the men and women in Great Britain.’ They saw ‘that there is no religious persecution in the German Democratic Republic’, and were moved by the ‘solidarity of the people’ and the May Day demonstration in Dresden.82 Coming from Western churchmen, this was no small success. The topic remained a prominent issue, with successive delegations continuing to present the same surprising conclusion.83 There is also some evidence that, at least among receptive audiences, visits to Buchenwald moved delegates in the direction intended by their East German hosts. According to East German sources, the communist chairman of the pipe-layers’ union stated that, ‘When one thinks that such atrocities were knowingly carried out by these criminals, some of whom are still in office in West Germany today, one must do everything possible to prevent West Germany from obtaining nuclear weapons.’84 This was, of course, precisely the connection his guides had encouraged him to make – and it found resonance far beyond the circles of the far left. In August 1960, John Mendelson – a parliamentary expert on Germany and regular reader of Neues Deutschland – visited the GDR as part of a series of preparations to secure a delegation of senior Labour politicians. Shinwell, who was the driving force behind this reconnaissance trip, charged Mendelson with securing a high-level discussion on foreign policy, including a meeting with Albert Norden. He was knocking at an open door. Mendelson’s well-known contempt for the continued presence of former army officers during the Third Reich in the leadership of the Bundeswehr made him receptive to East 81 ADN press report, translation in Labour Party International Department, LPAM. 82 Translation of article from Neues Deutschland, 11.5.1957 in Labour Party International Department, LPAM. 83 See, for example, James Hill in Evening Dispatch [West Lothian], 6.7.1960, 4. 84 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/8093, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt des Kollegen Emms, Vorsitzender der Geschäftsstelle der Rohrlegergewerkschaft und Delegierter des Distrikts London, vom 1.–10.3.1964’, 15.4.1964, 2.

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Berlin’s propaganda campaign against Bonn. The impact of seeing the Globke files at a meeting with the Committee for German Unity worked with the grain of his existing anxieties. Mendelson, who was far from being a political firebrand on the party’s far left, was no dupe taken in by East Berlin’s propaganda. Crucially, however, he was an advocate of reducing European tensions through dialogue.85 In 1961, Mendelson was himself part of a five-man Labour Party delegation to the GDR. The delegates, who participated in an East– West Roundtable conference, expressed their support for the Sovietsponsored Rapacki Plan and its call for the creation of a nuclearfree zone in central Europe. Similarly, there was enthusiasm for the initial signs of détente being signalled from the White House under the new Kennedy administration. Perhaps most remarkably, despite the increase in international tensions initiated by the second Berlin crisis, on the eve of the building of the Berlin Wall the delegates observed what they thought was a degree of ‘liberalisation’ in SED rule. At a meeting with Koenen and Dieckmann, the delegates also agreed to petition the Foreign Office to relax the travel restrictions placed on East Germans entering Britain. If most British visitors were unwilling or unable to check the East German press, the latter was watched carefully in West Germany, and the SPD was not pleased by what they read. In May 1957 the Berlin SPD leader, Franz Neumann, thanked Hugh Gaitskell for Labour’s courageous support for political prisoners in the GDR, but took the opportunity to point out that visits by British Labour MPs were used as propaganda by the GDR. Visitors, he argued, often uncritically accepted what they were told by their hosts. Neumann suggested that future visitors should contact the SPD before travelling on to the GDR.86 Gaitskell responded by emphasising his opposition to the ‘brutal repression … under which the people in the Soviet Zone have to live at present’, yet refused to break off all contact with Eastern European countries. He stressed that the Labour party established contacts with Eastern Europe precisely to break through the wall of silence erected by the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. This reinforces the impression that Labour was developing its own version of Ostpolitik before the SPD began to champion it. Importantly, though, Labour’s Ostpolitik lacked the element of regime change that was to become such an integral part of the SPD’s Ostpolitik. In fact, as Luca Ratti has emphasised, few British politicians and civil 85 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA/12095, ‘Aktenvermerk über ein Gespräch mit dem britischen Labour-Abgeordneten Mendelson am 15.9.1960’, (1–3), 1. 86 ‘Letter Neumann to Gaitskell’, Vorwärts, 25.5.1957. Original letter in Labour Party International Department, LPAM.

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servants in Whitehall understood fully the transformatory strategies pursued by West German Ostpolitik.87 While making no allowance for the SPD’s view of the GDR as different from other Eastern European communist states, Gaitskell explicitly favoured Neumann’s suggestion that Labour Party delegations to the GDR should obtain prior briefing from the SPD.88 The Chief Whip of the parliamentary party, Herbert W. Bowden, had already written to all Labour MPs on 28 June 1957 expressing concern about the complaints made by the SPD and advising them of the means to obtain such a briefing.89 Although most MPs heeded this advice, it did not prevent further trouble for the Labour leadership and embarrassment for the SPD. In 1960, Hughes, following a visit to the GDR by seven left-wing Scottish MPs, wrote an article for The Guardian denying British press allegations of inhumane prison conditions in the GDR. According to Hughes, GDR prisons were no worse than those in Britain.90 According to an East German report, in a further article for the Scotsman he even called the GDR the ‘better Germany’.91 Religious freedom was also on the agenda and, following a visit to a Rostock church, the MPs were happy to state there was no religious persecution in the GDR. Another of the delegates, Hill, was much less complementary, pointing out that the standard of living in East Germany was far below that in the West and that the GDR’s agriculture was ‘backward’. Ultimately, the ignorance of many of these delegates was confirmed by Hill’s comments that ‘both sides have a refugee problem’. GDR officials had shown him a camp for persons returning to the East, and Hill readily jumped to the conclusion that the population movement obviously flowed in both directions. According to Neues Deutschland, the delegation of Labour MPs had blamed West Germany for tension in Europe, praised the GDR’s ‘peace policies’, backed the demilitarisation of Berlin and called for closer ties with the SED.92 The article again ignited the conflagration between the SPD and the Labour Party. The executive of the Berlin SPD wrote to Gaitskell, expressing disbelief that ‘Labour MPs and members of our common Socialist International have shown such 87 L. Ratti. 2008. ‘Britain, the German Question and the Transformation of Europe: from Ostpolitik to the Helsinki Conference, 1963–1975’ in O. Bange and G. Niedhart (eds), Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 83–97. See also L. Ratti. 2008. Britain, Ost- and Deutschlandpolitik, and the CSCE (1955–1975). Bern: Peter Lang. 88 ‘Letter Gaitskell to Neumann’, Vorwärts, 19.7.1957. 89 LPID, LPAM. 90 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 223 f. 91 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12091, Hartenstein, ‘Sieben britische Unterhausabgeordnete der Labour-Party: Bericht’, [undated: June 1960], (1–7), 4. 92 Translation of article in Labour Party International Department, LPAM.

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an attitude towards representatives of a ruthless dictatorship against the workers.’93 In July 1960, a high-ranking SPD delegation including Erich Ollenhauer, Herbert Wehner and Fritz Erler held private talks in London with Gaitskell, Wilson, Healey, Phillips and David Ennals94 about the German Social Democrats’ concerns. The SPD delegation argued that the GDR utilised Labour MPs to demoralise the domestic opposition to East-German communism, undermine relations between Labour and the SPD and encourage recognition of the GDR. While the Labour leadership did not change its basic stance, leftwing Labour MPs were not impressed by SPD attempts to curb their links to the GDR. In November 1960, Erler complained again to the Labour Party about an article written by Zilliacus for an East Berlin communist monthly, in which he had criticised the Labour Party leadership’s right-wing foreign policies and demanded a nuclearfree zone in Central Europe. Zilliacus, Swingler and Silverman had sent an open letter to Willy Brandt in the previous April criticising his position on Berlin. Zilliacus, William Warbey and Tom Swain95 also attended the foundational congress of the German Peace Union (Deutsche Friedensunion), a party to the left of the SPD perceived by Social Democrats as a communist front organisation.96 When the correspondent of Neues Deutschland in London, Dr Franz Krahl, failed to get his temporary travel document extended in 1960, Shinwell and Lewis were in the vanguard of attempts to get the decision overturned.97 The resentment of left-wing Labour MPs toward the SPD was summed up by Swingler in 1961: It is not necessary for the SPD in Berlin to lecture visiting Labour MPs on the black record of Soviet Communism. … It does not contribute to better understanding and closer relations for SPD spokesmen to concentrate on attacking the policies of disengagement and arms limitation for which the Labour Party stands. … The SPD leaders should note that to the extent that they fail to stand up against militarist and neo-Nazi tendencies in the West and depart from democratic socialist ideas they provide effective propaganda for the East German communists.98 93 ‘Letter Kurt Mattick to Hugh Gaitskell’, 15.6.1960, in Labour Party International Department, LPAM. 94 MP for Dover 1964–70; Norwich 1974–83 95 MP for Derbyshire NE 1959–79. 96 ‘Letter of Frank Barlow, Secretary of the PLP, to Len Williams, National Agent’, 23.11.1960, in Labour Party International Department LPAM. 97 PAL, Hansard HOCP, vol. 631, 28.11.1960, Col. 29 f. 98 ‘Letter Swingler to Williams’, 11.2.1961, in Labour Party International Department, LPAM.

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Wild accusations such as these were unrepresentative of the PLP. The majority of Labour MPs visiting the GDR had met fellow Social Democrats of the West Berlin SPD, and questions about political prisoners, human rights and political freedoms were consistently raised with their East German hosts. However, East Berlin had succeeded in turning many delegates’ initial mistrust of a totalitarian dictatorship into admiration for the East German welfare state and anti-fascism. Some Labour leaders had even been converted to the view that, as Shinwell put it, ‘there is an astounding degree of freedom of opinion’ in the GDR.99 More importantly, however, there was a view among growing numbers in the Labour Party that the GDR was there to stay and that the SPD, too, should adopt a policy of dialogue and engagement. Mendelson, for example, a fluent German speaker who was in close contact with the SPD, expressed the view that it was time the SPD spoke to the SED.100

Another Brick in the Wall? The Significance of the Building of the Wall and the Prague Spring for British–GDR Relations If political realism convinced a growing number of British observers of the need to recognise the GDR, realism did not often include genuine sympathy. In fact, the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 confirmed the GDR’s negative image in Britain. In the British press it was widely reported as yet another sign of the ‘bankruptcy’ of the communist regime in East Berlin which was described frequently as a ‘prison-state’ and a ‘tyranny’.101 The concrete border running through Berlin became the most enduring symbol of the post-war division of the continent and, no less significantly, reinforced popular perceptions of the regime’s lack of domestic legitimacy. Yet, at home and in international relations, it confirmed that, at least for the foreseeable future, the GDR was there to stay. Overall, the British press reaction to the building of the wall in Berlin was far less informed by moral outrage than by a sense of realpolitik. This contrasted sharply with the press reaction to Hungary in 1956 and 99 R. Crossman, E. Shinwell and J. Pierre Laroche. 1960. Mit fremden Augen gesehen, Berlin: Kongress-Verlag, 19. 100 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA/1 12119, ‘[Letter] Von Hartstein an den Oberbürgermeister Genosse Ebert’, 2.2.1961. 101 ‘Communists Seal the Berlin Border’, The Times, 14.8.1961; ‘Ulbricht SelfIndicted’, Daily Telegraph, 17.8.1961; ‘Warnings from Berlin’, Daily Telegraph, 14.8.1961; ‘Berlin and Disengagement’, The Guardian, 18.8.1961. For the context of the Berlin wall crisis see J. Gearson and K. Schake (eds). 2002. The Berlin Wall Crisis: Perspectives on Cold War Alliances, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Czechoslovakia in 1968. If almost everyone in Britain condemned East Germany’s actions, it did not reverse the tide of opinion running in favour of finding a modus operandi with it. As the Daily Express wrote one day after the building of the wall: ‘[A] nation has the right to close its frontiers against its own nationals. The East German decision does not alter the case for negotiation. Indeed, it strengthens that case … Common sense and common interest lead to this conclusion: The time to talk is now.’102 Already in February 1959, forty-one Labour MPs had called for de facto recognition. In 1961, an outspoken minority within the PLP became a majority at the party congress which, at the same time as it condemned the building of the wall, voted in favour of making de facto recognition official policy.103 Richard Crossman went one step further in describing the building of the wall as the inevitable outcome of the inflexible position of the West German government. He urged the West to negotiate with the USSR ‘over the heads of the Germans … [and] impose on them the terms of coexistence with the communists on the other side of that wall.’104 Already, before the building of the wall, Crossman had suggested that ‘we should propose a temporary settlement of the Berlin problem, under which the Russians underwrite the whole status quo in West Berlin in return for our de facto recognition of the GDR’.105 In a quirk of fate, Crossman witnessed the closure of the Berlin border on 13 August 1961 while visiting the country to see the impact of collectivisation on the rural economy. Without showing any signs of moral outrage, Crossman argued that the wall would ultimately lead to progress in East–West relations as it put an end to speculations about the future of East Germany. If Crossman could be openly positive about certain aspects of East Germany, such as its educational and social policies, he was equally able to be highly critical in private discussions with his hosts. In August 1961, and during a subsequent visit in 1962, Crossman was blunt about his hostility to communism, but he firmly believed that détente ultimately depended on recognising the GDR.106 In 1961, at one of a series of five meetings with Albert Norden held since 1959, Crossman made clear his own position that, as reunification was not an option, 102 ‘No Cause for Panic’, Daily Express, 14.8.1961. 103 LPACR (1961), 163. 104 R. Crossman, ‘Berlin edge of the pit’, New Statesman, 28.8.1962. 105 R. Crossman, ‘Berlin: what next?’, New Statesman, 6.2.1960. 106 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12108, ‘Bericht über den DDR-Besuch des britischen Labour-MP und derzeitigen Vorsitzenden der Labour Party Richard Crossman und des Labour-MP John Mackie zum Studium der landwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in der DDR in der Zeit vom 8.–13.8.1961 in Begleitung ihrer Ehefrauen’, (1–10).

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the solution to the ‘German question’ lay in finding a legal basis for the separate existence of two German states.107 At the 1961 party conference, Manny Shinwell MP and Peter Lister, meanwhile, called on the party to recognise the GDR not only de facto, but de jure.108 Lister was also not motivated by sympathy for the GDR, but by fear of war. He believed that, ‘We must make absolutely sure that we do not substitute for the tyranny of a political regime the terror of a nuclear war.’109 Although unwilling to condone the Wall, most Labour politicians were resigned to it. They merely sought permission for the elderly and the young to be united with their families.110 Yet neither Lister’s nor Crossman’s positions ever became official policy. Indeed a delegation of forty-two Labour MPs, led by Harold Wilson, to West Berlin in June 1962 was ‘affronted by what they saw of the wall.’ Sam Watson, chairman of the party’s international sub-committee, accused Crossman of selling out the West in Berlin, and of making excuses for Ulbricht’s regime in East Germany.111 Not all Labour MPs agreed with their party’s readiness to place realism in international relations above the principle of supporting political freedom in Eastern Europe. Immediately after the wall went up, the Labour MP Desmond Donnelly took on a leading role in the ‘Freedom in Berlin’ campaign in which many Labourites signed a petition demanding that the West stand firm against Khrushchev’s aggression. They declared that ‘Freedom in Berlin must be defended and supported, for it is the very symbol of the struggle of peoples everywhere to live their own lives without fear and foreign interference.’112 At the emotional heart of their appeal was the depiction of West Berlin as a bastion of freedom which, if lost, could demoralise the West along the lines that Munich had demoralised Europe in 1938. The leadership of the West German Trade Union Federation (DGB) was anxious that realpolitik in the British labour movement did not lead to treating the wall as merely an unpleasant fact of political life. In 1961, the DGB took TUC representatives, headed by the General Secretary of the TUC, on a tour of the wall during which they 107 Hoff, Großbritannien, 203 108 LPACR (1961), 169. Lister spoke as a delegate for the Coventry Borough Labour Party. 109 Ibid. 110 LPACR (1962), 69. 111 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-recognition’, 102; Howarth, M. 1999. ‘Großbritannien und die DDR. Beziehungen und Nicht-Beziehungen’, in H. Timmermann (ed.), Die DDR – Erinnerungen an einen untergegangenen Staat, Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, 509–26. 112 ‘Freedom in Berlin’, copy in Donnelly Papers C4, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.

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witnessed border guards shooting at East German citizens attempting to flee to the West.113 Woodcock subsequently published his highly damning impressions of the Wall and its inhumane consequences in the Daily Herald.114 The experience reinforced the General Council’s anti-communism and its rejection of any relations with the statesponsored East German trade unions. Condemnation of the Wall and East Berlin’s policy of shooting dead those trying to cross it into the West stood at the centre of widespread trade-union criticisms of the GDR, even among the GDR’s ideological soul mates. Thus in 1963 David Francis, for example, wrote a letter to Ulbricht on behalf of the South Wales NUM, stating that, ‘We believe such drastic actions at the Wall, the wounding and loss of human life, is absolutely unnecessary and that – completely regardless of who is responsible – must be condemned’.115 The FDGB responded by defending the Wall as a response to Bonn’s military aggression, claiming that East German border guards had been shot defending sovereign territory. They congratulated the South Wales NUM on organising protest rallies and demonstrations against the local training of West German tank battalions in Wales,116 and compared the NUM’s stance against West German militarism with the GDR’s position. The FDGB also invited the South Wales NUM to send a delegation to experience the GDR at first hand.117 The three Labour Party members eventually participating in this ‘study delegation, which took place in March 1965, I.J. Kelly, A.C. Davies and E. Williams, were impressed by the levels of safety and health protection at East German pits. Better still, from the point of view of their hosts, the delegates were surprised to discover that West Berlin was an island deep inside the East German territory, and agreed that the GDR had the right to secure its borders. Yet their ‘political understanding’, according to a detailed report, fell short of comprehending how the National Front functioned as superior form of democracy. What the GDR presented as a superior ‘democracy’, with the ‘bloc parties’ working together to construct socialism, the 113 TUC Annual Congress (1962). 114 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� Translation in DGB Archiv, IA 24/1965, ‘DGB Informationsdienst Report: ‘George Woodcock: “Die grausame Mauer”’ [from Daily Herald, 2.10.1961]. 115 SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320, ‘[Letter] David Francis to Walter Ulbricht’, 22.4.1964 [translation of original]; for other examples of trade unionists, see ibid., DY 34/3371. 116 Even the TUC passed a ‘Panzers Go Home’ motion in 1961, protesting against the plans to let a German Panzer unit train in the Welsh valleys. See Ramsden, Don’t Mention the War, 282. 117 SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320, ‘Entwurf [eines Briefes an] Mr David Francis’ [undated: 1964].

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delegates dismissed as the trappings of political dictatorship.118 Another delegation of NUM-sponsored MPs in 1966 also raised political criticism and left their GDR minders wondering why the British guests had been ‘unable to grasp the political and moral unity of our people. They see the unanimous resolutions taken by our representative institution as an expression of dictatorship’.119 The building of the wall also meant the end of East German press representation in London. In January 1959, ADN opened an office in London, which was run by Günter Plötschke and his assistant, Ruth Kallmann. From January 1960, they were joined by Dr Franz Krahl, a foreign correspondent for Neues Deutschland. The presence of East German journalists in Britain, however, became increasingly difficult after the impact of the government’s retightening of visa restrictions on East German officials after 1961. When Krahl’s visa was not renewed, some of his acquaintances, including Labour MP Manny Shinwell and Conservative MP Burnaby Drayson protested on behalf of the affable Krahl, who, as a wartime émigré in London, had been able to tap into earlier contacts to form a substantial network of pro-GDR voices. Harold Wilson was the most prominent politician protesting at Krahl’s ejection from Britain. But the British government remained firm and from January 1962 until the eve of recognition in 1972 GDR press reporting from Britain depended on articles written by Morning Star staff and visiting correspondents from ADN and Neues Deutschland. Until the arrival of yet another former wartime émigré, Werner Goldstein, in 1972, ADN correspondents were unable to set foot in Britain for longer than short-stay visits.120 East Berlin devoted considerable energy to counteracting the highly negative impact of the wall on British public opinion. The East German communists issued a number of English-language pamphlets, set out in what was hoped to be an easy-to-follow question-and-answer format, in order to justify its actions. Typical of this was the pamphlet ‘What You Should Know about the Wall’ (1961), which set out ten replies to questions the GDR thought would interest Western readers. The wall is presented as an ‘anti-fascist protection barrier’, a response to West German revanchism and 118 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320, ‘Bericht über den Studienaufenthalt der Delegation der National Union of Mine Workers, South Wales Area in der Zeit vom 5.– 14.3.1965’, 18.3.1965, (1–5), 3. 119 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt der offiziellen Delegation der Miners’ Parliamentary Group im britischen Unterhaus in der Zeit vom 25.8.–3.9.1966’, 19.10.1966, (pp.1–11), 5. 120 Hoff, Großbritannien, 136; Howarth, ‘Beziehungen und Nicht-Beziehungen’, 156–57.

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NATO-led aggression and, ipso facto, a means of preserving peace in Europe.121 The GDR’s uncritical support for the Soviet-led suppression of the Prague Spring of 1968 cost the regime dearly also in its relations with many of its erstwhile supporters in Britain. British press coverage of the invasion frequently referred to East Berlin’s hard-line stance and to East-Germany’s clampdown on its own dissidents voicing support for Czech reform communism.122 One Tory MP, Cyril Osborne, even argued that it was Ulbricht’s ‘evil genius’ which was behind the invasion.123 Moscow’s overthrow of the experiment in ‘socialism with a human face’ was condemned throughout the British labour movement. At a protest rally of the Labour Party in Hyde Park, Michael Foot argued that ‘the actions of the Russians confirms that one of the worst threats to socialism comes from within the Kremlin itself.’124 The Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, described the invasion as ‘a serious blow to the efforts made over the years to improve East–West relations and promote a genuine atmosphere of détente.’125 An invitation to Soviet trade union leaders to attend the TUC’s centenary conference in Blackpool in 1968 was withdrawn.126 But pro-Sovietism in the TUC was strong enough to amend a GC motion condemning the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops, so as to take out the GC’s call on member unions to break off all relations with unions of the invading countries.127 Leftwing Labour MPs, such as William Wilson, who had participated in the campaign for recognition throughout the 1960s, found it necessary to mark their distance from East Berlin.128 The majority of British communists were also distinctly uneasy about events in Czechoslovakia. Stanley Forman and Gordon Schaffer reported at the time how events in Czechoslovakia had made the work of the GDR-lobby much more difficult.129 Surveying the impact of these developments, the Stasi noted with great concern that, at the meeting 121 ‘What you should know about the Wall’ [GDR publication, no publishing details given, 1961]. 122 See, for example, Richard Davy, ‘No Pretext for Invasion’, The Times, 21.8.1968; Mark Arnold-Foster, ‘Ulricht Seeks Credit for Invasion’, The Guardian 25.8.1968; ‘Invasion to keep World Peace, Says East Germany’, Daily Telegraph, 23.8.1968; Michael Hornsby, ‘East German Action against Unrest’, The Times, 27.8.1968. 123 ‘The Osborne Plan’, The Times, 26.8.1968. 124 Quoted in ‘Labour’s London Warning’, The Times, 24.8.1968. 125 Quoted in ‘Straight Talk by Mr. Stewart’, The Guardian, 22.8.1968. 126 ‘TUC Ends Links with Eastern Europe’, Daily Telegraph, 23.8.1968. 127 TUC Annual Congress (1969), 627 ff. 128 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA C 114/70, E. Friedländer, ‘Kurzbericht über das Potsdamer Gespräch 1968’, 30.9.1968’, (1–8), 7–8. 129 ������������������������������������������������������������ PA AA MfAA, C 114/70, ‘Stand der Beziehungen der Debrig zur Freudschaftsgesellschaft BRIDGE’, 18.9.1968, (1–23), 23.

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of the CPGB Executive Committee on 21 September 1968, all but one member had condemned the actions of the Soviet Union. Although opinion at the party newspaper Morning Star had been more divided, the report also observed that its foreign policy editor, Sam Russell, was vociferous in his condemnation of the Soviet intervention.130 Together with Gollan, Matthews and Woddis, Russell was identified by the Stasi as ‘key figures of the anti-Soviet position’ within the CPGB. Speaking at the Hyde Park rally in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Dick Crossman argued that ‘we should not revert to a Cold War mentality. What we do should be designed to help those who are seeking to modify and humanise Soviet society. … Those who want Communism to change, along Czech or Yugoslav lines, ought not to be left in isolation.’131 Among the British Left, the argument could also be heard that the USA was just as keen to retain its hegemonic position over other states than the Soviet Union. When the Hungarian revolution was crushed in 1956, Ian Mikardo (MP for Reading, 1945–55; Poplar, 1964–74, Tower Hamlets, 1974–93) and Arthur Henderson were two Labour MPs who reminded their fellow MPs that the Soviets only did in Hungary what the French and British had attempted to do in Suez.132 And in 1968 Bertrand Russell reminded the readers of The Guardian that American intervention in Vietnam was no different to Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. According to Russell, only the dissolution of NATO would allow Eastern European reform communists to succeed.133 Overall, then, the voices in favour of dialogue could not be silenced by the repressive practices of communist governments in Eastern Europe. And the GDR only redoubled its efforts to gain recognition as an independent state after 1961, hoping that the British sense of realpolitik would be stronger than the moral repulsion felt by the building of the wall and the suppression of ‘communism with a human face’. Trade, in particular, was regarded in East Germany as one of the best levers to win support for recognition in Britain. 130 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HVA 136, ‘Einzel-Information über die Haltung der kommunistischen Parteien Österreichs, Großbritanniens, Italiens und Norwegens zu den Ereignissen in der CSSR’, 19.10.1968, (����������������� pp.�������������� 135–40), 140. See also ‘British Communist Party Deplores the Intervention’, Morning Star, 22.8.1968; ‘Put Right this Tragic Error Now, Says John Gollan’, Morning Star, 26.8.1968. 131 Quoted in ‘The Voice of Parliament’, The Guardian, 26.8.1968. 132 PAL, Hansard HOCP, 3.11.1956, vol. 558, column 1884 (Mikardo); for the statements by Henderson, see ‘Mr. Selwyn Lloyd on Tragedy of Hungary’, Manchester Guardian, 6.11.1956. 133 ‘Letters to the Editor: Bertrand Russell’, The Guardian, 26.8.1968.

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Trade, Travel and the Politics of Engagement East Berlin’s long search for a trade agreement with Britain went through a number of stages going back to the early 1950s.134 In 1955, British exhibitors at the spring Leipzig Trade Fair, from the communist-dominated companies organised within the British Council for the Promotion of International Trade (BCPIT) to such established companies as Standard Motors, formed the British Exhibitioners’ Leipzig Fair Association (BELFA). The trade agreement negotiated between BELFA and East Berlin amounted to an exchange of goods to the value of £5.4 million. Parallel to these developments, the first East German premises were opened in Britain. On 1 April 1955, the Leipzig Fair Agency was set up in London’s Oxford Street, under the chairmanship of the British communist businessman Denis Hayes, in order to ease the participation of British businesses at the Fair.135 Although the Foreign Office continued to feel constrained by the policy of non-recognition, the Board of Trade’s adoption of an active export policy made it highly receptive to demands from business and industry to relax the trade restriction limiting access to the East German market. Whether under Conservative Edward Heath or Labour’s Peter Jay, the Board of Trade regularly clashed with the Foreign Office over the issue of trade with the GDR.136 The relative success of the GDR’s lobby was reflected in the doubling of British exports to the GDR between 1955 and 1958.137 The eventual British solution to the dilemma of maintaining the policy of non-recognition while ending the obstacles to trade was to use a non-governmental organisation – the FBI (later CBI) – to negotiate a trade agreement worth £7 million with the East German Chamber of Commerce (KfA, Kammer für Aussenhandel) in 1959. For the GDR’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs this trade agreement was a sure sign of the ‘realistic’ attitude of Britain towards the ‘German question’.138 During the 1960s it was to argue consistently that the British policy of non-recognition could be undermined by holding 134 See above, pp. ? 135 Hoff, Großbritannien, 62–67. 136 Hoff, Großbritannien, 431–35. 137 See, ‘Great Britain’s Trade with DDR and FRD, 1951–1976’, in Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, Appendix 2, 335. Also: M. Howarth. 2000. ‘The Business of Politics; the Politics of Business. The GDR in Britain Before and After Diplomatic Recognition’, in C. Hall and D. Rock (eds). German Studies towards the Millenium. Berne: Peter Lang. 138 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2241, MfAA, ‘Bericht über die wirtschaftliche, innenund aussenpolitische Entwicklung Großbritanniens sowie über die Beziehungen zur DDR während des Jahres 1958 und die sich daraus ergebenden Aufgaben für das Jahr 1959’, (1–30), 29.

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out the bait of trade, because, as a ‘declining empire’, Britain was searching for new markets to maximise the country’s influence in the post-war world.139 Following the conclusion of the 1959 trade agreement, the GDR was able to set up a trade mission – KfA Ltd – as a private company housed in London’s exclusive Mayfair district. The importance attached to the trade mission was symbolised by the appointment of Kurt Wolf, the vice president of the KfA, as the trade mission’s first director. Staffed by personnel from the East German Ministry of Foreign Trade and, later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Foreign Office was in little doubt that East Berlin wanted to transform the trade mission into a sort of ‘embryo Embassy’. Initially, the Foreign Office adopted a firm line on any political transgressions; however, over the years, the trade mission did take on the character of an informal embassy. When Britain recognised the GDR in 1973, the role of KfA Ltd was taken over by the East German Embassy, and its last director, Karl-Heinz Kern, became the first ambassador.140 From its inception in 1959, KfA Ltd played an important role in further developing trade relations with Britain in a number of ways, most importantly by setting up joint stock companies and developing a network of contacts from individual company directors to members of the Chambers of Commerce. It also played a prominent role in organising visits to the Leipzig Trade Fairs by British businessmen and journalists. By the second half of the 1960s, leading British companies, including British Steel, Shell International and British Petroleum, were all represented at Leipzig.141 Senior British trade union officials were also invited to the Leipzig Trade Fair. They returned home not only with a broadly positive impression of the GDR, but also a readiness to promote commercial relations by commending trade to the relevant government agencies.142 In 1963, for example, a returning delegation from the Derbyshire NUM under the district General Secretary, Herbert Wynn, applied pressure on the National Coal Board to increase 139 For an overview of the MfAA’s trade policy towards Britain, see ������������ PA AA, MfAA C 169/73, ‘Leipziger Frühjahrmesse 1969. Länderblatt zur Handelspolitischen Direktive LFM 1969’, (146–54), 151. 140 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� Interview with K.-H. Kern, 12.10.2001; also Bell (now Howarth), ‘NonRecognition’, 147 ff., 165 ff. 141 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA C 169/73, ‘Leipziger Frühjahrmesse 1969. Länderblatt zur Handelspolitischen Direktive LFM 1969’, (146–54), 153. 142 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� A good summary of the GDR’s aims and objectives for trade union delegations is in, SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/337, Dönitz, ‘Ausweitung und Schlussfolgerungen aus der Arbeit mit den ausländischen Gewerkschaftern zur Frühjahrmesse 1964’, 18.3.1964, (pp.1–4).

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exports of coal to East Germany.143 In 1964, the NUM stood at the forefront of British unions’ calls for the lifting of the trade embargoes on Eastern Europe, including the sale of embargoed technological goods to the GDR.144 A number of factory-to-factory trade contacts also developed out of British small- and medium-sized-business interests attending the Leipzig Trade Fair. From the East German perspective, these business contacts assisted in building up a reputation of the GDR as a valuable trading partner, generated much needed foreign currency, and, above all, worked in the direction of recognition. East German factorybased officials dealing with British businessmen received training in how best to present the GDR’s case for recognition as means of lifting unwelcome government-imposed restrictions on trade.145 In the spring of 1968, the first direct flights between London and Leipzig during the trade fair were chartered by British European Airways.146 The calls from Leipzig to end the obstacles to trade and to recognise the regime were not restricted to left-wing Labour MPs. They included Conservatives, most notably Drayson, and Liberals, such as the Liberal leader, Clement Davies, who returned to Britain from the 1958 Leipzig fair to call on the Minister for Trade and the Prime Minister to ‘normalise’ trade relations with the GDR.147 Business representatives sounded the same trumpet.148 In April 1967, Sir Paul Chambers, chairman of the chemical giant ICI, was the first high-profile British businessman to visit East Germany. More significantly still, he did not just talk trade with his hosts, but met Deputy Foreign Minister, Oskar Fischer, to whom Chambers promised his support for diplomatic recognition. From the beginning of the 1960s, East Berlin appointed a public relations company – Notley’s Advertising Ltd – to promote further trade with Britain.149 Yet, despite the growth in trade and the involvement of a number of prominent British companies, Britain could never hope to rival the importance of East German trade with the FRG, which accounted for over half of the GDR’s trade with capitalist countries. Yet Britain became more important as a key trading 143 SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320, ‘[Letter] General Secretary NUM [Scotland] to Minister of Power’, 30.3.1964’ [in English]. 144 ������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/3371, ‘Vorbereitung und Durchführung des Rundtischgespräches mit britischen Gewerkschaftern während der Leipziger Frühjahrsmesse 1964’, 12.2.1964, (1–3), 2. 145 See the reports in Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv [BLHA-P], Rep. 730, Nr. 5532. 146 Hoff, Großbritannien, 439–40 147 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA A 13045, ‘Kurzer Überblick über die Entwicklung der Beziehung zwischen der DDR und Großbritannien’, 20.6.1958, (���������������� pp.������������� 132–37), 134. 148 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA C 169/73, ‘Leipziger Frühjahrmesse 1969. Länderblatt zur Handelspolitischen Direktive LFM 1969’, (146–54), 150. 149 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 161ff.

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partner for the GDR during the 1960s and early 1970s. During this time, British–GDR trade became second only to inter-German trade, jumping ahead of the Netherlands, France and Sweden. Between 1960 and 1963, Britain accounted for between 8 and 11 per cent of all East German imports; the former largely exported machinery and precision apparatus, and imported East German printing and office equipment and, above all, potash – which captured some 30 per cent of the British market by the later 1960s. For the GDR, imports from Britain became a vital component in the programme of ‘chemicalisation’ announced by Ulbricht in 1958.150 And in Britain, from the beginning of 1967, cabinet caution began to yield to the demands of Britain’s export industry. Perceptions of a ‘little economic miracle’ taking place behind the Berlin Wall made the pursuit of trade seemingly attractive. Influenced by these considerations, Foreign Minister Michael Stewart proposed lifting a wide range of obstacle to trade relations. Impressed by the overall level of EEC trade with the GDR, the British Labour government appeared willing to adopt greater flexibility in its interpretation of West Germany’s policy of non-recognition.151 At this time, the government-sponsored Eastern European Trade Council was set up, which liberalised trade with the Soviet bloc and worked with the GDR on the same basis as with other Eastern European states. As the following table demonstrates, trade between the GDR and Britain increased throughout the 1960s, and by the end of the 1960s its total volume was one and a half times as high as at the beginning of the decade: Table 2.1: Development of Trade Relations between the GDR and Great Britain, 1960–1969. Source: ����������������������������������������������������� Landesarchiv Berlin: File: C Rep 122 Nr. 630: Doc.2: ‘Anlage 1. Gegenwärtigen Entwicklungsstand der Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Großbritannien’ [undated: 1973?]. 1962

1963

1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969

GDR export

78

89

110

134

110

132

120

123.8

GDR import

113

176

130

168

208

185

161

188.7

Saldo

191

265

240

204

318

317

281

312.5

150 R. Stokes. 2002. ‘A Singular Attraction: Economic and Technical Relations between Britain and the GDR in the 1950s and 1960s’, in Bauerkämper, Britain and the GDR, 325–36. Especially before 1961 the GDR was keen to import Western technology. See R. Stokes. 2000. Constructing Socialism: Technology and Change in East Germany, 1945–1990, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 132 ff. 151 G. Niedhart. 2002. ‘Auf �������������������������������������������������������� dem Weg zur Anerkennung: Die DDR in der britischen Politik 1967–1973’, in Bauerkämper, Britain and the GDR, 168 f.

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In 1969, the Financial Times added its voice to the British case for recognition. Its political case rested on an economic argument: the GDR did more trade with EEC countries than with the East bloc, yet was only recognised by the latter. Again, perceptions of East German economic potential were positive, with the FT identifying the GDR as the most technologically advanced of the Eastern European economies and one of the most promising markets for West European trade.152 In October 1969, the first quasi-official East German trade delegation arrived in London under the Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade, Dr Gerhard Beil.153 The door was now open to high-level trade delegations in both directions. In April 1970, a CBI delegation, headed by Sir Leslie Rowan, accepted an invitation from the Ministry of Foreign Trade to visit the GDR. A second ministerial-level trade delegation from the GDR arrived in London in May 1971.154 In November 1969, after yet another protracted debate between the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office, the CBI was given a green light to conclude the first long-term trade agreement with the KfA, covering the three-year period from 1970 until 1972. In exchange for dropping a demand that the CBI open a trade representation in East Berlin, the Foreign Office wavered its earlier opposition to using the acronym ‘GDR’ – as opposed to the preferred ‘East Germany’ – on the documentation of the 1969 trade agreements – an important symbolic victory for the GDR. It concluded a long campaign led by the East German trade mission in London, which had tried to enlist the support of the overseas director of the CBI, J.D. Thur, and the chairman of the EETC, Alexander Ross.155 Importantly, however, all of the obstacles to trade relations had not yet been removed in advance of diplomatic recognition. In August 1970, Dieter Butters, head of KfA from 1967 until 1971, lamented that the East German share of British exports remained below 1 per cent of the total, and, in the absence of normalised relations, the potential for trade relations could not be realised. In fact, Britain’s trade deficit with the GDR increased between 1961 and 1973. The hope for markets in the GDR proved to be a mirage, a distortion of reality trading on a ‘German’ brand name and assumptions about 152 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA A 9506, ‘Bericht über die Beziehungen zu Großbritannien im Jahre 1955’, 1.2.1956, (pp.1–6), 4. 153 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 43. 154 ������������������ H.-G. Golz. 2004. Verordnete Völkerfreundschaft. Das Wirken der Freundschaftgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien und der Britain–GDR Society – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag���������� , 99–100. 155 PA AA, MfAA C 116/70, ‘Jochen Steyer to J D Thur [Deputy Overseas Director, CBI]. Re: Participation of Enterprises from GDR in Exhibitions in UK’, 1.4.1968.

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Prussian industrial aptitude.156 Yet the ‘red’ gold at the end of the rainbow proved a widespread misconception. Returning from a visit to the GDR in 1970, David Steel, a prominent Liberal politician and later party leader, published an article in The Guardian entitled, ‘The Marxist Millionaires.’ Again, perception was everything, with Steel readily accepting that a degree of local self-management of firms, profit making and state investment had introduced capitalist competition into Ulbricht’s East Germany.157 For individual companies, however, the GDR did offer new markets. By the mid 1970s, more than 400 British companies were active in trading with the GDR.158 One of the GDR’s most renowned companies was the optical and engineering precision instruments giant Carl Zeiss. Keen on extending its Western markets, it was embroiled in a long-standing legal battle with a company in West Germany trading under the same name. During the 1960s, London was the scene of a bitter court battle between these rival East and West German companies. The division of Germany had divided the company, which split into Carl Zeiss, Jena, and Carl Zeiss, Heidenheim. Following an East German court ruling that only the nationalised East German Carl Zeiss could lay claim to the company name, the GDR set out to validate this legal ruling in Western court rooms. The initial ruling at the High Court in London fell in the GDR’s favour. Mr Justice Cross accepted that the GDR was an autonomous state with its own legal order that could not be ignored. Incensed by the ruling, the West German government took the issue to the Court of Appeal. After the Foreign Office confronted the court with the legal implications of Britain’s non-recognition of the GDR as a sovereign state, the scales of justice now swung in favour of Carl Zeiss, Heidenheim. This, however, drew the ire of many critics, who filled the pages of legal journals with biting criticism of the Court of Appeal’s ruling. Focusing on its impracticality, they insisted that one could not simply ignore the laws of a state that did, after all, actually exist. Would this mean that all GDR companies would stand outside the law? Would Britain refuse to accept East German marriages, too? With these considerations in mind, the final Law Lords’ decision in 1966 reaffirmed the legitimacy of the original ruling by Justice Cross. The Law Lords’ ruling that East German law was legitimised by the Soviet Occupation Authority, which Britain 156 This was, however, the prognosis of the DTI on the eve of recognition in 1972, see, for example, FCO/33/1737, ‘British Policy towards the GDR’, 5.12.1972. 157 ‘The Marxist Millionaires’, The Guardian [undated], in PA AA, MfAA C 180/73. 158 Becker, Großbritannien, 230 f. A good survey of the economic relations of the GDR with other countries is provided by H.-D. Jacobsen. 1980. ‘Strategie und Schwerpunkte der Aussenwirtschaftsbeziehungen’, in Jacobsen et. al. (eds), ������� Drei Jahrzehnte Aussenpolitik, 293–311.

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did recognise, had unavoidable political implications, namely the implicit rejection of Bonn’s claim to sole representation throughout the entire territory of the post-war Germanys. Britain’s right-wing press howled down the Law Lords’ decision, which, they insisted, had lent legitimacy to a communist dictatorship. For East Berlin, however, there was cause for celebration. Their march through the British courts, waving the banner of an East German company, had demonstrated that influential groups in Britain doubted the indefinite denial of a second German state.159 A number of British MPs, most of whom regularly attended the Leipzig Trade Fair, such as Mikardo, Lewis and Owen, played a prominent part in aiding the GDR’s attempts to improve its trade relations with Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. Their principal method of putting the government under pressure involved asking questions in parliamentary debates. Occasionally, political heavyweights would also weigh in. In May 1957, Harold Wilson informed the House of Commons, ‘While we are aware that we have no diplomatic relations with East Germany, is it not a fact that the Leipzig Fair is attended by buyers and sellers from all over the world? Are we not losing export trade by the rather slack attitude which the government takes about East German relations?’160 In 1956, Alexander Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, chairman of the Conservative foreign policy committee, became the first Conservative MP to call for the full recognition of the GDR in the Commons.161 Hinchingbrooke had visited the GDR in 1955, and again in 1960, where he had proved susceptible to the argument propagated by the East Germans that trade would expand rapidly if government restrictions were removed.162 Although the few Conservatives who had any dealings with the GDR, such as Brigadier Clarke, John Woollam, Sir Stephen McAdden and Lord Boothby, were anxious to avoid tempering business interests with political considerations, Hinchingbrooke’s call for establishing diplomatic relations with the GDR was an early indication that the door to de facto recognition in trading relations was beginning to open. It would be a mistake, however to assume that all British MPs visiting the Leipzig Trade Fair were susceptible to East German propaganda. In 1956, Rennie Smith accepted an invitation to visit Leipzig, partly because his wife’s family came from the neighbouring Saxon city of Dresden. His observations, made in an unpublished autobiography, show the strength of his reservations: 159 Kilian, Hallstein-Doktrin, chapter 13. 160 PAL, Hansard, HOCP, vol. 567, col. 53f. 161 Ibid., col. 922–96. 162 SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12087, ‘Bericht über den Besuch von Viscount Hinchingbrooke in Berlin vom 30–31.3.1960’.

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If prosperity was the ensign of Western Germany, poverty shouted aloud in the Eastern Zone. … The towns and cities seemed much as the war had left them, shabby, untouched, as though afflicted by a paralysis which had become a habit of life. Shabby, dark, drab streets, one after another; among the population on the streets a deadness and dullness that affected human relationships. People sat silent on the busses and trains. If you tried to engage in conversation you were soon made to feel that conversion was not wanted. … The Eastern Zone of Germany … [s]eemed to me like the Russian Zone of Berlin writ large.163

Promoting the putative business benefits of trade with the GDR remained the leitmotif of the East-West Trade Parliamentary Group, a nominally cross-bench, but de facto Labour-dominated association of MPs founded in March 1961, which promoted trade for a variety of entrepreneurial and ideological reasons. By circulating documents in the House of Commons and displaying information on notice boards, the Parliamentary Group afforded East Germany a degree of wider recognition. Its members argued that Britain should not ‘pay lip service to what the West Germans say about East Germany’,164 and that a British government should not ‘allow political prejudices to interfere with our trade.’165 Shrugging off press attacks on their Soviet links during the 1964 general election, Robert Maxwell,166 Ian Mikardo, Will Owen, Arthur Lewis, Sir Leslie Plummer,167 and John Stonehouse168 were prominent campaigners for official trade links. They played a personal role in creating companies trading with the Soviet bloc and they had close relations with the East German trade mission.169 The intertwining of economic and political interests led to questions being raised about the ethics of MPs’ private interests. With commissions of up to 2.5 per cent being paid by British companies, pursuit of trade relations could be lucrative for MPs. Desmond Donnelly, together with acacemic Alec Nove, published a guide to trade with communist countries in 1960 which provided a wealth of statistical data on trade as well as pensketches of all the East European countries.170 In 1962 George Jeger, Labour MP for Goole between 1950 and 1971, an Austrian-born International Brigader, criticised such behaviour. He enquired in the 163 Bodleian library, Rennie Smith Papers, MSS.Eng.hist.d.296–7: Autobiography. 164 PAL, HOCP, Vol. 753, 20 July 1967, Col 412. 165 PAL, HOCP, Vol. 750, 14 Apr. 1967, Col 2116. 166 MP for Buckingham 1964–70 and head of Pergamon Press. 167 MP for Deptford 1955–79 and Vice Chairman of the all-party East–West Trade Parliamentary Group. 168 MP for Wednesbury, 1957–74; Walsall 1974–76. 169 According to the memoirs of Ian Mikardo. 1988. Backbencher, London: Weidenfeld, 116–17, 149, his was a successful enterprise. Mikardo’s wage and consultancy fees for the parliamentary year 1964/5 are estimated as £5,000. 170 A. Nove and D. Donnelly. 1960, Trade with Communist Countries, London: Hutchinson.

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Commons about the profits obtained by MPs from trade with Eastern Europe.171 Yet most Labour MPs promoting trade with the GDR were motivated by idealism. In the case of Arthur Lewis, personal reasons also played a part: during the Spanish Civil War, he had made friends with a fellow International Brigader, Heinrich Rau, who became the GDR’s Minister of Foreign Trade.172 Mikardo, who had first visited the Leipzig Trade Fairs as an industrial consultant during the 1930s, regarded his involvement in East–West trade as sufficiently lucrative to set up a trading company, Ian Mikardo plc. Mikardo’s company held seminars to acquaint British businessmen with communist states and working with them. He cooperated closely with Lord Plurenden and the GDR authorities, but was often frustrated by the response of the Foreign Office, even when his own party was in government. In 1964, for example, he introduced Jost Prescher, the Acting Head of KfA Ltd., to Patrick Gordon Walker, then putative Labour foreign secretary, only to find that Gordon Walker went out of his way to emphasise that nothing could be done to further the diplomatic recognition of the GDR.173 Mikardo certainly saw trade as an opportunity to cement peaceful coexistence into Cold War international relations. Jo Richardson (MP for Barking, 1974–94) was employed by Mikado plc, which continued to operate until 1977. 174 The most overtly political of these MPs was ‘Red’ Renée Short, who saw the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in a very positive light. Short was not only vice chair of the East–West Trade Parliamentary Group, but also – at various times – chair of the British–Soviet Parliamentary Group and the subsequently founded Britain–GDR Parliamentary Group. Throughout the 1960s, she campaigned for government recognition of the GDR, increased trade and the relaxation of restrictions on travel visas to and from East Germany. No stranger to the East Bloc, Short’s repeated tours of Eastern Europe only reaffirmed her commitment to their cause, which rested on perceptions of antifascism, anti-imperialism and the attempt to construct a new morality for social life; her admiration of all things communist extended to the social engineering undertaken in the Soviet Bloc.175 After succeeding in founding KfA Ltd., improving trade relations and finding helpful cooperators among Labour MPs and trade unionists, an attempt was made to set up another semi-official East German representation in London in the form of a travel and information of171 PAL, HOCP, vol. 655, 15.3.1962, Col. 1511; Sunday Telegraph, 18.3.1962 172 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 135. 173 LPAM, Jo Richardson papers: LP/RICH/1/15: Ian Mikardo Diaries, 30.4.1964. 174 For details see Mikardo, Backbencher. 175 D. Lilleker. 2004. Against the Cold War. The History and Political Traditions of ProSovietism in the British Labour Party, 1945–1989, London: I.B.Tauris, 197–206.

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fice. In July 1960, East Berlin made a formal request to the Board of Trade to establish ‘Berolina Travel Ltd’. It provided £3,500 to set up the travel agency. However, following West German warnings that the office’s actual use would be to pursue propaganda, and to circumvent travel restrictions on East Germans entering the country, the Foreign Office decided that everything should be undertaken to undermine its operation. When Berolina Travel finally opened its doors in 1965, no East German staff could be employed due to the restrictive handling of visa applications by the Allied Travel Office. Not only was Berolina Travel Ltd unable to play any significant political or commercial role, it failed to generate interest among British citizens in travelling to the GDR. In 1969, Denis Hayes, who temporarily had taken charge of the day-to-day running of the office, went as far as recommending that it be closed down.176 In the GDR’s foreign-policy calculations, travel and, far more importantly, trade were always subordinated to the central political objective of attaining diplomatic recognition. For Britain, however, the volume of trade would never have been sufficient to turn around the non-recognition policy of successive governments. By the end of the 1960s, the extent of trade with the entire East Bloc had never exceeded 4 per cent of its total exports.177 Whilst this was no incentive to leapfrog Bonn in the drift towards recognition, a number of cautious steps away from the policy of non-recognition were taken. In the German–German context, recent studies have demonstrated how important trade relations had been for paving the way towards détente and the recognition of the GDR.178 The same trend can be observed for British–GDR trade relations. If trade had therefore been one way of opening doors for the GDR in Britain, the SED regime also tried other avenues to institutionalise British–GDR relations below the level of official diplomatic recognition. 176 M. Howarth. 1999. ‘KfA Ltd. Und Berolina Travel Ltd. Die ������������������� DDR-Präsenz in Gro���������������������������������������������������������� ß��������������������������������������������������������� britannien vor und nach der diplomatischen Anerkennung’, Deutschland Archiv 32 (4), 591–600; Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 154 ff.; Hoff, Großbritannien, 315ff. Berolina ����������������������������������������������������������� Travel Ltd was not closed down; it survived until the early 1990s. After recognition, it took on the role of making travel and visa arrangements for British delegations visiting East Germany. Interview with Sheila Taylor, 9.3.2001. 177 Becker, DDR und Großbritannien, 181. 178 K. Rudolph. 2004. Wirtschaftsdiplomatie im Kalten Krieg. Die Ostpolitik der westdeutschen Grossindustrie 1945–1991, Frankfurt/ Main: Campus; P. Fäßler. 2006. Durch den ‘Eisernen Vorhang’. Die deutsch-deutschen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen 1949–1969, Cologne: Böhlau.

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Institutionalising British–GDR Relations below the Diplomatic Level: In a speech to the Volkskammer in September 1963,179 Ulbricht announced a very East German version of ‘change through rapprochement’. By inviting more delegations from the capitalist world, the ‘truth’ about the GDR would be spread like mushrooms after rain; and Western governments would find themselves propelled by popular pressure to normalise diplomatic relations with the ‘other’ German state. Indeed, in the aftermath of the building of the Berlin Wall, the GDR began to organise the campaign for recognition in Britain more systematically. In 1961, East Berlin transformed the Gesellschaft für kulturelle Verbindungen mit dem Ausland (GkV), founded in 1952, into the Liga für Völkerfreundschaft (LfV), which was to operate as a form of alternative foreign office outside the Soviet Bloc. Its primary purpose in Western countries was to attract support for East German recognition among ‘target groups’ identified as having influence, from individual politicians to trade unionists. In the continued absence of official diplomatic channels this was regarded as the best means to influence policy making in Western states. Its place in the East German foreign policy hierarchy was symbolised by the appointment of Manfred Feist as president of the LfV from 1966 until 1989. Feist remained head of the entire ‘Foreign Information’ department in the Central Committee of the SED during this period.180 In June 1963, the Deutsch–Britische Gesellschaft (Debrig) was set up within the LfV in order to deal specifically with Britain, superseding the earlier coordinating role of the British Section of the GkV. Greta Kuckhoff, the vice president of the German Peace Council and a former member of the Red Orchestra resistance group, was appointed president – a largely symbolic position. The actual head was the vice-president, Horst Brasch.181 People with direct experience of British politics, language and culture dominated Debrig’s presidium and apparatus: Albert Norden represented the Central Committee, Hans Bahr was president of the KfA, Herbert Plaschke represented the Western Section in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Günter Pötschke had worked in Britain as head of the ADN press agency. The presidium also brought together a cross-section of the societal and mass organisations, spanning the Bloc Parties, the Peace Council and Dresden City Council, and later the FDJ and FDGB.182 179 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/3391, ‘Einschätzung der Erfüllung des Plans der internationalen Arbeit 1963 bis zum 15. September 1963 unter Beachtung der Rede W. Ulbrichts vom 2. Juli und vor der Volkskammer’. 180 Becker, Großbritannien, 250–51. 181 Manfred Gerlach, the General Secretary of the LDPD and Deputy Chairman of the Council of State, was nominally the co-vice president. 182 ���������������������������������������� Interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001.

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A number of British citizens were present at Debrig’s foundation. The trade union official, Robert Maine, headed a delegation of Northumbrian miners. D.N. Pritt, the perennial political ‘friend’ of Soviet communism and, in 1955, recipient of the Stalin Peace Prize, was also there. In addition, a number of telegrams of support were sent by Labour MPs, including S.O. Davies, Frank Allaun, Marcus Lipton and Tom Brown, the communist composer Alan Bush, and the Scottish writer and sometime communist Hugh McDairmid, who had renewed his membership of the CPGB after his expulsion twenty years earlier for founding the Scottish National Party. Debrig’s remit of working towards recognition meant that it sought to extend its contacts with British artists, intellectuals and academics, youth organisations, and town councils likely to enter into twinning arrangements,183 and, more generally, circles identified as receptive to East German propaganda. British towns were not queuing up to enter into town-twinning arrangements with the GDR during the 1950s and 1960s, despite some attempts being made, e.g., Oelsnitz and Buckhaven (Fife), Meißen and Stoke-on-Trent, Cottbus and Walthamstow, and Prenzlauer Berg and Hackney, but even here there was little activity. Additional twinning arrangements were signed between Lugau and Ashington, Ölsnitz and Newbiggin, Dessau and Hull and Eisenhüttenstadt and Crawley. The Dresden–Coventry link was East Germany’s earliest and most important local-level contact with Britain. But it was far from being the only link. By the early 1960s, Horst Brasch had led delegations of municipal politicians to Ipswich, Northumberland and Edinburgh, using these contacts to build up relationships with left-wing councillors and trade unionists. At this time, a range of other, often ephemeral, links were forged between local and municipal authorities, including Lugau and Ashington, Oelsnitz and Newbiggin, Gera and the London borough of St. Pancras, and Dessau and Hull.184 One of the more active town-twinning arrangements was that between Eisenhüttenstadt and Crawley. The agreement was signed by representatives from both town councils in 1962. By 1968, forty-six delegations comprising eight hundred delegates had visited Eisenhüttenstadt from Western countries, among them also three from Crawley.185 They included a delegation of teachers keen to study the East German education system and a youth delegation 183 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� See PA AA, MfAA, A 13045, ‘Kurzer Überblick’ [1958]; ibid., C 169/73, ‘Übersicht über den Stand der Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Großbritannien. Interparlamentarische Gruppe der DDR’, [undated: 1969/70]; see also, Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 242 f. 184 ����������������������������������������� ‘Kurzer Überblick’ [1958], op. cit., 134. 185 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ BLHA-P, Rep 730, Nr. 3623, ‘Vorläufiger Bericht über die Arbeit des Bereiches nationale und internationale kommunale Verbindungen im Jahre 1968’, (pp.1– 9), 7.

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which wanted to find out about the lives of East German youth behind the Iron Curtain. In the case of Rugeley and Fürstenwald, the British Council had attempted in vain to interest Rugeley in a link with a town in West Germany. When it subsequently contacted the Foreign Office to seek advice, the reply was straightforward: while the Foreign Office would ensure that Britain had no official diplomatic relations with the GDR, town-twinning arrangements were left to the discretion of local authorities.186 Hence, at the local level, the GDR’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs aimed to expand East Germany’s spheres of contact beyond the narrow circle of the usual suspects among left-wing Labour MPs whose political influence continued to be marginal.187 The GDR was also a member of the World Federation of City Partners and it organised an annual colloquium of local European politicians. In 1964, the annual Colloquium of European Municipal Politics was staged in Dresden. In 1969 it asked the world federation to include a section in all partnership agreements which would call for the recognition of the GDR – a demand firmly rejected by the federation.188 After a visit to Britain in the summer of 1967, the outgoing Secretary of Debrig, David Rummelsberg, lamented how the GDR remained virtually unknown among the wider British public. Yet he always remained hopeful that British pragmatism would eventually get the better of West German intransigence.189 The activities of the LfV in Britain were supported by an annual budget of 38,000 DM, much of which made possible a flood of propaganda literature. From 1960, the GDR paid a public relations firm, Notley’s Advertising Ltd., a substantial sum, reputed to be as high as £20,000 per annum, to ‘inform’ the British public about East Germany. In 1966 this job was taken over by Lex Hornsby and Partners, Hornsby having already worked closely with the GDR as an employee of Notley’s before 1966.190 At the centre of this public-relations offensive was the positive portrayal of ‘apolitical’ aspects of East German ‘culture’ and the allegedly lucrative potential to expand trading links. Hornsby’s activities became all the more important as another of the GDR’s propaganda vehicles in Britain began to look tired. John Peet’s DGR had been effective in its day,191 and in 1955 it still received much praise in the annual report of the GDR’s foreign ministry about 186 See the correspondence in NA, FCO 13/192. 187 ������ Hoff, Großbritannien, 389ff; Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 168ff. 188 ���������������� S. Reime. 1970. Die Tätigkeit der DDR in den nichtkommunistischen Ländern. IV: EWG-Staaten (ohne Bundesrepublik), Bonn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für auswärtige Politik, 26 f. 189 Interview with David Rummelsburg, 16.8.2001. 190 M. Howarth. 1981. ‘East Germany at Westminster – the Campaign for Recognition’, GDR Monitor 5, 4. 191 See pp. 11, 65.

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relations with Britain.192 But during the second half of the 1960s, its major themes, anti-fascism, the Second World War and an FRG dominated by ‘old Nazis’ looked increasingly irrelevant to a new generation which witnessed the rise of Willy Brandt to power. With the formation of Debrig, the MfAA anticipated setting up a British partner organisation.193 By 1964, this had become a matter of urgency. An internal MfAA document stressed that, without a domestic partner organisation, the campaign for recognition in Britain would be unable to ‘fulfil its potential’.194 In a mood of optimism, BRIDGE – the British German Information Exchange – was finally founded in London on 8 January 1965.195 The first chairman was Gordon Schaffer. The primary organisational role, however, went to the organisation’s secretary, Hilda Forman. Since 1961, Forman had been acting as the representative of a group of mainly London-based friends of the GDR intent on countering the negative perceptions of the socialist Germany, which came to the fore again particularly after the building of the wall. Her role grew out of her husband’s long-established contacts with the organisation’s leading figure, Kurt Kann, during visits to the annual Leipzig Documentary Film Festival, which he attended regularly in his capacity as director of Plato Films.196 Like the majority of BRIDGE members, Forman – and her husband, Stanley – were British Communists whose primary political socialisation was during the ‘anti-fascist’ campaigns during the 1930s and 1940s. Forman describes her central motivation as a desire to assist a socialist country, which was ‘struggling against the odds to build a better society’. She attributes the regime’s negative image in the British media to the ferocity of West Germany’s ‘propaganda’ campaign – including what she insists was a ‘misrepresentation’ of why the Berlin wall was built. Despite the best possible intentions of its members, however, from the beginning BRIDGE was beset with problems. In order to beat the Labour Party’s ban on members’ participation in communist front organisations, BRIDGE remained a loose association of no more than forty individuals, with the majority of work taken on by a steering 192 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Bericht über die Beziehungen zu Großbritannien im Jahre 1955’, op. cit., 3. 193 ���������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA A 13093, ‘Jahres-Rahmenarbeitsplan 1964 der Deutsch– Britischen Gesellschaft in der DDR’, 21.8.1964, (37–44), 43. 194 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2103, MfAA, ‘Gedanken zur Besserung der Arbeit in Großbritannien; Bildung eines Komitees Großbritannien’, 3.4.1964, (1–16), 2. 195 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2103, ‘An die Mitglieder der Deutsch-Britischen Gesellschaft’, 15.7.1965, (1–2), 1. 196 Interview with Hilda Forman, 1.8.2000. See also: C. Moine. 2006. ‘Eine DDR zwischen Provinzialismus und internationaler Öffnung. Das �������������� Leipziger Dokumentarfilmfestival als Ort der Begegnung und des kulturellen Austauschs’, in S. Kott and E. Droit (eds), Die ostdeutsche Gesellschaft. �������������������� Eine transnationale Perspektive, Berlin: Ch. Links, 114 – 135.

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committee comprising between six and twelve members.197 Although BRIDGE was funded by the LfV until 1970, the sums were relatively small – totalling several thousand pounds over a five year period. At this time, BRIDGE held a total of £2,000 in its bank account, which it retained to finance further campaigning.198 Larger scale events organised by Debrig, such as the exhibition of ‘GDR Design’, a ‘celebration’ of East German ‘social and economic progress’ staged in central London in 1971, absorbed funds equivalent to BRIDGE’s previous annual budget.199 BRIDGE attempted to establish a network of contacts among MPs, municipal politicians, journalists, businessmen and ‘ordinary citizens’, not just in the capital city but throughout the country. These contacts and connections, it was hoped, would form the basis of a ‘friendship circle’ with the potential to work together in a formally organised friendship society. A number of ‘study delegations’ of British citizens, primarily trade unionists and members of the Co-operative Society, were sent to the GDR to witness the GDR’s ‘social and economic achievements’. Similarly, free summer school placements at East German institutions were offered to British students and German language teachers. A mailing list, extending to 2,000 addresses in 1971, was used to distribute the literature produced by the LfV for consumption in the West. In addition, there were also occasional public meetings, including film shows of East German documentaries, and exhibitions on life in the GDR. The main annual event was a public meeting, usually held in London’s Ambassador Hotel, celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the GDR. The event, which attracted between one and two hundred guests, was regularly addressed by supportive Labour MPs and East German personnel working in London for the KfA.200 Initially, BRIDGE made a positive impression. Its first public event after its official foundation, a symposium on the GDR held on 15/16 May 1965 at London’s Shaftesbury Hotel, was chaired by the Labour MP Renée Short. With restrictions on East German officials travelling into Britain enforced by the Foreign Office, John Peet and Diana Löser, an English language assistant at East Berlin’s Humboldt University, travelled over on their British passports to speak on ‘GDR History 197 Forman gives the figure at between ten and twelve; Golz, however, states that there were six members, see idem, Völkerfreundschaft, 185–86. 198 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA C 182/73, ‘Einschätzung der Tätigkeit der “BRIDGE”-Gruppe London in Zusammenhang mit dem Briefwechsel D.N. Pritt und Gen. Wolf. ����� Abt. Westeuropa, Sekt. Großbritannien’, 20.2.1970, (44–46), 45. 199 Becker, DDR und Großbritannien, 256–57. 200 ‘Britain–GDR Information Exchange’ (Circular, undated), reproduced in Becker, DDR und Großbritannien, Appendix 7; Interview with Hilda Forman, 1.8.2000; Further, Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 189.

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since 1945’ and the regime’s social and economic ‘achievements’; Gordon Schaffer spoke on East Berlin’s ‘peace polices’. With 290 delegates drawn from the trade unions, the Labour and Communist parties, the cooperative movement and the women’s and peace movements, the event had exceeded East German expectations.201 Over the coming years, BRIDGE succeeded in forming branches in several British cities, including Manchester, Stockport, Aberdeen, Hull, Brighton and others, although its organisational centre and focus always remained London. In the capital and in the provinces, it organised a range of events, including concerts, film showings, readings and slide shows, which all aimed to widen the circle of friends of the GDR in Britain.202 However, like all previous attempts to breathe life into the campaign for recognition, BRIDGE, too, proved able only to preach to the converted.203 It remained isolated on the far left of British politics, and praise quickly turned to criticism. East Germany’s small circle of ‘friends’ were increasingly berated for ‘failing to exploit the potential for support’ in Britain, remaining out of touch with the small number of local groups set up in the industrial north of England and an inability to organise more than ‘sporadic’, one-off events.204 In 1970, relations reached a low point when Debrig ended BRIDGE’s role in organising the annual celebrations of the GDR’s foundation on the grounds that, ‘it only ever hires a hotel room with the same guests every year and fails to get any press coverage apart from a report in the Daily Worker’.205 Recriminations went in both directions, with BRIDGE complaining to the Central Committee of the SED about what it regarded as the adverse effect on its work of poor coordination of the East German institutions responsible for foreign policy in Britain.206 After the appointment of Erich Friedländer as secretary of Debrig in 1967, the blame for these developments was personalised. According to Friedländer, Forman had shown no organisational abilities, no initiative and had proved unable to widen her circle of contacts beyond the narrow political parameters of the far left. In 201 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘An die Mitglieder der Deutsch–Britischen Gesellschaft [1965]’, op. cit., 2. 202 ��������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2341, ‘Information über verwirklichte auslandsinformatorische Massnahmen’, 2.3.1972, (pp.1–3). 203 I. Wallace. 2000. ‘The GDR and Cultural Activities in Britain’, German Life and Letters 53 (3), 398. Interview with David Rummelsberg, 16.8.2001. 204 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, PA AA, MfAA C 182/73, ‘Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit Gen. Friedländer, Sekretär der Deutsch-Britischen Gesellschaft, am 8.7.1970’, 10.7.1970, (29–30), 30. 205 PA AA, MfAA C 182/73, Erich Friedländer, ‘Bericht des Sekretärs der Deutsch– Britischen Gesellschaft über seinen Aufenthalt in Großbritannien vom 18. Juni bis 4. Juli �������������������������������������� 1970’, [undated], (12–28), 12–13. 206 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2A/20/481, ‘Bericht der Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen an das ZK’, [undated: 1967], (1–4), 3.

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the spring of 1970, acting with the approval of Albert Norden, the MfAA and the LfV, Friedländer staged a coup to unseat Forman. In what amounted to a tremendous personal slight, he cooperated with Schaffer and Alf Lomas (the political secretary of the London Cooperative Society and Labour Party MEP) to give his own machinations the semblance of a revolt by dissatisfied BRIDGE activists. Forman, who was deeply hurt by these events, initially informed Friedländer that she would ‘do nothing more to help the GDR’ and that ‘without a secretary all work would collapse’.207 Forman’s successor, Liesel Feltham, did try to invigorate the campaign for recognition, including organising a number of petitions in support of recognition among MPs, teachers and trade unionists.208 However, the explanation for the stagnation of East Germany’s campaign for recognition transcended the role of individuals. Events such as the building of the Berlin wall or the outspoken support of the GDR for the crushing of the Prague Spring made it difficult for all but the most hard-line of British communists to find sympathies with East Germany.209 After 1965 Debrig also staged the annual Potsdam Discussions (Potsdamer Gespräche), the brainchild of David Rummelsberg, which were modelled on the annual West German Königswinter Conference run by the Deutsch–Englische Gesellschaft.210 The primary objective of the Potsdam Discussions was to win support for East German recognition among ‘prominent personalities’, who would, in turn, present the case for normalising diplomatic relations in the British media and within influential circles.211 However, Debrig struggled to widen the participation in the Potsdam Discussions beyond the circle of usual suspects, and when it was successful in luring others to Potsdam, the SED faced stark criticisms for building the wall and retaining a communist dictatorship. Kurt Kann’s warning to the politburo’s Foreign Policy Commission that the Potsdam Discussions were unlikely to bear political fruit came back to haunt Debrig officials.212 In fact, the latter proved woefully inept at spiking stories in the British media. Neal Ascherson, for example, recalls how East German officials – including Kurt Kann, whom he had a very 207 ��������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit Gen. Friedländer’, op. cit., 30. 208 See the correspondence in, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2340. 209 ��������������������������������������������� ‘Stand der Beziehungen [1968]’, op. cit., 12. 210 C. Haase. 2003. ‘The Hidden Hand of British Foreign Policy? The British–German Königswinter Conferences in the Cold War’, in idem (ed.), Debating Foreign Affairs, Berlin: Philo, 96–133. 211 Hoff, Großbritannien, 396. 212 ����������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2107, ‘[Letter] Kann an Platschke’, 20.2.1965.

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positive impression of – were ‘extremely clumsy at feeding stories to journalists’.213 Reporting on a visit to Britain in the summer of 1968, Friedländer conceded that, despite Debrig’s best efforts, there was still no perceptible public knowledge about the GDR and nothing had been done to overcome the country’s negative image in the media.214 Determined to break through to more mainstream public opinion formers in Britain, Friedländer aimed to unite all national friendship associations, including the British one, to form a British Committee for the Recognition of the GDR.215 By 1971, there were fifty-four national committees campaigning for East German recognition in the name of European security. In some countries, such as France, Sweden and Finland, they did achieve their aim of forging a broad, cross-class coalition of political forces in favour of recognising the GDR, but in Britain BRIDGE continued to struggle. It did produce a pamphlet in 1971 setting out the GDR’s case for recognition. The pamphlet was written following a visit to the GDR of nineteen British trade unionists who recorded their allegedly positive experiences in the GDR.216 But there is little evidence that the pamphlet had much impact on a wider British public. According to East German Debrig officials, it did not help matters that ‘revisionist tendencies’ in the CPGB often left ‘social democratic or bourgeois forces’ in charge of organising the friendship society.217 That is why the GDR decided to mastermind the foundation of a British Committee for the Recognition of the GDR, which was eventually set up in May 1971. Erich Friedländer and Lex Hornsby were pulling the strings behind the scenes attempting to portray the Committee as a spontaneous foundation of prominent personalities from public life, including Conservative, Liberal and Labour politicians, churchmen and business leaders. One of the Committee’s few activities was to send a letter to The Times, calling for the immediate recognition of the GDR. Like the SED officials, their British supporters claimed that recognition was in the national interest in 213 ����������������������������������������� Interview with Neal Ascherson, 22.5.2002. 214 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2095, Erich Friedländer, ‘Reisebericht’, 3.7.1968, (pp.1– 7), 4. 215 ���������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2042, ‘Konzeption für die langfristige Weiterentwicklung der Bewegung für die diplomatische Anerkennung der DDR im nichtsozialistischen Ausland’, 19.11.1969’, (pp.1–11), 7. 216 The German Democratic Republic, 1971. The BRIDGE Study Group Report, London: BRIDGE. A copy of the pamphlet survives in the Working Class Movement Library, Salford. 217 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Bewegung für die diplomatische Anerkennung der DDR im nichtsozialistischen Ausland [1969]’, op. cit., 5. ���������������������������������������������� David Rummelsberg confirmed the perception of GDR officials that the British friendship society was influenced strongly by Eurocommunism. Interview with Rummelsberg, 16.8.2001.

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terms of trading relations as well as European security.218 There was a feeling among this group that the recognition of the GDR was unavoidable. Geoffrey McDermott, the former British Commissioner in West Berlin, was willing to lend his support to the Committee. His arguments rested first, on realism, i.e., the GDR was a permanent fixture in Cold War Europe, and, secondly, on the assumption of the regime’s success in transforming the GDR from the total devastation of war into ‘one of the greatest industrial nations in the world – the fifth in Europe and the ninth in the world’. Why, therefore, should Britain overlook the benefits of trading and cultural relations? McDermott saw no good reason. By the early 1970s an increasing number among the British political and foreign policy elite tended to agree with him. They lent support to West German Ostpolitik seeing it as confirmation of their own stance vis-à-vis the second German state.219

Educational and Cultural Links The British friendship society, from the beginning, had been interested in fostering educational and cultural contacts between Britain and the GDR. Educational links already existed largely through Dorothy Diamond’s organisation of summer schools for British teachers in the GDR.220 In 1956, Diamond, in conjunction with Hans-Joachim Laabs, an East German education official, took the first steps towards setting up an annual summer school for teachers. Their main aim was to provide better language training for East German English teachers who had few opportunities to meet native speakers abroad. In order to make good the deficit, Diamond arranged for British Communist teachers to hold courses in the GDR. The first annual summer school was held in Weimar in 1957, with similar courses set up for university teachers shortly thereafter. During the 1960s and 1970s, Diamond turned her attentions to the latter, while a fellow British Communist, Joyce Stebbings, ran what became a regular event in Potsdam. After Stebbings’ death in 1979, Charles Godden and Isabel Macmillan took over the organisation of the summer schools. The courses were structured to have both ideological and pedagogic dimensions. Morning lectures and seminars on British current affairs from a Marxist-Leninist perspective were followed 218 MRC, MSS 154/3/GDR/1–64, ‘Committee for the Recognition of the GDR. Circular to all Members’, 15.6.1971, 33. 219 Geoffrey McDermott, ‘Why the GDR Should be Recognised’, reprinted from ‘The Diplomatist’, June 1970, in Archive of Coventry Cathedral [henceforth: ACC], Box G5, file 10. 220 See chapter 1, pp. 52–54.

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by afternoon language teaching. With the rise of Euro-communism after 1968, however, tensions within the British delegations surfaced – much to the GDR’s disdain.221 The last of Diamond’s summer schools took place in 1982, when the Technical University of Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz) informed her that they were to be superseded by courses running throughout the academic year. Diamond’s response was understanding, and in a reply to Professor Fischer from January 1983, Diamond drew a positive balance sheet of the courses and wrote how she herself had personally benefited from ‘so many kindnesses, so much generosity, so great gain in political understanding, and so many friendships.’222 From the outset, Diamond had been keen to spread the word about East Germany in Britain. An article published in the Times Education Supplement from October 1957, written by an anonymous reporter – almost certainly Diamond – detailed the ‘success’ of that year’s summer school in Weimar and, more generally, extolled the merits of the East German educational system.223 In December 1958, Diamond was able to publish a one-page article in The Times on education and educational reform using what she regarded as the model example offered by East German ‘polytechnic education’ in schools. She also wrote highly positive articles for the East German publication, Education Today and Tomorrow and collaborated with the publishing house Volk und Welt in the writing of textbooks for English language courses. Her enthusiastic efforts did not go without notice in East Berlin. In 1972, Diamond was awarded a gold medal for services to friendship between the peoples of East Germany and Britain. A letter from the Ministry of Education stressed her initiative in founding the summer schools and praised her ‘loyal (parteilich) statements on socialism and proletarian internationalism’.224 However, Diamond struggled to get British teachers to East Germany: in 1957, for example, only fifteen from the anticipated forty-five participants enrolled.225 Apathy in Britain mingled with distrust in East Berlin: in January 1959 Diamond complained to the GDR Ministry of Education that the vetting of British teachers took too long. The ideological rigidity of the GDR also became apparent to some of the British teachers working at the summer schools, who commented on the wide berth given to controversial subjects and 221 Dorothy Diamond Archive, Graham Tayor, ‘The Other Potsdam Agreement’ [1981]. 222 Ibid., ‘Letter Dorothy Diamond to Professor Fischer’, 6.1.1983. 223 ‘Vacation Job in East Germany’, Times Education Supplement, 4.10.1957. 224 The letter is in the Dorothy Diamond Archive. 225 Ibid., Diary entry 1957.

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the reluctance of East Germans to engage in political discussion.226 But most British Communists teaching at the summer schools, including Diamond, were not disposed towards finding fault with the GDR. Some of them even found employment in the language departments of East German universities. Here, too, Diamond was actively involved, intervening with the East German authorities to find positions for British teachers who expressed interest.227 One such individual was the Communist school teacher Len Goldman, who worked in the language department at the University of Leipzig for seven years between the late 1950s and mid 1960s.228 Since 1951, Diamond visited the GDR at least once every year. In an interview with Junge Welt in 1984, she informed her readers that, ‘Somehow I am very emotionally attached to the GDR because of the policies it pursues. I saw the destroyed Berlin, experienced the reconstruction and helped just a bit in this. In 1953, together with five Italian women, I volunteered for a day as a rubble-clearer in the street that is now called Frankfurter Allee.’ Diamond also stressed that she was still at pains to spread what she understood as good news from East Germany to an unreceptive British audience. Addressing her interviewer, she stated, ‘most British people know as good as nothing about your country, and when they do know something it is negative. Newspapers, radio and television report little [about East Germany], and falsely [when they do]. And when Germany is spoken about, they always mean the Federal Republic. With my knowledge of your country, I want to change that’. Displaying her pride in this self-proclaimed mission, Diamond stated, ‘I was on the GDR’s side before the state was founded’.229 As early as the late 1950s, the East German education system attracted the attention of teachers beyond the relatively closed circles of the CPGB teachers’ group. In 1958, an official delegation from the National Union of Teachers (NUT) sent a delegation to the GDR. A report published in the union’s journal, The Schoolmaster, indicated that the delegates had found much they liked in GDR schools. The role of the East German teaching unions were singled out for special praise, observing how, ‘The heavy responsibility of the trade unions in helping to run the affairs of the State gives to the unions and their officials a much greater importance than applies here at home.’ Teachers’ salaries and conditions of employment were viewed favourably, as were the well-resourced schools, which the delegation found to be ‘friendly’. Criticism was sparing, noting only that, ‘While we could not agree with all that we saw, there 226 Ibid., Diary 1961. 227 Ibid., ‘[Letter] Len Goldman to Dorothy Diamond’, 12.12.1958. 228 Interview with Len Goldman, 12.12.2000. 229 ������������������������������������������ ‘Ehrenschicht in Berlin als Trümmerfrau’, Junge Welt, 1.8.1984.

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was much in their educational system that was praiseworthy’.230 A positive account overall, one might think, but the GDR authorities were not entirely happy. As an East German friend wrote to Dorothy Diamond, it was felt that the delegates’ knowledge about the GDR ‘was nil’. Only one delegate was close to the CPGB, and whilst several were worried about West German militarism, Archbold, the head of the delegation and author of the article, was regarded by his hosts as having taken ‘a decidedly anti-socialist stand’. Yet, despite these apparent differences of perceptions, no obstacles were placed in the path of future teachers’ exchanges and exchanges of books between the Central Pedagogical Library of the GDR and the NUT union library.231 The predominantly positive experience of this teachers’ delegation were by no means exceptional, with a number of similar ‘study delegations’ recording similar observations in public and private statements.232 The promotion of links between educationalists was supplemented by attempts to forge closer relations in the cultural sphere more generally. From 1956, Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble made a number of visits to the UK. The Foreign Office had tried to prevent the first visit in May 1956, arguing that it would provide a platform for East German propaganda. However, the more relaxed attitude of the Board of Trade finally held sway; after all, it could point out that the same theatre troupe had recently performed in Munich.233 Not least owing to the credibility offered by its association with Brecht, the Berliner Ensemble was well received by the younger generation of British dramatists who became known as the ‘angry young men’.234 Good relations also developed between East Berlin’s Maxim Gorky Theatre and the communist-dominated, London-based Theatre Workshop.235 From the 1960s onwards, the GDR regularly sent theatre groups, choirs and orchestras to Britain as cultural ambassadors. Exhibitions were also organised jointly with British museums, e.g., the cooperation of the Dresdner Gemäldegalerie with the Tate Gallery in 1972, when Dresden contributed to a major Caspar 230 Mr Archbold, ‘East German Teachers’, The Schoolmaster, 23.5.1958. 231 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Letter to Dorothy Diamond from an unknown friend’, Easter 1958. 232 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2268, Rolack, ‘Abschlußbericht über die britische Delegation [der National Union of Teachers]’, 9.5.1958, (1–5). 233 Hoff, Großbritannien, 193. 234 D. Tate. 2003. ‘Ein nicht anerkannter britischer Durchbruch. ��������������� Franz Fühmanns Beitrag zum Erfolg des Films “Der Schwur des Soldaten Pooley”’, in B. Krüger (ed.), Dichter sein heißt aufs Ganze aus sein. Zugänge zu Poetologie und Werk Franz Fühmanns, Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 207. 235 ���������������������������������������� ‘Kurzer Überblick’ [1958], op. cit.,137.

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David Friedrich exhibition in London and the Tate contributed to a major William Turner exhibition in Dresden.236 From 6 until 15 July 1959, the East German chamber choir of the State Ensemble for Sorbian Folk Culture performed at the Welsh Eisteddfod,237 which attracted 1,500 performers from thirty countries spanning the East–West divide. The opportunity presented to the East Germans was sufficient to ensure that the delegation was accompanied by Brattke, a senior figure in the Ministry of Culture, and Dr Johann Scholze, an academic at the Research Institute of Sorbian Folk Culture. The choir played to an audience of fourteen thousand, with reviews appearing in the national press and on the BBC. The main aim identified by the East German Ministry of Culture was to use the folk festival as a springboard to extend the degree of cultural contact between the Sorbian and the Welsh national minorities. It was hoped that a delegation of municipal politicians from Glamorgan County Council would attend the tenth anniversary celebrations of the GDR, and that the path could be paved towards a delegation of Welsh teachers visiting bilingual schools in the Sorbian region. On a visit to the library of the School of East European and Slavouic Studies attached to the University of London, it also proved possible to establish tentative ties that the GDR was keen to develop.238 In 1960 a delegation of three Welsh Labour MPs, Llywelyn Williams, Ivor Davis and John Morris, all of whom were identified in East Berlin as being ‘culturally Welsh’, visited the GDR. Part of the visit followed the standard format for visiting parliamentarians, but there were notable differences in that the GDR was keen to stress the alleged affinity between the Sorb and Welsh people. GDR officials impressed their Welsh guests with the amount of state support given to the Sorbs for maintaining their distinct culture and language. The programme of activities included attending a folk festival (Volksfest) in the Sorbian village of Cunnersdorf and a Protestant church service 236 H. Lindemann and K. Müller. 1974. Auswärtige Kulturpolitik der DDR. Die kulturelle Abgrenzung der DDR von der Bundesrepublik Deutschlands, Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 139. 237 Eisteddfod in Welsh means a cultural festival, at the centre of which are literary and musical competitions. Its origins are medieval, but the institution developed strongly in the context of its rediscovery by the Welsh national movement of the nineteenth century. A range of annual local competitions took place and since 1858 a ‘national eisteddfod’ has been held every year. 238 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12480, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht des Vorsitzenden des Büros des Nationalrates über seine Reise nach England vom 20.6. bis 3.7.1959’.

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in Bautzen, the largest city in the East Saxon Sorbian enclave. In both cases, songs were sung in the Sorbian language.239 East German film seasons were very much the exception to the rule even to independent art-house audiences in Britain. Yet, from the mid 1950s, DEFA productions were screened at the annual Edinburgh Film Festival. The leading lights in bringing these films to Britain, in addition to Forman, were Ivor Montague and Charles Cooper – all of whom were close to the CPGB. There were, however, also loose contacts with the London-based film company GALLA Films.240 One GDR film, in particular, registered a relative success. Cooperation between East Berlin and Contemporary Films in London brought about the 1962 premier of ‘The Story of Private Pooley’. In a variation on the standard theme we are now familiar with, the plot revolves around the massacre of one hundred British soldiers by the Nazis in the small French town of Le Paradis during the war. Again, it did not take a film critic to work out the political message.241 While East German films never commanded the same audiences in Britain as Czech or Hungarian films did, there was occasional interest. Some British filmmakers were regular guests at the annual Leipzig film festival. They included Stephen Peet, brother of John Peet, and Stanley Forman.242 With funding from the SED, Forman’s company, ETV, was able to produce ‘Fifty Fighting Years’, a film celebrating half a century of the communist journal, Labour Monthly, and its leading light, Rajani Palme Dutt.243 In 1972, the BBC broadcasted several GDR film productions, both in its programmes for schoolchildren and its entertainment section.244 At the same time, however, the BBC operated a blacklist of journalist with communist sympathies whom it would not employ and who would not be given any commissions by the BBC.245 Such a policy significantly limited the possibilities of left-of-centre journalists to influence one of the most important media giants in Britain in favour of the GDR. A passion for film and communism formed the basis for John Green’s unusual Anglo-GDR biography. In 1964, after completing a degree in zoology at the University of Bristol, an SED-funded scholarship enabled him to take up a four-year course of study as 239 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/ 12098, ‘Bericht über den Besuch einer Delegation britischer Unterhausabgeordneter aus Wales [15–23.9.1960]’, (1–4), 1–2. 240 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Bericht über die Beziehungen zu Großbritannien im Jahre 1955’, op. cit., 5. 241 ��������������������������� Tate, ‘Durchbruch’, 202–4. 242 Interview with Stephen Peet, 15.3.2001; interview with Stanley Forman, 15.12.2001. 243 B. Hogenkamp. 2005. ‘GDR films and the British Left: A Failed Breakthrough’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 225–38. 244 ���������������������� Lindemann and Müller, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik, 140. 245 ‘Revealed: How MI5 Vets BBC Staff’, Observer, 18.8.1985.

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a cameraman at the DEFA documentary film studios at Babelsberg. Green was no random choice. Growing up in a communist family, his application was supported by the British distributor of East German films, Stanley Forman, and the family friend and prominent East German communist, Irene Gysi; his time as a student also had required the approval of the CPGB.246 The GDR’s decision to award him a scholarship paid dividends. From the late 1960s until 1990, Green worked on a regular basis as a TV journalist and documentary filmmaker, whose dispatches included reports from strike-prone 1970s Britain, Latin America and Africa.247 His family background imparted in him an early idealism which, despite an awareness of the GDR’s shortcomings, became a life-long faith in the ‘other’ Germany as the ‘better, anti-fascist’ Germany.248 Green witnessed the heavy hand of state-sanctioned censorship. As a student, two of the university’s film historians were suspended for adopting ‘too bourgeois’ an outlook. The Stasi broke up a viewing of Western films that Green and a number of other students had organised. Yet, these experiences weighed less heavily in Green’s memory than the ‘general feeling of material equality’, a liking for the people and the cultural milieu he belonged to. In his memoirs, Green recalls that, ‘at a time the West was fixated on the concrete and barbed wire of the newly built Berlin Wall, his own personal feeling on arriving in East Berlin was one of excitement and enthusiasm for the country’s anti-fascism and drive to construct a new, socialist society against the odds.’249 As one of the few native English speakers in the GDR, Green was also able to supplement his student grant by making occasional appearances in a programme series made by the DEFA studios to assist language instruction in schools. The presenter of the series was Diane Löser, a family friend who had emigrated to the GDR with her husband, the academic Franz Löser, in the 1950s. The GDR, in its textbooks and films on acquiring English as a foreign language, very much portrayed Britain as the classical country of capitalism. For the more contemporary sections, the emphasis was on economic decline and the class struggles produced by such recurring crises.250 The close friendship between the British Communist composer, Alan Bush, and Ernst Herman Meyer provided the basis for a series of exchanges in the realm of classical music. Both men had been active in the formation and development of the Workers’ Musical Association 246 ���������������� J. Green. 1991. Anonym Unterwegs. Ein Fernsehjournalist berichtet, Berlin: Dietz, 7–10. 247 Ibid., 28–29 and passim. 248 Interview with John Green, 14.12.2001. 249 Green, Anonym Unterwegs, 8. 250 Golz, ‘”You will need your English”’, 642–50.

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in and after 1936, and they developed their cooperation across the Cold War divide from the 1950s until the end of the 1980s. Meyer had been a political refugee in Britain between 1933 and 1948. After his return to East Germany, he became a dominating influence on all aspects of musical life in the GDR, particularly in the early years. Bush had encountered the Weimar Republic during his studies in Berlin between 1929 and 1931. As a Communist, he remained an outsider in the British musical establishment who felt much more at home with what the GDR did musically than with avant-garde musical developments in the West.251 By the mid 1950s, musical exchanges were regularly crossing the political divide in both directions. In 1955, for example, two East German choirs attended the Händel celebrations taking place in London. In 1957/58 the London Mozart Players toured the GDR, while Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra toured Britain.252 In 1959 Wolverhampton Polytechnic saw a performance of Ruth Zechlin’s Lidice Kantate.253 In sporting events, the door to the world stage was opened to East Germany earlier and more widely than in almost any other field. In 1968, the International Olympic Committee agreed to the participation of two German teams in the Olympics; a decision of significance beyond the field of sporting competition as it offered a forum in which East Berlin came in from the diplomatic cold. The world-class achievements of ‘diplomats in training suits’ brought widespread support for GDR participation at national as well as international level. Already in 1959, 80 per cent of international sporting association included East German representation. Britain stood in the front row of Western nations supportive of the fielding of East German teams, as many sport officials in Britain believed firmly that sport and politics should best be kept apart.254 They were encouraged by advances made by GDR sports officials. As early as 1955, an East German delegation discussed with British sports representatives the prospects of East German participation in the Olympic Games.255 Thirteen years later they had achieved their goal 251 T. Thacker. 2005. ‘”Etwas anderes als die Hampstead Perspektive”. An Outline of Selected Musical Transactions between Britain and the GDR’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 211–24. 252 ����������������������������������������� ‘Kurzer Überblick’ [1958], op. cit., 137. 253 ����������������������������������������� Thacker, ‘Hampstead Perspektive’, 223 f. 254 R.G. Hughes and R. Owen. 2009. ‘”The Continuation of Politics by Other Means”: Britain, the two Germanies and the Olympic Games, 1949–1972’, Contemporary European History 18 (4), 441–472; M. Geyer. 1996. ����������������� ‘Der Kampf um die nationale Repräsentation. ������������������������������������������ Deutsch–deutsche Sportbeziehungen und die «Hallstein-Doktrin»’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 4 (1), 55–86, and Kilian, Hallstein-Doktrin, chapter 11. 255 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Bericht über die Beziehungen zu Großbritannien im Jahre 1955’, op. cit., 5.

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and they were to use sport, more than anything, to promote the GDR and its political system abroad. In academic and scientific circles, too, the GDR attempted to make contact with sympathetic individuals who were willing to ignore the general ban on membership in scientific international organisations, which was usually policed by West Germany. Thus, for example, the GDR thought of it as a success when the fourth Full Assembly of the World Federation of Sciences, held in East Berlin in 1955, was attended by a British delegation under Professor John Bernal, which included Professor Powel, a Conservative MP and Nobel Prize winner.256 In 1958, a delegation of East German academics was able to visit the well-known maverick historian and media don A.J.P. Taylor at his Oxford College. The East German delegation was headed by Gerhard Schilfert, a professor at the Humboldt University and director of the Institute for German History. According to the East German version of events, Taylor allegedly declared that a large number of British academics were of the opinion that the division of Germany was beneficial and that coexistence of two German states would be a good thing.257 Overall, developments in the educational and cultural sphere after 1955 developed steadily, if unspectacularly. According to the MfAA’s own evaluation, cultural relations during the nonrecognition period had remained ‘very sporadic’ and ‘without longterm coordination’.258

Left-wing Labour MPs and Parliamentary Contacts So far, we have seen that the GDR’s early drive for diplomatic recognition found whole-hearted support among a small crosssection of pro-Soviet forces in Britain. Even among these groupings, however, sympathy for East Berlin often fell short of unqualified support. Stephen Swingler, for example, appears in the East German documentation as an individual quite capable of asking his hosts unwelcome questions. His criticisms of East German media censorship, the travel restrictions imposed on its citizens and the prevailing prejudices against the appearance of ‘rock and roll’ music in youth culture led East Berlin to conclude that Swingler 256 Ibid. 257 SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV 2/20/243, ‘[Letter] Waschewski an Liebig’, 24.2.1958. 258 PA AA, MfAA C 160/73, Reichel, ‘Zum Stand der kulturellen und wissenschaftlichen Beziehungen DDR-Großbritannien. AV London’, 27.8.1970, (pp. 69–75), 70.

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‘lacked ideological clarity’.259 Swingler’s own pro-Soviet views had their roots in the 1930s. As a student at New College, Oxford, he had joined the Young Communist League en route to the CPGB before converting to the Labour Party in 1938. In the late 1950s, when NATO adopted the bellicose rhetoric of ‘rolling back’ communism in Europe, Swingler’s political past made him highly receptive to the Soviet’s stance on ‘peaceful coexistence’. In 1959, East Berlin scored what it regarded as a major success in that it was invited to participate in an East–West roundtable conference held in London. The roundtable was attended by delegates from Britain, France and West Germany as well as the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland.260 The GDR was encouraged by these events to redouble its effort to extend its contacts among Labour MPs and to express satisfaction that two existing contacts – Crossman and Mikardo – sat on the party’s NEC. Subsequently Labour MPs involved in the East–West Roundtable talks, including Mikardo, Lord Faringdon, Leslie Plummer, John Mendelson and Richard Kelly, visited East Berlin in 1961 and expressed opposition to West German ‘militarism’, support for socialisation as well as their support for attempts to liberalise communist regimes in the GDR and the wider Eastern Europe.261 Reviewing the progress made in developing parliamentary contacts during the first half of the 1960s, the East German ‘InterParliamentary Group’ (IPG) credited the role of the All-Party Parliamentary Friendship Group Britain - GDR in the House of Commons, and its chairman, Will Owen, with the increase in contacts.262 From the GDR’s perspective, further progress was made, when, on 17 November 1965, Renée Short fronted the foundation of the All-Party Parliamentary Friendship Group Britain - GDR in the House of Commons. The group’s name, however, was misleading: all of its initial twenty-three MPs ranked among the usual left-wing suspects on Labour’s backbenches.263 Although its subsequent size 259 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12094, ‘Einige Erfahrungen bei meinem Einsatz als Dolmetscher zur Betreuung des englischen Labour-Abgeordneten Mr Stephen Swingler aus London von Mitte August bis Anfang September 1960’, (1–12), 6. 260 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2269, ‘Bildung der Gruppe “Sieg des Sozialismus” in der britischen Labour-Partei’, [1958], (������������ pp.��������� 1–24), 1. 261 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12101, ‘Kurz gefasster Bericht über den Besuch britischer Unterhausabgeordneter’, [1961], (pp.1–5), 3; ibid., ‘[Letter] Hartstein an Ebert’, 2.2.1961. 262 ��������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Übersicht über den Stand der Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Gro������������ ß����������� britannien’ [1965], op. cit., 4. 263 SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12456, ‘Letter from Parliamentary Friendship Group Britain–DDR [unsigned] to Anton Plenikowski’, [1966].

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remains unclear,264 Short, in discussions with the Deputy Director of the KfA, was hopeful that a further thirty MPs could be recruited.265 In addition to Short, the group’s main offices – chairman, deputychairman and treasurer – were occupied in rotation by Will Owen, Arnold Gregory and William Wilson. As an unofficial group promoting relations with what was still a post-war pariah state, it enjoyed none of the usual privileges accorded to parliamentary ‘friendship’ groups. For this reason, it operated as a subcommittee of the officially sanctioned East–West Trade Group.266 At least initially, the Britain–GDR Committee – as it was also known – made little impact on bilateral relations. Eclipsed by the pressing importance of the 1966 general election, it was re-launched at the end of 1966, this time with thirty-five members.267 Immediately after the formation of the All-Party Parliamentary Friendship Group Britain-GDR, Herbert Plaschke, the head of MfAA policy vis-à-vis Britain, initiated the formation of a sister organisation in the East German Volkskammer, which would work within the overall organisational framework provided by the IPG.268 In consultation with Debrig and the IPG’s chairman, Anton Plenikowski, the Parliamentary Friendship Committee GDR–Great Britain was founded on 17 February 1966. Following standard East German practice, the Committee’s leadership comprised twenty hand-picked representatives from the Bloc Parties and Mass Organisations. The appointment of Professor Hermann Budzislawski, a journalist with little detailed knowledge of East German foreign policy, as chairman reflected the difficulties of the GDR authorities in identifying a chairman with suitable credentials.269 At meetings in East Berlin between the MfAA, the IPG and the Parliamentary Friendship Committee, annual ‘work plans’ with a clearly identifiable 264 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 253, estimates their number at forty and refers to GDR press sources as well as interviews with Burnaby Drayson and Renée Short. The �������������������������������������������������������������� GDR itself put numbers even lower at thirty-one left-wing Labour MPs, see SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12457, IPG Gruppe der DDR, ‘Protokoll über die konstituierende Sitzung der Parlamentarischen Freundschaftsgruppe DDR–Gro��������������������������������������������������������������������� ß�������������������������������������������������������������������� britannien’, 17.2.1966 (pp.1–5), 4. Those supporting recognition of the GDR was put even lower, at twenty-three, see ibid., ‘Einschätzung der neu gebildeten Parlamentarischen Gruppe Gro������������������������������ ß����������������������������� britannien–DDR im britischen Unterhaus’, 20.12.1965, (pp.1–4), 3. 265 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12456, ‘[Letter] Renneisen an Plenikowski’, 26.11.1965. 266 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 253–54. 267 SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12456, ‘[Letter] Arnold Gregory to Anton Plenikovski’, 5.6.1966. 268 ����������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12457, ‘IPG Gruppe der DDR. Protokoll ������������������� über die konstituierende Sitzung der Parlamentarischen Freundschaftsgruppe DDR– Gro������������������������������������ ß����������������������������������� britannien am 17.2.1966’, (1–5), 1. 269 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12457, ‘Vorstandssitzung der IPG am 10.2.1966’, (1–4), 3.

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agenda were drawn up in order to mobilise contacts with MPs in the campaign for recognition. First, the two sides agreed to work for mutual exchanges of parliamentarians. In Britain, the emphasis was placed on attracting cross-party delegations, including the participation of foreign policy experts with an advisory input in the formation of foreign policy; at the head of the East German wish list were the Labour MPs Philip Noel Baker and Tom Driberg. Secondly, British MPs were expected to use all available opportunities in parliament to raise questions concerning Britain’s political and trade relations with the GDR. Finally, letters should be sent to the Foreign Minister and the Board of Trade, focussing on the alleged commercial benefits of a longerterm trade agreement and the adverse impact of limiting the issue of visas to East Germans wanting to travel to Britain on business.270 Short, William Wilson and fellow GDR stalwarts among British MPs continued to launch propaganda salvos at successive Foreign Secretaries in the Commons, demanding that Britain should ‘improve relations with the GDR’ by concluding long-term, governmentally negotiated trade agreements and ending the ‘discriminatory’ application of visas to enter the country.271 All of this, the Committee told parliament, served the ‘national interest’: exports would be increased and peace in Europe secured.272 Parliamentary questions were also used to draw attention to East German ‘sovereignty’. On 18 October 1966, British troops had taken part in an Allied military exercise on the German–German border running down the middle of the river Elbe in which gunboats had exchanged fire. Short – assuming British aggression – reproached the Foreign Secretary for this putative provocation against a ‘sovereign’ state.273 Whilst the parliamentary friends of the GDR proved valuable, they rarely included any ‘prominent’ personalities populating the front-bench positions of influence. One of the highest-ranking parliamentary visitors to the GDR was Ed Varley, who became Minister for Energy in the mid 1970s. In 1966 he visited the GDR on 270 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Sitzung der Parlamentarischen Freundschaftsgruppe’, op. cit., 2; ibid., ‘[Letter] Nestler [MfAA] an Plenikowski [IPG]’, 30.12.1965; ibid., MfAA, ‘Einschätzung der neu gebildeten Parlamentarischen Gruppe Großbritannien–DDR im britischen Unterhaus’, 20.12.1965, (1–4). For the 1970 ‘work plan’, see ibid., IPG, ‘Protokoll über die Zusammenkunft mit der Vorsitzenden der Parlamentarischen Gruppe Großbritannien–DDR im britischen Unterhaus, Abg. R. Short, und dem Sekretär der Gruppe, Abg. W. Wilson am 15.1.1970’, 12.3.1970, (1–2). For �������� the ‘work plans’ agreed between the British and East German Committees from 1967 until 1969, see Hoff, Großbritannien, 401–2, 405–6. 271 For example PAL, HOCP, Vol. 722, 13 Dec. 1965, Written Answers, Col 185; HOCP, vol. 738, 19 Dec. 1966, Col 994. 272 Interview with William Wilson, 13.8.2002. 273 PAL, HOCP, vol. 736, col. 97, 16 Nov. 1966.

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a delegation organised by the NUM’s parliamentary group and its East German counterpart. His generally positive impression ensured a number of subsequent visits.274 By early 1969, internal MfAA assessments of parliamentary contacts indicated the GDR’s growing dissatisfaction with their effectiveness. After only four MPs – the ever-present Drayson and three left-wing Labourites – attended the spring 1969 Leipzig Trade Fair, the MfAA contemplated abandoning this long-serving channel of communication altogether, if more influential politicians could not be lured to the GDR.275 Not all the parliamentary traffic was one-way. In November 1969 the first delegation of Volkskammer deputies arrived in London. The head of the delegation of five, Professor Budzislawski, remarked that his delegation marked a new departure in the GDR’s campaign for recognition.276 There were good reasons for him to take this view. The visit was made possible by the British government’s relaxation of visa restrictions, so long a central issue in East German campaigns for recognition. Yet visa restrictions were still upheld for members of the SED, indicating that the British government remained cautious not to offend its West German ally. Nevertheless, the Volkskammer delegation appeared to signal new possibilities for the old strategy of ‘diplomacy by delegation’. During a visit to the House of Commons, the delegation had been introduced to a wide range of MPs, held a press conference in London’s Waldorf Hotel, which was attended by fifty journalists, and Budzislawski had been interviewed on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, ‘24 Hours’. Two days after the delegation returned home, the Parliamentary Committee introduced a motion, signed by fifty members spanning the three main parties. It called on the government to ‘take all possible steps to establish better relations with the GDR and thus reduce tensions in Europe, improve East–West relations and extend Anglo-East German trade’. The motion was subsequently followed up by parliamentary questions by Short and Eric Lubbock, a leading Liberal MP and regular visitor to the GDR, about the benefits of setting up a trade mission in East Berlin. Whilst this can be counted among the delegation’s successes, it had remained an unofficial visit with the British government permitting no moves to suggest a unilateral change in attitude on the central question of East German 274 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12206, ‘Informationsmaterial für das Gespräch mit der Delegation der Bergarbeiter-Parlamentsgruppe im britischen Unterhaus. Abteilung Westeuropa Sektion Großbritannien’, 30.8.1966, (1–3). 275 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2103, ‘Einschätzung der britischen Parliamentarierdelegation zur Leipziger Frühjahrsmesse’, 11.3.1969, (1–7), 7. 276 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A2/20/483, ‘Bericht über den Aufenhalt einer Delegation von Volkskammerabgeordneten in Großbritannien, 16.–24.11.1969’, (���������������� pp. 201–3), ������������ 202.

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recognition. Importantly, too, all but eleven of the fifty signatories of the parliamentary motion were drawn from the GDR’s now wellestablished circle of ‘friends’ in the Labour Party.277 The parliamentary ‘friendship’ groups in Britain and the GDR aimed to secure East German membership of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). Founded in 1889 by pacifist MPs in order to promote international understanding and cooperation, the IPU was, by the mid 1970s, an umbrella organisation housing seventy-four national parliamentary sections. One of its main objectives was securing support for UN resolutions. As its statutes demanded that all member parliaments must ‘represent a population in a state recognised as such as a subject of international law’, East German entry would have represented a major step towards recognising the regime’s legitimacy.278 It was here, however, that East Berlin found that Bonn still set the boundaries regulating Western attitudes to recognition. The British Foreign Office, identifying this strategy as another avenue of East Berlin’s campaign for recognition, restated that British policy would continue to follow the direction set by the FRG and the Western Allies and opposed East German membership of the IPU in 1970.279 What motivated the left-wing Labour MPs who were so prominent in parliamentary relations between the two countries? Their contemporaries perceived them as communist fellow travellers, crypto-Communists, or even agents of the Soviet Union. And yet only a minority endorsed Soviet policy wholeheartedly. Many propagated ‘third force’ positions, which promoted independence of action from both superpowers. Most were motivated by sentiments of pacifism, humanism, and anti-anticommunism. They wanted to counter the dehumanisation of communists which was one of the prime aims of Western Cold War propaganda. Many also welcomed the emphasis of communist regimes on welfare reform and nationalisation of 277 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ PA AA, MfAA, C 159/73, ‘Beziehungen zur DDR’, (71–110), 72; ibid, MfAA, C 169/73, ‘Übersicht über den Stand der Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Großbritannien. Interparlamentarische ���������������������������������������������������������� Gruppe der DDR [undated: 1969/70]’, (55–61), 55–56. A parliamentary motion carrying forty-eight signatures and calling for the de facto recognition of the GDR had already been passed in January 1959 following the November 1958 ultimatum of the Soviet Union over Berlin, see Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 218. Another motion followed in 1970. It was supported by seventy MPs, ibid., 261. 278 On the Volkskammer, its self-understanding and role as well as its shortcomings vis-à-vis Western ideas of parliaments see W. Patzelt and R. Schirmer (eds). 2002. Die Volkskammer der DDR. Sozialistischer Parlamentarismus in Theorie und Praxis, Wiesbaden: Westdt.-Verlag. 279 NA, FCO 33/920, ‘Inter-Parliamentary Union Spring Conference, Monaco 30 March – 5 April, 1970. East Germany, Brief for British Groups’, [undated: 1970], (pp.1–3).

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major industries, something they were keen to promote for Britain as well. Some saw the GDR as the morally better Germany, especially as mistrust of the German past continued to shape perceptions of the Federal Republic throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s. The success of ‘social capitalism’ in the FRG was also resented by many on the Labour left, who dismissed it, like S.O. Davies, as undemocratic and socially unjust.280 The Labour Left was still convinced that only nationalisation would pave the way to a socialist society characterised by cradle-to-grave social welfare and educational opportunities open to all. This they found in the GDR more than in the FRG. William Wilson argued that the British–GDR and British–Soviet parliamentary ‘friendship’ societies, which he chaired at various points, were crucial in preventing the British people from going to war with Eastern Europe. He regarded his own role in these events as a proponent of understanding across the Cold War divide in the hope that building trust would allow peace to prosper, at the same time as giving communism a chance to succeed.281 Readers of the Morning Star could, of course, regularly read about the East German ‘economy [being] soundly based and expanding. People are well dressed; there are more cars on the road and an increased variety and quantity of goods in the shops.’282 By contrast, many on the Labour left perceived the FRG’s Hallstein Doctrine as destabilising the precarious international situation in a dangerous way. Thus, for example, in December 1965, Short presented parliament with a letter from the West German embassy in Nicosia informing a group of East German artists that any of those who wished not to return to the ‘Soviet-occupied zone’ would find help at the British, French, American and West German embassies. For Short, such actions undermined peaceful coexistence in Europe.283 Furthermore, the Left argued that it was silly to deny the existence of a state which had been around the world stage for quite a while and did not look as though it would disappear in a hurry. As Sydney Silverman wrote in an article for the East German press: ‘[T]he German Democratic Republic is a fact, just in the same way as the Chinese People’s Republic is a fact and one does not escape facts by burying one’s head in the sand’.284 Whilst the Labour Left in parliament undoubtedly ensured that parliamentary contacts between Britain and the GDR were improved during the 1960s, these contacts always were far less important than those promoted by the Britain–West Germany 280 S.O. Davies papers, South Wales Coalfield Collection, University of Swansea, MNA/PP/16/18, article by Davies in Sunday Observer in 1959. 281 Interview with William Wilson, 13.8.2002. 282 Morning Star, 19.3.1967, 2. 283 PAL, HOCP, vol. 722, col. 276, Dec. 1965. 284 Cited in Democratic GermanReport, 28.3.1958, 52.

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Parliamentary Group which was significantly larger and more influential than its rival East German group.285 Contacts between the GDR and the British Left were most prominent at the parliamentary level but they were not restricted to MPs. During the 1960s, the GDR also pursued a range of contacts with national sections of the International of Young Socialists. The International’s pronounced anti-capitalism appeared to offer a promising entrée into the ranks of tomorrow’s social democratic leaders in the West. The Socialist Youth International was in favour of dialogue with the East Bloc, but direct negotiations with the FDJ were rejected.286 The FDJ subsequently attempted to forge links to local groups more willing to consider taking up relations with the GDR. In Britain, the Stockport local group of the Young Socialists agreed to send a delegation of five members to the GDR in October 1963. It was headed by Geoffrey Morrison, a local Labour councillor. The other delegates included members of the Council against Fascism and the youth wing of the trade-union movement. The delegation’s meetings with local leaders of the FDJ, the FDGB and the head of Debrig, Kurt Kann, as well as the vice-chairman of the Friedensrat, Werner Rümpel, were all meant to pave the way for a planned town-twinning link between Stockport and Prenzlau. The Central Council of the FDJ concluded that the visit marked an important new departure in winning support for the regime’s campaign for diplomatic recognition in Britain.287

British Trade Unionists and the GDR Outside the Labour Party and the Young Socialists, the unions continued to be fertile recruiting ground for the GDR. The TUC was impeccably anti-communist, but it had no powers to prevent individual member unions – at national or local level – from sending delegations behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ and taking a different stance on ‘actually existing socialism’.288 Delegations of British trade unionists to East Germany continued almost uninterrupted after 1956. In 1959, the FDGB was able for the first time to send an unofficial delegation, which was headed by the chairman of the FDGB, Harry 285 Interview with Peter Temple Morris, head of the British group within the IPU, 5.11.2003. 286 ���������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/11046, ‘7 Kongress der Sozialistischen Jugendinternationale IUSY, August 1963 Oslo’, (1–5). 287 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/10298, ‘Bericht über den Besuch der Delegation der Jungsozialisten aus Stockport/Großbritannien vom 20.10 bis 30.10.1963’, 16.11.1963’, (pp.1–7), 7. 288 See chapter one, pp. 40–46.

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Tisch, to the TUC Annual Congress as the personal guests of Harry Knight, the pro-Soviet General Secretary of ASSET, who introduced the East Germans to influential left-wing union leaders at private meetings.289 Knight, who was a member of the Labour Party, was regarded by East Berlin as a British contact who did ‘excellent work’ for the GDR.290 Knight’s support for the FDGB’s role in ‘constructing socialism’ had its roots in a number of visits to East Germany. In 1960, for example, he spoke at rallies in East Berlin and, in a series of meetings, committed himself to promoting contacts between the two countries’ trade unions. His support for East Germany was strengthened by his aversion to West German rearmament, which he had actively opposed. If ASSET was a small trade union, organising some 25,000 members, then it was also relatively influential in the country’s political life. Among its more prominent members were fourteen Labour MPs and the chairmen of the Communist, Labour and Liberal parties. East Berlin most certainly regarded it as an influential ally. 291 Some of its members, such as Sydney Silvermann MP, actively sought to help the FDGB extend its trade union contacts with Britain.292 ASSET was by no means the only British union with contacts to the GDR. In July 1961, a delegation from the Scottish NUM visited an East German mining region in the district of Thuringia following an invitation issued by the Central Executive of the East German mining union. All of the delegates were life-long Communists, who carried with them the explicit support of the Scottish miners’ leader, Abe Moffat. Moffat, like his counterpart in South Wales, Arthur Horner, had been highly successful in turning the Scottish and Welsh sections of the NUM into bastions of communism. Their support for Soviet-style communism in Eastern Europe was frequently expressed in public statements, which made plain a fervent belief that these regimes were more progressive than Britain.293 In an 289 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2268, ‘Zwischenbericht über den Aufenthalt des Kollegen Knight in der DDR’, 21.5.1959, (1–14), 12. 290 �������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2241, ‘Die Beziehungen zum FDGB, den Industriegewerkschaften und Gewerkschaften, anderen Landeszentralen und internationalen Organisationen’, [undated: 1959], (1–12), 7. 291 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2268, ‘Gewerkschaftskontakte zwischen Großbritannien und der DDR’, [undated: 1960]. ������������������������������������������������ This was also covered in the West German press, see Frankfurter Rundschau, 17.3.1960 (copy in file). 292 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12085, ‘[Letter] Dr Helmut Findeisen an die IPG der DDR’, 20.4.1960. 293 A. Campbell and J. McIlroy. 2005. ‘Coalfield Leaders. Trade Unionism and Communist Politics: Exploring Arthur Horner and Abe Moffatt’, in S. Berger, A. Croll and N. LaPorte (eds), Towards a Comparative History of Coalfield Societies, Burlington: Ashgate, 267–80.

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attempt to provide the GDR with positive press coverage at home, the delegation took five questions for the East German leader, Walter Ulbricht, to answer. The questions, which addressed unemployment, trade relations, peace in Europe and the ‘German Question’, were subsequently reported in the Edinburgh Evening News as well as the Daily Worker. This was one delegation so overtly pro-communist, its members believed that the GDR could be held up as an answer to domestic social and political problems.294 The NUM was one of the earliest Western unions to establish links with its East German counterpart despite the fact that the national leadership of the NUM did not adopt a policy of advocating East German recognition before 1973. However, from 1962 regular motions supportive of recognition came before the floor of the annual congress together with calls to lift the trade embargo on high-tech goods and vociferous condemnations of West German militarism.295 Communist trade union officials were vital in propagating the GDR’s cause in the NUM. Many of them sat on the NUM’s national and regional executive committees. William Paynter, for example, held the offices of NUM president and General Secretary. L. Ellis was the agent of the Nottingham NUM, and J. Dunn, David Francis and Abe Moffat acted as general secretaries of the Kent, South-Wales and Scottish regions respectively.296 With this degree of highlevel support for East German communism, it is unsurprising that relations with the West German DGB were strained and distant.297 Labour supporters on NUM ‘study delegations’ to the GDR were often reluctant to offer unconditional support to their hosts’ campaign for recognition. Typical of this intra-union divide was a delegation in 1970 comprising members of the executive committee of the Yorkshire NUM. While the Communist delegate, J. Kane, was forthright in his praise of the achievements of ‘actually existing socialism’, his colleagues from the Labour Party refused to be drawn on what they regarded as inappropriate political questions.298 Nevertheless, exchanges between the mining unions since the mid 1950s had done much to consolidate support for dialogue to overcome Cold War tensions and to instil a degree of admiration for 294 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Thüringisches Staatsarchiv Rudolstadt, BPA IV/2/18/1278, ‘An die Kreisleitung z. Hd. des Gen. Kämnitz’, [undated: 1961]. 295 See the correspondence in SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320. 296 For assessment of individual NUM officials by FDGB see SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320, ‘Einschätzung der NUM in Großbritannien’, [undated: 1965], (pp.1–9), 9; for Francis’s attempts to bring FDGB officials to the South Wales miners’ galas of the mid 1960s see also the correspondence in SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/321 and ibid., DY 37/320. 297 ��������������������������������������������������� ‘Einschätzung der NUM in Großbritannien’, op. cit. 298 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/8086, ‘Bericht über den Studienaufenthalt der Delegation der NUM – Yorkshire Area – vom 15. bis 22.10.1970’, 19.11.1970’, (1–7), 1.

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the working conditions, alleged union influence and social provision on offer in East Germany.299 GDR officials also used contacts with the NUM to further relations with member of the union’s parliamentary group. At the turn of 1963/64, a series of preparations to send a delegation of NUM-sponsored Labour MPs to the GDR were set in train by Abe Moffat, who acted in collaboration with the East German IPG. From East Germany’s perspective, the main objective was to initiate discussions between British MPs with a trade-union background and their FDGB counterparts in the Volkskammer. Tellingly, however, these plans fell through on account of the British MPs reluctance to court adverse publicity in an election year.300 Two years later, however, it proved possible to send a three-man delegation from the miners’ parliamentary group, comprising G. Alfred Davies, Edwin Wainwright and Ed Varley. They supported demands for the recognition of the GDR and the elimination of all travel restrictions imposed on GDR officials travelling into Britain. They accused the FRG of standing in the way of détente and improved European security. Much was also made of the recent rise of the far right NPD in a series of state-level elections in West Germany.301 However, even those positively inclined towards the GDR could still be deeply shocked by some aspects of the communist regime. When visiting the Berlin Wall, Davies and Wainwright, for example, were clearly taken aback by the bellicosity of a speech made by an NVA general. It did not seem to square with the self-advertisement of the GDR as a protagonist of peace.302 Apart from the miners, the AEU, the metal workers, construction workers, power workers’ and printing unions, the joiners, technicians, actors, postal workers, transport workers, textile workers and municipal employees, as well as the left-wing London branch of the Railwaymen’s Union, the Firemen’s Union, the Union of Rural Workers and the NUT all had contacts with their counterparts in the GDR.303 In 1959 the FDGB invited a total of 321 Western trade union delegations with 1,627 delegates; by 1965 the figures 299 See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/3391, ‘Analyse über den Delegationsplan 1958’, (pp.1–6). 300 These events are covered in, SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/8093, ‘[Letter] H. Finch to W. Lucas’, [undated: April 1964]. 301 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt der offiziellen Delegation der Miners’ Parliamentary Group’, 4. 302 See the correspondence in SAPMO-BArch, DY 37/320. 303 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2241, ‘Representativ-Delegationen aus Großbritannien’, [undated: 1954], (1–2); ibid. DY 34/13/400/2870 (pp.1–2), ‘Englische Delegationen: 16.10–30.10.1954’ (1–2); ‘Beziehungen zur DDR während des Jahres 1958’, op. cit.

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had risen to 400 and 3,147 respectively.304 By the early 1970s, the FDGB had forged a range of contacts with prominent British trade union leaders, including the future General Secretary of the TGWU, Alex Kitson, Alan Sapper, General Secretary of the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians and member of Labour’s NEC, Ken Gill of the technicians’ union and ASLEF’s Ray Buckton.305 These national-level contacts were only the most visible dimension of a much fuller relationship with local and district union branches and trades councils. In 1963, for example, a telegram signed by 250 British officials from a diversity of unions was sent to Herbert Warnke, the chairman of the FDGB, offering ‘fraternal greetings’ and support for East Germany’s campaign for recognition.306 By the early 1970s, an influential minority within the AUEW, ASSET, NUPE, NUM, FBU and SOGAT supported East German recognition.307 The set-piece programme of events for visiting trade-union delegations included an official welcome reception, which was addressed by state and union officials, followed by a tour of the country, which emphasised the GDR’s progressive social, cultural and political credentials and the unions’ wider role in East German society. The more prestigious the delegation, the more likely it was to meet high-ranking East German state and union officials. The cultural dimension of the programme typically involved visits to the state-funded (and controlled) opera and theatre, with the accent on presenting East Germany as a country of high culture for all. The GDR’s presentation of social provision often emphasised access to recreational facilities in the factories and FDGB holiday homes, as well as comprehensive health care. A central theme was how East Germany was constructing socialism against the odds after sweeping away the ruins left by war. During the earlier 1950s, delegations were shown around the Stalinallee construction site, which was presented as a paragon of socialist achievement in housing. The most overtly political aspect of the tour was a visit to a former Nazi concentration camp – frequently Buchenwald, where a number of foreign captives, including British citizens, had also been held. The visits served to emphasise the GDR’s ‘anti-fascist and anti-militarist’ 304 See the statistical reports in SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/12986. 305 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/8086, ‘Kurzinformation über die Beziehungen des FDGB zu den engl. ������������������������������������������������������������ Gewerkschaften’, 14.9.1970, (1–3); ibid., ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt der Delegation der AUEW’, 24.6.1971, (1–3), 1. 306 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/3391, ‘Einschätzung der Erfüllung des Plans der internationalen Arbeit 1963 bis zum 15. September 1963 unter Beachtung der Rede W. Ulbrichts vom 2. Juli vor der Volkskammer’, [undated], (1–4), 2. 307 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/8086, ‘Interparlamentarische Gruppe der DDR. Übersicht ���������� über der Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und GB’, [undated: 1968], (1–7).

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credentials, with exhibitions aiming to impart the impression that the perpetrators of these war crimes could be found in the offices of state in Bonn. The ‘study visits’ also focused on the role of the trade unions in East German society, including meetings with officials of ‘brother’ unions and visits to factories where delegates could meet and talk with ‘normal workers’ and watch ‘socialist production’ in progress. The overall objective was to impart on the delegates the belief that the GDR was a workers’ state in which capitalism had been replaced by social solidarity, political equality and proletarian fraternity. And hopefully, the delegates, would, on their return, report about their positive experiences in the GDR in the trade union press.308 Indeed, a number of influential trade-union newspapers presented the case for recognition to their members and painted a very positive picture of ‘socialist achievements’ in the GDR. 309 One example of a ‘study delegation’ the FDGB could count as a ‘success’ was a visit headed by the Communist General Secretary of the electricians’ union, Frank Foukes, in late 1954. Tom Vetterlein, a life-long member of the CPGB, stated that he had seen in the GDR ‘what he had struggled for in the Communist Party since 1925’. Tom Cowoot, a member of the Labour Party and a local union secretary in Sheffield, informed his hosts that, ‘a doubter had become a convinced supporter’.310 These comments were typical of a significant number of left-wing Labour Party and Communist trade union delegates to the GDR. Colleague Calder, a member of the Labour Party and official in the Foundry Workers’ Union, stated, ‘After what I have seen, I completely understand that the path you have taken was economically and politically correct and the best thing for the working class.’311 James Harrison, a communist official in the Construction Workers’ Union, praised the GDR in his address to fifty workers gathered at a building site in East Berlin. Harrison told his audience, ‘We are proud to have visited your workplace, which you have built of your own strength without capitalists. We have been able to see that your country in this type of work has far exceeded that in our own country. The reason for this is that you are 308 This was a standard GDR objective, see, for example, the reports in LAB, C Rep 122 Nr. 314. 309 Particularly Data News and The Draughtsman, journals of the Draughtsmen’s and Allied Technicians Union later Technical and Supervisory Staff Section [TASS] led by pro-Soviet and CPGB member Ken Gill during the 1970s and 80s. In the early 1960s, the general secretary of the tobacco workers’ union, Percy Belcher, and the Communist president of the electricians’ union, Frank Foukes, also went on the record with pro-GDR statements. See Becker, DDR und Großbritannien, 263. 310 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13/437/3147, ‘Bericht über die Studiendelegation der britischen Elektriker-Gewerkschaft’, (1–10), 3. 311 ����������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13/400/2870, ‘Fragen und Argumente’, (1–6), 2.

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already building socialism, where as with us the profit remains the driving force.’312 Apart from ‘study visits’, the GDR also organised free holidays (usually in FDGB holiday homes) for those it deemed influential sympathisers in the West. Although the numbers were not vast, they do indicate that considerable attention was being paid by the FDGB to influencing British public opinion. Table 2.2: Number of Western Visitors Staying in FDGB Holiday Homes, 1956–1958. Source: SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/3391, ‘Englische Delegationen: 16.10.–30.10.1954’. 1956

1957

1958

Country

Planned

Actual

Planned

Actual

Planned

France

40

36

42

35

40

Italy

-

-

19

14

15

Britain

20

14

44

39

30

Belgium

4

-

12

10

10

Holland

30

34

20

18

20

Sweden

15

15

4

4

4

Norway

10

8

4

4

4

Finland

15

15

6

6

6

Denmark

15

15

4

2

4

Austria

10

10

10

9

10

Switzerland

3

3

2

-

2

Luxemburg

6

6

6

5

5

Total

168

156

172

146

150

The Reuters reporter Peter Johnson regarded this variant of political holiday making sufficiently interesting to make him visit one of the holiday homes and speak to British trade unionists there. In his diary, Johnson recorded that, ‘they took the view that East Germany was on the right road and were doubtful that Britain could progress without going Communist.’ Importantly, Johnson recorded how, from their anti-capitalist standpoints, British workers appeared not to mind the dictatorial aspects of the GDR as it appeared to be a dictatorship in the interests of the workers. There was also a belief that East German workers were earning more than their British counterparts, as well as having access to better social and welfare provisions.313 312 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2269, ‘IG Bauholz Zentralvorstand Internationale Verbindungen. Bericht über den Aufenthalt der Delegation aus Gro������������ ß����������� britannien vom 29.10. bis 12.11.1960’, 22.11.1960, (1–9), 8. 313 Peter Johnson. 2001. Roving Reporter, 1959 – 1961, London: Tagman Press, 28f.

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Not all contacts with individual union leaders accorded with the FDGB’s aspirations. One British trade union leader, Cyril Cooper, the General Secretary of the Society of Technical Servants, was viewed with evident disdain after a stay at the FDGB holiday resort in Oberhof in 1960, where he had made his dislike of the GDR all too clear to the other visitors.314 In the same year, Charles Pannel joined a four-man delegation of Labour MPs, who belonged to the party’s trade-union group. Pannell, a member of the AEU, voiced explicit criticisms of the GDR on the BBC’s World Service equating East Berlin’s ‘peace policies’ with Hitler’s foreign policy during the 1930s and dismissing the socalled ‘National People’s Army’ as no different from the Wehrmacht. He described the thorough militarization of East German society and was scathing about the GDR’s misuse of a visit to the former Ravensbrück concentration camp to score political points against Bonn.315 In 1959 a TUC congress resolution commended the citizens of West Berlin for their ‘courageous struggle for the preservation of freedom and democracy’. The trade union movement, it went on, ‘had a vital stake in the preservation of freedom of West Berlin and of its democratic institutions.’316 If the Labour Party MPs’ visits to the GDR had outraged the SPD, British trade unionists’ praise for the FDGB found the wrath of the West German DGB and its affiliated unions. The East German unionists took such signs of friction as confirmation of their own strategy: ‘The fact that we are working in the right direction is proved by the furious reaction in the Welt der Arbeiter, the organ of the DGB, and in the ÖTV magazine from June 1960, which made gross accusations in respect of our connections [with British trade unionists].’317 Yet, the FDGB continued to fall short of achieving its central objective – establishing official relations with the TUC, which all these unofficial contacts and connections were designed to assist. Each year the FDGB sent a telegram expressing its ‘fraternal greetings’ to the annual TUC Congress only to find that it remained shut out in the diplomatic cold of the non-recognition period. As the TUC conference of 1959 confirmed, the majority of British trade unionists supported the West German DGB’s position of reunification, even if the General Council expressed some concern about the use of 314 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2269, ‘Gewerkschaft Staatliche Verwaltungen – Gesundheitswesen – Finanz Zentralvorstand. ���������������������������� Einschätzung der Verbindung und Arbeit unserer Gewerkschaft nach England’, 18.8.1960, (1–12), 10. 315 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/2269, ‘Einschätzung über den Aufenthalt der englischen Parlamentsdelegation in der DDR. Referat für Internationale Verbindungen’, 14.10.1960, (1–5), 3. 316 TUC Annual Congress (1959), 212 f. 317 ������������������������������������������������� ‘Die Beziehungen zum FDGB’ [1959], op. cit., 11.

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‘middle Germany’ (Mitteldeutschland) in the letter received from the DGB.318 The General Council of the TUC remained a bastion of opposition to relations with communist Germany. Despite a wide range of official relations with the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite states, the General Council presented its stance as a matter of political principle. In April 1964, for example, the Assistant General Secretary of the TUC wrote to the Secretary of the Yorkshire Federation of Trades Councils stressing that: The structure of trade unions and the extent of their independence [from the state] is not the same in some countries, of which East Germany is one, as in Britain. Visits undertaken by trade unionists are liable to undesirable political exploitation and publicity, particularly if they are sponsored by official trade union bodies such as your Federation. … The General Council themselves have not accepted invitations from countries such as East Germany.319

In this particular case, the General Council’s intervention prevented a planned delegation setting off for East Germany. However, the voice of the TUC leadership often fell on deaf ears, particularly at local and regional level.320 Nevertheless, throughout the 1960s the TUC maintained a seemingly inbuilt majority in favour of holding the GDR at arm’s length. In 1964, a motion in favour of the recognition of the GDR, forwarded to congress by the tobacco workers’ union, was comprehensively defeated. The speech for the motion by the tobacco workers’ General Secretary, Percy Belcher, which presented the GDR as an ‘economic success’, was constantly interrupted by catcalls of ‘The Wall!’. In the speech opposing the motion, F. Heyday, representing the General Council, stated that the Wall was ‘the most inhumane thing done by the regime so far’. He went on to oppose any relaxation of the visa system restricting the entry of East Germans into Britain on the grounds that ‘it would benefit only a small number of people chosen by the regime’.321 318 TUC Annual Congress (1959), 218 f. 319 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/8093, ‘[Letter] J. Backhouse [Secretary, Yorkshire Federation of Trades Councils] from [no name] Assistant General Secretary, General Council of TUC’, 14.4.1964. 320 For the contrasting case of the Yorkshire Region of the NUM, see SAPMOBArch, DY 34/8086, ‘Zentralvorstand IG Bergbau-Energie, Internationale Verbindungen. Bericht ���������������������������������������������������������� über den Studienaufenthalt der Delegation der NUM – Yorkshire Area – vom 15. bis 22.10.1970’, 19.11.1970, (1–8). 321 TUC Annual Congress (1964); Two years earlier, Belcher had justified the Berlin Wall, giving exactly the kind of arguments that could be found in GDR propaganda material on the Wall. See TUC Annual Congress (1962), 396 ff.

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It was only on the eve of Bonn’s recognition of East Berlin that official TUC policy fell in line behind that of the Labour Party, which, now in opposition, advised the General Council that recognition of the GDR had become ‘a question of time rather than of principle’.322 In 1972, in the context of support for convening a conference on ‘Peace, Security and Co-operation’ in Europe, the TUC finally called on the government to recognise the GDR, which, it believed, should now be granted a seat at the top negotiating table in East–West relations. Implicit in the tone of the General Council’s report, however, was a readiness to accept the advice of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office on doing nothing to pre-empt the ongoing negotiations between Bonn and East Berlin.323 If the TUC kept its distance from the GDR, relations between the Scottish TUC (STUC) and the FDGB can only be described as close. The strength of communist influence in the STUC was the decisive factor.324 In October 1971, the STUC sent an official delegation to East Berlin, headed by the Scottish General Secretary, James Jack, who was accompanied by Vice-president, William Tweedy. The delegation was deeply impressed by what it perceived as the extent of activism among rank-and-file union members, commenting that, ‘the unions are intensely democratic, with one in four [members] holding a trade union post of some kind’. The report submitted to the STUC after the visit, amounted to a glowing endorsement of the GDR: We were most impressed by all we saw and learned. Quite clearly, the GDR is burgeoning. Everywhere, everyone was busy. All seemed confident, good humoured. There appeared to be an all-pervading air of confidence and comfort. It could be sensed in the factories, in the streets and in the restaurants; and, perhaps, above all, in the shops and in the theatre.

Not only was the delegation impressed by the degree of union influence in a society providing extensive social provision, James Jack was also ready to go on the record with political praise for the GDR. In an interview broadcast on RBI, he told listeners that, ‘We have seen how socialism is put into practice. That is the most important impression that we will take home with us. We have seen workers’ power.’325 In 1972, after an STUC invitation to the FDGB to attend its annual congress, the British Foreign Office informally consulted the head of 322 TUC Annual Congress (1973), 212. 323 TUC Annual Congress (1973), 211. 324 Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001. 325 All quotes from SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/11117, ‘RBI Interview mit James Jack, Generalsekretär des STUC am 1.11.1971’, (1–5).

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the DGB’s International Department, Heinz Vetter, on how best to respond. Speaking on behalf of the DGB, Vetter cautioned the Foreign Office against undertaking any action. He deplored the invitation as ‘a lack of political instinct and an unfriendly action towards the DGB’, which had pointedly not been invited to the congress, but he thought that any attempt to bar the East Germans from Scotland would only be counterproductive.326 Instead the DGB started its own charm offensive to improve relations with the STUC later that same year by inviting a delegation to visit West Germany.327 The Scottish NUM (SNUM) was most vociferous in its support for the GDR. As early as 1961 it had sent a prominent delegation to the GDR, which supported demands for recognition and praised the country’s ‘socialist achievements’.328 In April 1970, its annual congress voted to call for the recognition of the GDR in international law and to canvas Scottish MPs to take up East Germany’s case at Westminster.329 Here, too, the role of individual communist union leaders played an important role. The union’s president, Mick McGahey, was a life-long communist, who sat on the politburo of the CPGB and, owing to trade-union representation, the Labour Party’s NEC. Immediately after the SNUM congress, McGahey headed a three-man delegation to celebrate May Day with East German miners’ at the ‘Martin Hoop’ colliery in Zwickau. In an interview with East German radio on 4 May, McGahey, speaking on behalf of the SNUM, stated that: For a long time the Scottish miners have stood up for the recognition of the GDR. We regard the recognition of the GDR in international law as an important task in the struggle to maintain peace in Europe … Recognition of the GDR in international law is not just of interest to us, but is in the interests of the working class throughout the whole world. For this reason, we will act with all our strength for the recognition of the GDR. We know that some countries still today are not yet ready to recognise the GDR, but developments will have to take account of existing realities.

The East German report of the delegation was also able to express with satisfaction that, during a visit to a Soviet garrison stationed in Gera, the Scottish delegation expressed their ‘solidarity with the 326 DGB Archive, IA 24/5376, ‘[Report] Heinz Vetter an Maria [no name given]. Betr.: 78 Jahreskongreß des schottischen Gewerkschaftsbundes (STUC) vom 14. bis 18. April 1975 in Aberdeen/Schottland’. 327 Ibid. 328 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Thüringisches Staatsarchiv Rudolstadt, BPA IV/2/18/1278, ‘An die Kreisleitung z. Hd. des Gen. Kämnitz’, [undated: 1961], (1–2). 329 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/8086, ‘IG Bergbau-Energie Zentralvorstand. Bericht �������� über eine Studiendelegation der Schottischen Bergarbeitergewerkschaft vom 25.4–7.5.1970’, 11.5.1970, (1–3), 3.

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Vietnamese people suffering from American imperialism’. However, attitudes towards the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 fragmented the delegation. Harry Holland and John Philips, both of whom were members of the Labour Party, refused to sanction the East German version of events as the only means of preventing a ‘counter-revolution’ and, more generally, proved reluctant to be drawn on political issues. McGahey, however, was anxious to present the CPGB’s official opposition to the suppression of the Prague Spring in conciliatory terms. In a private discussion, McGahey left his host in no doubt that ‘he continues to see the road to socialism running through the unity of the working class and the dictatorship of the proletariat’. Referring to the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he added that, ‘We have the concerns and problems of dying imperialism; you have the concerns and problems of constructing socialism. I am absolutely convinced that we will both solve these problems.’330

The CPGB’s Relationship with the GDR As the case of McGahey demonstrates, the repeated suppression of dissidents and of reform communist movements in Eastern Europe did not necessarily lead sympathetic trade unionists to abandon their contacts with the GDR. The CPGB had been staunchest in its support for the newly founded GDR in 1949,331 and it was, to all intents and purposes, the most natural ally of the SED in Britain. Yet criticism of the East German variant of socialism also surfaced among British Communists, and already during the 1950s the relationship between the two ‘sister parties’ was far from unproblematic. The events of 1956 in Hungary and the process of de-Stalinisation threw the CPGB into a crisis conditioned by a membership exodus and a desire to place communism within a British context, leading to the first of several revisions to the party programme in 1958 with the publication of the ‘British Road to Socialism’.332 The CPGB still praised the GDR’s ‘socialist achievements’ in public, but politicalideological differences continued to cool relations throughout the non-recognition period. William Gallagher, for example, who wrote 330 Ibid., 3. The CPGB’s condemnation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia was widely reported in the British press. See, for example, ‘British Communists Call for Immediate Withdrawal’, The Times, 22.8.1968. McGahey, however, belonged to a faction of pro-Soviet British Communists who had opposed the CPGB’s condemnation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. See ‘Pro-Russians Speak Out’, The Guardian, 26.8.1968. 331 See chapter one, pp. 46–55. 332 J. Callaghan. 2003. Cold War, Crisis and Conflict. The CPGB 1951–1968, London: Lawrence and Wishart.

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an article in the GDR’s Freies Wort in 1958,333 praising the GDR’s peace policies, had written a private letter to Walter Ulbricht in March 1956 urging him to continue on the road of de-Stalinisation and abandoning the personality cult – advice which to all intents and purposes was not welcome in East Berlin.334 The SED viewed even the slightest departure of British Communists from the Sovietmodel as anathema. Thus, for example, the SED leadership subjected the revised political programme of 1958 to close scrutiny, taking issue with what East Berlin interpreted as a stance at variance with the GDR line on German reunification and European security.335 But there is little evidence to suggest that the CPGB was too impressed by being lectured at from East Berlin. At a conference in East Berlin in 1967 Gollan in fact explicitly asserted the independence of the CPGB from communist East European parties.336 Personal relations at leadership level were made more difficult still because of the travel restrictions. In 1961, for example, the British Home Secretary intervened to prevent Albert Norden and Wolfgang Bergholz attending the annual congress of the CPGB.337 Relations at ceremonial level were cordial. The CPGB was approached by the East German Committee of Anti-fascist Resistance Fighters to nominate five or six comrades to be conferred with the organisation’s medal, ‘Fighter against Fascism, 1933–1945’.338 The SED also used its contacts with the CPGB to give wider publicity to its international campaigns. One such example was in 1961, when the SED wrote to its British ‘sister’ party urging it to publish an article on East Germany’s efforts to have the ban on the West German communist party lifted.339 The British party also consistently campaigned for the recognition of East Germany. It was also active in the GDR-sponsored campaign to expose ‘old Nazis’ in West German public life and, more generally, gave favourable press coverage to the GDR as a ‘socialist’ and ‘peace-loving’ state. The Young Communist League organised regular ‘work camps’ in the GDR, which was an opportunity for young British Communists to work and live in ‘a 333 ������������������������������������������������ William Gallagher, ‘Verrat in London und Bonn’, Freies Wort, 11.1.1958. 334 CPAM, Gallagher papers, CP/Ind/Gall/03/02, ‘[Letter] Gallagher to Ulbricht’, 13.3.1956. 335 Ibid, ‘Ulbricht to Gollan’, 13.5.1958’, and ‘Gollan to Ulbricht, 5.6.1958’. 336 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Abteilung Merseburg, BPA der SED, Halle IV/ B-2/18/884, ‘Rede des Genossen John Gollan, Delegationsleiter der KP Großbritanniens, Generalsekretär der Partei’, [undated: 1967], (1–40), 39. 337 CPAM, CPGB International Department, ‘CPGB (unsigned letter) to the Central Committee of the SED’, 7.4.1961. 338 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� CPAM, CPGB International Department, ‘Letter Komitee der Antifaschistischen Widerstandskämpfer to CPGB������������� ’������������ , 22.7.1960. 339 CPAM, CPGB International Department, 15/03: correspondence between SED and CPGB in relation to Karlsruhe trial of the KPD.

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socialist country’.340 Importantly, too, if the CPGB’s fringe status in British political life ensured that its utility was eclipsed by Labour’s left-wing MPs, then communist influence in the British trade-union movement and the anti-nuclear movement ensured that it could not be dismissed out of hand, despite its ‘deviation’ from Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy.341 The CPGB newspaper, the Daily Worker, renamed Morning Star in 1966, had correspondents accredited in the GDR. In 1960, Alan Winnington became the Daily Worker’s new correspondent in East Berlin, replacing Phyllis Rosner. Winnington had become something of a celebrity in the CPGB after the British government withdrew his passport in response to the political content of his reports from the Korean War for the Daily Worker. He was therefore trapped in Korea and depended on a communist country, like the GDR, to take him in. Winnington’s contacts with the CPGB remained close until his death in East Berlin in 1984. Arriving in the GDR with no prior knowledge of the German language, Winnington continued to mix in Englishspeaking circles for the remainder of his life, developing close friendships with John Peet, the photomontage artist John Heartfield and his brother, Wieland Herzfelde, who was a writer. He had loose contacts with former émigré circles who had spent the war-years in London. He wrote spy novels, and had contact with the writer Len Deighton and assorted Western journalists.342 The GDR had in effect given Winnington asylum. Yet Winnington, who had a reputation as a Stalinist hard-liner,343 was not afraid to speak his mind, even if this meant incurring the ire of his hosts. After the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, Winnington told the MfAA that the ‘anti-fascist protection barrier’ was, in reality, a barrier to prevent the exodus of East German citizens into the Federal Republic, compounded by ‘currency speculation’. His point was that no number of ‘comment articles’ disseminating the official GDR line in Britain through the pages of the Daily Worker would change public opinion.344 However, his reports for the Daily Worker were absolutely in line with official GDR propaganda. According to 340 Interview Eric Nowell, Manchester, 10.01.2008, who participated regularly between 1963 and 1966 in these work camps organised by the Young Communist League. He would go for about three weeks and stay in student accommodation or youth hostels. He was asked in 1965 whether he would like to study at TH Dresden, but preferred a place at UMIST to study physics. 341 ������������������������������������������������������������ ‘Beziehungen zur DDR während des Jahres 1958’, op. cit., 17. 342 Interview with Alfred Fleischhacker, 8.8.2001; Stasi Archive, MfS, AP 55215/92, Bd.1, ‘Operativinformation Nr. 103/84: John Peet. ���������������������� Bezirksverwaltung für Staatssicherheit Berlin Abt.II.’, 14.2.1984, 1. 343 ��������������������������������������� Interview with Stephen Peet, 15.3.2001. 344 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA 13068, ‘Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit dem Berlin-Korrespondent des “Daily Worker”, Alan Winnington’, 25.8.1961, 148–50.

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Winnington it was an effective measure to stop Western espionage and the economic destabilisation of East Germany. He argued that it was a measure widely supported among East Germans. It was ‘a blow struck for peace’ against the ‘warmongers’ of West Germany, notably Konrad Adenauer.345 If it were not for the internal GDR reports, one would not know that Winnington felt uncomfortable writing such blatant propaganda. In 1964, Winnington’s continued reluctance to produce unrefined propaganda articles on East German topics led his hosts to discuss replacing him with a correspondent who would be more compliant.346 Apart from journalists such as Peet and Winnington, members of the CPGB’s historians’ group also took an interest in the GDR. The group’s journal, Our History, published a pamphlet entitled ‘Problems of the German Antifascist Resistance’ in the spring of 1966. Its author, Allan Merson, subsequently published a monograph on the same topic.347 From an East German perspective, the importance of the pamphlet was in its identification of the GDR as the legitimate heir of workers’ resistance to Hitler, rather than the prevalent Western view that the regime was a Soviet satellite. According to Merson: The study of the resistance shows, contrary to what is generally assumed without argument in the West, that the GDR has deep roots in the experience of the antifascist resistance. It was the bitter lesson of the price paid for working-class disunity that led the majority of Social Democratic workers in eastern Germany … to insist on union with the communists after 1945.348

The British communist and historian Eric Hobsbawm also had a range of contacts with East German researchers. Hobsbawm had been politicised as a young man, when he lived in Berlin from 1931 until the Nazis were handed power in 1933. During the 1930s, when he attended Cambridge University, and during the war years, he maintained contact with German exiles, a number of whom were communists. After 1945 East Germany was not a burning issue firing his personal or academic interests, but Hobsbawm’s sympathies lay with the ‘other’ Germany, which he thought should be recognised by 345 Alan Winnington, ‘Adenauer Rages as GDR Closes the Border’, Daily Worker, 14.8.1961; idem, ‘Adenauer Seeks Ban on Trade with Russia’, Daily Worker, 15.8.1961; idem, ‘Berlin – a Time Bomb that Must Never Go Off’, Daily Worker, 16.8.1961. 346 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV A2/20/471, ‘Arbeitsgruppe Auslandsinformation an Norden’, 13.7.1964, 211–13. 347 A. Merson. 1985. Communist Resistance in Nazi Germany, London: Lawrence and Wishart. 348 A. Merson. 1966. Problems of the German Antifascist Resistance, London: History Workshop, 26, in LSE Pamphlet Collection D8.S6.41.

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the West. His contacts with East German historians were primarily academic, although professional contacts also cemented private friendships. Kuczynski, whom Hobsbawm regarded as a ‘good friend’, invited him to sit on the editorial board of the Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte.349 Hobsbawm first visited the GDR in 1956, when he attended events in Berlin’s Humboldt University and in Jena. He also helped the young East German historian of Britain, Siegfried Bünger, to obtain a visa making research in Britain possible. Subsequently, Hobsbawm sat on the committee examining Bünger’s advanced doctorate (Habilitation). His wider contacts with East German scholars included Ernst Engelberg, who had spent the war in Britain, Gerhard Schilfert, Walter Markov and Manfred Kossock. He counted the painter Georg Eisler among his friends. The problems of writing history in the GDR did not escape Hobsbawm, who later recalled how these historians were professionally competent and personally honest. But he also clearly recognised that their work suffered from the fact that no criticism of the party was permitted and that the party gave out the guidelines on how history was to be written. The tight constraints imposed by the SED prompted feelings of ‘sympathy for the [GDR] historians, because they were being pushed about all the time’ – conditions hardly conducive to academic innovation. Through his own pioneering work in the field of social history, Hobsbawm also met Fritz Klein and Hartmut Zwahr, in his view one of the most independent and innovative of East German historians, whom he helped to attend conferences in the West. Yet the process was a one-way street; Hobsbawm’s books were not translated in East Germany and their content was criticised by the more ideologically narrow SED historians. From the 1960s, Hobsbawm developed closer relations with the West German ‘Bielefeld school’ of historians – around such leading lights as Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Jürgen Kocka and Wolfgang Mommsen – whose work he considered to have a greater affinity with his own. None of these reservations, however, prevented an evident degree of sympathy for the East German underdog, even a soft spot for the trials and tribulations of the ‘socialist’ Germany. Hobsbawm recalled how: One always had a sort of slight tenderness for East Germany because you knew where they came from in some ways. Appalling character though Ulbricht was, I could see that East Germany was in some ways the dream of an old social democratic or communist official from the old days. … 349 For a positive assessment of Kuczynski see also E. Hobsbawm. 2002. Interesting Times. A Twentieth-Century Life, London: Allen Lane, 45 f.

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What one did not quite realise was the complete pervasiveness of this extraordinary police apparatus. … And, of course, it became increasingly clear that economically speaking, East Germany wasn’t viable. But I never bought the idea that it was a gigantic gulag, and people were constantly chivvied around and controlled. … It was enormously kleinbürgerlich. I wasn’t necessarily against that because in some ways it was much more the old Germany. I remember feeling that very much in Jena. But it was a kind of sentimental reaction.350

As Hobsbawm’s case illustrates, many British communists had mixed feelings about the GDR, even if they tended to be outwardly loyal to the communist ally. Ideological differences, the high-handed approach of the SED and the problems of facilitating personal contact all hindered the development of extensive contacts between the two parties.

‘Bourgeois’ Political Parties While interest in the ‘other Germany’ was at its most intense among members of the British Left, the Liberal and Conservative Parties also had a stance on the GDR. The Liberal Party passed a resolution at its 1961 party conference which foresaw a de facto recognition of the GDR in exchange for Soviet guarantees for a free West Berlin.351 Members of the West German FDP, who attended the 1961 congress as fraternal delegates, walked out of the conference hall in protest over this decision.352 The leader of the Liberal Party between 1956 and 1967, Jo Grimond (MP for Orkney and Shetland 1950–83), presented a three-points-plan to overcome the latest crisis in Berlin as early as August 1961. It also incorporated a de facto recognition of the GDR.353 In 1962 the young David Steel (MP for Tweeddale 1965–83; Ettrick and Lauderdale 1983–97), who was to lead the Liberals between 1976 and 1988, expressed his rejection of ‘actually existing socialism’ following a visit to East Berlin, but at the same time he argued that realpolitik demanded the recognition of the 350 Interview with Eric Hobsbawm, 14.2.2001. See also Hobsbawm, Interesting Times, 149: ‘The new society they were building was not a bad society …’ 351 ‘Motion for the de facto recognition of East Germany at the Edinburgh conference, 21 Sept. 1961’, in London School of Economics Archive, Liberal Party Archives, [henceforth: LPA-LSE], file 16/76. 352 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA, A 13092, ‘Bericht über Reisen und Gespräche mit Herrn Donald Fletcher Burden anlässlich seines Aufenthalts in der DDR vom 14.2.–22.2,.1963’, 1–4), 2. 353 LPA-LSE, L.N., 31, ‘Grimond’s 3-Point-Plan for Berlin, August 1961; also, ibid., ‘Grimond on the Berlin Crisis (1960)’.

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second German state: ‘The DDR is a fact and we must make politics with facts and not with ghosts.’354 Grimond in particular was to become one of the most high-profile advocates of dialogue with communist Eastern Europe during the 1960s. He expressed considerable understanding and even sympathy for the communist regimes in a little brochure entitled Eastern Europe Today, which was published by the Manchester Guardian in 1966. Their key characteristic he identified as ‘a Victorian belief in improvement’. He found that ‘the equality is impressive. The class system is gone.’ He admired the provision of high culture for the masses and expressed delight at the absence of the excesses of a Western consumerist culture: ‘Certainly one must wish that life would grow gayer and easier and freer in the Communist world. But surely, to go through the traumatic experiences of the last 50 years only to succumb to Coca-Cola and chewing gum would be an end not wholly to be desired.’ The planned economy, he argued, was not an economic success, but it had brought full employment and social security for the workers. Communist Eastern Europe, Grimond concluded, did not pose any threat to the Western world and therefore the West should pursue a policy of ‘positive coexistence’. Given all of this, the brutal repression of the Prague Spring in 1968 came as a massive disappointment to Grimond: ‘Communist government on the Russian model has proved to be a return to medieval autocracy complete with the inquisition and the torture chamber. Fear is the dominant emotion of the Russian rulers. They are afraid of light, life, freedom. They cling to their power in darkness and by terror.’ And yet, even after August 1968 Grimond still managed to praise the independent position of Romania, characterising Ceauşescu as ‘one of the best Marxists I met in Eastern Europe’. And Yugoslavia was also presented as hopeful diversion among the communist countries of Eastern Europe: ‘If we believe in democracy, we should be interested in the Yugoslav experiment.’355 Other Liberals who travelled to the GDR and took an interest included Eric Burden, Eric Lubbock and David Steel, all of them MPs at one time or another during the 1960s and early 1970s. Among the Young Liberal leadership, the main figure promoting contact with the GDR was James Brian Reid.356 The party leader, Clement Davies, attended the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1958. Usually Liberals reacted to advances made by the LDPD presenting itself as the Liberals‘ East 354 LPA-LSE, file 16/76, David Steel, ‘Report on Visit to Berlin 7–9 April 1962’, (1–5), 2. 355 Jo Grimond, ‘The Right Response’, Guardian, 26.8.1968. 356 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, PA AA, MfAA C 141, ‘Bericht über die Betreuung einer Delegation der Nationalen Leitung der Young Liberals aus Großbritannien anläßlich des 10. Parteitages ����������������������������������������������� der LDPD’, 14.12.1967, (64–71), 64.

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German ‘sister party‘ and inviting them to visit the country and attend their party conferences. Burden in particular was strongly in favour of recognition and supported cultural contacts and trade relations in the hope that they would contribute to détente. But he remained unsympathetic to ‘socialist democracy‘ and had no illusions about the LDPD being anything other than an ‘appendage‘ of the SED.357 Lubbock was also in favour of recognition and was against any reunification of the two Germanys as this would amount to ‘a dangerous unbalancing force, capable of destroying the fragile peace of the world.‘358 When visiting the GDR in 1971, he was full of praise for the GDR‘s social, educational and industrial policies and praised the country‘s stance on apartheid in South Africa and the opposition to the Vietnam War.359 Steel was also an active proponent of recognition and keen to promote détente, yet at the same time critical of the lack of democracy in the GDR. The latter sentiments were shared by other Liberals, less willing to find themselves enamoured by ‘actually existing socialism’. When the GDR attempted to woo Jeremy Thorpe, he responded to a telegram congratulating him on his re-election in 1970 thus: ‘I look forward to the day when elections in the GDR will be contested when I hope that some real liberals will be successful in defeating both Socialist and non-Socialist opponents.‘360 Among Conservatives, the MP for South Dorset, Lord Hinchingbrooke, had argued as early as February 1956 in a parliamentary debate on trade with Eastern Europe that it was time for Britain to recognise the GDR.361 In August 1961 Hinchingbrooke happened to be visiting the GDR when the wall went up in Berlin. He was received by Gerhard Weiss, the deputy minister for foreign trade. Together with Richard Crossman he also met the president of the Volkskammer, Dieckmann. Once again he went on record to demand formal recognition of the GDR.362 Conservatives, such as Hinchingbrooke and Drayson, put the argument of trade top of the list of their arguments as to why East Germany should be recognised. Overall, however, and compared with the much more lively interest in the GDR among the British Left, the ‘bourgeois’ political parties had relatively negligeable interests in the socialist Germany. In 357 PA AA, MfAA A 13092, ‘[Letter] D. Fletcher Burden to Dr Müller’, 21.5.1963. 358 PA AA, MfAA C 141, Eric Lubbock, ‘Report to Jeremy Thorpe on my visit to the GDR, October 15–19, 1967’, 30.10.1967, (44–48), 44. 359 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, MfAA C 217/73, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt von Mr. und Mrs Lubbock vom 6.1.1971’, 12.2.1971, (14–19), 16–17; and ibid., ‘Lubbock: Radio Berlin International interview’, [1971], 11–13. 360 PA AA, MfAA C 180/73, ‘Letter [unsigned: Jeremy Thorpe’s Political Secretary] to Gerhard Lindner’, 30.6.1970, 18–19. 361 ������������������������������������� PAL, Hansard, 27.2.1956, col. 922–26. 362 ‘Volkskammer Man Sees MPs’, The Times, 14.8.1961.

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the absence of any ideological affinities, it was either concern with international politics or trade which motivated a small minority among Conservatives and Liberals to concern themselves with the GDR.

A Marxist–Christian Dialogue? British Churches and the GDR The suppression of the churches in the GDR became a major issue of contention in the regime’s relations with the West. As we have seen above, East Berlin was surprisingly successful in ‘proving’ to British visitors, including churchmen, that there was ‘freedom of religion’ in the GDR. Yet this did little to alter wider Western perceptions. The dominant view in the Christian West was of an atheist Soviet Union and its satellite states persecuting their religious communities. Christian ‘civilisation’ was contrasted with godless communist ‘barbarism’. Church magazines and newsletters tended to be fervently anti-communist, with regular articles on the repression of the Churches behind the Iron Curtain.363 However, a minority group within the churches sought to merge the messages of Christianity and Marxism, believing that both were compatible in their concerns for the poor and the underprivileged.364 Marxist Christians were keen to open up dialogue with communist Eastern Europe including the GDR, where intellectuals, such as Leszek Kolakowski also stressed the similarities in ethical outlook between Christianity and Marxism. In 1958 the Prague Christian Peace Conference was established as a counterweight to Western ecumenical bodies. Its remit included countering negative perceptions of the Soviet bloc. It was explicitly endorsed by the communist states of Eastern Europe, but it also included representatives from Western churches, among whom Marxist Christians were particularly prominent.365 During the 1950s, a number of British churchmen began to develop an interest in the GDR. Most prominent among them were the Church of England Canon, Paul Oestreicher, and the Catholic priest and antinuclear campaigner, John Collins.366 In 1962 Collins visited the GDR 363 I. Jones. 2002. ‘The Clergy, the Cold War and the Mission of the Local Church; England, ca. 1945–1960’, in D. Kirby (ed.), Religion and the Cold War, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 188–99. 364 D. McLellan. 1987. Marxism and Religion, Basingstoke: Macmillan; A. Macintyre. 1969. Marxism and Christianity, London: Gerald Duckworth. 365 M. Thomas. 2002. ‘The Evangelical Church in the GDR’, in P. Major and J. Osmond (eds), The Workers’ and Peasants’ State, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 217 and note 24. 366 On Collins see T. Huddleston and D. Collins. 1992. Partners in Protest. Life with Canon Collins, London: Gollancz.

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as guest of the Peace Council in his capacity as chairman of CND.367 His contacts with the GDR, in similar manner to Oestreicher, made him an active supporter of the regime’s recognition by the West.368 Both remained critical of the many limitations imposed on church life behind the Berlin Wall, but, motivated by a genuine desire for peace and rejection of the West’s Cold War propaganda, they entered into a dialogue with the communist regime as well as the religious communities in the GDR. Indeed, retaining their Christian faith in the face of state-sanctioned discrimination was held up as a sacrifice of conviction to be commended and supported. Working through the British Council of Churches, British Christians of various denominations began to build up a network of contacts with leading East German churchmen. Paul Oestreicher is a particularly apt example of a British churchman with extensive interests in and contacts with East Germany, an interest at least partly motivated by his keen desire to fuse the powers of Christianity and Marxism.369 This is also why his case is introduced here at some length. Paul Oestreicher’s Jewish origins forced his family to flee Nazi Germany for New Zealand, where he studied politics at university. After receiving a prestigious Alexander von Humboldt scholarship in 1955/56, he attended the University of Bonn in West Germany, where he wrote a doctorate on the Marxist-Christian dialogue. Like many of the other British citizens who engaged with the GDR, Oestreicher was not impressed by 1950s and early 1960s West Germany. Reflecting on the time he spent in Bonn, Oestreicher recounted how, ‘Nobody wanted to talk about the past. It was entirely Wirtschaftswunder and an un-reflected kind of anti-socialism, anti-communism in the Adenauer era.’370 In terms of personal experience, Oestreicher had been treated much worse by the GDR. In 1956, after visiting his Jewish grandmother, who lived ‘suspiciously’ near the German– German border, he was arrested by the East German authorities, 367 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 186 368 Collins joined a number of ‘prominent personalities’ in the Committee for the Recognition of the GDR. See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/464/2171, ‘Committee for the Recognition of the GDR. Report of Meeting Held in Room “D”, House of Commons, 11 April 1973’, (1–3), 2. 369 P. Oestreicher. 1968. ‘Christians and Communists in Search of Man’, in J. Klugmann and P. Oestreicher (eds), What Kind of Revolution? A Christian– Communist Dialogue, London: Panther books, 192–206. 370 The following quotes are all from an interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000. See also his autobiographical writings, in particular, idem. 1994. Aufs Kreuz gelegt. ������������������������������������������ Erfahrungen eines kämpferischen Pazifisten, Berlin: Wichern-Verlag; idem., ‘Reale Christen im Realen Sozialismus. Ostdeutsche Erfahrungen 1945–1990’, in epd-Dokumentation, Nr. 41a/94, 1–12, copy in Evangelische Zentral Archiv, Berlin [henceforth: EZA], and ‘Ostdeutsche Gespräche im Kalten Krieg. ���� Von Ulbricht bis Honecker 1956–1990’, Deutschland Archiv 37 (6), 1005–12.

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accused of spying and handed over to the KGB. Released after three days of interrogation, he resolved ‘not to be beaten by this experience … [Instead] the GDR became almost my main subject of study from then onwards’. Oestreicher recalled how ‘having gone through this negative experience in the GDR, I was determined to get to know it better, but, I was always critical of it’. Bet­ween 1961 and 1964, Oestreicher worked together with Erich Fried at the German Service of the BBC, broadcasting a left-wing-inflected criticism of the regime from a religious perspective. In 1964, he was appointed East European Secretary of the BCC, remaining the spiritus rector in this field of church-based foreign relations until the end of the 1980s. Although Oestreicher was refused entry into the Soviet Union and the Czech Republic, where he was persona non grata, no such restrictions were imposed by the GDR – a state he visited a total of seventy-six times. During these visits, he was able to develop relations with both state officials and church people, including those critical of the regime. He attended OstCDU conferences,371 and was generally able to develop an impressive network of contacts with both dissidents and representatives of the GDR. Oestreicher was the single most prominent player in maintaining and developing relations between the two churches, an achievement undoubtedly assisted by his command of the German language. His involvement extended from organising the visits to East Germany by the Archbishops of Canterbury through exchanges between the BCC and EKB to the ill-fated attempts to set up youth and student exchanges. Among his contacts Oestreicher could count the leading figures in the EKB, Stolpe and Schönherr, and the Secretary of State for Church Affairs, Hans Seigewasser. In addition to these contacts with leading members of the East German church and state, he was also debriefed by the British Foreign Office. Oestreicher’s near omnipresence in what he termed ‘non-governmental diplomacy’ in the Cold War world, almost inevitably meant that some of his contacts turned out to be Stasi agents. One of these was HansJoachim Seidowsky, an influential official in church–state relations who had worked for the Stasi since the 1950s.372 Oestreicher sympathised most with individuals willing to talk to the state while retaining a degree of ‘critical distance’. Those he felt were best able to walk this political tightrope included Jan 371 M. Thomas. 2005. ‘Loving Thy Neighbour: Christian–Marxist Dialogue and Cold War Politics in Britain and the GDR’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 173–86. 372 ������������������������� EZA 101/1440, F. Moderow, ‘Überlegungen zur Frage künftiger Beziehungen zu den Kirchen in Großbritannien’, October 1973. Seidowsky �������������������������� is also treated extensively in Thomas, Communing with the Enemy.

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Krusche, the Bishop of Magdeburg, and Heino Falcke, chairman of the Association of Evangelical Churches’ (BEK) Commission on State and Society. Falcke, in particular, he regarded as a ‘mentor’ and source of inspiration. Discussing his own position in the relationship between Britain and the GDR, Oestreicher saw himself as ‘the symbolic bit of the church scene that was both part of the British left and that related integrally to the GDR’. In addition to his extensive involvement in church-based relations, Oestreicher was vice-president of CND and a leading member of END, including its Working Group on East Germany, during the 1980s. Oestreicher’s interest in human rights issues in Eastern Europe also saw him rise to the position of chairman of the British section of Amnesty International (AI), which he joined at its foundation in 1961. AI’s first substantial report about political prisoners in the GDR was published in 1966. Whilst questions of the freedom of religious practice were high on the agenda of AI during the 1960s, the organisation only managed to develop a network of contacts among the GDR dissidents in the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, AI was classified by the GDR as a hostile organisation. The MfS attempted to operate against AI, but it was not successful in influencing AI’s strategy vis-à-vis the GDR. To the contrary, there is evidence that under the public pressure provided by AI, the GDR leadership occasionally was willing to make concessions.373 Yet AI hesitated to escalate the Cold War conflict by criticising the SED regime too harshly. Hence, for example, it never condemned the policy of the GDR to shoot those trying to leave the workers’ and farmers’ state. It thus more or less followed the position of people like Oestreicher, who always privileged dialogue with the communist rulers over confrontation. Looking back on his experiences with the GDR, Oestreicher believed that his links with the GDR turned him into a ‘dissident in the West’; one consequence of this was that his telephone was bugged by MI5. If the British security services were concerned about his support for an East Bloc regime, they need not have concerned themselves. Any admiration for the GDR was largely limited to its aspirations, for example, how the regime’s egalitarianism meant that ‘you could not get any influence through money’ and that there was at least the potential for ‘social justice’. Yet, he was only too well aware that, as a functioning system, ‘actually existing socialism’ was ‘a distortion of socialism … [and a] corrupted system which hurt people enormously’. Any hopes he had held out for political reform came to an abrupt end in 1968, when Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring. And yet his ongoing commitment to dialogue with 373 ��������������� A. Mihr. 2002. Amnesty International in der DDR. ������������������������������� Der Einsatz für Menschenrechte im Visier der Stasi, Berlin : Ch. Links.

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the GDR and Eastern European communist regimes more generally were motivated by the desire to overcome the crude anti-communism of the West and to contribute to a better understanding across the Iron Curtain. 374 One of the best examples of the churches’ Ostpolitik à la Oestreicher was the link between Coventry and Dresden, two cities which were to build up a network of relations as a symbol of their intentions to overcome the legacy of extensive war-time bombing. In 1954, building on earlier links with the Soviet Union, the Lord Mayor set up a Coventry–Dresden Friendship Society after receiving a letter from his East German counterpart.375 The relationship between Dresden and Coventry was in effect the earliest town-twinning arrangement between Britain and the GDR. It was initially dependant on Labour holding a majority on the council. When the Conservatives won a majority in 1968, they broke off relations with Dresden. According to the MfAA’s monitoring of developments, the Conservative councillors had proved receptive to West German pressure to exclude the GDR at local, as well as national, level.376 But the longstanding local MP for Coventry, Richard Crossman, was one of the country’s most prominent advocates of East German recognition. He remained active in his support of local links throughout his political career.377 The Coventry Committee for International Understanding worked together with its sister organisation in Dresden to facilitate teachers’ delegations and a range of cultural exchanges, including exhibitions, performances of theatre companies, and orchestras. Relations between Coventry Cathedral and Christians in the GDR were particularly prominent. One of the most famous and one of the earliest initiatives came in 1965, when a group of young people from Coventry participated in a project to rebuild a hospital largely destroyed in the British air raids on Dresden in 1945. In what was a highly unusual development for the time, young British Christians mixed freely with their counterparts in the all-German Christian organisation, Aktion Sühnezeichen, for eight months, with visas permitting nationwide travel. Initially, the Very Reverend Bill Williams of Coventry Cathedral had conceived of the undertaking as part of an idealistic, non-political project to ‘heal the wounds of history’. However, caught in the crossfire of conflicting British, West 374 Interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000. 375 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 235. 376 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ PA AA, MfAA C 159/73, ‘Quartalsbericht I/69. Großbritannien. Abt. Westeuropa, Sekt. Großbritannien’, 8.4.1969, (�������������� pp.����������� 76–77), 77. 377 See above, pp. 61f, 69, 80f, 98f.

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and East German objectives, the project soon ground to a halt.378 And yet the links between Coventry Cathedral and the Protestant church in Dresden remained prominent. By 1970 Coventry Cathedral hoped that, ‘If we avoid the political pitfalls, we can surely start something, when underway, that will have its own momentum and dynamic, both for better East–West Christian–Marxist understanding, and also provide a “window on the wider world” for our friends in Dresden’.379 Oestreicher, and many other British participants involved in exchanges with Dresden, such as Brian Cooper, were under no illusion about the actual political objectives of the hard-line SED officials. Indeed, much of their energy was put into establishing ‘unofficial’ contacts with people outside the ranks of the handpicked apparatschiks selected to represent the GDR. They wanted to open up a window towards the West for the East German religious community whose believers suffered for their faith behind the Berlin Wall.380 As far as many churchmen were concerned, this was also the purpose of the Coventry–Dresden link as well as other less spectacular initiatives involving the churches. The most important institutional relationship between British and East German churches ran through the British Council of Churches (BCC) and the East German Association of Protestant Churches (BEK). In 1963, as part of a state-sanctioned relaxation aimed at overcoming the international isolation in the aftermath of building the Berlin Wall, Bishop Krummacher spent two weeks in Britain as the guest of the BCC. The return visit in 1964 marked the first officially sanctioned visit to East Germany by the BCC. It understood its contacts with churches behind the Iron Curtain as an attempt to help them overcome their isolation.381 After a series of discussions with Bishop Albrecht Schönherr throughout 1968,382 a second BCC delegation headed by the Council’s General Secretary, Bishop Sansbury, arrived in East Berlin in December 1969. The impact of 378 This has been investigated in great detail by M. Thomas. 2005. Communing with the Enemy. Covert Operations, Christianity and Cold War Politics in Britain and the GDR, Bern: Peter Lang, who also stressed the important, if somewhat shadowy role played by Crossman in this story. For the contacts between Coventry and Dresden, including the organisation of teachers’ exchanges, see also the correspondence in ACC, CCN Box 22. 379 ACC, Box 5, File 10, Brian Cooper, ‘Report on a Visit to Dresden to Investigate the Possibilities of Christian–Marxist Dialogue, 26.8–1.9.1970, (1–10), 2. zxc–cc. 380 Ibid. Cooper, who was a lecturer in General Studies at Coventry University, was in Dresden between 26 August and 1 September 1970 specifically to investigate the possibilities of a Christian–Marxist dialogue. 381 M. Thomas, ‘The Evangelical Church in the GDR’, 220. 382 For Schönherr’s career in the GDR as a ‘diplomatic bishop’, see his obituary by Paul Oestreicher, ‘Bishop Albrecht Schönherr’, in The Guardian 3.4.2009.

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the Prague Spring had initiated a renewed tightening of state control over the East German churches’ international contacts.383 However, East Berlin’s approval for the visit should be seen in the context of attempts by the SED and by Bishop Schönherr to end the longstanding confrontation between state and church in the GDR.384 Document­ation of the delegation’s stage-managed visit to the province of Saxony-Anhalt indicates clearly just how much the state intervened to ensure that the series of meetings with representatives from local churches and the East German CDU went smoothly.385 From the East German perspective, the visit by eminent British churchmen was a great ‘diplomatic success’ – not least as Western opinion was so consistently critical of the lack of religious freedoms in the East. Oestreicher, a member of the delegation, informed his hosts that, ‘Back home we will report on the successes of your state and promote deepening relations between our two countries.’386 Oestreicher was not alone in his readiness to look for the best in an imperfect East German state. Reflecting on his experiences in the GDR, Professor Gordon Rupp, a past president of the Methodist Conference and a leading Lutheran scholar, stated that he had ‘got to know Marxists with whom I feel more closely connected in the fundamental question of our age, in taking action for world peace, than with certain representatives of Christianity.’387 In November 1970, the return visit by the BEK under Walter Pabst, the head of ecumenical affairs, illustrated how East German churchmen had become increasingly drawn into the demands of the state-led campaign for recognition. In an interview published in a church newsletter, Pabst discussed how the delegation attracted considerable media attention, which allowed him to present the British people with a positive picture of the social role of the ‘churches in socialism’. The interview concludes with Pabst informing his readers that, ‘We [the delegation] cherish the hope that the visit by our church delegation has also contributed to improvements and a normalisation in relations’.388 Apart from the BCC, the Society of Friends (Quakers) was extremely active in furthering East–West relations during the Cold 383 See the reports in ACC Box G5, file 10. 384 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� EZA 102/270, Walter Pabst, ‘Aktenvermerk über eine Unterredung in der Internationalen Abteilung des Britischen Kirchenrats’, 28.9.1969, (1–2), 1. 385 LHA-AM, BPA, Halle IV/ 2/14/1581, ‘Information über den Besuch einer Delegation prominenter englischer Kirchenvertreter in der DDR’, 27.11.1969’, (1–2). 386 Hans Seigewasser, ‘Für Vertiefte Beziehungen’, Neue Zeit, 16.12.1969. 387 Ibid. 388 ‘Ein ENA-Interview mit Oberkirchenrat Pabst: Eindrücke vom Besuch der DDRKirchendelegation in Großbritannien’, in Evangelischer Nachrichtendienst, XXIII, 48, 2.12.1970, 14–15.

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War. It had its own East–West Relations Committee, founded in 1950, which was responsible for pursuing dialogue with communist Eastern Europe. Its interest lay in particular in allowing contact among young people and in overcoming the fear and suspicion aroused by Cold War propaganda on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It organised conferences for diplomats after 1952 as well as work camps and diverse work and study projects in Eastern Europe, and it participated in the communist world youth festival movement.389 In 1963 and 1964 two delegations from the Quakers visited East Germany in order to break through what it perceived as a wall of ideas, attitudes and ideologies. They heavily promoted the possibilities of trade with East Germany and criticised the Western governments’ refusal to grant travel visas to officials from the GDR. The delegation concluded that ‘the GDR has made considerable progress’ in providing consumer goods for its citizens, raising incomes and providing education and social security for all as well as good working conditions and excellent health care. Such positive views were counterbalanced by the observation that ‘there was widespread apprehension and discontent among people living in the GDR. … There seemed to be wide frustration at the monotony and greyness of living’, and support for the regime was perceived as low. Attempts to curtail Christian activities and actively discriminate against Christians were criticised, although the potential for a Christian– Marxist dialogue was also stressed. Talks with the Peace Council turned out to be disappointing, as there was no real willingness for dialogue on the side of the GDR.390 Yet this visit to the GDR was not the only contact of the Quakers with the ‘other Germany’, but the start of a more comprehensive interest. Unfortunately, however, the Society of Friends did not give the authors permission to consult their archives, which is why the full story of the Quaker contacts in East Germany cannot be told here. In establishing and developing contacts with Eastern Europe, churchmen such as Oestreicher were always also motivated by their desire to contribute to détente and by a concern to maintain peace in Europe. They thus were part and parcel of a Western peace movement which saw dialogue with communist Eastern Europe as an important means of overcoming the tensions of the Cold War which, it was feared, would lead to a hot war. 389 For a summary of the activities of the Society of Friends’ East–West Relations Committee see J. Miller.1965. No Cloak, No Dagger. Recent Quaker Experiences in East-West Encounters, London: Society of Friends, East–West Relations Committee. 390 Society of Friends. 1964. Journey through a Wall. London: Society of Friends.

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The Peace Movement and the GDR In 1949, the World Peace Council was set up in Moscow as a communist front-organisation in order to disseminate pro-Soviet propaganda on issues relating to peace, rearmament, and security. Among its affiliated organisations were the British Peace Committee and the East German Peace Council (Friedensrat). In Britain, the Peace Committee was initially headed by D.N. Pritt before the chairmanship was taken over by Gordon Schaffer. Its main role in British–GDR relations was furnishing the Peace Council with contacts among peace campaigners in Britain, who could be invited to visit East Germany.391 Although presented as ‘independent’ by East Berlin, it was instructed and largely directed by the SED and its state institutions. Its membership totalled some three hundred individuals, all of whom were appointed by the GDR authorities; they were drawn from the bloc parties, the mass organisations and prominent figures in public life. The Peace Council’s publications included the journal Searchlight on Germany and the monthly bulletin International, which was translated into five languages. Whilst the GDR tried hard to make contact with CND, which, after all, was developing rapidly into a ‘global model’ for peace movements everywhere,392 there is little evidence in the CND archives that the organisation had much contact with the GDR after it was founded in 1958. As late as 1979 CND declined to send an official delegation to the GDR.393 The GDR Peace Council had to make do with more sympathetic representatives of the peace movement. It was delighted with the left-wing documentary made on CND’s famous Aldermarston antinuclear march in 1959 by the Film and Television Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, which brought together members of the Communist and Labour parties and people of pacifist predilections. The film was awarded a gold medal at the tenth anniversary meeting of the World Peace Council in Stockholm in 1959. Its 1960 premier in the GDR, however, did not escape the censors’ scissors. Additions were made to the film’s introduction, one cut was made and the remainder was thoroughly checked to ensure compliance with East Berlin’s official line.394 391 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 184–87. 392 L.S. Wittner. 1993. The Struggle Against the Bomb, vol. 2: Resisting the Bomb. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954–1970, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 196. 393 See Harvester Primary Social Sources. The Left in Britain, Part Five, CND Archives. Section One: 1958–1972, Harvester Press Microform Publications Ltd, 1984. 394 Hogenkamp, Film, Television and the Left, 1950–1970, 56–58.

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In Britain, at both local and national level, churchmen played prominent roles in the peace movement of the 1950s and early 1960s. CND was led by John Collins. His successor, Bruce Kent, was also a Catholic priest. Among the leading members of the British Peace Committee was Hewlett Johnson, the ‘red’ Dean of Canterbury, who was a past winner of the Stalin prize.395 He was also a leading light in the pioneering town-twinning relationship between Coventry and Dresden, in which Paul Oestreicher, later to become Canon of Coventry Cathedral, also played a prominent role. Oestreicher was also closely involved in Christian CND and, later on, in END. Many of those churchmen were situated on the political left, and they cooperated closely with representatives from the British labour movement in attempting to keep the channels of dialogue with communist Eastern Europe open in the hope of preventing political distance degenerating into nuclear denouement. During the later 1950s and early 1960s the peace movement in Britain was deeply concerned about West German access to nuclear weapons. It was an issue which occupied Labour and trades union congresses. In 1960 the TUC Congress adopted a resolution stating that, owing to the ‘continued presence of Nazi ideology in Bonn’, Britain should oppose the Federal Republic’s access to nuclear weapons. In 1961, Congress went a stage further, calling for an end to the training of West German troops on British soil.396 Within the Labour Party, Labour Action for Peace (LAP) became the most prominent pressure group to campaign for peace. One of the LAP’s leading lights, the Labour MP for Salford East from 1955 until 1983, Frank Allaun, was a politician in the mould of Zilliacus, with a belief in the peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union. Typical of his generation of left-wing Labourites, Allaun’s pro-Soviet sympathies had been cemented by a visit to Russia during the 1930s. In line with the Bevanite concept of reducing international tensions to enable Britain to foster socialist reforms at home, Allaun led a ‘bathrooms not bombs’ campaign in the 1950s. His anti-Americanism – a similarly typical feature of the Labour Left – was confirmed and reinforced as a consequence of the Vietnam War during the 1960s.397 Annual reports compiled by the East German Ministry of Foreign Affairs at this time indicate that close attention was paid by the GDR 395 Among his many writings see in particular H. Johnson. 1947. Soviet Success. London: Hutchinson; idem. 1956. Christians and Communism, London: Putnam; idem. 1955. Eastern Europe in the Socialist World, London: Lawrence and Wishart; idem. 1968. Searching for Light. An Autobiography, London: Joseph. 396 For details, see TUC Annual Congress (1957 to 1961). 397 F. Allaun. 2000. The Struggle for Peace: A Personal Account of 60 Years Campaigning. Inside and Outside Parliament, Manchester: Labour Action for Peace.

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to the British peace movement.398 Indeed, the strong involvement of the CPGB and of communist trade unionists within CND, the British Peace Council and LAP, seemed like a fertile seedbed of support for the ‘peace policies’ advanced by the Eastern Bloc in an otherwise barren political landscape.

Conclusion During the period 1955 to 1973 the GDR, in its dealings with Britain, was primarily concerned with gaining diplomatic recognition and overcoming the FRG’s Hallstein Doctrine. Britain was seen as a promising case in which to invest time and energy, as its foreign policy elites had recognised that some form of de facto acceptance of the GDR was unavoidable. Especially among the Labour Left, many supported recognition of the GDR for a variety of reasons, including peace, sympathy for ‘actually existing socialism’ and overcoming the Cold War. The Labour Left together with communist trade unionists became the backbone of GDR support in Britain. By contrast the small Communist Party of Great Britain was regarded with a certain amount of disdain, as it was seen as insignificant and ideologically suspect. The strong British peace movement, the Marxist Christians among British churches and the trade unions were all far more important social actors within Britain who became the target of GDR attempts to further its goal of diplomatic recognition. Whilst the GDR made important headway with its main ambition, it always suffered from an acutely negative image in British public opinion. Hence it spent considerable energies in propagating a more positive view of the GDR’s ‘socialist achievements’ whilst simultaneously attempting to discredit the FRG as bulwark of Nazism, militarism and reactionary sentiments. As we argued above, it was more successful in discrediting the FRG than in promoting itself. The GDR’s image was also powerfully underpinned by its functional use of trade as a means to further recognition. In particular the Leipzig fairs were an important meeting place, where the GDR hoped to break its diplomatic isolation. And indeed, the GDR’s trade mission in London can be described as its proto-embassy. Yet, in the continued absence of official diplomatic links between the two countries, a special role was occupied by the Britain–GDR friendship society which promoted a wide range of political, social, educational and cultural links between the two countries. The setting up of a Parliamentary Friendship Committee Britain-GDR in parliament was important in 398 See, for example, the reports in PA AA MfAA, C 159/73.

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furthering institutional links between the British parliament and the Volkskammer. Ironically, it was the building of the Berlin Wall which created so much moral outrage, but at the same time convinced many people in Britain that it would be impossible to ignore the existence of a second German state forever. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s the argument for some form of recognition became louder and more compelling. Yet official British policy was always careful to stay one step behind West German policies, even if British foreign policy enthusiastically supported Brandt’s Neue Ostpolitik, which put into practice what had been the common sense of British foreign policy for a long time, namely that dialogue was the surest means of achieving progress in East–West relations.

Chapter 3

Normalisation of Relations and New Beginnings, 1973–1979

When official recognition of the GDR by Britain finally came about, it did so as a consequence of the Basic Treaty of 1972 between the two Germanys and was swiftly followed by the setting up of official diplomatic relations. The Western allies of the FRG, including Britain had, by and large, stayed carefully one step behind West Germany’s Ostpolitik and it was only after the FRG had signalled its willingness to recognise the GDR in negotiations which started in 1970, that other Western states, including Britain, followed suit. This chapter begins by discussing the role of the GDR’s diplomatic representation in London and Britain’s diplomatic representation in East Berlin, before it goes on to analyse both the successes and the continued shortcomings of the GDR’s policies vis-à-vis Britain, including political contacts, trade relations and the ongoing image problem of the GDR in Britain. As in previous chapters, we will again ask what motivated British public figures to engage with GDR officials. We will follow the development of the Britain–GDR Society which, as we shall see, did not lose its importance for the GDR even after recognition. The main players in the Society continued to be Communists and we shall analyse the relations between the sister parties of SED and CPGB. The Biermann and Bahro cases caused considerable interest in Britain and we will trace the repercussions of those ‘affairs’ on British–GDR relations. During the 1960s Christian Marxists had been instrumental in developing a dialogue between Christian churches in Britain and the GDR. In the 1970s these contacts expanded, as did the ones between the British peace movement and the GDR. The setting up of official relations in 1973 also allowed for the development of institutional links between British and East German universities

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which will be examined below. Contacts were not restricted to the world of higher education but also included teacher exchanges supported by the British Council on the British side. Those exchanges often led to teachers with communist sympathies accepting jobs in the GDR and this chapter will ask what their experiences were and how they came to perceive the GDR. If, regardless of ideological differences and tensions, communist comrades in Britain proved to be supportive of the GDR, it was the left wing of the Labour Party which had traditionally held out the greatest promise of influence in British society for GDR representatives. Hence the chapter will continue to trace the relationship between the SED and the Labour Party, and it will conclude by commenting on the development of trade union relations in the post-recognition period.

Embassies at Last: The Role of Diplomatic Representation in British–GDR Relations The formal negotiations surrounding the taking up of diplomatic relations were short, almost perfunctory. In November 1972, when the East German Foreign Minister, Otto Winzer, was first invited by the Foreign Office, he was received as a private individual. Official negotiations followed between 23 January and 8 February 1973. Problems over British property rights in East Berlin and the special status of Berlin remained thorny issues throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but did not prevent the speedy conclusion of the talks. By April, the East German embassy in London and the British embassy in East Berlin were up and running. The British embassy employed thirty-seven staff; in a mood of optimism, it was anticipated that this figure would almost double to seventy. Yet, in 1989/90, when the embassy closed, its staff had fallen to nine – symbolising the persistent difficulties in developing bilateral relations. Indeed, a central element of the embassy’s work was monitoring the regime’s human rights abuses. Reports from the embassy focused regularly on diverse forms of dissidence, including the Biermann Ausbürgerung and the Pastor Brüsewitz incident in 1976. Despite this, however, it overvalued the country’s economic performance. After 1973 the Foreign Office was relieved that East Germany’s role as a ‘potential troublemaker’ in Berlin had come to an end. More generally, Britain’s attitude to  National Archives [henceforth: NA] FCO 33/2079, ‘Record of Talks between FCO and GDR Officials on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, 23 Jan. and 8 Feb. 1973’, (1–15), 1.  Ibid., FCO 33/2642, ‘Annual Review for German (East) [1974]’, (1–10), 9.

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German–German relations continued to be informed by a desire to maintain the status quo. According to the first East German ambassador to Britain, KarlHeinz Kern, throughout the 1970s his country’s embassy undertook the task of ‘building up our diplomatic relations from scratch’: setting up consulates, developing cultural and economic relations and, in the decade of détente, promoting peaceful coexistence. Kern, who spoke fluent English and was assessed by the Foreign Office as being ‘shrewd’, ‘tough’, ‘very correct and punctilious’ with a ‘rather obvious sense of humour’, recalls how the embassy established contacts spanning the political spectrum, from Conservatives to Communists. In his experience contacts with Conservatives were often easier, as their position was less ambiguous: an ideological opposition to communism was tempered by an interest in doing business with the GDR. Importantly, they also tended to favour the existence of two Germanys. The embassy was proactive in the construction of this network of political contacts, targeting senior politicians known to be interested in contacts with East Germany. In 1979, for example, the former Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, agreed to discuss peace-related issues with Kern. Crucially, however, Kern stressed that bilateral relations were never able to break free from Bonn’s influence in what remained a triangular relationship. East German claims to have always maintained strict adherence to a policy of non-intervention in Britain’s internal affairs is more dubious. Admittedly no East German official ever spoke on the record about any controversial development in British domestic or foreign policy, including the Falkland’s War and the miners’ strike of 1984/85, while Britain made regular official statements condemning human rights abuses behind the Berlin Wall and raised concerns about political prisoners. But the GDR did provide much needed, if 

C. Munro. 1992. ‘The Acceptance of a Second German State’, in A. Birke and G. Heydemann (eds), Großbritannien und Ostdeutschland seit 1918, Munich: Saur, 122. On the early phase of diplomatic relations between the two countries see also Marianne Howarth. 2007. ‘Vom Kalten Krieg zum “Kalten Frieden”. Diplomatische Beziehungen zwischen Großbritannien und der DDR 1972/73 – 1975’, in P. Barker, M.-D. Ohse and D. Tate (eds). Views from Abroad – Die DDR aus britischer Perspektive, Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.  Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001.  NA, FCO, 33/2081, ‘Confidential Brief for Visit of Mr. H. Soelle, December 1973’.  SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, ‘[Letter] Edward Heath to Karl-Heinz Kern’, 23.3.1979.  On the Falkland War, see R. Oschmann. 2005. ‘The Unknown and Unloved Germans from the East: Memories of a GDR Foreign Correspondent in the Thatcher Years’, in S. Berger and N. LaPorte (eds). 2005. The Other Germany. Perceptions and Influences in British–East German Relations, 1945–1990, Augsburg: Wißner, 309–14. For the miners’ strike, see p. 236f below. Interviews with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001 and David Rummelsberg, 16.8.2001.

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hardly decisive, funding for the CPGB and the Britain–GDR Society. More importantly, the East German embassy was embroiled in the spying game. The embassy provided ‘diplomatic cover’ for the Stasi’s foreign intelligence arm, the HVA, to operate in Britain. After the crackdown on KGB intelligence operations run through the Soviet embassy in the early 1970s, the HVA took on a highly significant role in East Bloc operations. In addition to the HVA’s far-reaching penetration of all aspects of the West German state and society, we now know that East German espionage in Britain was much more significant than previously thought. The main focus of these ‘hidden hand’ activities was gaining insights into British and NATO military secrets, the political and diplomatic process and winning influence in organisations and institutions which might help the GDR to further its own foreign policy aims. Importantly, too, the HVA aimed to inform the domestic departments of the Stasi of any links between dissidents at home and foreign citizens. Although West Germany and the USA remained the ‘main targets’ of East German espionage, Britain was ascribed importance because of its prominent role in the Western alliance. The Foreign Office greeted the opening of diplomatic relations with the GDR with relief. Some reports predicted good progress of relations with East Germany,10 even if there was a notion from early on that ‘it will be an uphill task to build a working relationship with Germans working in the GDR’s highly centralised governmental machine.’11 Published opinion in Britain was more divided. Writing in the Times on the eve of recognition, the influential conservative columnist Bernard Levin criticised government policy on the grounds that a basic principle of international law was not to recognise a dependent country – and the GDR clearly was dependent on the Soviet Union. The following day, the newspaper carried a response by Richard Crossman. Crossman did not deny that East Germany’s political authoritarianism was unattractive; but he did deny that it was a Russian colony. His case for recognition emphasised East Germany’s ‘progressive’ social and educational system, the economic ‘success story’ from which British trade could benefit and how the continuing 

A. Glees, ‘The Stasi and UK–GDR Relations’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 77 –90. The British secret service also made use of its embassies in Eastern Europe to participate in the spying game. This was, after all, a game played by both sides.  A. Glees. 2003. The Stasi Files. East Germany’s Secret Operations against Britain, London: Free Press. 10 NA, FCO 33/2361, P.A. Rhodes, ‘The GDR Annual Review 1973: Summary’, (1–2). 11 NA, FCO 33/2361, P.A. Rhodes, ‘Annual Report. Confidential. British Embassy. East Berlin’, 2.1.1974, (1–10), 10.

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division of Germany was a major factor of stability in Europe.12 Jonathan Steele also emphasised that diplomatic relations between the two countries would have beneficial effects on trade and détente in Europe.13 Crossman and Steele were in effect repeating some of the most effective arguments of the pro-recognition lobby. The media soon left the debate over recognition behind, although even the British newspapers that came to accept recognition as realpolitik never overcame their dislike of SED rule behind the Berlin Wall.14

Successes and Limits of GDR Foreign Policy in Britain The years immediately following recognition in 1973 proved to be the heyday of East German diplomacy and foreign policy vis-àvis the West. The GDR gained entry into all of the most important international organisations on the basis of equality with the Federal Republic. East Berlin had cast off its pariah status, normalising its relations with states throughout the world. The regime was no longer seen as an artificial product of the Cold War with a limited life expectancy; instead, a series of visits by East German leaders to the West reaffirmed politicians’ views that two German states were here to stay. In this context, the GDR could also take satisfaction and reassurance from Austria’s and Britain’s decision in 1976 to accept the notion of a separate East German citizenship. As Britain’s acceptance of East German citizenship in the consular treaty of 1976 had not abandoned a formal commitment to a free and reunited Germany, the ‘British solution’ served as a model for other Western European states to follow suit.15 Recognition in international law brought with it a long-coveted seat at the United Nations – something regarded by East German officials as major diplomatic success.16 The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), with its objective of anchoring détente in East–West relations, was also of major importance to the GDR. When the ‘Final Act’ of the Helsinki process was signed 12 ������������������ H.-G. Golz. 2004. Verordnete Völkerfreundschaft. Das Wirken der Freundschaftgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien und der Britain–GDR Society. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, 111. 13 Jonathan Steele, ‘Talks Offer to UK by East Germany’, The Guardian, 12.3.1973. 14 Editorial in The Times, 13.2.1973. 15 In fact the British government had consulted closely with the West German government throughout over its acceptance of East German citizenship. See NA, FCO, 33/2646, ‘Visit of the Deputy Foreign Minister Nier’, [undated: 1975], (1–2). 16 Interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001.

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in August 1975,17 East Germany seemed to have secured its place in the community of nations. At the first plenary session, even the seating arrangements seemed to symbolise this: Erich Honecker, the head of the East German state, sat between Helmut Schmidt, the West German Chancellor, and Gerald Ford, the American president. But the substance of the CSCE process ensured that East German satisfaction was short-lived. By signing up to the ‘Final Act’, East Berlin had agreed to guarantee human rights, encouraging sections of its own population to demand that their leaders lived up to promises of greater democracy and openness.18 At the parliamentary level, the Volkskammer became a national section of the IPU at last.19 The GDR used the international forum presented by the IPU in order to advance the East Bloc’s foreign policy and to present East Germany as a progressive state offering support to national liberation movements in Third World countries intent on ending ‘First World’ colonial rule.20 As the historian of the IPU emphasised, the success of the IPU’s conferences on European cooperation and security depended vitally on the simultaneous participation of the two Germanys.21 Parliamentary relations also developed at the bilateral level. In the early summer of 1976, George Thomas, the Speaker in the House of Commons, received the president of the Volkskammer, Gerald Götting, during an official visit to Britain. As was customary with this type of visit, Götting also met with high-ranking British politicians, including Harold Wilson and Michael Foot, business leaders and churchmen, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. He addressed a meeting of the Parliamentary Friendship Committee Britain–GDR, thanking its members for their support in developing diplomatic relations between the two countries. At all of these meetings, Götting was anxious to underscore East Germany’s support for peaceful coexistence and the 17 A. Wenger, V. Mastny and C. Nünlist (eds). 2008. At the Roots of European Security: The Early Helsinki Process Revisited, 1965–1975, London: Routledge. 18 O. Bange and S. Kieninger. 2008. ���������������������������������������������� Negotiating One’s Own Demise? ���������� The GDR’s Foreign Ministry and the CSCE Negotiations – Plans, Preparations, Tactics and Presumptions. ��������������������� Mannheim: e-dossier, http://www.csce-1975.net/csce/; accessed 3 April 2009. 19 ��������������������������������� See the previous chapter, p. 135. 20 ����������������������������������������������������������������� BARCH-BArch, DA 1/15645, ‘Informationen für die Abgeordneten der Volkskammer. Herausgegeben vom Sekretariat der DDR’, [undated: 1975], (1– 9), 6. 21 ��������������������� V.-Y. Ghebali. 1993. The Conferences of the Inter-Parliamentary Union on European Co-operation and Security, 1973–1991. The Contribution of Parliamentary Diplomacy to East–West Détente, Aldershot: Dartmouth. Ghebali emphasises how the interparliamentary conferences often stimulated inter-governmental dialogue.

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Helsinki process.22 In the autumn, the Speaker in the Commons, George Thomas, made a return visit to East Berlin. He was the highest-ranking British visitor to come to the GDR so far. However, if Thomas’ seniority was exceptional, then the programme of events put on for him conformed to the standard practice of drawing visiting Western politicians’ attention to the GDR’s ‘anti-fascism’, ‘socialist achievements’ and support for ‘world peace’. Thomas congratulated the GDR on its progress since 1945 and agreed to work toward the sending of an all-party House of Commons delegation to the GDR.23 The following year, the secretary of the British section of the IPU, Thomas Williams, visited East Germany. During a series of meetings with senior politicians, including the president of the Volkskammer, Horst Sindermann, he agreed to approach the Labour leader in the House of Lords, Lord Peart, about visiting East Berlin.24 In February 1978, the first all-party delegation from the House of Commons – as promised by Williams – finally arrived in East Berlin. The delegation, which included the Conservative member of the Britain–Soviet Parliamentary Group, Kenneth Warren, met with Sindermann, the Foreign Minister, Oskar Fischer, and the chairman of the Council of State, Willi Stoph. Yet, if the delegation could be presented to the East German public as a diplomatic success, behind the scenes there were clear differences of opinion over disarmament, détente and questions of democracy.25 For the East German leadership, however, the upsurge in contacts with the West that followed diplomatic recognition proved to be a double-edged sword.26 On the one hand, the regime could feel satisfied that high-level political contacts and trade relations anchored the GDR as an independent state in the comity of nations. But, in a document reviewing developments since 1973, there was 22 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� BARCH-BArch, DA 1/12776, ‘Bericht über den Besuch des Präsidenten der Volkskammer, Gerald Götting, vom 27.6. bis 3.7.1976 in Großbritannien’, (1–5), 1, 5. 23 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid.SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/12781, Ramstätter, ‘Bericht über den Besuch des Sprechers des Unterhauses des Vereinigten Königreiches von Großbritannien und Nordirland, George Thomas, MP, vom 27.9. bis 2.10.1976 in der DDR’, 6.10.1976, (1–4), 2. 24 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/17769, IPG, ‘Information über den Besuch des Präsidenten des Interparliamentarischen Rates, Sir Thomas Williams, in der DDR vom 2. bis 7. Oktober 1977’, 11.10.1977, (1–3), 1. 25 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Ibid.SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/13060, ‘Bericht über den Besuch einer Delegation des Unter- und Oberhauses des Vereinigten Königreiches von Großbritannien und Nordirland vom 16. bis 23.2.1978 in der DDR’, 30.2.1978, (1–4); see also the Annual Reports of the IPU 1978, which are available at the Parliamentary Archive, London. 26 ���������������������������������� H. Lindemann and K. Müller. 1974. Auswärtige Kulturpolitik der DDR. Die kulturelle Abgrenzung der DDR von der Bundesrepublik Deutschlands, Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft.

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trepidation that Britain’s pursuit of wider cultural and municipal contacts set out to promote ‘political subversion’ at home. Fears surrounding the ‘corrupting influences’ and ideological ‘infection’ of the body politic caused by these contacts led to even more rigorous attempts to screen those who came in contact with Westerners.27 If there was an increase in official contacts after 1973, the talking produced little of substance and the diplomatic climate remained cool. The GDR had come in from the diplomatic cold, but its acceptance remained at arm’s length. Foreign Minister Fischer’s visit in 1976, for example, was interpreted as a success by the GDR.28 However, early attempts by Liga officials to enquire about an invitation for Erich Honecker to visit Britain were politely rejected by the Foreign Office.29 Somewhat ironically, Britain had become less interested in the GDR after diplomatic recognition. Now that Berlin was an unlikely flashpoint in Europe’s Cold War, there was less urgency to discuss mutual concerns. The prospect of talking business also failed to fill the political vacuum as the seeming potential for trade proved to be a mirage based more on the stereotypes of Prussian economic dynamism than East German reality. A number of early indications did raise high hopes. Exports to the GDR trebled from £14 million in 1973 to £40 million in1974 and the Foreign Office held out the prospects of further major contracts for British companies. In August 1975 the Autumn Leipzig Fair organised a ‘British week’.30 In December 1973 the British and GDR governments signed an agreement on the development of economic, industrial, scientific and technological cooperation. The GDR was described as ‘dull, but successful’, allegedly in the process of closing the gap in living standards with West Germany.31 East German officials emphasised their desire to diversify their trade relations with the West in order to move away from the one-sided concentration on the inner-German trade, and the DTI was hoping to capitalise on this desire.32 An official DTI information stand was mounted for the first time at the Leipzig spring fair in March 1973. The Foreign Office cooperated 27 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/17769, ‘Aktuelle Tendenzen der britischen Außenpolitik’, [undated: 1977], (1–6), 3. 28 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DJ 30 J IV 2/2/1634, ‘Offizieller Besuch des Ministers für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten, Gen. Oskar Fischer, auf Einladung des britischen Aussenministers am 6.9. �������������������������������������������������� 1976 in Großbritannien’, [undated], (164–67), 164. 29 ������������������������������������ M. Howarth.‘Vom Kalten Krieg’, 155. 30 NA, FCO 33/2373, ‘Record of a Conversation between the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and the State Secretary of the GDR Ministry of Foreign Trade at the FCO, 28.11. 1974’, (1–2), 2. 31 ‘GDR: Annual Review for 1974’, op. cit., 1. For the agreement, see ibid., FCO 34/195. For a very positive view of the prospects for British–GDR trade, see also Jonathan Steele, ‘Pact to Boost GDR Trade’, The Guardian, 18.12.1973. 32 NA, FCO 34/195, ‘[Letter] P.S. Preston (DTI) to M.D. Butler (FCO)’, 9.1.1974.

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fully. When the GDR’s Minister for External Economic Relations, Horst Sölle, came to London to sign the agreement, the confident FO brief stated explicitly: The East Germans are anxious for proof that they are now accepted as a respectable power. We should wish, therefore, to impress upon our German visitors that, whatever the problems of the past, we are now prepared to treat them as trading partners in the same way as our other friends in Eastern Europe. … A substantial expansion in trade turnover in the long-term should be possible.33

In the mid 1970s, a mood of optimism flourished among certain circles of British export industries about the future of British– GDR trading relations.34 In 1974 KfA Ltd. organised symposia on British–GDR trading possibilities in conjunction with the Chambers of Commerce in London and Birmingham. By 1978 Britain was the second most important trading partner of the GDR in the West, well behind the FRG and ahead of Switzerland.35 Yet the overall volume of trade remained rather limited and the high hopes ultimately met with disappointment. Britain’s balance of trade with the GDR remained in the red. The first high-level industrial delegation, led by the Secretary of State for Trade, did not take place until 1977. It proved to be the only occasion in which a major contract was awarded to a British company. Hence more sober assessments of the trading potential of the GDR in the end proved correct: ‘[T]he DTI is of the opinion that recognition of the GDR is unlikely to lead to any dramatic upsurge of trade and this opinion is apparently shared by many businessmen who trade with East Germany’.36 The GDR’s image in Britain also remained overwhelmingly negative. In September 1974 there was outrage in Britain over the sentencing of British student Susan Ballantine to five years imprisonment for assisting an East German acquaintance to flee to the West.37 The Foreign Office noted that her arrest ‘marked a turn 33 NA, FCO, 34/195, ‘Brief for Visit of H. Soelle, Dec. 1973’. 34 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ H.-J. Fink. 1980. ‘Übrige westeuropäische Länder’, in H-A. Jacobsen, G. Leptin, U. Scheuner and E. Schulz (eds), Drei Jahrzehnte Außenpolitik der DDR. Bestimmungsfaktoren, Instrumente, Aktionsfelder, Munich: Oldenbourg, 514f. 35 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� J. Kuppe. 1979. ‘Die DDR im Westen (III). Die Beziehungen zu den drei Westmächten’, Deutschland Archiv 12 (12), 1308. 36 NA, FCO 33/1737, P. le Breton [Western European Dept.], ‘British Policy towards the GDR’, 5.12.1972, (1–2). The report engages with Richard Crossman’s argument, published in articles in The Times, that trade was a reason for recognising the GDR. 37 ‘British Girl Arrested as “Human Trafficker”’, The Times, 8.6.1974; ‘East Germans Jail British Woman for Five Years’, The Times, 19.9.1974.

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for the worse in our relations’ with the GDR.38 Ballantine’s local MP, the Conservative Douglas Dodds-Parker, took the matter up with the Foreign Office, stating: ‘This is a scandalous example of a country breaking the UN charter of human rights which it has just signed as a condition of joining the UN’.39 The incident culminated in a personal plea from Prime Minister Wilson to the East German president of the Volkskammer, Horst Sindermann, for her release.40 The FO made repeated representations to Ambassador Kern, and the Foreign Secretary talked with his GDR counterpart at the UN about the case. Foreign Office officials also brought the case up in trade talks with GDR representatives in November 1974 alleging that it would hinder the further development of trade relations.41 A similar case had taken place in May 1974, when British citizen Alan Watson was sentenced to prison. Pending the release of British citizens, Foreign Minister James Callaghan declined an invitation to visit East Berlin in the autumn of 1974. As Neal Ascherson recalls: Although the GDR had been recognised … it was still regarded as an awful place, with no real support among its own population. Its standard of living was thought to be ok, but we all overestimated the state of the East German economy. There had been no great change of heart in Britain for the GDR; nobody had any affection for it. After all, the GDR was associated with the Berlin Wall. … It was a police state and a gerontocracy. In comparison to other countries in the East bloc, the GDR had a negative image.42

The hostility of the British press also meant that the GDR found it difficult to give way on the Watson and Ballantine issues. However, when British press attentions subsided, the GDR authorities released Susan Ballantine in December 1974 and Alan Watson in March 1975 presenting their actions as acts of clemency and statesman-like gestures befitting a self-confident German Democratic Republic.43 Despite difficulties in developing relations and the continued negative public perception of the GDR in Britain, a younger generation of journalists and publicists sought to change the crude anti-communism of the Cold War that they regarded as endangering détente. The publication of Guardian journalist Jonathan Steele’s book Socialism with a German Face in 1977 was representative of a 38 NA, FCO 33/2631, ‘GDR: Annual Review for 1974. Summary of East Berlin Despatch 1/1 of the 31 Dec. 1974’, (1–2), 2. 39 ‘MP Condemns Jailing of British Woman’, The Times, 20.9.1974. 40 ‘Wilson Protests to East Germans on jailed Briton’, The Times, 21.9.1974. Wilson’s intervention is also documented in NA FCO PREM 16/98. 41 NA, FCO 33/2373, ‘Visits by Ministers of Germany (East) to the UK’, (pp.1–2). On the Ballantine/Watson affair see also NA, FCO PREM 16/98. 42 Interview with Neal Ascherson, 22.5.2002. 43 ‘Freed British Girl Arrives Home’, The Times, 18.12.1974.

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degree of sympathy, even grudging admiration for the GDR on the British centre-left. Steele’s interest in Germany was long-standing, as he had a German mother and spoke the language fluently. Like many of his generation he was a keen ‘anti-anti-communist’ seeking to overcome the crude Cold War rhetoric of the 1950s by re-establishing ‘the communist’ behind the Iron Curtain as a threedimensional human being.44 His book was not without critical edge. Thus, he criticised the SED’s ‘cramped and bureaucratic’ policies and called for ‘greater openness and a new intellectual stimulus’. Yet these calls for reform of the communist system did not question its wider legitimacy. There is no detailed treatment of the regime’s persecution of political opponents. Instead, the focus is on the East German socioeconomic revolution. Similarly, the anti-communist rising of 1953 receives due attention; but the role of the reform communists – who have Steele’s sympathy – is reduced to that of a loyal opposition. Economic development during the late 1950s and 1960s are described in the language of the pro-GDR lobby as a second economic miracle – implicitly drawing comparison with the West German Wirtschaftswunder. The role of trade unions and factory structures are singled out for serious treatment on terms defined by the SED. While Steele stopped short of accepting the official view that this amounted to workers’ control of production, he does detail how the organisation of work contributed to the population’s identification with socialist values and the socialist state. The regime-legitimising narrative of antifascism is applauded as genuine as is the provision of good, cheap leisure facilities for all and ‘social services from cradle to grave’. Stable prices, successes in agricultural production, cheap holidays, regular sport and the cult of good health again tip the scales in favour of the regime’s merits against the evident disadvantages of travel restrictions and miserly pensions. The study emphasised that the majority of women had been successfully integrated into the GDR’s workforce thereby giving hope that female emancipation was further advanced in the GDR than in socially conservative West Germany. Socialism with a German Face also portrayed widespread concerns about East German militarism and the goose-stepping National People’s Army as exaggerated when compared with the Bundeswehr’s alleged continuities with the Third Reich. The GDR, according to Steele, had genuine anti-fascist credentials, where West Germany had done everything to allow old Nazis to resurface – in the army and elsewhere in society. Steele’s overall balance sheet is clearly a positive one: 44 Interview with Jonathan Steele, 24.6.2006.

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[East Germany is] the most prosperous country in Eastern Europe, with a higher per capita income than Britain, … For too long it has been fashionable to reject Eastern Europe’s post-war experience as an unmitigated disaster. The emergence of the GDR as a viable state against all odds ought to be an intellectual warning that from the most inauspicious beginnings worthwhile results can come. Socialism in the GDR is as much a part of the socialist tradition as any of its other national manifestations elsewhere in the world.45

We dealt with Steele’s portrayal of the GDR at some length, as it was representative of a broader section of the Left in the 1970s. His book was, after all, very well received in the reviews sections of the newspapers and academic journals. Communists, like Alan Winnington, were predictably enthusiastic.46 But independent left thinkers were equally impressed. No lesser person than Noam Chomsky wrote a ringing endorsement: ‘It is a work of sound scholarship and judicious analysis, offering an illuminating and thoughtful picture of a complex society which is bound to play an increasing role in world affairs. Altogether, an admirable piece of work. I know of nothing that compares with it for insight into East German society and its evolution.’47 Tribune, New Society and the New Statesman all carried extremely complimentary reviews of Steele’s volume.48 It was received as a long-overdue correction of the overwhelmingly negative public profile of the GDR in Britain, which was now regarded as Cold War propaganda. The Left in Britain, seeking to paint a more differentiated picture of the GDR, became potential allies for the GDR officials in their attempt to improve the country’s image. The more positive portrayal of the GDR on the British Left was made easier by the continued negative press enjoyed by the FRG in left-of-centre circles in Britain. Especially the so-called Berufsverbote and the heavy-handed response of the West German state to leftwing terrorism in the 1970s ensured much critical attention by leftof-centre observers of Germany. The GDR, of course, was playing to this audience, emphasising in its own propaganda the negative sides of 1970s West Germany, in particular economic crisis, social deprivation and anti-communism.49 45 J. Steele. 1977. Socialism with a German Face: The State that Came in from the Cold, London: Cape, 227. 46 Alan Winnington, ‘Refreshing Look at the GDR’, Morning Star, 13.10.1977. 47 Quoted in the press release of the publishers of Steele’s book. Jonathan Steele kindly provided the authors with a copy of the press release. 48 ‘Progress of the Other Germany’, Tribune, 11.11.1977; Wolfgang J. Koschnick, ‘Out of the Red’, New Society, 1.9.1977; W.L. Webb, ‘Neues Deutschland’, New Statesman, 26.8.1977. 49 See, for example, J. Peet. 1976. ‘Red Baiting in Bonn’, Labour Monthly 58 (2), 65–68.

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Attempts to Overcome the Image Problem of the GDR in Britain: The Role of the Britain–GDR Society In the first years after recognition, the GDR concentrated on developing inter-state relations with Britain and sidelined societal organisations, such as the friendship societies.50 However, as Britain proved slow to respond to East Berlin’s diplomatic overtures, the Britain–GDR Society, which had superseded BRIDGE in March 1973, began to feature more strongly in bilateral relations. In a statement made to the Central Committee’s Department of Foreign Information in June 1976, Horst Brasch set out the main objectives for the foreign ‘friendship movement’ in Western countries.51 Brasch, who was charged with overall responsibility for Liga policy vis-à-vis Britain, identified three interrelated objectives. First, and foremost, the Western ‘friendship movement’ was intended to complement the GDR’s foreign policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’. This was to be achieved, first, by ‘mobilising social forces’ in support of détente, which, in turn, would exert influence on their government’s foreign policy. Secondly, the depiction of the GDR as a proponent of world peace would serve as a platform to present the ‘achievements’ of ‘actually existing socialism’. Finally, friendship societies were to be regarded as the ‘core’ of a potential ‘friendship movement’, which would break out of the narrow political parameters of the GDR’s existing supporters by cultivating ‘target groups’, including politicians of non-socialist parties at the parliamentary and municipal levels, trade unionists, peace groups, women’s and youth organisations, student associations and the churches. To ensure that Western friendship societies complied fully with East Berlin’s strategy, Brasch detailed a strictly centralised chain of command from the policy-making role of the SED politburo to the policy enforcing role of the Liga and London Embassy. But, as we shall see below, such notions of ‘democratic centralism’ did run into difficulties with more independent-minded British communists in charge of the Britain–GDR Society. Throughout its existence, the Britain–GDR Society remained a fringe organisation with a membership of 1,000 members at most, each of whom paid an annual subscription of one pound. Although the Liga funded the organisation,52 including the salary of a full50 ������������������������������������������� Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001. 51 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3208, Horst Brasch, ‘Neue Probleme bei der Entwicklung einer breiten Bewegung der Freundschaft mit der DDR. Vortrag auf der Beratung der Abt. Auslandsinformation der ZK der SED zur Auswertung des IX Parteitages der SED Kleinmachnow’, 1.7.1976, (1–27). 52 In the mid 1970s, the Liga gave the Society £5,000, see SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, ‘[Letter] Manfred Rudolf an Dietmar Hahn’, 26.2.76.

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time secretary between 1975 and 1980, its efforts to raise the GDR’s profile in Britain were run on a shoestring budget. During the 1970s, the Society was primarily based in London. In 1979, there were only eight local branches; of these only the Aberdeen branch showed signs of any amount of independent activity. Little wonder then that the GDR judged the Britain–GDR Society rather harshly: ‘The social weight and political breadth of the friendship society in Great Britain is slight. The causes of this are inactivity, and, to some extent, the restrictive methods and political judgement of a number of the leading members.’53 Although a fourteen-member Executive Committee, elected at biannual conferences, was charged with running the organisation’s activities, most of the day-to-day work was done by the secretary. In addition to coordinating the work of volunteers, the secretary was responsible for producing and distributing a newsletter. During these years, the Society’s main work involved staging public events to celebrate the anniversary of the GDR’s foundation in 1949, holding ‘information evenings’ and distributing literature, making university German departments aware of language summer schools held in East Germany and sending ‘study delegations’ to the GDR.54 According to the Liga’s internal reports, between 1973 and 1979 the Society sent five ‘study delegations’ each year to experience ‘actually existing socialism’ at first hand. In addition several East German ‘mass organisations’ developed their own contacts. The Free German Youth (FDJ), for example, made direct approaches to youth and student organisations in Britain.55 The fact that the GDR did not seek to develop all its contacts through the Society points to tensions between the leadership of the Society and GDR officials.56 From the East German perspective, the source of the tensions with the Society could be attributed primarily to the role of its first full-time, salaried secretary, Sheila Taylor. Taylor belonged to a new, university-educated and socially comfortable post-war generation that had an academic and cultural as well as purely political interest in the GDR. By the later 1970s, Taylor’s successors, Kathy Vanovitch and Irene Fick, also matched 53 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2747, ‘Information über die Entwicklung der nationalen Freundschaftsgesellschaften im Ausland zur sozialistischen DDR’, 5.5.1978, (1– 12), 3. ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Inge Fischer confirmed that this assessment was widespread in the Liga. Interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001. 54 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3298, LfV, ‘Information über die Partnerorganisationen der LfV der DDR, die Hauptrichtungen ihrer Tätigkeit seit 1973 und die Vorhaben in Vorbereitung des 30. Jahrestages der DDR’, [undated: 1979], (1–17). 55 Horst Brasch, ‘Neue Probleme’, op. cit., 23. 56 For a detailed discussion on the relationship between the Liga and the Society, see also Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 202ff.

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this profile.57 Taylor, a German teacher by profession, had become interested in the GDR following her participation in a ‘woman’s study group’ delegation to East Berlin and Halle in October 1972. Evidently impressed by what she regarded as the GDR’s socioeconomic success story, she believed that East Germany’s best friend in Britain was a ‘critical friend’ capable of communicating the communist message to a Western audience. Reflecting on her years as secretary, Taylor stresses that: ‘It never occurred to me that I was working for the GDR … I saw myself as working for Britain, and as Secretary did whatever the Executive Committee and I judged to be useful. We regarded the Liga as a supporting organisation, not a directing one.’ 58 Her appointment at the beginning of 1976, replacing Liesel Feltham, who had served on a voluntary basis since 1971, was part of a drive to reinvigorate the Society’s activities. The following year, its sister organisation, the GDR–Great Britain Society, came under the new leadership of president Gerhard Lindner and secretary Dietmar Hahn. Initially, there was a honeymoon period in which the Liga appreciated Taylor’s enthusiasm for her work.59 The Britain– GDR Society signed annual ‘Agreements on Co-operation’, the Society’s Secretary attended ‘propaganda seminars’ in East Berlin and there were ‘comradely chats’ with leading SED members. But the camaraderie was short lived. In the course of 1976, Taylor resolved to put cultural relations at the forefront of the Society’s activities. Her plans to make good the absence of a formal cultural agreement between the two countries by taking up contacts with the British Council horrified Ambassador Kern and his Cultural Attaché, Wilfried Kloetzer.60 Undeterred, Taylor continued to believe that the Society should function as a ‘sort of substitute British Council’. For example, in order to widen the social parameters of those visiting the GDR beyond the narrow circles of the usual suspects she sent information about language summer schools in the GDR to all British university departments of German.61 A clear indication of just how differently the East Germans and their British counterparts saw the task of improving the ‘other’ 57 S. Taylor. 2005. ‘View from the Inside’, Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 315–29; see also, M. Howarth. 2002. ‘The Berlin Triangle. Britain and the Two German States in the 1980s’, in A. Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR. Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World, Berlin: Philo, 182. 58 Taylor, ‘View from the Inside’. The documentation confirms Taylor’s memory of events: see, for example, the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319. 59 ����������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, Dietmar Hahn, ‘Arbeitsgespräche während des Aufenthaltes der Sekretärin der Nationalen Freundschaftsgesellschaft Großbritannien–DDR, Genossin Sheila Taylor, in Die Zeit vom 12.3.–19.3.1976’, 15.4.1976, (1–3). 60 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, ‘[Letter] Rudolf an Hahn’, 26.2.1976. 61 We are grateful to Sheila Taylor for providing us with this information.

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Germany’s image is illustrated by a lecture tour of British universities by the ‘dissident’ – but avowedly socialist – writer, Volker Braun, which took place between 30 January and 13 February 1980. The Liga was furious about another of Taylor’s initiatives, but felt that blocking an announced tour would damage its image as a signatory to the Helsinki Agreement, supposedly committed to guaranteeing basic political freedoms. Taylor’s understanding of events could not have been more different. She saw the main success of Braun’s tour, which was financed entirely by the British universities hosting him, as having raised controversial issues about the GDR. Braun, widely regarded as a ‘dissident’ in the West, had been far more successful in dismantling ‘negative stereotypes of the GDR in Britain’ than any GDR official could ever have been.62 But for the Liga, the issue was one of control as well as strategic direction. When Taylor defended the Society’s initiatives, Hahn replied: ‘Initiative must be given the official go ahead.’63 Taylor was also the spiritus rektor in the decision not to join the openly pro-Soviet National Peace Council, confounding the Liga’s attempt to ensure that the Society prioritised ‘mobilising’ support for East Germany’s ‘peace policies’.64 The majority on the Society’s Executive Committee felt that there was no need for two British organisations to focus on one job.65 In 1977, Taylor issued a British trade-union delegation with information about their East German counterparts that had not first been cleared by the Liga.66 The document was the work of her husband, Graham Taylor, a Marxist intellectual and Euro-communist member of the CPGB. Although the information supplied was broadly positive, and although it had been discussed with GDR embassy officials, who had given it their backing, it contradicted the official GDR line on ‘factory-based democracy’ and drew too many comparisons with the situation in the Federal Republic for East Berlin’s liking. When Sheila Taylor was questioned at the Embassy about the nature of the information given to the delegation, she asserted that she was ‘of the opinion that it is much better if one is honest, and openly concedes shortcomings’. Her colleagues at the Embassy disagreed. According to a report written about the affair, she had ‘negatively 62 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3124, ‘Annual Report of the Britain–GDR Society for 1980’, (pp.1–8), 7. 63 Taylor, ‘A View from the Inside’, 322. 64 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, Dietmar Hahn, ‘Aktenvermerk über ein Gespräch mit dem President der NFG Großbritannien, Gordon Schaffer’, 2.5.1977, (1–5), 1, 4. 65 Interview with Sheila Taylor, 9.3.2001. 66 For the Embassy’s report, see SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, ‘Rudolf an Hahn’, 16.3.1977. A copy of Graham Taylor’s analysis of the FDGB is contained in the same file.

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influenced unprejudiced British trade unionists’. The same report expresses outrage that Taylor had attended an evening function put on by the West German Academic Exchange Service at which Bonn’s Ambassador was present. These events proved something of a turning point in the Liga’s relationship with its British Secretary. After a visit to London in late 1977, Professor Dorothea SiegmundSchulz, a member of the GDR–Great Britain Society, commented: ‘Sheila Taylor obviously has no real understanding of the [nature of] her work. She seems unaware of the role and tasks of a friendship society’.67 The Society’s Secretary was too independent-minded for the tastes of her East Berlin paymasters and although the tensions remained under the surface and nothing was ever said directly to Taylor, the Liga took steps to remove Taylor from her position as secretary. In a manner reminiscent of the machinations against Hilda Forman in 1971, an attempt was made to stage a palace coup using East Germany’s longest-serving British ally, Gordon Schaffer. The Society’s Executive Committee had retained an active presence of the older generation that had witnessed war and fascism. Lottie Leser, for example, had found political asylum in Britain after the National Socialists had come to power; Paul Graham had been imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp. The GDR could rely on this older generation’s absolute loyalty. However, the generational changes ensured that the older members around Schaffer had lost their majority on the executive and their backstairs intrigue alienated the majority on the Society’s fourteen-member Executive Committee.68 Unable to achieve the desired result, the Liga adopted a more surefire method: the Society’s Treasurer was informed that it would no longer receive funding for a salaried, full-time secretary. As Taylor could not afford to work for nothing, she returned to school teaching in September 1980. She did, however, serve as ‘Honorary Secretary’ for another year, coordinating the role of the Society’s small number of volunteers. The Liga also had another difficulty. Ultimately, none of East Berlin’s ultra-loyal supporters were queuing up for the thankless job of Secretary, which carried the burden of organising day-to-day activities. After Taylor stood down, her position passed, in the short term, to Kathy Vanovitch, before being taken on by Jack Berlin. Both of them were Euro-communists who continued with Taylor’s stance 67 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3124, LfV, Dietmar Hahn ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der LfV der DDR vom 9.–15.10.1979’, (1–8), 4. 68 The Liga was forced to concede Schaffer’s inability to carry the majority with him. See ������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3124, Gerhard Lindner, ‘Bericht über meine Reise in Großbritannien’, 14.10.1979, (1–7), 1.

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of ‘critical friendship’, thereby at times alienating and bewildering their GDR counterparts.69 After Taylor resigned from the Society’s Executive Committee on 3 October 1981, she concentrated on full-time school teaching before going back to work for Berolina Travel in 1987. But throughout the 1980s she attended Society events and kept in loose contact with the Society. In autumn 1989 she appeared on British television and radio in support of the GDR’s continued existence. She was optimistic enough to believe that the time had finally arrived for political reform to match the state’s socioeconomic ‘achievements’.70 Yet East German officials had become wary of their ‘critical friend’. On two occasions she was refused visas to enter the GDR. Both incidents, in 1985 and 1987, were officially put down to ‘administrative errors’. At the time, Taylor suspected that her treatment was connected to the recent arrest of Barbara Einhorn, a British academic who was both a member of the Society and an active member of END, which East Berlin regarded as an ‘enemy organisation’.71 Unknown to Taylor at this time, however, she was on a Stasi list alleging connections with MI5.72 The post-1968 impact of Euro-communism in the CPGB ensured that those offering the GDR ‘critical friendship’ far outnumbered those enthused by East German political orthodoxy. Hilda Forman, the leading light and founding member of BRIDGE, found herself infuriated by ‘mind-numbing bureaucracy’ and ‘petty-minded’ officials in the GDR. She was also critical of the GDR’s paranoid ‘concern for state security’ and how this eroded trust between those on the same side. Yet, as with other ‘critical friends’, positive impressions about East German socioeconomic progress outweighed criticism of political shortcomings.73 Another long-serving member of the Society, Len Goldman, adopted essentially the same position of ‘critical friendship’. Goldman, who had first-hand experience of life in East Germany as an English language teacher at Leipzig University, was well placed to discuss aspects of life in the GDR. After setting up the Society’s Brighton branch in the early 1970s, Goldman was the prime mover in organising meetings with schools and local branches of the tradeunions, Co-operative Society and Labour Party. At every meeting 69 Taylor, ‘View from the Inside’. 70 On 13 September she appeared on Channel Four News ‘Comment’, followed by an appearance on Radio Scotland on 5 October. See, Taylor, ‘View from the Inside’. 71 Interview with Sheila Taylor, 9.3.2001; see also the documentation in Communist Party Archives, Manchester [henceforth: CPAM], CP/Cent/Int/15/03. 72 Glees, Stasi Files, 260. 73 Interview with Hilda Forman, 1.8.2000.

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‘there was always a section in which I voiced criticisms. It was not just a whitewashing of everything being wonderful in the GDR.’ However critical their friendship, British communists insisted that the GDR remained at least a partial success story with a right to exist as a sovereign state. As Goldman emphasised, ‘one of the important jobs we did in the Britain–GDR Society was to present [the GDR] as a proper, established country’.74 Liga officials, like Brasch and Hahn, however, remained in doubt how well this job was done. In October 1976, Brasch was interviewed on the BBC current affairs programme ‘Newsweek’. The interviewer, Richard Kershaw, confronted Brasch with the most enduring problem burdening East Germany’s relations with the West: ‘If life is so good in the GDR, why is it necessary to fence in the population?’ 75 To counter the continued predominance of the negative perception of the GDR, Liga officials foregrounded its ‘cultural achievements’ and progress in the realm of women’s emancipation.76 Representatives of the GDR’s official women’s movement visited Britain, and, in 1973 and 1979, the Society arranged for ‘study delegations’ from the National Association of Women to visit the GDR.77 From the perspective of attracting ‘personalities’ of potential influence, the most successful delegation took place in 1978, when Sheila Taylor sent the later Labour Party government ministers Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman to visit East Berlin.78 The Hewitt–Harman delegation was only one of five ‘women’s delegations’ to visit the GDR that year.79 A number of high-profile musical and artistic exchanges were meant to highlight the GDR as guardian of German culture and heritage.80 Cultural contacts served the purpose of improving the 74 �������������������������������������������� Interview with Leonard Goldman, 12.12.2000. 75 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3124, ‘Niederschrift eines Interview mit Genosse Horst Brasch im II Programm des BBC-Fernsehens. ��������������������������������� Sendung: “Newsday”’, 14.10.1976, (1–3). 76 SAPMO-BArch, DY 31/1320, Irene Fick, ‘Guests from the GDR’, National Assembly for Women Newsletter, Winter 1974/75. See also the other press cutting in this file, and SAPMO-BArch, DY 31/1320, ‘[Letter] Fanny Edelman to Ilse Thiele’, 22.5.1975; SAPMO-BArch, DY 31/1320, ‘[Letter] Ruth Rudolf to East German Embassy’, 15.10.1975. 77 See the correspondence to and from Ilse Thiele, the head of the GDR women’s organisation in SAPMO-BArch, DY 31/1320. 78 ����������������������������������������������� Interview with Sheila Taylor, London, 9.3.2001. 79 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 31/433, ‘Plan für das Delegationsaustausch des DFD mit Frauenorganisationen sozialistischer Länder für 1978/79 sowie für junge Nationalstaaten, Entwicklungsländer und kapitalistische Länder für 1978’, (153–56). 80 ���������������������������������� H. Lindemann and K. Müller. 1974. Auswärtige Kulturpolitik der DDR. Die kulturelle Abgrenzung der DDR von der Bundesrepublik Deutschlands, Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 138f.

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image of the GDR and not of fostering contact between people.81 When Britain proposed the setting up of a British cultural centre in East Berlin, it was almost immediately rebuffed.82 The Ministry of Culture stated clearly that only ‘internationally known and recognised artists’ who were prepared to pay a fee in hard currency would be permitted to tour the GDR.83 East Berlin took the view that tight organisation and preparation was the best means of controlling delegations arriving in the GDR. According to the ‘Working Agreement’ between the Liga and the Society from 1979, full details of prospective visitors should be supplied ten weeks in advance.84 Given the GDR’s prioritising of control over genuine exchange, the BGS struggled to appeal to broader sections of British society. It continued to preach the virtues of the GDR to the converted, as is clear, for example, from an article of Gordon Schaffer in the Communist Labour Monthly in 1979. Celebrating the thirty-year anniversary of the foundation of the GDR, Schaffer wrote: For years Western propagandists tried to paint the GDR as backward, poverty-stricken country, in contrast to the ‘economic wonder’ of the Federal Republic. Now they cannot deny that it is one of the advanced industrial states with social services equal to, and in some respects in advance of most other countries, with no unemployment and steadily rising living standards … The GDR has proved that socialism can deliver the goods.85

Given the influence of Euro-communism in the CPGB, some of the GDR’s most uncritical British allies were found on the pro-Soviet wing of the Labour Party. On accepting the position of President of the Britain–GDR Society in 1978, Scottish Labour MP, James Lamond, made clear that he was motivated, above all, by a commitment to détente. Taking on this office involved little new work for Lamond, 81 This understanding shines through many of the GDR embassy’s reports on the promotion of cultural contacts. ������������������������������������� See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DR3/B 1566/2a, ‘Botschaft der DDR: Betr. Schwerpunkte und Entwicklungslinien der kulturellen Auslandsbeziehungen mit Großbritannien für die Jahre 1976–1978’, (1–13). 82 M. Howarth. 1999. ‘KfA Ltd. Und Berolina Travel Ltd. Die ������������������� DDR-Präsenz in Großbritannien vor und nach der diplomatischen Anerkennung’, Deutschland Archiv 32 (4), 591–600. 83 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Evangelisches Zentral Archiv, Berlin [henceforth EZA] EKB, 101/1443, ‘Vermerk über ein Gespräch am 24.9.1970 in der Künstleragentur der DDR’, [undated: 1978], (1–2). 84 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3301, ‘Vereinbarung über die Zusammenarbeit zwischen den FG DDR–Großbritannien der LfV und der Gesellschaft Großbritannien–DDR für das Jahr 1979’, (pp.1–6). 85 G. Schaffer. 1978. ‘Thirtieth Anniversary of the GDR’, Labour Monthly (Nov./ Dec.), 465–68.

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who was already a leading member, alongside Schaffer, in the British section of the Soviet-led World Peace Council. His strong connections with (Scottish) trade unionists and left-wing MPs ensured that Lamond was precisely the type of figure the GDR wanted most to champion their cause in Britain.86 Inge Fischer, one of the Liga’s officials, recalled how the GDR–Great Britain Society perceived Lamond as one of the GDR’s ‘best friends’ in Britain, alongside the Hackney councillor John Kotz and the MEP Alf Lomas. Lomas was singled out as a particularly ‘true friend’ of the GDR: When the GDR fell in 1989, Alf [Lomas] wrote to me to say how bad he felt about what had happened. Alf had a very deep relationship with the GDR. He felt good here, not just with the GDR’s social policy but with the whole range of life here: the economy, culture, and politics.87

Fischer’s recollections are confirmed by the former Ambassador Karl-Heinz Kern, who readily concedes that relations with the Labour Left were better than relations with Euro-communists, where ideological differences continued to sour relations.88 Although the independent-minded Britain–GDR Society was regarded as a ‘problem organisation’ – alongside the friendship movements in the USA and Japan89 – the Liga evidently preferred to work with its ‘critical friends’ than with its autonomous ‘friends’ in the short-lived UK–GDR Association. The latter organisation represented a post-recognition continuation of the ‘public personalities’, such as Hornsby, McDermott and Oestreicher, brought together in the Committee for Recognition in the early 1970s, but it never really got off the ground and soon disappeared entirely.

The Troubled Relationship between the GDR and the CPGB The Euro-communist leadership of the Britain–GDR Society infuriated the Liga, and the advances of Euro-communism in the CPGB more generally worried the SED. From the 1970s, a steady two-thirds majority backed the CPGB’s ‘moderate’ wing, while a prominent minority of ‘tankies’ – a reference to their 86 ��������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3298, Erdmann [LfV], ‘Vermerk. Gespräch des Präsidenten mit Mr Lamond, Präsident der FG Großbritannien–DDR am 18.8.1978’, 22.8.1978, (1–3), 3; see also ibid., LfV, ‘Information über die Partnerorganisationen der LfV der DDR [1979]’, op. cit. 87 Interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001. 88 Interview with Karl Heinz Kern, 10.10.2001. 89 Horst Brasch, ‘Neue Probleme’, oip. cit., 7.

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support for the suppression of the Prague Spring – looked to ‘actually existing socialism’ as a model to emulate. Many Eurocommunists continued to credit the East Bloc with significant social and economic ‘achievements’, but they also criticised its lack of political freedoms. Behind the CPGB’s eulogy of Ulbricht, written to mark the East German leaders death in 1974,90 stood a far more sceptical view of ‘actually existing socialism’. The scene was set for the first confrontation when, in November 1976, the internationally acclaimed dissident songwriter, Wolf Biermann, was forcibly expatriated to West Germany as part of a renewed cultural clampdown in the GDR. From the CPGB’s perspective, this was the worst possible advertisement for communist parties. Although the party’s newspaper, the Morning Star, did not report on the Biermann affair during November and December of 1976, other British newspapers were commenting on it extensively. By emphasising that Biermann had not been able to perform in the GDR for the last twelve years and by reporting on the clampdown on intellectuals supporting Biermann, they reinforced the perception of the GDR as a rigid dictatorship.91 The International Pen wrote a letter of protest to The Times newspaper noting that Biermann had ‘portrayed nothing but the ugly face of conditions in the GDR’ and calling on East Germany to restore his citizenship.92 During a meeting between the heads of the SED and the CPGB, Gordon McLennan told Honecker that: Expelling Biermann has only given your enemies more propaganda against the GDR. As friends, we do not regard your decision regarding Biermann to be correct. Should one not act more with the methods of persuasion than taking these administrative measures? The enemy takes up the issue of individual freedoms in order to act against the advance of socialism [in Eastern Europe] and against other brother parties [in Western Europe].93

The GDR was not prepared to accept McLennan’s advice as a ‘critical friend’ familiar with Western political culture. A report dispatched to East Berlin from the Embassy in London dismissed those British Communists critical of the GDR’s actions as part of the ‘human rights campaign against the socialist community’.94 90 CPAM, International Department files, CP/Cent/Int/15/03. 91 See, for example, ‘East German Poet Loses Citizenship’, The Times, 17.11.1976; ‘Dissenters Leave East Germany’, The Times, 13.12.1976. 92 ‘German Writers Freedom: Letter to the Times’, The Times, 25.1.1977. 93 ���������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV/2/2/1711, Markowski, ‘Niederschrift der Ausführungen des Generalsekretärs der KP Großbritanniens, Gordon McLennan, während des Gesprächs mit dem Generalsekretär des ZK der SED, Erich Honecker, am 23.1.1978’, 27.1.1978, (132–36), 135. 94 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, ‘[Letter] Rudolf an Hahn’, 16.3.1977’.

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British Euro-communists had been horrified by the clampdown on Czechoslovak reform communism in 1968. During the 1970s they defended those voices across the Eastern Bloc who critiqued ‘actually existing socialism’ from reform communist perspectives. One of those voices belonged to the East German intellectual, Rudolf Bahro. In 1977, his critique of ‘actually existing socialism’ – entitled The Eastern European Alternative­ – was published in the West. Although banned in the GDR, extensive media coverage in West Germany ensured that it reached its intended audience. In June 1978, the regime responded by sentencing Bahro to eight year’s imprisonment. This precipitated an international campaign for his release. Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Graham Green, Arthur Miller and Mikis Theodorakis were among the cultural luminaries calling for Bahro’s immediate release from prison.95 From the Labour Party, Eric Heffer and Phillip Whitehead also raised their voices in support of Bahro.96 Discussions held at the GDR’s Embassy with the CPGB’s International Secretary, Jack Woodis, met with a resolute defence of British Communists’ right to demand Bahro’s release. What had alarmed the Embassy most of all was a demonstration staged outside its doors by Bahro’s British supporters, which had been organised by the Morning Star.97 CPGB and SED again failed to see eye-to-eye over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Whilst East Berlin gave it its unequivocal support, the CPGB, by contrast, publicly disassociated itself with this departure from détente, which was understood to be highly damaging to the cause of Western European communism. According to the SED, this was yet another indication of ‘neo-reformism’ in its British sister party.98 Throughout the 1970s, the politburo of the SED received detailed reports on the situation in the CPGB. The focus of interest was what East Germany labelled ‘anti-Soviet’ tendencies. In 1975, the Stasi analysed the decline in the party’s membership, attributing this to the rise of Euro-communists grouped around the CPGB’s central organ, the Morning Star. Distrust of the British party began at the top. It centred on a new generation of party leaders. Those singled out for particular criticism were the party’s National Organiser, Dave Cook, and the editor of the Morning Star, Chris Myant. The Stasi report praised the pro-Soviet Communist trade union leaders, while 95 ‘Rudolf Bahro’, The Times, 1.2.1978. 96 ‘Letter from E.S. Heffer and Phillip Whitehead’, The Times, 13.7.1978. 97 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J/IV/2/20/78, Egon Winkelmann, ‘Information für das Politbüro, Nr. 5/1979. Betrifft: Veröffentlichungen im “Morning Star” und Haltung der KPGBs’, (1–3), 2. ��������������������������������������� This is all the more remarkable as the Morning Star was subsidised by the GDR. ������������������������������������������� Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001. 98 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2/40780, Sieber, ‘Information für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Bericht über den 37. Parteitag der KPGBs vom 14. bis 17. November 1981 in London’, 14.12.1981, (1–10), 8.

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the ‘revisionists’ were described as ‘bourgeois elements’ in the CPGB. They were made responsible for declining membership figures and the general stasis.99 The Stasi reports were supplemented by the monitoring service provided by the Central Committee’s ‘International Relations Department’, under Paul Markowski.100 The revision of the CPGB’s programme in the mid 1970s was regarded as clear evidence of the progress of anti-Soviet forces in the party.101 The CPGB, it was argued, had failed to understand the importance of the Soviet Union and socialist states in the ‘international process of détente’, and it had departed from the ‘general laws of socialist revolution and socialist construction’.102 The SED’s report of the CPGB party congress, held in London in November 1977, concluded by lamenting that the newest version of the British Road to Socialism committed the CPGB to ‘pluralism’ in the ‘pursuit of political power and its exercise’, and explicitly ‘departs from the path of the Bolshevik revolution’ which the CPGB now regarded as ‘particular to the historical conditions in Russia in 1917’.103 McLennan’s keynote speech at the congress in fact tried to bridge the growing gulf between hardliners and moderates, balancing the CPGB’s right to national independence with reference to Eastern Europe’s social and economic ‘achievements’ and the importance of relations with the Soviet Bloc. As the SED was willing to admit, the CPGB leadership, under McLennan and the party’s International Secretary, Jack Woddis, was anxious to maintain ‘friendly’ relations with the Soviet Union.104 It was also credited with making every effort 99 ������������������������������������������������������������������ Stasi Archive, MfS HVA 78, ‘Information über die Situation in der Kommunistischen Partei Gro��������������������������������������������������� ß�������������������������������������������������� britanniens, Nr. 415/79’ [undated: 1979], (1–11), 1, 10–11. 100 It is unclear if Markowski visited Britain or wrote these reports from information supplied by Embassy staff based in London. His detailed reports can be found in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B2/20/31. 101 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B 2/20/31, Markowski, ‘Information Nr. 106/75 für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Information über den 24. Parteitag der KPGBs vom 15.– 18. November 1975 in London’, 8.12.1975 (1–7); ibid., Markowski, ‘Information 93/76 für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Stellungnahme des Exekutivkomitees der Kommunistischen Partei Großbritanniens zu einem Entwurf für ein neues Parteiprogramm’, 24.11.1976, (1–12). 102 Markowski, ‘Information 93/76’, op. cit., 3–4. 103 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B 2/20/31, Markowski, ‘Information 159/77 für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Verlauf und Ergebnisse des XXXV Parteitages der KPGBs’, 6.12.1977, (1–7), 3. ������������������������������������������������������������� For further GDR reports on the British revision of the party programme see SAPMO-BArch, DY30/J IV 2/2/40780. 104 SAPMO-BArch, DY30/J IV 2/2/40780, Markowski, ‘Information Nr 91/76 für das Sekretariat. Betrifft: Rede des Generalsekretärs der KPGBs, Gordon McLennan, auf dem Empfang der Britisch–Sowjetischen Freundschaftsgesellschaft aus Anlass des 59. Jahrestages der Grossen Sozialistischen Oktoberrevolution’, 23.11.1976, (1–9), 7.

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to avoid a party split, which threatened further to reduce East German influence in the British party. Yet the SED was aghast by conference majorities against inviting Eastern European ‘sister’ parties to send delegates to CPGB congresses.105 The only significant exception came in 1975, when congress decided to invite a delegation from the CPSU to mark the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1977.106 SED observers watched in horror as the party’s theoretical journals – Marxism Today, Comment and the newly founded Socialist Europe – published articles discussing the dark side of Soviet history and reviewed the scholarly works of ‘renegade’ Marxist thinkers.107 One means at the SED’s disposal to promote the ‘merits’ of ‘actually existing socialism’ in communist parties outside Eastern Europe was the invitation of study delegations108 and the ‘study courses’ held at the ‘Special School’ in Kleinmachnow on the outskirts of Berlin. The courses, which comprised a programme of lectures, seminars and excursions to witness life and work in the GDR, were designed to demonstrate the ‘comprehensive superiority of the [Soviet model] over the capitalist social order’ and – for Western European participants – the pitfalls of Euro-communism’s departure from the ‘general laws of socialist development’.109 However, when a CPGB delegation, under Irene Brennan and Bert Pearce of the party’s Political Commission, arrived in October 1977, the SED found a group of participants resolute in defence of their right to find a British Road to Socialism. According to a report written by Horst Brasch, ‘Most of the comrades from Great Britain arrived with reservations and prejudices about ‘actually existing socialism’, above all the political system’. With evident alarm, the report goes on to detail how the British delegation even ‘tried to provoke Comrade Sagatelyan of the Soviet Embassy to debate the Soviet Union’s position on Euro-communism’.110 105 The issue is discussed in the December 1975, 1977 and 1979 issues of Comment and Marxism Today. 106 Markowski, ‘Information Nr. 106/75’, op. cit., 7. 107 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B 2/20/31, Markowski, ‘Information 38/1977 für das Politbüro. Betrifft: “Das sozialistische Europa” – eine neue Zeitschrift der KPGBs’, 30.3.1977, (1–6), 5–6. 108 For an example of an extremely positive reports of a CPGB women’s delegation to the party district of Thuringia in 1978, see: Thüringisches Staatsarchiv Rudolstadt [henceforth: ThSA-R], BPA IV D-2/18/535. 109 �������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ vorl. SED/28045, Horst Brasch, ‘Sonderschule beim ZK der SED, Bereich Ausländerstudium, Kleinmachnow. Themen- und Veranstaltungsplan für Sommerkurs mit Funktionären der KP Großbritannien vom 8.8.–20.8.1977’, 9.3.1977, (pp.1–4), 3. ���������������������������������� On the British side, arrangements were made to attend the ‘summer schools’ by the CPGB’s Educational Secretary, Betty Matthews. 110 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ vorl. SED/28045, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den 1. Lehrgang mit Genossen der KPGBs’, 20.10.1977, (1–7), 1.

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Officially, the SED condemned British hardliners who broke with the CPGB over their opposition to the British Road to Socialism for adopting a ‘sectarian’ stance and ‘reviving factionalism’. According to Karl-Heinz Kern, the GDR discouraged CPGB members from forming communist splinter parties.111 In practice, however, the ‘Special School’ provided a forum for continued contacts with MarxistLeninist splinter parties throughout the 1970s and 1980s.112 A month after attending a ‘study course’ in Kleinmachnow in August 1977, Bob Vidler wrote to Walter Russ, a lecturer at the ‘Special School’, in a bid to secure SED support for the New Communist Party. Pointing to the CPGB majority’s dismissal of their former ‘comrades’ as ‘dogmatists, Stalinists, hardliners, tank-communists and Moscow Communists’, Vidler stressed that: There is no such thing as a Stalinist; there are only Marxist-Leninists and Revisionists. Opportunism in the CPGB is gaining ground very quickly … Suffice it to say that the NEW COMMUNIST PARTY is a Marxist-Leninist party and that we stand four-square with the SOVIET UNION and the DDR and the other socialist countries, and that we are trying to build again a ‘party of the new type’.113

Initially, at least, the SED’s cautious approach towards breakaway parties related to their lack of political influence. In 1977, the New Communist Party organised at most 2 per cent of former CPGB members and remained geographically organised around the Croydon commuter belt.114 In June 1976, the Soviet Union convened a conference in East Berlin, which brought together twenty-nine communist parties from Eastern and Western Europe. The agenda was dominated by the search to overcome the ideological and programmatic divisions increasingly pushing the communist movement apart. The conference failed to find consensus, however, as the Western European parties refuted the universality of the ‘Soviet model’, insisting that ‘actually existing 111 Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001. 112 Interview with Dieter Müller, 12.9.2001. Müller, who taught at the SED’s Teacher Training Institute in Potsdam, had personal contacts with members of British Marxist-Leninist splinter parties. 113 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/ vorl. SED/28045, ‘[Letter] Bob Vidler to Walter Russ’, 20.9.1977. 114 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV/B 2/20/31, Markowski, ‘Information 87/1977 für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Zum Stand der Diskussion über den Entwurf des neuen Parteiprogramms der KPGB’, 14.7.1977, (1–11), 5. According ���������������������������� to Dieter Müller, secretary of the DDR–Great Britain Society in 1989 and a teacher at the Party’s Teacher Training School, the SED retained links with all of the British communist parties. Interview with Dieter Müller, 12.9.2001. Among the supporters of the NCP’s hard-line stance was the British communist composer, Alan Bush.

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socialism’ was no longer a valid paradigm outside Eastern Europe.115 McLennan’s speech to the congress stressed the sovereignty and independence of all communist parties and the CPGB’s commitment to a socialist Britain upholding the freedom of the press and assembly, religious freedoms and freedom of movement, independent trade unions and the right to strike and a multiparty political system.116 Yet, during private discussions with representatives of the CPSU held in the East German Embassy in June 1979, McLennan also criticised a new generation of British Communists, elected onto the National Executive as ‘older comrades’ retired, for publishing ‘anti-Soviet’ articles in the party’s press. It related, according to McLennan, to their lack of ‘political experience’, their non-working-class social origins and the CPGB’s tendency to focus on domestic politics.117 During the following years McLennan continued his attempts to bridge the gap between ‘critical’ and ‘uncritical’ friends of ‘actually existing socialism’ in Eastern Europe.118 But he could not prevent the further deterioration of relations between the SED and the CPGB during the 1970s.

Church Contacts between Britain and the GDR after Recognition: In the wider context already set by the Marxist–Christian dialogue of the 1960s, the period after recognition saw a further increase in contacts between the churches in Britain and the GDR. By the early 1970s, a belief in the ability to enter into dialogue with communism had come to replace the mutual hostilities of the early Cold War among many church representatives in Britain.119 Nowhere was this more evident than in a report written for the British Council of Churches (BCC) by Trevor Beeson, which was published as Discretion 115 ���������������������������������������������������������������� K. Fricke. 1976. ‘Die SED und die europäische KP-Konferenz’, in Deutschland Archiv 9 (7), 651–659. 116 McLennan cited in M. Steinkühler. ������ 1977. Eurokommunismus im Widerspruch. Analyse und Dokumentation, Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 323. 117 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J/IV/2/20/78, Egon Winkelmann, ‘Information für das Politbüro Nr.91/1979. Betreff: Aktuelle Fragen der Politik der KPGBs und die Lage in der Partei’, 13.6.1979, (1–6), 5. 118 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� Markowski, ‘Niederschrift der Ausführungen des Generalsekretärs der KP Großbritanniens’, op. cit., 133. 119 See, for example, ACC, Box 5, File 10, Brian Cooper, ‘Report on a Visit to Dresden to Investigate the Possibilities of Christian–Marxist Dialogue, 26.8–1.9.1970’, (pp.1–10). The report was written for the attention of the Very Reverend HCN Williams, also of Coventry Cathedral. Further, D. Kirby (ed.). 2002. ‘Religion and the Cold War. An Introduction’, in idem, Religion and the Cold War, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 9–32.

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and Valour in 1974.120 Although the limitations placed on believers’ lives behind the Iron Curtain were given due attention, the author was clearly determined to provide the reader with a more nuanced picture of state–church relations in ‘actually existing socialism’ to replace the previously dominant image of unequivocal statesanctioned oppression: The Protestant church has eschewed the temptation to set up itself in opposition to the government, thus inviting martyrdom, or to retreat into cultic observance and pietism, thus becoming marginal. Instead it has moved towards a position of ‘critical solidarity’ with the State, refusing to be relegated to the realms of the private and the ceremonial, accepting responsibility for the proper ordering of society and at the same time retaining its right to evaluate the actions of governments and individuals in the light of the Gospel.121

The fruits of this dialogue with Marxism are detailed, above all, in terms of the church’s ability to run social-welfare programmes, to gain state sanction for a form of conscientious objection and the ability to carve out the social space for an ‘alternative society’ within socialism. The Evangelical Church’s readiness to abandon its allGerman organisational structures by the late 1960s was understood as an expression of the kind of realism that shaped Ostpolitik and paved the path towards the mutual acceptance of two German states.122 Yet, despite the BCC’s explicit desire to ‘contribute to peace and détente’ by presenting a ‘rounded picture’,123 the GDR condemned its endeavour as just another piece of Cold War propaganda intent on undermining ‘actually existing socialism’.124 What the British churches saw as an olive branch, the SED interpreted as part of ‘imperialist’ propaganda undermining communist rule in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, high level contacts continued throughout the 1970s, a decade during which two incumbent Archbishops of Canterbury visited the GDR at the official invitation of the League of Evangelical Churches (EKB). The first of these visits took place from 24 until 29 May 1974. The delegation built on Bishop Schönherr’s visit to London in 1972, when, astoundingly for the non-recognition era, he was received by the Queen and Prime 120 T. Beeson. 1974. Discretion and Valour. Religious Conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe, London: Fontana. 121 Ibid., 184 122 ��������������� Ibid., 167–89. 123 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� EZA, 101/1442, ‘Letter Paul Oestreicher to Hans Seigewasser’, 5.5.1975. 124 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/16444, ‘Visite beim Präsidenten der Volkskammer’, 18.5.1978, (1–3), 3.

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Minister Edward Heath.125 The visit marked a new departure in the Church of England’s involvement in East–West relations. While the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey, had already met with representatives of the Orthodox churches in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the newly recognised GDR provided the first opportunity for him to meet with other Protestants. There were two dimensions to the visit. On the one hand, it provided an opportunity for the Archbishop to preach high-profile sermons behind the Berlin Wall and to hold discussions with representatives of the East German churches. On the other hand, the quid pro quo for this access was a private discussion with the (nominal) Head of State, Willi Stoph. On the last day of the visit, Ramsey attended a reception which brought together leading representatives of church and state.126 Yet, for both sides, contact was motivated by different objectives. The GDR was driven by what it regarded as the political importance of the visit. Accordingly, great emphasis was placed on Ramsey’s (purely formal) position as second in the British state’s hierarchy after the monarch and the traditional influence of Anglican Bishops in the House of Lords. For the Church of England, however, the main objective was to draw the West’s attention to the existence of a ‘lively church life’ in the GDR and thereby to help Christians out of the isolation imposed on them by the regime.127 Ramsey was aware of the potential pitfalls in his church’s diplomacy of engagement.128 After preaching a sermon at the KaiserWilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in West Berlin on 30 May, the Archbishop was asked by a RIAS reporter to consider the possibility that meeting Stoph had merely furnished the GDR with the opportunity to present the regime in a favourable light on the international stage. While conceding that the SED would inevitably use his presence for propagandistic purposes, Ramsey placed his faith in the belief that, ‘If there is to be a peace, which is not a cold peace, the peoples of all countries must be free to be able to travel and take part in cultural exchanges’.129 In an article published in the Times, the Archbishop made clear his personal admiration for East German churchmen, who included in their ranks members of the ‘confessional church’ which had opposed the Nazis and now continued to live as Christians despite the ‘formidable handicaps’ placed in their path by the GDR.130 He 125 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV B2/14/196, ‘Staatl.[iches] Komitee für Rundfunk, Abteilung Monitor. Lo 20.15 vom 28.5.1974. DDR-Kontakt zur britischen Kirche’, (53–57), 53. 126 ������������������������������������������������������ ADN Press Release, in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV B2/14/196. 127 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Staatl.[iches] Komitee für Rundfunk, Abteilung Monitor’, op. cit., 53. 128 Peter Cole, ‘The Archbishop goes East’, The Guardian, 21.5.1974. 129 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Staatl.[iches] Komitee für Rundfunk, Abteilung Monitor’, op. cit., 56. 130 ‘Life in the gap between ideology and faith’, The Times, 7.6.74.

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also spoke very highly about the integrity of the Protestant Church in East Germany when he addressed a meeting of his councillors on Foreign Relations. In Germany more than in any other country, he argued, Marxists and Christians had a common basis for dialogue, because both had resisted the Nazi dictatorship.131 A second visit to the GDR took place in May 1979, during a wider tour of Eastern Europe arranged by Dr Ramsey’s successor, Professor Donald Coggan.132 During his two-day visit, Coggan met with Erich Honecker and encouraged the East German leader to continue his policies of finding some sort of accommodation with the Protestant church.133 Coggan was known to the SED as an outspoken anticommunist and the GDR even considered closing its border to the Christian plenipotentiary.134 The Archbishop’s truculence, however, went against the grain of developments since the 1960s. Paul Oestreicher was closer to the zeitgeist when he called on fellow churchmen to learn ‘to speak to our Communist brothers’.135 A spirit of optimism informed the relationship between the British and East German churches, especially in the years immediately following recognition. In 1974, a visit to Britain by twelve East German churchmen was hailed by the BCC as ‘the fulfilment of a hope for which the British and the East German churches had been working for many years’.136 Equally, in 1974, Arthur Hewlett, general secretary of the British Quakers, travelled to East Berlin to discuss the intensification of contacts between the Quakers and the Friedensrat.137 In 1977 the Quaker’s Eastern European Committee, in conjunction with Sheila Taylor, hosted a seminar on ‘the changing role of women’ in the GDR.138 The good relations that the Quakers enjoyed with East Germany continued with a regular exchange of information on issues of peace, disarmament and security. 131 NA, FCO, 33/2388, ‘P.H.R. Marshall (FCO) to H.B.C. Keeble (Ambassador). Archbishop of Canterbury’s Visit to East Germany’, (1–3), 2. 132 The tour included a visit to Hungary; the planned visit to Poland had to be cancelled following the announcement of the Pope’s arrival at the same time, EZA, 101/1451, Borgmann, ‘An die Mitglieder der Evangelischen Kirchenleitung, Referent des Sekretariats’, 15.5.1979, (1–2). 133 See the correspondence surrounding the visit in EZA, 101/1451. 134 SAPMO-BArch, DO 4 /4886, ‘[Telegram] Kern to Seigewasser’, 1.12.1978’. 135 Oestreicher (1965), cited in M. Thomas. 2005. ‘Loving Thy Neighbour: The Christian–Marxist Dialogue and Cold War Politics in Britain and the GDR’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 173–188. 136 SAPMO-BArch, DO 4/4886, ‘[Letter] John Arnold and Paul Oestreicher to Hans Seigewasser’, 8.10.1974. 137 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 743, ‘Gespräch mit Dr Arthur Hewlett im Haus des Friedensrates’, 5.6.1974, (1–5). 138 SAPMO-BArch, DY 31/1320, ‘Sheila Taylor to Internationale Abteilung, DFD’, 5.9.1977, (214–16).

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In February 1977, a delegation of senior Church of England clergy visited the GDR under Cannon John Arnold.139 In addition to ongoing ecumenical discussions and meetings with state officials the visit focused on the role of the Evangelical church within socialism, including a visit to a church hospital in East Berlin. British churchmen, like the General Secretary of the Synod of the Church of England, Derek Pattinson, and Oestreicher, emphasised Christianity’s common concerns on both sides of the Iron Curtain and welcomed the East German churches’ engagement with the communist state.140 It was known to senior British churchmen that many East German academic theologians stood very close to the state, but it was difficult for them to gauge how close any individual was prepared to go.141 Some, like the EKB’s Manfred Stolpe, entered into a close relationship with the Stasi spanning two decades. During the 1980s, his discussions with Stasi and SED officials included the passing on of information against Pastor Rainer Eppelmann and the independent peace and human rights activists who operated under the umbrella of what should have been church protection.142 As Oestreicher recalls, Stolpe was a ‘chameleon character … you never knew quite where you stood with him’.143 But despite such unease, the Church of England aimed to develop its relationship with the EKB in the interest of détente and with the desire to help the East German church. EKB representatives were regularly invited to and attended the biannual General Synod of the Anglican Church.144 British and East German academic theologians were able to give guest lectures at universities, research institutes and conferences, but the East Berlin authorities attentively monitored who entered and left the country. In August 1974, for example, the SED intervened to prevent Hans Seidel from attending a conference of the International Society for the Study of the Old Testament to be held at the University of Edinburgh.145 In 1978 Oestreicher conceded 139 For the organisation of the visit, see the correspondence in EZA, 101/1442. 140 EZA, 101/1442, ‘[Letter] Pattinson to Stolpe’, 10.3.1977. 141 Interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000. 142 M. Dennis. 2003. The Stasi. Myth and Reality, Harlow: Longman, 148–49. On the complexities of church–state relations in the GDR see H. Heinecke. 2002. ������ Konfession und Politik in der DDR. Das Wechselverhältnis von Kirche und Staat im Vergleich zwischen evangelischer und katholischer Kirche, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. 143 ������������������������������������������� Interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000. 144 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� EZA, 101/1442, Rabenau, ‘Auszug aus dem Protokoll der 50. Sitzung des Vorstands der Konferenz der Ev[angelischen] Kirchenleitung in der DDR am 22.2.1975 in Halle’, 28.2.1975, (pp.1–2); ibid., ‘Kirk Delegation not now to Visit the GDR and Poland’, News from the Church of Scotland [undated: 1975?]. 145 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., 101/1441, ‘Eingabe: [Dr theol. Habil.] Hans Seidel [Dozent, Leipzig] to [Staatssekretär für Kirchenfragen] Seigewasser’, 30.7.1974.

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that, while it might be possible to send some British students to the GDR, it would be ‘all but out of the question’ for East German students to take up scholarships in Britain.146 Church of England plans to develop youth exchanges and contact between Christian women organisations had also run into the ground by the end of the 1970s.147 The church leadership was left in little doubt that the GDR wanted to limit the majority of contacts to those high-profile visits it could more easily control and present at home and abroad as diplomatic ‘successes’. In the development of relations between the British and East German churches, the special relationship between the cathedrals in Coventry and Dresden continued to play an important role.148 Next to Oestreicher, who was near omnipresent in relations with the GDR, Cannon Kenyon Wright, provost of Coventry Cathedral, came to play an influential role in relations with the GDR during the 1970s. His initial contacts with Dresden had come through participation in the rebuilding of the Deaconess Hospital in 1965. From 1974 until 1981, Cannon Wright led the Society for Social and International Reconciliation, which he had set up within the Cathedral. Throughout the 1970s, he visited Dresden and other German cities, such as Cottbus and East Berlin, five or six times. During these years, Wright attributed the strength of the link with Dresden to the good personal relationship between the Provost of Coventry Cathedral and Hans Seigewasser, the Minister for Church Affairs in East Germany. Seigewasser had fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War, while the Provost had manned a hospital ship. Wright clearly saw that the GDR was ‘a highly controlled society’ but also insisted on ‘the positive sides’, especially childcare, social provisions, anti-fascism, race relations and its support for anticolonialism in the developing world. In the 1970s, Wright played an important role in reviving the Christian Peace Conference (CPC), rising to rank of Vice President. The CPC had been set up in 1949 by the Czech theologian Joseph Romanka, who intended to build a bridge between East and West. The CPC, however, was inevitably drawn into the logic of the Cold War, becoming a quasi-official vehicle in the Soviet Bloc’s mobilisation of the churches in international relations. According to Wright: ‘It very much followed Eastern policy, and all of the Eastern churches belonged to it’. Although the CPC had enthusiastically engaged in dialogue with Western Christians and Marxists before 146 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� EZA, 101/1443, ‘Vermerk über ein Gespräch zwischen Pfarrer Paul Oestreicher, Franke, Herrbruck und Pabst am 7.2.1978’, (1–3), 1. 147 See the extensive documentation in EZA, 101/1440, ibid., 101/1443 and 101/1446. 148 See chapter 2, p.160f.

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1968, its failure to condemn the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring precipitated the departure of most of its Western European members. It did, however, retain influence in the Third World and continued to be recognised as a peace envoy by the United Nations. It was the CPC’s support for détente that particularly attracted Wright, who had been active in the peace movement during a gap year in 1960/61 before taking up church-related work in Calcutta.149

The Role of the Peace Movement The East German Friedensrat (Peace Council) continued to seek links to British peace activists. During the 1970s it was headed by Gerhard Lindner, whom we have met above in his capacity as president of the GDR–Great Britain Society,150 and Renate Mielke. Their principal British contacts were Gordon Schaffer and James Lamond. GDR officials were particularly keen to develop contacts with leading Labour Party members and up-and-coming politicians in the unilateralist CND, which adopted a foreign policy stance perceived as being sympathetic to the kind of ‘peaceful coexistence’ promoted by the Soviet Union and its allies. The fragmentation of the British peace movement was seen by Friedensrat officials as a particular problem. In 1975, Ivor Montague informed the Friedensrat that sixty-nine different groups were affiliated to the National Peace Council (NPC). His report went on to detail that, of these groups, only the communist-influenced Bernal Peace Library, the British Peace Assembly (in which James Lamond was a leading light), Women for World Disarmament, and Gordon Schaffer’s Political Committee of the Co-operative Society had any real interest in taking up contacts with the Friedensrat.151 Following instructions from East Berlin, Schaffer in particular worked hard to establish closer links between these pro-Soviet groups and the more mainstream CND.152 In talks with the Friedensrat in 1978, Schaffer recommended in particular to make contact with Bruce Kent, who he regarded as ‘pursuing a more realistic policy than many members of the British Communist Party’. He also warmly recommended 149 Interview with Cannon Kenyon Wright, 5.1.2004. 150 Lindner, using the cover name Hans Reichert, was a high-ranking Stasi officer. 151 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 743, ‘Notiz über ein Gespräch mit Ivor Montague, Großbritannien, während seines Aufenthalts in der Zeit vom 26.–29.6.1975 beim Friedensrat’, (1–2), 2. 152 Harvester Primary Social Sources. The Left in Britain, Part Five, CND Archives. Section One: 1958–1972 (Harvester Press Microform Publications Ltd, 1984) [henceforth: CND Archive], Mic.B. 55/101 (C 17/11, Reel 17), ‘CND National Council’, 12.5.1979.

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Frank Allaun’s LAP which, according to Schaffer, was acting against official Labour Party policy.153 Within CND, Schaffer disseminated pro-Soviet pamphlets which aimed to rebut Western concerns about militarism and human rights abuses in the East Bloc by drawing the readers’ attention to the Soviet Union’s post-Helsinki ‘peace and disarmament’ proposals.154 In 1975 and 1977 respectively, representatives from CND and the global Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi, arrived in East Berlin on study delegations, but these remained isolated events.155 In April 1979, CND declined an offer to participate in a colloquium entitled ‘Co-operation and Détente’ in the GDR.156 Tellingly, too, at domestic peace events even the resolutely unilateralist wing of CND under Bruce Kent refused to share a platform with the Sovietdominated ‘World Peace Council’ for fear of being dismissed as too close to communism.157 It also did not help that pro-Soviet peace organisations often attacked CND. The British Peace Assembly, for example, dismissed CND as an ‘anti-Communist organisation’ with a ‘petty bourgeois’ membership.158 British peace activists who visited the GDR were often struck by the open celebrations of militarism. In 1974, Jean England was part of a ‘Women for World Disarmament’ delegation to the GDR’s 25th anniversary celebrations. Rather than finding a socialist state committed to world peace, she was profoundly dismayed at witnessing a military parade of goose-stepping soldiers in a uniform not unlike that of the Wehrmacht. It is unlikely that she was convinced by the arguments of a secretary working for the Friedensrat who tritely informed her that the National People’s Army ‘safeguarded the achievements’ of the first German ‘workers’ and peasants’ state’.159 153 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/745: ‘Information über ein Gespräch zwischen Vertretern des Friedensrats der DDR und Gordon Schaffer am 25.8.1978’, (1–4), 3–4. 154 See, for example, Gordon Schaffer’s pamphlet, ‘Why British Women launched the campaign for No-First-Use of Nuclear Weapons. A Step to Peace’, London, 1978 (copy in SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 744). 155 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 745, ‘Friedensrat der DDR. Vorschläge für das Gespräch des Präsidenten des Friedensrates der DDR, Prof. Dr. Günther Drefahl, mit James Lamond, MP (Labour-Partei), Vize-Präsident des Weltfriedensrates und Präsident des Freundschaftskommittees Großbritannien–DDR. Berlin, den 14.8.1978’, (1–4), 1–2. 156 ������������������������������������������������ CND Archives, Mic.B. 55/101 (C 17/11, Reel 17). 157 ������������������������������������� Interview with Bruce Kent, 11.7.2002. 158 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 746, ‘Notiz über ein Gespräch mit Ian Bader, Mitglied der Exekutive der British Peace Assembly am 23.7.1982’, 26.7.1982, (1–3), 1. 159 SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 743, ‘[Letter] J. England to W. Böhme’, 7.2.1975.

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The Role of Higher Education in British–GDR Relations Before recognition of the GDR in 1973, contacts between institutions of higher education were tightly circumscribed. In 1969, John Peet had been able to hold public meetings at the University of Nottingham, at the invitation of the university’s United Nations Student Association, and at Oxford University’s Extra-Mural Studies Department, at the invitation of the pro-Soviet Catharine Adler.160 Adler proved to be one of East Berlin’s longest-serving and most enthusiastic contacts, organising delegations of academic visitors and teachers to the GDR well into the 1980s.161 Married to Fred Adler, whose family had emigrated from Germany in 1928, she set up a communist history society and propagated the merits of the GDR at Oxford.162 After 1973, the University of Leeds became an early centre of contacts between British and GDR academics, thanks to the work of Raymond Hargreaves, a British Communist who taught German at the University of Leeds.163 Immediately following recognition, the Foreign Office commented: ‘We already seem to have a fairly flourishing trade in British academics.’164 In 1974 Britain and the GDR agreed on exchange programmes between British and East German learned societies facilitating educational, scientific and cultural exchanges between the two countries.165 After the two governments concluded a formal ‘cultural agreement’ in 1978,166 officially sanctioned relations grew further. By the end of the 1980s, there were links between academics and students in a growing number of universities: 160 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2103, John Peet, ‘Bericht über meinen England-Besuch’, 19.3.1969, (1–9), 4. 161 See, for example, a visit by a delegation from the Historical Association to the GDR in 1981, which she headed: ����������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY13/3120, Inge Fischer, ‘Bericht zum Studienaufenthalt einer Delegation des britischen Historikerverbandes vom 26.8.–5.9.1981’, (1–4). 162 Ibid.; see also, Interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001. 163 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/1377 (2. Schicht), M. Schmidt, ‘Arbeitsprogramm für die hochschulpolitischen Beziehungen der Karl-Marx-Universität zu britischen Universitäten, besonders zur Universität Leeds, für das Jahr 1975’, [undated: 1975], (1–4), 4. 164 NA, FCO 34/195, ‘[Memo] P.A. Rhodes to W.T. Hull’, 28.11.1973. 165 The agreement is included in NA, FCO 34/195, which documents the run-up to the agreement. 166 For the developments leading to the official agreement on the East German side, see the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV B2/9.04/63.

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Table 3.1: Contacts between GDR and British Universities. Source: SAPMOBArch, DY 13/3313, doc. 2 (1988). Humboldt University, Berlin

Buckinghamshire College, High Wycombe, from 1980 Goldsmith College, London, from 1983 Ealing College, London, from 1984 University College Cardiff, from 1986

Karl Marx University, Leipzig

University of Leeds, from 1981 University of Salford, from 1981 University of London, from 1981 Herriott-Watt University, London [no formal agreement but regular exchange of students]

Martin-Luther University, Wittenberg

University of Sussex, from 1987 University of Newcastle [no date given]

Wilhelm-Pieck University, Rostock

University of Bradford, from 1976 University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, from 1983 University of Edinburgh [no formal agreement, but regular exchange of students and staff]

Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena

University of Kent at Canterbury, from 1982

Technical University Dresden

MAD (ophthalmic hospital) – City of London, from 1982 University of Glasgow, from 1985 Imperial College London, from 1987

The closest of these relationships, however, was between the German Department at Ealing College of Higher Education and Berlin’s Humboldt University.167 In terms of the GDR’s Westpolitik, contacts with British academics working in the fields of German language and literature and the political and social sciences stood centre stage. By influencing individual academics, East Berlin aimed not only to put the GDR on the syllabus but to shape how the ‘other’ Germany was presented to students, the wider scholarly community and the media. The ultimate aim was to push ‘totalitarian theory’ out of the lecture theatre, replacing the concept with intellectual foundations more conducive to ‘peaceful coexistence’. What East Berlin understood as a Kulturkampf in British university departments was given added urgency by the presence of West German language assistants, whose salaries were heavily subsidised by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and who were believed to emphasise the illegitimacy of SED rule.168 167 See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313, ‘Relations between Universities’, [undated: 1988?]. See also the correspondence in SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht). 168 See the reports in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313.

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In the 1980s, the number of academics engaged in researching aspects of East Germany amounted to around fifty, with literature specialists dominating the scene. Prominent academics sustaining a long-term interest in East Germany included David Childs, Mike Dennis, Gwyneth Edwards, Marianne Howarth, Martin McCauley, John Sandford, Ian Wallace and Roger Woods.169 In July 1980 an exchange programme was set up between the British Academy and the Akademie der Wissenschaften, which enabled scholars in both countries to spend up to six months over a two year period abroad.170 In May 1979 the Royal Society and the Akademie had already signed a similar agreement.171 The SED’s courtship of British academics brought mixed results. Admittedly the ‘other’ Germany found its way onto an increasing number of universities’ curricula and British academics rarely referred to the disparaging West German ‘Soviet Zone’ when teaching on the GDR. Instead they were willingly following the GDR’s own insistence on being referred to as ‘DDR’ or the English ‘GDR’. After 1989 it became clear that a reliance on the official sources made available by the SED had led many researchers into an interpretative blind alley, overlooking the relationship between political stasis, structural economic decline and latent social unrest. East Berlin could take satisfaction from its presentation as a domestically stable state with considerable ‘achievements’ in its social and economic life. It was only after 1989 that the East German emperor was stripped of his new clothes in a widespread return to anatomising ‘dictatorship’ or (re)presenting the ‘totalitarian’ paradigm. Yet ‘totalitarian theory’ was not entirely expelled from the seminar room during the 1970s and no British academic of any repute accepted the SED’s claim to be a ‘socialist democracy’.172 Worse still, from an East German perspective, John Sandford and Roger Woods published groundbreaking studies of the nascent domestic opposition to SED rule.173 In 1983, Sandford’s acute understanding of the independent peace movement led to his ban from the GDR, which remained in place throughout the 1980s at considerable cost to his research.174 The difficulty of upholding a critical engagement with the GDR without incurring the wrath of the SED authorities is also evident 169 M. Dennis. 2005. ‘GDR Studies in the UK before 1989’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 269–88. 170 The programme is in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV B2/9.04/63. 171 See the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV Bz/9.04/ 63. 172 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Interview with Dieter Müller, 12.9.2001. Müller ���������������������������������������� wrote a doctoral dissertation on British research on the GDR. 173 John Sandford. 1983. The Sword and the Ploughshare: Autonomous Peace Initiatives in East Germany, London: Merlin Press; Roger Woods. 1986. Opposition in the GDR under Honecker, Basingstoke: MacMillan. 174 Email interview with John Sandford, 2004.

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in the career of one of the first British scholars to develop an interest in the GDR, David Childs. In the early 1960s Childs had become interesting to the authorities in East Berlin for two reasons. First, Childs, who had hoped to become a Labour MP, was highly regarded and well connected in both scholarly and political circles. Secondly, he was an outspoken opponent of the Federal Republic who called on the British government to recognise the GDR and to maximise the trading opportunities that West Germany was limiting. On the basis of information made available to him during several ‘study visits’ to the GDR, Childs published highly positive accounts of the East German ‘economic miracle’ in a wide range of British newspapers and journals.175 In 1966, he agreed to publish a chapter on the East German economy in Profile of East Germany, a volume put together by the Liga and its British PR consultant, Lex Hornsby, in a thinly veiled effort to present pro-regime propaganda as independent scholarly opinion.176 Three years later, he went on to publish the first British monograph on the GDR which, although in no way overlooking the repressive aspects of the SED-state, emphasised its economic success story, political stability and the case for diplomatic recognition.177 In the same manner as all other British academics working on the GDR, Childs depended on the readiness of the Friedensrat to furnish him with research materials in a process ultimately requiring politburo approval. While this raises general questions concerning self-censorship to maintain goodwill, the documentation details Childs’ consistent criticisms of ‘actually existing socialism’. In 1976, for example, at a time when he had written to the Friedensrat requesting access to sources, his ‘bourgeois criticisms’ of the latest cultural clampdown signalled by the deportation of singersongwriter Wolf Biermann evidently antagonised his hosts.178 Two years later, however, Childs spent five weeks in the GDR on a British Council-supported exchange, which included a lecture-tour of universities.179 The final parting of ways came in the second half of the 1980s. From 1987, Child published articles in the Economist and the Guardian predicting that political instability in the GDR would be the likely outcome of the SED’s inability to address Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’.180 According to the Stasi, East Germany’s 175 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ PA AA, MfAA C 114/70, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt von Dr David Childs, Großbritannien, in der Zeit von 21. bis 30.4.1968’. ������������������������������� Childs published an article in the January 1968 edition of New Outlook. 176 L. Hornsby (ed.). 1966. Profile of East Germany, London: Harrap. 177 D. Childs. 1969. East Germany, London: Benn. 178 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 744, ‘[Letter] David Childs to Kurt Häcker [Friedensrat]’, 1.12.1976. 179 ������ Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 146. 180 Ibid., 149.

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former ‘bourgeois’ friend had degenerated into an ‘imperialist ideologue’.181 Another important academic with extensive contacts in East Germany was Ian Wallace, who founded the journal GDR Monitor in 1979. It was published twice annually, initially at the University of Dundee before moving with its editor to Loughborough in the early 1980s. According to the journal’s mission statement, it aimed to publish a plurality of views across a diversity of disciplines. In line with the interests of its founding editor, however, the main weight of the material published centred on East German literature and the search between the lines for dissent. The journal’s doors were also open to non-academics, and its pages included articles from Kathy Vanovitch, of the Britain–GDR Society, and Peter Johnson, a journalist who had spent considerable periods working in and on the GDR.182 East Berlin’s interest in GDR Monitor focused on its potential as a vehicle to communicate a ‘positive image’ to an influential British audience. A Liga report stated that: ‘In the journal GDR Monitor we see an expression of the increasing need for information about the GDR [in Britain] … In future, within the framework of our possibilities, it is our intention to influence the content of the journal.’183 There is no evidence that the approaches made to academics amounted to more than wishful thinking.184 Wallace successfully managed to walk the tightrope between having good relations with fellow academics in the GDR and refusing to give up a critical perspective on the GDR. In 1977, Wallace had rebuffed an approach by the Stasi.185 By the end of the 1980s, he was still appointed external examiner for doctoral dissertations submitted to the Humboldt University’s German Department. And, in 1988, the first article by an East German author was published in the German Monitor. The economic historian Jörg Roesler provided a piece on refugees from the Soviet Zone of Occupation between 1945 and 1948 – a topic that would take on new resonance less than a year later.186 Academic exchanges also flowed from the GDR to Britain. In 1975, a report surveying developments expressed some satisfaction that eighteen East German academics from a wide range of disciplines – from Germanists through to civil engineers to mathematicians and 181 David Childs, ‘Spies wanted (academics need not apply)’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 11.2.2000. 182 Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 152–55. 183 See the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3320. 184 For a discussion on how to influence British academics, see the detailed reports in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313. 185 ������� Glees, Stasi Files, 273. 186 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313, Werner Hartig, ‘LfV, Abt.II. Vermerk über Gespräch mit Prof. Ian Wallace von der Universität Loughborough’, 5.10.1988, (1–3), 3.

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physicists – had already participated in exchanges. East Berlin was anxious to formalise exchange programmes in the form of signed agreements at the ‘highest levels’ with the partner universities.187 When a delegation from the GDR Ministry of Education visited the Universities of Bradford, Manchester, Sheffield Polytechnic, High Wycombe College of Technology and Art and the Open University in March 1975, they found that ‘ignorance about our country is widespread’. They paid tribute to David Childs’s book of 1969 entitled ‘East Germany’, which they regarded as portraying the GDR in a positive and favourable light. They also recorded a particularly absurd episode, in which they met a taxi driver who was a member of the CPGB and kept his party documents hidden at home for fear of being persecuted.188 It shows more than anything the paranoid mentality and manichean worldview of GDR officials. From the later 1970s, an increasing number of East German English-language specialists took part in exchange programmes. By 1980, the universities of Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, York, Wolverhampton Polytechnic and Ealing College of Higher Education had hosted visiting East German academics, who ran courses in their Departments, and exchanged students.189 In conversation classes and literature seminars, East German assistants emphasised their country’s commitment to ‘world peace’ and its ‘socialist achievements’ – from the generous welfare state through its education policy to sporting successes. Yet if the end of year reports written by the assistants were ever optimistic about winning the ‘struggle’ for the hearts and minds of British students, they then conceded that the Federal Republic had won the initial battles. Dr Annemarie Hindorf, a linguist at the University of Halle, detailed how the students at Newcastle University’s Department of German and Scandinavian Studies knew next to nothing about the GDR. What they did know had been strongly influenced by West German language assistants’ courses. Those who had returned from spending their year abroad in the Federal Republic had, in Hindorf’s opinion, been encouraged to adopt a hostile attitude towards the GDR.190 187 See the detailed reports in SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/1377 (2. ��������������� Schicht), esp. ‘Arbeitsprogramm für die hochschulpolitischen Beziehungen’. 188 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/1377, ‘Bericht über die Reise einer Delegation des Ministeriums für Hoch- und Fachschulwesen nach Großbritannien’, (undated: 1975), (1–7), 5. 189 See the reports and correspondence in SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/B 1556/2a (2 Schicht); NA, FCO 34/195, ‘[Confidential Memo]. Cultural Exchange. Negotiations Leading to Cultural Programme between United Kingdom and Germany (East)’, [undated: 1980]. 190 See the reports in SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/B 1566/2a (2. Schicht), ������������������������������ for example, ibid., G. Radtke, ‘Botschaft der DDR. [An] MfAA, Abteilung KAB [Gen. Bettin]. Betr.: Schwerpunkte und Entwicklungslinien der kulturellen Auslandsbeziehungen mit Großbritannien für die Jahre 1976–1980’, (1–3).

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A report from Erika Schönemann, who spent the academic year 1979/80 in the German Department at Ealing College of Higher Education, noted that after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a bad situation had been made worse. The blame for this was placed firmly with the British media, which stood accused of ‘trying to distract attention from a bad domestic economic situation’.191 The technological revolution of the 1980s also found its way into the cultural war in German Departments. While the Federal Republic was quick to provide videos for language assistants, the GDR continued to rely on old-fashioned, less stimulating slide shows.192 More importantly, the material provided by the GDR for use in British universities remained trapped in the military sounding lexicon of Marxist-Leninist jargon. In 1987, for example, a lesson at the University of Leeds, focusing on an FDJ skiing holiday, was entitled ‘Operation Snowflake’193 The picture of Britain painted in the GDR assistants’ end-of-year reports for the East German Ministry of Higher Education were characterised by the construction of a clear ‘image of the enemy’ (Feindbild). A monochrome Britain was sketched in which a declining Empire was the principal present-day ally of the Soviet Bloc’s ‘main enemy’, the USA. The British working classes were presented as oppressed and suffering the economic hardships of ‘dying imperialism’.194 The role of individual lecturers sympathetic to the GDR played an important role in allowing East German assistants into the seminar rooms. The German Department at the University of Reading, which ran a series of courses on the GDR, was typical of most British universities in employing only West German, Austrian and Swiss assistants – despite the subject specialisms of Professors Peter Barker and John Sandford.195 The exceptions were Raymond Hargreaves at Leeds University and Karin McPherson, a Germanist at the University of Edinburgh, who were enthusiastic proponents of contacts with East Germany. The German department at Newcastle University was also reported to be quite favourably inclined towards the GDR.196 However, in many cases it was not sympathy with East Germany, or lack of it, which decided on the employment of GDR assistants, but 191 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Ibid., DR 3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht), Erika Schönemann, ‘Bericht über die Arbeit als Language Assistant am Ealing College of Higher Education im Studienjahr 1979/80’, [undated: 1980], (1–5), 5. 192 ��������� Ibid., 4. 193 ������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht), ‘Hauptbericht über meine Gastlehrtätigkeit an der Division of German Studies der University of Leeds in der Zeit vom 31.1. biz 9.7.1987’, (1–10), 6. 194 These are typical statements in the visiting assistants reports, see, for example, the reports in SAPMO-BArch DR 3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht). 195 Email Interview with John Sandford, 2004. 196 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DR3/B1566/2a, ‘Abschlussbericht des Deutschlektors in Newcastle. ����������������������������� Studienjahr 1979/80’, (1–11).

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simple economics. The West German, Austrian and Swiss Lektoren were financed or part-financed by their respective governments to a far greater extent than their East German counterparts. During the 1970s, a number of contacts emerged between the FDJ and the National Union of Students (NUS). During the 1960s, correspondence from the East German youth movement had met with no response from British students.197 The rise of a new generation of radical student leaders, however, changed the situation.198 The FDJ’s main contact was Steve Parry, a Communist student who was elected onto the national executive of the NUS in the early 1970s. As a member of the International Policy Group, he was well placed to promote contacts. In 1972, Parry made the first NUS visit to East Germany, returning with a list of suggestions for how the relations could be developed.199 Although unable to drum up interest in the campaign for East German recognition, his visit to East Berlin did mark a new departure in relations with the East German youth movement. In 1973, the FDJ sent an official delegation to the annual congress of the NUS; the following year, the NUS sent a delegation to the World Youth Festival in East Berlin.200 Although contacts continued, the FDJ’s internal reports conceded that only a small minority of British students were in any way actively interested in international issues, let alone the specific case of the GDR.201

British Teachers in the GDR In 1978, an agreement concluded between the British Council and the East German Ministry for People’s Education included provision for ten teachers to attend language summer schools in the partner country each year.202 Although the number of available places was doubled in the early 1980s, a chronic lack of demand among British teachers raised concerns in East Berlin that the exchange agreement would dry up. In the hope of stimulating interest among language teachers, the Embassy sent out information about summer schools in East Germany to the National Union of Teachers and to university departments, which aimed to alert potential participants 197 See the communications in Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick [henceforth: MRC], MSS. 280/20/6/13. 198 ��������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/116152, Siegfried Diener, ‘Bericht über den Freundschaftbesuch einer Delegation des Zentralrates der FDJ in Großbritannien auf Einladung der NUS und deren Teilnahme am Kongress der NUS vom 18.– 27.11.1973’, (1–7), 3–4. 199 See the correspondence in MRC, MSS. 280/20/6/13. 200 SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/116152, ‘[Letter] Steve Parry to FDJ’, 20.9.1974. 201 See the situation reports filed in SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/116152. 202 A copy of the agreement is filed in SAPMO-BArch, DR 2/B 1572/5 (2 Schicht).

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to the availability of British Council grants.203 The main British institutions receiving East German summer-school students were the universities of Swansea, Oxford, Leeds and Newcastle. As a cultural complement to language tuition, the course also addressed British literature, society and politics and day trips were organised to heritage sites, from Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-uponAvon to the St. Fagan’s Welsh Folk Museum in Cardiff.204 While British teachers could put themselves forward, East German participants were selected on account of their commitment to ‘actually existing socialism’. A range of participants were selected from school and university teachers of English, translators working for Intertext, and officials at the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education, who were drilled in how best to present a positive image of the GDR to other foreign participants attending the summer schools and the lecturing staff.205 In some cases, their efforts were supported by the British lecturing staff, such as Catherine Adler at Oxford University’s Extramural department. In 1982, a report detailing the experience of East German participants at the Oxford-based summer school singled out Adler’s ‘positive attitude’ towards the GDR: She constantly gave a very critical evaluation of the situation in her own country. She asked the opinions of participants from the GDR, and respected their position … She spoke with the highest recognition of our economic achievements, of our health and education systems and of our youth policy. She also expressed her solidarity with us by inviting our entire group to her home.206

In a profession largely lacking interest in the GDR, Adler was a welcome ally – all the more so as many of the ‘study delegations’ that did take the trouble to visit East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s were critical of what they saw. One report summarising a ten-day visit to Leipzig in 1980 noted with evident dissatisfaction that ‘Marxist-Leninist philosophy stifles the education system’, that buildings were in poor repair and few cars were on the roads.207 Whilst the GDR welcomed the official exchange programme with the British state, which was in operation after 1978, a much more 203 See the copies of this material in SAPMO-BArch, DR 2/ A 3276. 204 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DR 2/A 3281, ‘Ministerium für Volksbildung, HA Unterricht, Abt. Fremdsprache. Bericht über die Teilnahme einer Delegation von Englischlehrern der DDR an der Summer School in Oxford (Großbritannien)’, 12.8.1983, (1–8), 1–2. 205 See, for example, the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DR 2/A 3281. 206 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DR 2/A 3281, ‘Bericht über die Teilnahme am internationalen Sommerkurs in Oxford’, [undated: 1982]’, (1–6), 3. 207 Ibid., DR 2/A 3279, ‘Report on the Educational Study Tour to the GDR from 6th to 13th November 1980’, (1–16), 1.

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successful programme was operated by the Britain–GDR Society from 1976 and throughout the 1980s under its secretaries Sheila Taylor and Jack Berlin. Each year the Society sent British lecturers, teachers, translators and undergraduate as well as postgraduate students of German to the GDR where they participated in summer courses at the GDR universities and teacher training colleges. The Liga told the Society how many funded places there were and the Society accepted more applicants and simply divided the available money between them, so that everyone had to pay a little bit themselves. There was a lot of competition, especially for the student places, and applications increased year on year.208 Yet there were problems too. The East German phobia that all Westkontakte risked infecting the socialist body politic was reflected in the extent to which all participants on language summer schools had to account for all contacts with Westerners, especially West Germans. In the GDR, ‘political reliability’ was, above everything else, the required qualification to train as an English teacher; and political support for ‘actually existing socialism’ was the qualification expected of British language teachers working in East Germany. According to one avowedly pro-Soviet British Communist who taught English in the GDR: English was the language of the enemy. In the GDR English was taught only by those who could be trusted to teach it within the correct ideological framework. There were no teachers in the GDR who only taught English; they had to learn it together with Russian to ensure that there was a correcting ideological input. Teaching English was always with a political edge. We had to present the face of capitalism they the authorities wanted to be seen.209

From the 1950s until the end of the 1990s, a number of British Communists embraced what they understood as an opportunity to teach in a socialist country. Between 1974 and 1978, Blanche Green taught teachers of English while her husband took up an academic position at the University of Greifswald. In an autobiographical booklet looking back on these years, Green described her experience in the most acclamatory terms imaginable: ‘[L]ife here is much happier than in Britain … Much less of a “rat race” and our standard of living is higher than at home. … After 30 years of rather unsuccessful efforts to bring about a Socialist Britain, the sheer relief of living in 208 Many thanks for Sheila Taylor for providing us with this information from her personal archive. 209 Confidential interview with former British teacher of English in the GDR.

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a socialist society [is immense]’210 In the hope of doing something to put right the British media’s negative depictions of ‘actually existing socialism’, she praised the GDR’s provisions for family life, gender equality, the education system, the treatment of the young and the old, and the levels of medical care and cultural life available to all. East Germany’s democratic credentials, too, are extolled in a narrative sweeping aside any question of political repression. In this rose-tinted vision of East Germany the churches suffered no persecution, the trade unions were powerful organisations and the state’s commitment to anti-fascism contrasted with the reactionary politics of the Federal Republic. Dissidents were dismissed as ‘discontented intellectuals’ in the pay of the West.211 Other accounts of British teachers in the GDR were similarly positive. Marguerite Morgan, who had joined the CPGB in 1930, initiated early contacts with the GDR as a founding member of the Coventry Peace Council in the early 1960s. Both Marguerite and her husband, David Morgan, taught at the Teacher Training Institute in Potsdam. Her stay spanned three decades – from 1964 until shortly after the collapse of 1989/90. After teaching for three weeks on a course for student teachers, the CPGB arranged for her to move to East Germany. At a time when fellow Britons dismissed the GDR as climatically grey and politically oppressive, she recalled how: ‘Moving to the GDR was an adventure. I was going to live in a socialist country and I was excited’.212 Her memoir mixes praise for the GDR’s ‘achievements’ in overcoming a difficult start with acknowledgement of the state’s shortcomings. But her loyalty to the GDR was beyond reproach. The working environment offered by the Marxist-Leninist teachers’ collective was evidently important in her identification with life under ‘socialism’. David Morgan was also regarded as politically reliable by the East German authorities – so much so, in fact, that he was asked to write an introduction to British history for publication in East Germany, which went through several editions.213 Another British Communist who taught English in the GDR was Leonard (Len) Goldman, who was a language assistant at the Karl-Marx University, Leipzig, from 1958 until 1965. Goldman had become a Communist in the 1930s, motivated by his experience of the ‘slump’ at home and the rise of fascism in Europe. After 1945, his 210 Blanche Green. 1992. Glimpses of Socialism, Camborne, 3. [pamphlet in possession of authors]. 211 Green, Glimpses of Socialism, 71. 212 Marguerite Morgan. 1990. Part of the Main. Life of a Communist Woman, Preston, 84 [pamphlet in possession of authors]. 213 Dave Morgan. 1983. A Short History of the British People, Leipzig [pamphlet in possession of authors].

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interest in Eastern Europe prompted him to join the Romanian and Czechoslovak friendship societies. Then, in 1957, his participation in a summer school organised by Dorothy Diamond in the Thuringian town of Weimar sparked an interest in the GDR. When he heard that a job was going in Leipzig, he successfully applied for it. Looking back on his decision to live and work in East Germany, Goldman recalls that, ‘It enabled me to do two things. It enabled me to satisfy my desire to get away, using my skills in an exciting and new way, and also to help a socialist country.’214 He is a good example of a British socialist who was able to recognise the shortcomings of the Sovietmodel but who never abandoned the hope that its reform offered the best possibility of a better society. Goldman became more critical of Soviet-style communism after Khrushchev’s denouncement of Stalinism. He was able to see that the GDR had not entirely overcome its political-cultural inheritance: [There was] too much top-down instruction …. [and] too much rigidity among officials. … There was the attitude that we know best. … I’m not saying that I was against the policies of the Party but the way it was imposed meant that they didn’t convince people, they coerced people.

Yet ultimately, what he regarded as considerable social and economic ‘achievements’ tipped the scales. Uncomfortable with the shootings at the Berlin Wall, he believed that its construction had been the only way to secure the state’s borders with the Federal Republic. Goldman was also aware that, as a Westerner in a socialist state, he was under surveillance during his years in Leipzig. This did not prevent him from supporting the GDR after his return to Britain, when he became branch secretary of the BGS in Brighton. Green, Morgan and Goldman were joined by other Britons who spent long years in the GDR’s education sector. John Manning, a Polytechnic lecturer, moved to East Germany in 1973, after attending summer schools from 1963. He understood his personal role as that of a human bridge between East and West in the Cold War. In the mid1950s, Diana Löser went to the GDR with her husband, Frank, who had fled persecution in Nazi Germany. She recalled how family and friends had warned them that they would end up in Siberia. Yet this did not deter them: ‘[W]e were young and we had ideals. We wanted to build up something new and we felt that this was a new society.’ In the early 1970s, John Tarver, a Communist school teacher, followed the well-trodden path from summer schools to a new career in the GDR. In 1966, John Pheby moved to East Berlin, where he spent the next decade at the Academy of Sciences.215 All of 214 All quotes are from an interview with Len Goldman, 12.12.2000. 215 Robert McCrum, ‘The Lost Comrades’, Weekend Guardian, 27/28.6.1992.

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those GDR aficionados were Communists, and yet, as far as the GDR was concerned, it continued to concentrate its efforts on the British Labour Party rather than the CPGB.

The Relations between the Labour Party and the SED The Labour Party’s return to government from 1974 until 1979 was greeted in East Berlin with cautious optimism. An evaluation of the prospects for bilateral relations, written by the Stasi’s foreign intelligence arm immediately after the General Election, stressed that British foreign policy was unlikely to undergo any ‘fundamental shift’, but the GDR’s Westpolitik could be expected to find a louder echo than would have been the case under a Conservative administration.216 One reason for cautious optimism in East Berlin was the rise of the Left in the Labour Party. In 1975, a politburo strategy document detailing bilateral relations placed the ‘left development’ of the British workers’ movement in the foreground. It was this, according to the SED’s theorists, which drove the Labour government’s ‘realistic attitude’ towards the Soviet Bloc as expressed in Wilson’s visit to Moscow. Yet East Germany’s inclusion in the comity of nations brought to the fore a form of communist realpolitik. An official policy of strict non-intervention in Britain’s domestic affairs was adopted in the hope that the quid pro quo would be a similar British reluctance to comment on internal East German affairs accompanied by a willingness to increase trade and, ultimately, to recognise unconditionally East German citizenship. East Germany had high hopes that Britain under a Labour government could be won over to supporting ‘peaceful coexistence’.217 Hence the SED redoubled its efforts to develop a network of contacts with senior Labour politicians, and the friendship society was instructed to ‘cooperate above all with trade unions, cooperatives, local Labour Parties, Trades Councils, youth, women’s and students’ organisations, teachers, progressive artists, representatives of local communities. This should take place above all in centres of the working class, like London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Coventry, the Welsh mining area, the Scottish harbour and ship building areas.’218 216 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HVA 107, ‘Information über einige aussen- und innenpolitische Probleme Großbritanniens unter der Labour-Regierung’, 29.4.1974, (9–12), 11– 12. 217 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J/IV/2/2/1543, Hermann Axen, ‘Konzeption für die Entwicklung der Beziehungen der DDR zu Großbritannien’, 14.1.1975, (1–9), 4. 218 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319, ‘Zum Wirken der “Society Britain–GDR”’, (1–14), 1, 13–14.

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Immediately after recognition, the person charged with developing East Germany’s contacts with leading Labour politicians was the newly appointed Ambassador, Karl-Heinz Kern.219 He set his sights high. In 1973 and 1974 respectively, his invitations to party chairman, Tony Benn, and Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to visit the GDR were turned down. But in the following year the party’s General Secretary, Ronald Hayward, agreed to visit East Berlin and Dresden. After an NEC meeting on 11 February 1975 approved the visit, Hayward, together with the GDR’s old ‘friend’ Ian Mikardo, in his capacity as chairman of the Executive’s foreign relations committee, made the first official Labour Party visit to the GDR.220 The long-standing ban on direct official relations with the SED had finally been lifted. In addition to the usual ‘cultural programme’ for visiting dignitaries,221 Hayward had a series of top-level discussions with Erich Honecker and his leading foreign policy experts, Hermann Axen and Paul Markowski, where both sides expressed their commitment to peace and détente.222 The SED had every reason to be satisfied with the visit. Hayward had expressed a liking for the ‘progress’ he had seen in East Germany and was a strong and influential proponent of good relations with Eastern Europe. Yet the man who had told the East German ambassador that he wanted to visit his country to witness ‘Marx put into practice’, also criticised East German human rights abuses and the persecution of dissidents.223 Hayward specifically raised the issue of Alan Watson and received reassurances that the GDR would release him within a fortnight, and he also pressed GDR officials on allowing GDR citizens engaged to British citizens to apply for exit visas.224 Unknown to Hayward, his left-wing views and influence within government circles made him a target for recruitment by the Stasi. After closely monitoring the visit, however, he was struck off their list as ‘unsuitable’.225 219 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� PA AA, Bestand MfAA, C 169/77, ‘Hinweise zur Entwicklung der Beziehungen DDR–Großbritannien nach der Herstellung diplomatischer Beziehungen’, 4.6.1973, (149–60), 149–50. 220 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 20/J IV/2/2A, ‘Vorlage für das Politbüro (Umlauf). Betrifft: Besuch des Generalsekretärs der britischen Labour Party, Ron Hayward, und Gattin, sowie des Vorsitzenden der Aussenpolitischen Kommission der LP, Ian Micado [sic], in der DDR vom 28.2. bis 5.3.1975’, 17.2.1975, (24–30), 25. 221 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� LAB, C Rep 902 Nr. 3834, Heinz Borbach, ‘Aufenthalt des Generalsekretärs der Labour Party Gro��������������������������������������������������������� ß�������������������������������������������������������� britanniens in der DDR, Berlin den 26.2.1975’, (1–3), 1. 222 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, Büro Honecker, DY 30/2447, ‘Niederschrift über ein Gespräch des Ersten Sekretärs des ZK der SED, Erich Honecker, mit dem Generalsekretär der britischen Labour-Party, Ronald Hayward am Montag, dem 3.3.1975’, 12.3.1975, (1–4), 1–2. 223 Interview with K-H Kern, 12.10.2001. 224 ��������������������������������� Howarth. ‘Vom Kalten Krieg’, 160. 225 Glees, Stasi Files, 316–17.

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As the Labour Party drifted to the left throughout the 1970s, relations with the SED improved. In 1973 Labour lifted the ban on party members belonging to communist ‘front organisations’ imposed in 1927. In its external relations, Labour increased contacts with representatives of ‘actually existing socialism’ behind the Iron Curtain. Between 1975 and 1981 the SED sent delegations to the annual congresses of the Labour Party. As Ambassador Kern recalls, it provided an invaluable forum for cultivating existing contacts and establishing new ones.226 In 1976, for example, the SED delegation was able to hold discussions with Prime Minister Callaghan, and Hayward arranged a dinner for the East German visitors.227 Among those most receptive to East German approaches were Labour’s trade union sponsored MPs, many of whom held explicitly pro-Soviet views. At the heart of this body of opinion were MPs like Ron Brown, James Lamond, and Ernie Ross.228 Neal Ascherson even recalls left-wing Labour MPs at the Potsdam Discussions of the 1970s ‘congratulating the People’s Police for their steadfast defence of the Berlin Wall’.229 But further up in the Labour Party hierarchy, the GDR activities vis-à-vis the Labour Party were seen with suspicion. When the GDR’s deputy foreign minister Nier visited London in June 1975, he was anxious to invite Roy Hattersley to East Berlin and alluded to the good relations between SED and Labour Party only to find Hattersley reluctant and unwilling to accept the overtures from the East German Communist Party.230 Karl-Heinz Kern, the GDR ambassador to Britain, recalls how Michael Foot and Dennis Healey were also keeping the GDR embassy at arms’ length.231 Nevertheless, a report written by the SED delegation to the Labour Party congress in October 1980 identified an influential strand of support for the GDR’s policies. Despite the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, approval of ‘peaceful coexistence’ continued to underpin discussions with such party notables as Joan Lester, Sam McCluskie, Alex Kitson and Hayward.232 Of course, the SED continued to have its critics, who focused on human rights abuses and political oppression in the GDR. In 1979, a draft resolution calling for the removal of the East German delegation because of 226 Interview with K-H. Kern, 12.10.2001. 227 H. Hoff. 2005. ‘The GDR and the Labour Party, 1949–1989’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds.). The Other Germany, (125–140), 137. 228 D. Lilleker, 2004. Against the Cold War. The History and Political Traditions of ProSovietism in the British Labour Party, 1945–1989, London: I.B.Tauris, 226–33. 229 Interview with Neal Ascherson, 22.5.2002. 230 NA, FCO, 33/2646, ‘Record of a Conversation between Roy Hattersley and the Deputy Minister Herr Kurt Nier of the GDR’; also ibid.: ‘John Killick (FCO) to H.B.C. Keeble (Ambassador)’, 3.7.1975, (1–2), 2. 231 Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001. 232 See the reports in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV/2/20/159.

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the imprisonment of the dissident intellectual, Rudolf Bahro, was narrowly negotiated off the agenda.233 Yet what made the Labour Party, above everything else, such an attractive target for the GDR, was its support of a unilateral reduction in military spending, including the abandonment of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.234 The GDR aimed to tap into the rising unilateralism by promoting ‘nuclear-free zones’ in major cities. In the pursuit of this objective, the Britain–GDR Society was charged with strengthening contacts with municipal politicians and trade unionists with the aim of ‘twinning’ more British and East German cities. According to East Berlin’s foreign-policy planners, these ‘city partnerships’ should serve as a medium through which East Germany’s ‘peace policies’ could be conveyed to the British public at local level. Ideally, the local press should carry stories of ‘town twinning’ when East Bloc foreign policy initiatives were announced.235 In 1979, the Stasi reviewed the state of relations between the SED and the Labour Party in what continued to be a broadly optimistic prognosis. The NEC had invited the ‘socialist states’ to send delegates to the Labour Party annual congresses, although it stopped short of accepting invitations to attend the SED’s IX and X congresses. Jim Callaghan had in fact intervened to prevent the NEC’s International Committee from deepening relations with the ‘socialist states’ on grounds of ideological differences and human rights concerns.236 But not only the party Right was sceptical about too cordial relations with the GDR. On the party left, Trotskyist groups, which operated under the label Militant Tendency, were highly critical of ‘actually existing socialism’ in Eastern Europe. Eric Heffer (MP for Liverpool Walton, 1964–91) supported the Eastern Europe Solidarity Campaign, founded in March 1978 by labour movement activists. Its aim was ‘to eradicate a long-standing weakness of the British labour movement – its failure to campaign openly against oppression in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union’.237 Heffer authored a preface 233 ������ Ibid. 234 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV/2/20/159, ‘Information für das Politbüro. Betrifft: (I) Bericht über die Jahreskonferenz der LP (29.9. bis 3.10.1979)’, 10.10.1979, (123–40), 123, 130, 139–40. 235 ������������������������������������������������ Axen, ‘Entwicklung der Beziehungen’, op. cit. 7. 236 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HVA 79, ‘Information über die gegenwärtigen Situation in der Führungsgremien der Labour-Partei, Nr. 525/79’, 31.8.1979, (231–35), 331–32. 237 Eastern Europe Solidarity Campaign. 1978. The British Labour Movement and Oppression in Eastern Europe. Preface by Eric Heffer MP, London: Eastern Europe Solidarity Campaign. 4. Heffer’s opposition to ‘actually existing socialism’ is also documented in the many unpublished manuscripts on the topic in his papers at the LPAM, Eric Heffer papers, ESH/10/35; ESH/10/42; ESH/10/89.

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to the group’s foundational document, which left no doubt about his hostility to Eastern European socialism: It is impossible to create a socialist society without freedom. Socialism and freedom are indivisible. Socialism means the flowering of the human spirit, not its destruction. Yet in parts of the world, and in particular in the Soviet Union and the East-European Communist-controlled countries, oppressive measures and administrative actions are taken against critics, in the name of socialism. Such oppressive measures have to be opposed, especially by socialists.

The bimonthly journal Labour Focus on Eastern Europe reported about Eastern European dissidents and their activities, exposing the brutal mechanisms of suppression operated by the communist dictatorships. With regard to the GDR, it was particularly active in publicising the fates of Rudolf Bahro and Robert Havemann. Yet within the Labour Party, these left-of-centre anti-communists were as rare as the pro-GDR lobby. The broad majority of the party was willing to enter into dialogue with the GDR and Eastern Europe in order to lessen tensions in the Cold War and contribute to détente. Overall, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the GDR’s relations with the Labour Party were considerably more cordial and tension free than those with the Euro-communist wing of the CPGB.

Trade Union Contacts Like some Labour Party politicians, some trade unionists were taken in by an East German post-recognition charm offensive. From 1973 the FDGB was able to attend the TUC’s annual conferences as ‘official guests’, rather than merely the unofficial invitees of individual leftwing member unions. At the 1973 TUC congress, the British trade union movement expressed its satisfaction with the recognition of the GDR and looked forward to developing a dialogue with unions behind the Iron Curtain.238 In its international work, the FDGB aimed to develop relations with the TUC. By 1978, of the fortyfour member unions represented on the TUC’s General Council, twenty-four of them had ‘fraternal relations’ with their East German counterparts.239 In many cases, Communist union officials within the British union were instrumental in instigating those contacts. Yet the General Council, where Communist influence was much less marked than in some of the individual unions, remained 238 TUC Annual Congress (1973), 211. 239 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13095, ‘Information 109. Jahreskongress ������������������������������ des TUC 1977’, 28.10.1977, (1–8), 8 and Anlage 1.

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unenthusiastic about relations with the leadership of the FDGB. After several spurned invitations, it finally agreed to send the first official TUC delegation to the GDR in June 1976. The delegation of four was headed by International Secretary, Jack Jones, who had already visited East Germany with his own union, the TGWU, in May 1973.240 Jones, who had fought in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, felt attracted by the GDR’s antifascism. A confidential report written after the visit blended measured praise for the East German unions’ engagement in industrial and social policy with a desire to maintain political distance from a communist dictatorship.241 Jones invited a FDGB delegation under Harry Tisch to a return visit to London, which took place in 1979. It attracted hostile articles in the press, such as an article in the Economist describing Tisch as a communist apparatschik intent on enforcing the party line.242 The move of the British trade union movement to the left in the 1970s was in line with Labour Party development and formed the background to the spread of union-to-union contacts, from the national to the local level.243 After Len Murray replaced the explicitly anti-communist TUC General Secretary, Victor Feather, in 1973, relations at the national level improved markedly. Tisch was able to develop a good rapport with Murray throughout his decade as General Secretary. Murray, who visited the GDR several times and spoke good German, agreed to advise Tisch on how best to increase union-to-union contacts, which he perceived as a vital step on the road towards closer contact with the General Council.244 This, of course, had long since been the FDGB’s strategy. During the FDGB’s official visit to London in 1977 as guests of the General Council, Murray also acted as a middleman, facilitating meetings between union-sponsored Labour MPs and the East German delegation.245 At its 1977 congress, the TUC expressed its hope that the FDGB visit would ‘contribute to a further fruitful development of contacts’.246 240 The other members of the delegation were Gormley, Bassnett and Hargreaves, see MRC, MSS.292D, ‘TUC International Committee Meeting’, 5.7.1976. 241 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/11118, ‘Private and Confidential. Trades Union Congress visit to the GDR June 23–26, 1976’, (1–10)); see also, MRC, MSS.292D, ‘TUC IC Meeting’, 5.7.1976. There is also a positive report about the visit in MRC, Warwick, I.C. 10/9, 5 July 1976: ‘Visit to the German Democratic Republic, 23– 26 June 1976’. Also: TUC Annual Congress (1976), 268. 242 ‘The TUC and the Soviet Block’, The Economist 7.7.1976. 243 See the extensive reports in SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13095. 244 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/11117, ‘[Letter] Lionel Murray to Harry Tisch’, 1.8.1977; ibid., ‘[Letter] Lionel Murray to Harry Tisch’, 14.6.1977. 245 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/1117, ‘[Letter] Len Murray to Harry Tisch’, 13.5.1977’. 246 TUC Annual Congress, (1977), 253 f.

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The STUC was even more accommodating.247 In March 1974 it sent a delegation headed by Gavin Laird and W. Nairn to the GDR, which praised the FDGB’s social and political roles, and commended the GDR for its standard of housing, local amenities, childcare and, of course, for the integral part played by the unions at the workplace and in wider society.248 From East Berlin’s perspective, the STUC delegation’s readiness to give radio and television interviews congratulating the GDR on its ‘achievements’ made them model guests. Throughout the 1970s, regular delegations from the FDGB and its member unions to the annual congresses of the STUC offered an important forum for discussions with influential figures in the labour movement. One of the FDGB’s best placed Scottish ‘friends’ was James Milne, the General Secretary of the STUC. Milne, a lifelong Communist, was highly sympathetic to East Berlin’s efforts to construct a network of contacts in the Scottish trade unions.249 Other trade union advocates of better East–West relations, including Jack Jones, Alan Sapper, Campbell Christie, Moss Evans, Alexander Master and Joe Gormley, were all motivated by a willingness to concede that some aspects of ‘actually existing socialism’ were indeed positive. This combined with the conviction that dialogue could avert a potential nuclear inferno.250 Gormley, who sat on Labour’s NEC, was also prepared to use his influence in the NUM and the International Federation of Free Trade Unions to promote a pan-European miners’ conference at which Eastern and Western European miners would have equal representation in an effort to break through the divisions keeping miners in Western and Eastern Europe apart.251 And yet, despite the widespread willingness to engage with East German and East European unions, many of the more mainstream trade unionists were always careful in making clear their opposition to the communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe.252 247 For the excellent relationship between FDGB and STUC well before recognition see the previous chapter, p. 146f. ���������������������������������������� The reports on these contacts are vast. See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/1117. E. Ullrich, ‘Bericht über die Delegationsreise zum Kongress des Schottischen TUC vom 17.–21.4.1978’, 3.5.1978, (1–5); ibid., A. Wappler, ‘Bericht über die Delegationsreise zum Kongress des Schottischen TUC vom 18. bis 22. Mai ��������������������������� 1977’, 4.5.1977, (1–6). 248 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/11117, W. Niven/G. Laird, ‘Private and Confidential. Scottish Trade Union Congress Delegation to East Germany 1–8 March 1974’, (1–8), 7–8. 249 ������������������������������������������� Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001. 250 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/1118, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt der Delegation des Zentralvorstands der IG Bergbau-Energie in England vom 13. bis 22.7.1972’, 31.7.1972, (1–6), 5–6. 251 ���������������������������������������������������������� ‘Aufenthalt der Delegation des Zentralvorstands’, op. cit. 252 This is made clear in the FDGB reports on its discussions with British trade unionists, see, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/11117 and ibid., DY 34/13095.

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Conclusion: British–GDR Relations Post-recognition – A Failed Breakthrough? Both Britain and the GDR had high hopes of a breakthrough in relations when, in the wake of Neue Ostpolitik, embassies were finally opened and the GDR was officially recognised by Her Majesty’s government in 1973. But enthusiasm gave way to disappointment as the 1970s progressed. Britain had looked forward to developing trade and cultural relations, yet the balance of trade remained negative for Britain, and the GDR blocked all attempts to open up cultural relations with the West. Its acceptance of détente was coupled with a rigorous policy of Abgrenzung, as the SED leadership began to realise that contacts with the West would potentially undermine its hold on power. It carefully screened all those who came into contact with the West for their political reliability and sought actively to prevent ordinary citizens or worse, dissenters, from developing contacts with the West. The British Foreign Office noted as early as November 1973: ‘[I]t is unlikely that the East Germans will agree to the opening of cultural centres because of the danger of “undesirable materials” getting into the hands of locals.’253 The Cold War spying game further undermined hopeful beginnings. While the British foreign office was soon aware that the GDR used its embassy in London as operational base for the Stasi’s HVA, the British press renewed its wholly negative perception of the GDR in a series of well-publicised cases in which British citizens were imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain. Public opinion about the GDR remained at best divided. While many public figures remained doubtful about developing relations with a communist dictatorship, there were also those who had grown tired of the rigid and crude anti-communism of the Cold War. They grasped the chance of détente and sought to present the GDR as more three-dimensional. With hindsight they underestimated the repressive reality behind the Iron Curtain and overestimated the communist states’ economic potential and their social achievements. But they helped the GDR partially to improve its image in Britain. On one level, then, not much changed in British–GDR relations during the 1970s despite recognition. The GDR entered all international organisations including the UN as an equal among the nations of the world. The British formula of accepting GDR citizenship without giving up West Germany’s right to work towards the peaceful reunification of the country provided a model for many other countries in their dealings with the GDR. Parliamentary relations blossomed during the 1970s, but underlying differences 253 NA, FCO 34/195, ‘[Memo] P.A. Rhodes to W.T. Hull’, 28.11.1973.

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in the understanding of the substantive meaning of democracy and freedom remained. Political contacts and visits were never taken to the highest level. British foreign policy was glad to see the East German problem recede in importance from the international stage: no more crises over Berlin, no more problems over how to deal with a state that the West Germans had insisted did not exist. The maintenance of the Cold War status quo and the lessening of tensions between East and West, which had been a consistent foreign policy aim of successive Conservative and Labour governments from the 1950s onwards, continued to be the key aim of British foreign policy. Business as usual with the GDR, however, did not mean good business. Given the slow and patchy progress of official relations, the Britain–GDR Society retained an important role throughout the 1970s in fostering contacts between the two countries. They organised delegations from and to the GDR and encouraged cultural contacts. However, the GDR was increasingly unhappy with the Euro-communist leadership of the Society, many of whom regarded themselves as ‘critical friends’ of the GDR. Yet any criticism, however mild and well-meaning, was too much for the Liga officials who did their best to oust the person who was the most efficient secretary the Society ever had, Sheila Taylor. The GDR also made it abundantly clear that they were only interested in contacts which furthered a more positive image of the GDR in Britain; contacts between ‘ordinary citizens’ were anathema as the country’s rulers continued to fear Westkontakte as major potential source of undermining their hold over the population. Euro-communism also continued to undermine the relations between the two sister parties, SED and CPGB, during the 1970s. If the first version of the CPGB’s programme The British Road to Socialism had already drawn fierce criticisms from the SED, the revised version from the 1970s was regarded as even more of a deviation. It questioned whether ‘actually existing socialism’ in Eastern Europe still provided models for other communist parties and openly advocated pluralism and the acceptance of democratic procedures, rejecting ideas of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. The SED sought to encourage the more hard-line and pro-Soviet factions in the CPGB but was frustrated by their inability to dominate party politics. If Communists were met with hostility by GDR representatives, attempts by the British churches to develop their relations with churches in the GDR met with even greater scepticism. While the GDR was keen, on the one hand, to exploit high level visits by archbishops and church representatives for their own propaganda,

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it firmly blocked all efforts to promote grassroots exchanges of Christians in both countries. At the same time many leading figures in the Anglican hierarchy remained highly sceptical of dialogue with communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe. Despite such frustrations, leading British churchmen, such as Oestreicher and Kenyon, continued their attempts to promote a Christian–Marxist dialogue in order to promote mutual understanding and stabilise the peaceful coexistence of the hostile power blocs in Europe. Peace had been a key motivating factor for many British public figures to advocate recognition and better relations with the GDR. The peace movement had been an important target of GDR officials from the 1950s onwards. Now that the GDR was recognised, the country as such posed no major threat to European peace and the interest of the British peace movement in the GDR declined. GDR officials in the Friedensrat attempted to build up relations with CND and mainstream peace activists, but their efforts were hampered, first, by the sectarianism of pro-Soviet peace groups in Britain, which regularly attacked CND, secondly, by the desire of the CND leadership not to be identified too closely with communism and, thirdly, by the negative image of the GDR as a highly militarised and militaristic society. In its perennial efforts to improve its image in Britain the GDR also sought to institutionalise contacts in the world of education, including higher education. Given the many problems the SED had with the Euro-communist stance of the CPGB, it continued to concentrate its efforts on the left wing of the Labour Party and the trade unions – two players whom they rightly regarded as far more important to British public life than the CPGB. The continuous leftward drift of the Labour Party in the 1970s gave the GDR officials grounds for optimism that the Labour Party would support the East Bloc’s peace initiatives and develop cordial relations with the GDR. Communist officials in the union movement, such as James Milne and Mick McGahey, were openly sympathetic to East European socialism and saw it as a model to follow in the West. In the 1970s more than half of the unions affiliated to the TUC had ‘fraternal’ relations with East German unions, but many more mainstream British trade unionists did not necessarily share the enthusiasm displayed by Milne and McGahey. Overall then, the 1970s saw a definite normalisation of relations between Britain and the GDR. But contrary to some expectations, normalisation did not necessarily mean intensification. The GDR de-emphasised its proletarian internationalism in its dealings with Britain and instead concentrated on making diplomatic relations work. Whilst the embassy became an important player in GDR–

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British relations, GDR officials were just as much concerned with preventing any negative ideological influences from Britain reaching the GDR as they were with presenting a more positive view of the GDR in Britain. A Foreign Office memo of 1975 summed up British reservations vis-à-vis the GDR neatly when it expressed a desire for: continued step-by-step improvement of our relations with the GDR. There are however several long-term factors which will inevitably limit the cordiality of our relations. First the GDR is of course among the most unyielding and unattractive of Communist regimes and one of the closest and most predictable followers of the Soviet line. The GDR is unlikely to repay cultivation as other East European countries, e.g. in particular Poland. Second, there is the German dimension of our relations. The FRG watches the international progress of the GDR with neurotic interest, and we need to pay attention to their susceptibilities.254

Once the GDR was officially recognised it became one state like all the other communist East European states. Why would people in Britain be particularly interested in the GDR? Apart from specialists in higher education with a professional interest in Germany, the issues of peace and trade dominated the dealings between the two countries. Relations between the labour movement, the peace movement and the churches in Britain and their counterparts in the GDR concentrated on these areas. Only among British Communists and left-leaning Labourites was there any genuine sympathy for ‘actually existing socialism’ motivating the desire to develop contacts with the GDR. In the 1980s, under the impact of the ‘second Cold War’, issues of détente and peaceful coexistence would come even more to the fore, as we shall see in the next chapter. 254 NA, FCO 33/2646, ‘Visit of the Deputy Foreign Minister Nier, Brief No. 10’, (pp.1– 2). Similarly, see also, ibid., FCO, 33/2647, ‘A.D.S. Goodal to Mr. Hibber: UK/GDR Relations’, 23.12.1975, (1–2).

Chapter 4

From the Second Cold War to the Collapse of the GDR, 1979–1990

The election victories of Margaret Thatcher in the UK in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in the US in 1980 marked the onset of the ‘second Cold War’, in which American and British governments returned to cruder forms of anti-communism characteristic of the pre-détente period. This chapter will ask what impact the second Cold War had on relations between Britain and the GDR. It will also look at the impact of Gorbachev’s reform communism on British–GDR relations: how was the GDR viewed in light of the Soviet Union’s attempt to combine communism with economic and political reform. Official diplomatic and governmental contacts were clouded initially by events in Afghanistan and Poland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. If trade union relations suffered because of the suppression of Solidarity in Poland, the British miners’ strike in 1984/5 was a possibility for the FDGB to make up lost ground. Did the East Germans make good use of this opportunity? What about the relationship of East Germany to the broader labour movement, including the CPGB and the Labour Party? Many contacts with political parties were facilitated through the IPU in the 1980s, which is why this chapter again looks closely at the role of this body in British–GDR relations. Parliamentary contacts were supplemented by a whole host of other contacts, many of which continued to be organised through the Britain–GDR Society. Its ‘critical friendship’ with the GDR had not been welcome in East Berlin, and we will ask below how the Society developed during the 1980s. Two offshoots of the Society, which gained modest prominence in circles interested in British–GDR relations, were the Scotland–GDR Society and the London–Berlin Committee, and we

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shall assess their success in putting the GDR more firmly onto the map of Britain. We will also look at higher education and church contacts as well as peace movements and town-twinning arrangements in order to trace the development of contacts in those areas during the 1980s. Finally we shall end the chapter with a brief outlook on reactions towards the end of the GDR and German reunification, taking into account the views of the SED’s hard-line supporters in Britain, its ‘critical friends’ and those who were never enamoured by communist dictatorships.

Business as Usual? The Second Cold War and British–GDR relations When Margaret Thatcher came to power in Britain in 1979, no alarm bells went off in East Berlin. East German intelligence reports argued that the Conservative administration would take a ‘business as usual’ approach to bilateral relations.255 They were right: continuation of dialogue, not the radical change implied by Thatcher’s Cold War rhetoric, informed British policy.256 The GDR had of course always been able to engage moderate Conservatives in dialogue. The former Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, and Thatcher’s first Foreign Minister, Lord Carrington, for example, shared a commitment to realpolitik and détente, making them almost as agreeable to dialogue as their Labour counterparts.257 On the eve of his state’s collapse, the last GDR ambassador in London, Dr Joachim Mitdank, felt able to speak in positive terms about the development of relations between the two states: ‘In spring 1989, when I took up my post as Ambassador in London, bilateral relations between the GDR and Great Britain were well developed. Britain’s leading circles had gone a long way towards abandoning their reservations about the GDR.’258 British published opinion was also keenly aware of German– German attempts to bypass the second Cold War and continue with 255 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HVA 78, ‘Information über die Aussenpolitik der konservativen Regierung Großbritaniens, Nr. 442/79’, [undated: 1979], (78–83), 78. 256 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15645, ‘Bericht über den Besuch einer Delegation der Volkskammer im Vereinigten Königreich von Großbritannien und Nordirland vom 6. bis 11. Dezember ���������������������������������� 1982’, 15.12.1982, (1–7). 257 Carrington’s commitment to dialogue was welcome in East Berlin, see, for example, the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/2/1894. 258 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� J. Mitdank. 1999. ‘Diplomatische Offensive in Richtung Westeuropa?’, in B. Malchow (ed.), Der Letzte macht das Licht aus. Wie DDR Diplomaten das Jahr 1990 im Ausland erlebten, Berlin: Edition Ost, 67.

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détente.259 It was noticed that a considerable degree of autonomy from the superpowers continued to inform Bonn’s Ostpolitik under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who visited Moscow in 1987 and 1988, and East Berlin’s Westpolitik under Honecker. Honecker’s state visit to West Germany in 1987 was widely regarded as highly symbolic, confirming to the world the acceptance of the GDR as a second German state. Honecker’s red-carpet diplomacy included state visits to Austria, Japan and Mexico in 1980/81, to Italy and Greece (1985), Sweden (1986), Belgium and Holland (1987) as well as France and Spain (1988). As early as 1978, the GDR foreign ministry had declared it a top priority of the GDR’s foreign policy to facilitate a state visit of Honecker to Britain,260 and yet no British government, despite high hopes of the GDR, issued an invitation to the East German head of state. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to put Britain squarely in the Cold War camp of Reagan’s USA. British foreign policy, in line with West German and European foreign policy, had no interest in returning to the policies of superpower confrontation that had marked the 1950s and that British Conservative and Labour governments had opposed in the interest of peace since the mid 1950s. Britain was in some respect part of an emerging EU foreign policy which continued to engage Eastern Europe in dialogue.261 At the beginning of the 1980s, GDR officials expressed regret at the ‘slow pace of bilateral relations’ at the crucial inter-governmental level.262 Despite a number of official invitations, no British cabinet ministers arrived in the country for discussions with their East German counterparts during the first half of the 1980s. Yet during visits to Britain by East German ministers of state a surprising number of high-level meetings did take place.263 In 1981, as head of a delegation from the East German parliament, Hermann Axen was given an audience with the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and 259 See, for example, Michael Binyon, ‘Ever Closer But Can They Be Joined’, The Times, 5.4.1984; idem, ‘Whipping an Ally Back into Line’, The Times, 31.7.1984. 260 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY/30/J IV 2/2 1549, ‘Konzeption für die Entwicklung der Beziehungen der DDR zu Großbritannien ’, [1978], (132–40), 139–40. 261 The GDR also increasingly came to see the EU as possible partner in creating the ‘web of mutual dependencies’ which was at the heart of SED’s security policy during the 1980s. See ������������������������������������������������������� S. Schwarz. 2003. ‘Schwierige Annäherung unter dem Zwang der Realitäten. Zum Verhältnis DDR – Europäische Gemeinschaft’, in E. Crome, J. Franzke and R. Krämer (eds), Die verschwundene Diplomatie. Beiträge zur Aussenpolitik der DDR, 181–195. 262 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/13708, ‘Konzeption für die Gespräche des Mitglieds des Politbüros und Sekretärs des ZK der SED, Genosse Hermann Axen, Vorsitzender des Ausschusses für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten der Volkskammer der DDR, mit führenden britischen Politikern während seines Besuches vom 15. bis 18. Juni 1981 in Großbritannien’, 21.6.1981, (1–2), 1. 263 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� For a useful overview of these events, see ibid., DA 1/15645, ‘Stand der Beziehungen DDR–Großbritannien’, [undated: 1985], (1–4).

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the Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington. According to an internal East German report, Thatcher had voiced her support for maintaining dialogue.264 According to Axen’s memoirs, Lord Carrington had told him that, if the GDR did not exist, it would have to be invented.265 In a confidential memo to the leader of the opposition, Michael Foot, the Conservative government explained that the ‘objective for the present visit is to give a new quality to the whole range of bilateral relations. We attach importance to the political dialogue with the GDR, which occupies a key position in Central Europe and is one of the Soviet Union’s strongest and most reliable allies.’266 There are also notes of the conversation between Foot and Axen, which showed up many common points especially on questions of peace and disarmament. The overriding purpose of Axen’s ‘important’ visit was ‘designed to symbolise East Germany’s determination to be seen as clearly separate from West Germany’.267 Jonathan Steele gave a broadly sympathetic account of Axen, presenting him as a genuine antifascist, who had fought against Hitler, and who was passionate about liberation movements in the Third World. During his meeting with the House of Common’s Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Axen had been pressed on the contentious issues of the GDR’s attitude towards developments in Poland, the ‘border regime’ at the Berlin Wall and East Berlin’s specific contribution towards arms limitation.268 Nevertheless, the East German press made much of what it presented as Margaret Thatcher’s interest in further developing bilateral relations and trading links.269 In Britain, the media accorded Axen’s visit little attention. Under its ‘Court 264 ������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/13708, ‘Vermerk über die Gespräche des Genossen Hermann Axen im britischen Unterhaus’, (1–3), 3–4. 265 ��������������� H. Axen. 1996. Ich war ein Diener der Partei. Autobiographische Gespräche mit Harald Neubert, Berlin: Edition Ost, 358. 266 Labour Party Archive, Manchester [henceforth: LPAM], Michael Foot papers, MF/L23/14. Foot had travelled to Moscow in 1981 to discuss Brezhnev’s peace proposals in person, a move which had endeared him to communists in Eastern Europe, even if he had been heavily criticised in the British press. Foot was subsequently regarded as a potential target for GDR propaganda, as he was frequently contacted by the GDR embassy with requests for further meetings. See LPAM, Michael Foot papers, MF/L24/3, which include a range of hostile press clippings. 267 Jonathan Steele, ‘EG Minister’s visit to London symbolises independence’, Guardian, 19.6.1981, 7. For Steele’s views of the GDR, see also above, p. 177–179. 268 ��������������������������������������������������� ‘Hermann Axen im britischen Unterhaus’, op. cit. 2. 269 ������������������������������������������������� ‘Meinungsaustausch mit Großbritanniens Premier’, Neues Deutschland, 17.6.1981. At ������������������������������������������������������������������� the end of 1982, the East German press agency, ADN, was able to report the signing of a three-year agreement covering culture, education and science, see ‘News in Brief: Cultural Pact’, Times, 11.12.1982, 6.

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Circulars’ section, the Times merely noted that Lord Carrington, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, held a luncheon in Axen’s honour.270 The following year, a similar delegation headed by Horst Sindermann met Harvey Jones, the director of the chemicals giant ICI, Peter Rees, the Minister for Trade, Norman Tebbit at the Department for Trade and Industry, John Biffen, the Leader of the House of Commons, and the new Foreign Minister, Francis Pym.271 The latter turned down an invitation to visit East Berlin in the foreseeable future.272 Yet, rather than aiming to isolate East Berlin, Pym advocated expanding political dialogue in order to reduce international tensions. A number of issues continued to obstruct closer relations. Above all, these were East Berlin’s attitude to developments in Poland, the stationing of Soviet SS 20 nuclear missiles in the GDR and, twenty years after the construction of the Berlin Wall, the ongoing policy of shooting to kill those trying to flee to the West. In April 1985 Foreign Minister Geoffrey Howe flew to East Berlin where he held talks with Foreign Minister Oskar Fischer and met with Erich Honecker and Willi Stoph. Howe’s invitation was not an isolated East German undertaking; it was part of a coordinated foreign-policy initiative by the Warsaw Pact to engage leading members of NATO to enter into dialogue.273 Howe was in fact the first British Foreign Secretary to visit all of the Warsaw Pact states during his time in office. According to the Conservative chairman of the IPU, Peter Temple Morris, one of Howe’s chief foreign-policy aspirations was to improve dialogue with the Eastern Bloc countries in order to minimise the risks of the Cold War.274 However, Howe made no secret of his stance on East German human rights abuses and the lack of political freedoms behind the Iron Curtain. He was the first British Foreign Secretary – and highest ranking government minister – to make an official visit to the ‘other’ Germany.275 270 ‘Court Circular’, Times, 17.6.1981, 16. Of the national daily newspapers, only the Guardian covered Axen’s visit in any detail. 271 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, J IV 2/2 A/2534, Horst Sindermann, ‘Vorlage für das Politbüro. Betr.: Bericht über den Besuch einer Delegation der Volkskammer im Vereinigten Königreich von Großbritannien und Nordirland vom 6.–11.12.1982’, 14.12.1982, (156–62), 156. 272 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15645, ‘Bericht über den Besuch einer Delegation der Volkskammer im Vereinigten Königreich von Großbritannien und Nordirland vom 6. bis 11.12.1982’, 15.12.1982, (1–7), 3. 273 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DC 20/I/4/5555, ‘Rahmenprogramm für den offiziellen Besuch des britischen Außenministers Geoffrey Howe, vom 8. bis 10.4.1985’, (155–56), 155. 274 Interview with Lord Peter Temple Morris, 5.11.2003. 275 ‘Howe off to East Berlin for talks’, The Guardian, 8.4.1985, 4.

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According to The Times, Howe’s policy marked the arrival of a British Ostpolitik, which, in distinction to Bonn’s Ostpolitik, openly linked progress in arms control and trade to progress in human rights and political freedoms behind the Iron Curtain.276 Timothy Garton Ash, The Times Eastern Europe expert, emphasized that Howe, ‘Speaking a few hundred yards from the Berlin Wall … observed that the tenyear old Helsinki Final Act “was meant to sound a trumpet call which would bring down all the walls and barriers which still divide our peoples”’.277 As a middle-weight European power, it was clear that there was no ‘middleman’ role for Britain in the superpowerdominated world of East–West relations. But what the Times had singled out for its support was Howe’s readiness to carry the ‘humanrights basket’ of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act on his Eastern European visits in a manner largely absent during the years of disarmament conferences and superpower summits marking the highpoint of détente. A Times editorial gave expression to the hope that Howe’s approach to East–West relations would lead to a ‘greater flow of people and ideas across the continent and thus breaking down the barriers erected by Soviet tyranny’.278 There were grounds for cautious optimism. In addition to holding meetings with leading SED officials, Howe was able to meet representatives from the East German Protestant churches, ‘unofficial’ artists and writers. At the same time, Howe was careful to keep his distance from the hawks in the White House, avoiding journalists’ prompts to call for the Berlin Wall to be torn down and even expressing his doubts about the American Strategic Defense Initiative (or ‘Star Wars’, as it was better known), which Howe described as the principal obstacle to progress in arms control negotiations.279 After Howe’s meetings with Oskar Fischer, Erich Honecker and Willi Stoph, internal East German strategy documents emphasized that Britain, despite being America’s closest Western ally, was more favourably disposed toward arms control dialogue within the framework established under détente than the USA.280 Importantly, too, Howe did not just talk politics and international relations. The visit had a business aspect. He was able to secure a contract for a British company to build a desulphurisation plant in the GDR.281 276 [Editorial] ‘Britain’s Ostpolitik’, The Times, 8.4.1985, 11. 277 Timothy Garton Ash, ‘Howe attacks Berlin Wall’, Times, 9.4.1985, 7. 278 [Editorial] ‘Trumpet Call’, Times, 15.4.1985. 279 ‘Howe off to East Berlin for talks’, Guardian, 8.4.1985, 4. 280 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DC 20/I/4/5945, ‘Bericht über den Arbeitsbesuch des Ministers für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten der DDR, Genossen Oskar Fischer, in Großbritannien am 18.11.1986’, 25.11.1985, (12–25), 25. 281 ��������������������������������������� Mitdank, ������������������������������ ‘����������������������������� Diplomatische Offensive������ ’, 68.

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In November 1986 Fischer made a return visit to London, for the first time as the official guest of the British government.282 Eclipsed by the renewed thaw in superpower relations after the Reykjavik summit of October 1986, the British press all but ignored Fischer’s talks with Howe. Yet, according to East German documentation, Howe had been convinced of East Berlin’s desire to increase trust in East–West relations, not least by the joint SED–SPD proposals for a nuclear- and chemical-free zone in Central Europe. Fischer also stressed the importance of the continuing dialogue between SED and Labour Party in talks with Dennis Healey. Overall, Fischer pleaded to continue and, if possible, intensify the dialogue with Britain in all areas By the mid 1980s, the existing threads of inter-governmental contacts were stitched into the diplomatic fabric of regular, formalised relations. From 1985, there were annual consultations between the East German Deputy Foreign Minister, Kurt Nier, and his counterparts in the British Foreign Ministry, and these talks were informed by ongoing discussions between Foreign Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials.283 While the SED was keen to develop official contacts it also remained paranoid about those bilateral relations being part of a wider strategy of Britain to subvert and weaken the GDR and other Soviet Bloc countries.284 As ever, East Berlin wanted contact to come with ‘demarcation’. Britain’s ‘business as usual’ approach to the GDR had its advantages and disadvantages. In 1986, a report written by the Embassy in London detailed perceptions of the GDR in influential British circles. East Berlin could take satisfaction from the continued belief in Britain that the GDR was a politically stable state with a strong economy, a good trading partner, and a country in which its citizens enjoyed the highest standard of living in Eastern Europe coupled with extensive social welfare provision. The GDR was also widely regarded as more typically German than the Americanised Federal Republic. Much of this, however, was cold comfort. The Berlin Wall continued to be the dominant image of the GDR, symbolising the regime’s lack of freedoms and human rights and, more generally, the division of Europe.285 The diplomats were aware that they had 282 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ ‘Oskar Fischer in Großbritannien’, op. cit., 12; SAPMO-BArch, DC 20/I/4/5922, ‘Ministerrat der DDR. Betrifft: Arbeitsbesuch des Ministers für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten, Genossen Oskar Fischer, auf Einladung des Ministers für Auswärtige und Commonwealthangelegenheiten des Vereinigten Königreiches von Großbritannien und Nordirland vom 17. bis 18.11.1986’, (54–56), 55. 283 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15860, ‘Information über das Vereinigte Königreich von Großbritannien und Nordirland’, [undated: 1988], (1–7). 284 ‘Oskar Fischer in Großbritannien’, op. cit., 24–25. 285 ����������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3125, Manfred Rudolf, ‘Bericht über die auslandsinformatorische Arbeit der Botschaft im Jahr 1986, 20.11.1986’, 24.11.1986, (1–12), 7–8.

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few means at their disposal to alter perceptions. In 1987, for example, it proved impossible to find a British journalist willing to cover the East German celebrations marking the 750th anniversary of the now divided city. Although unspecific references are made to cooperation with the Guardian and Financial Times and television journalists, the report concedes that the Communist daily, the Morning Star, was hardly likely to shift mainstream opinion. With the death of Alan Winnington, the newspaper’s long-serving resident East Germany correspondent, coverage now depended on the articles submitted by Dave and Marguerite Morgan, a British couple who lived and worked in the GDR.286 With such limited ability to spike the British media, the GDR fell back on its own resources. Mobilising the Britain–GDR Society once again, it hoped to reach ‘target groups’ through the organisation of cultural events and the distribution of Englishlanguage ‘information material’, such as GDR Review.287 Of course, such narrow channels of communication offered little prospect of improving the GDR’s image in Britain. An obituary of Albert Norden in the Times in 1982 stressed, above all, that he was a hardliner throughout his life – even in the more liberal climate of the 1970s.288 Defending the Berlin Wall and being an outspoken critique of détente and Ostpolitik seemed to make him the archetypal East German communist: inflexible, dogmatic and committed to defending the indefensible. Hardly the kind of person of whom the British public would be enamoured. On the occasion of Howe’s visit in 1985, a Daily Telegraph editorial described the GDR as: ‘[T]he Soviet Union’s chief garrison and … the Bloc’s “shop window”. The GDR … is a formidable police state, largely responsible for the world’s most powerful symbol of a country’s fear of its own people, the Berlin Wall.’289 In 1987, a feature article in the Times concluded that, ‘[the GDR] remains a police state under Soviet control’.290 In late 1988, the Embassy informed East Berlin that the British media continued to give high-profile attention to the Berlin Wall, which was presented as the surest sign that the state was ruthlessly suppressing its own citizens.291 This corresponds with the analysis of British–GDR relations given by Rainer Oschmann, who served as Neues Deutschland’s correspondent in Britain during the 1980s. Oschmann observed how the British government was not interested in improving bilateral relations and that the media was saturated in what he regarded as cliché-ridden, anti-communist coverage of the 286 For the Morgans see chapter 3, p. 212. 287 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Manfred Rudolf, ‘Bericht über die auslandsinformatorische Arbeit’, op. cit., 7. 288 ‘Obituaries: Herr Albert Norden’, The Times, 31.5.1982. 289 ‘The East German Visit’ [editorial], Daily Telegraph, 10.4.1985. 290 Richard Owen, ‘Overtones of Fatherland’, The Times, 5.9.1987. 291 ��������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3318, ‘Botschaft der DDR in Gro������������� ß������������ britannien. Jahresberichte’, 15.11.1988, (1–12), 12.

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GDR. It was for this reason, according to his recollections of these years, that contacts were largely restricted to cultural, sporting and trade relations.292 In terms of trade, developments continued to be disappointing. During a visit to Britain in 1982, which was organised within the framework provided by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the president of the East German parliament, Horst Sindermann, held talks with the chairman of ICI, Harvey Jones. But the chairman of the British section of the IPU, Peter Temple Morris, recalls that ‘trade relations were not paramount in any sense’.293 This was hardly surprising: Britain struggled unsuccessfully to reverse a trade imbalance which ran in the GDR’s favour. In 1984 Britain’s trade deficit with the GDR amounted to £107 million.294 In 1987, for example, Britain exported goods to the values of £82 million, but imported East German products to the value of £180 million.

The Impact of Afghanistan, Poland and the British Miners’ Strike on British–GDR Relations The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 was unequivocally condemned in Britain. At its annual congress in 1980, the TUC, for example, described the Soviet’s actions in Afghanistan as a serious threat to world peace.295 But many politicians and publicists wanted to decouple events in Afghanistan and détente in Europe. It was noted that the invasion of Afghanistan had fractured the unity of the Warsaw pact states, with some, like Romania, openly critical, while others, like the GDR, were hard-line supporters.296 Unlike the Americans, the experts advising the House of Commons all-party Foreign Affairs Committee saw Moscow’s actions as an attempt to prevent the spread of Islamic extremism in its own central Asian republics rather than a geopolitical offensive to obtain naval access to the crucial Middle Eastern oil region.297 The GDR embassy also reported back to East Berlin that the situation in Afghanistan 292 R. Oschmann. 2005. ‘The Unknown and Unloved Germans from the East: Memories of a GDR Foreign Correspondent in the Thatcher Years’, in S. Berger and N. LaPorte (eds). The Other Germany. Perceptions and Influences in British–East German Relations, 1945–1990, Augsburg: Wißner, 309–14. 293 Interview with Peter Temple Morris, 5.11.2003. 294 ‘Howe Says Freeze Offer Ignores Inequality’, The Times, 10.4.1985. 295 TUC Annual Congress (1980), 243. 296 See, for example, ‘Warsaw Pact Unable to Speak with One Voice’, The Times, 5.1.1980. 297 Parliamentary Archive, London [henceforth: PAL], House of Commons, Fifth Report from the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Session 1979–80: Afghanistan: the Soviet Invasion and its Consequences for British Policy, London, July 1980, quote on ph. 17, p. ix.

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had had little impact on its ability to engage British opinion leaders in dialogue.298 When Poland was placed under military rule in 1981, the British government’s main aim was to avoid a Soviet invasion, which, according to Peter Blaker, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, would shake détente to its foundations.299 On the British left, Solidarity was perceived with a good deal of suspicion, because of its Catholicism and its alleged closeness to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Tony Benn was not the only one to describe Lech Walesa ‘as a real right wing, Thatcherite, Catholic nationalist for whom I have very little sympathy.’300 Still, the suppression of Solidarity was regarded with considerable unease in Britain, not the least by the trade union movement, which insisted on the right of East Europeans to form free trade unions.301 Len Murray made plain the TUC’s disdain for the regime’s crushing of a free trade union movement.302 In its response the National Executive of the FDGB insisted that Solidarity ‘wants the destruction of socialism and to take power in Poland’, which is why it had to be banned.303 Eventually, in early 1982, the TUC broke off relations with its communist counterpart in East Berlin over the banning of Solidarity.304 From January 1982 until November 1988 there were no official contacts between FDGB and TUC. The official relationship that had been painstakingly built up throughout the 1970s had fallen apart. The FDGB did have to return to its earlier policy of cultivating relations with individual trade unions and their local branches. Communist and pro-Soviet trade unionists in Britain largely continued their positive relations with GDR unions, as they had been far less forthcoming with statements of support for Solidarity. The journalist and author of a book on these events, Neal Ascherson, recalls that, ‘During the Solidarity movement in Poland, there were terrible, terrible incidents of trade union leaders trying to trap 298 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3320, ‘Jahresbericht über die auslandsinformatorische Arbeit 1979’, 15.1.1980. 299 PAL, House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1981–82. Poland, Minutes of Evidence, 19. Jan. 1982, ph. 96, p. 21. 300 T. Benn. 1992. The End of an Era. Diaries 1980–90, London: Hutchinson, 582. 301 For a detailed assessment of the British trade unions’ reactions to Solidarity see S. Berger and N. LaPorte. 2010 (forthcoming). ‘The British Trade Unions and Solidarity’, in I. Godderis (ed.), Western Trade Unions and the Polish Solidarity Movement, Basingstoke: Palgrave. 302 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13095, ‘Letter Lionel Murray to Harry Tisch’, [undated: December 1981]. 303 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13095, ‘[Telegram] Bundesvorstand des FDGB an Lionel Murray’, 23.12.1981. 304 MRC, MSS.292D, ‘TUC IC Meeting’, 11.1.1982.

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Solidarity people in London and having them delivered to the Polish security service.’305 Arthur Scargill, leader of the miners’ union, unambiguously supported the Polish military dictatorship and its suppression of Solidarity.306 Especially the STUC maintained its longterm relationship with the FDGB.307 Reflecting on a visit to the GDR in November 1982, during the period of military rule in Poland, the then General Secretary of the STUC, James Milne, informed ‘brother Tisch’ that, ‘I believe these bilateral relationships we have with … the socialist countries are of immense value in helping to promote the ideals of peace, friendship and mutual help.’308 The TGWU invited representatives of the FDGB to Britain in 1983, where they also met members of parliament through the good offices of the British–GDR Parliamentary Group.309 The following year, a TGWU delegation visited the GDR reporting back very favourably on the country’s living and working conditions.310 In 1986, the then General Secretary of the STUC, Campbell Christie, attended a congress of the communistled World Federation of Trade Unions. In a letter of thanks written to Tisch on his return, Christie made clear his positive view of East German trade unionism: It was clear for all to see the tremendous achievements of the GDR over recent years … I would like to wish the FDGB all success in the years ahead. I am sure that the workers in the GDR have much still to achieve and will do so through the leadership of the FDGB.311

Bob Crow, later to become the RMT’s general secretary, dismissed Solidarity as a creature of the CIA and British secret services, which was intent on undermining Polish socialism.312 Crow’s interest in communism took him to the GDR in 1984, along with fellow trade unionists Mick Rix, as part of a trade union-sponsored youth delegation. They had signed up after seeing an advert on the union’s notice board. The visit left a highly positive impression. Looking back on his experience two decades later, Crow recalled: 305 Interview with Neal Ascherson, 22.5.2002. 306 TUC Annual Congress (1981), 312. 307 See p. 220. 308 SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13096, ‘[Letter] James Milne to Harry Tisch’, 15.11.1982. 309 PAL, ‘Annual Report of the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union, 1983’, 74. 310 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, ‘Bericht über den Studienaufenthalt einer Delegation von Repräsentanten der Transportarbeitergewerkschaft’, 16.3.1984, (1–7). 311 Ibid., DY 34/13096, ‘[Letter] Campbell Christie to Harry Tisch’, 3.10.1986. 312 ����������������������������������� Interview with Bob Crow, 29.1.2004.

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In the GDR you didn’t have the boss class, it was a case of everybody working together to increase production and productivity. The gains in productivity are then distributed to everybody, making life better for everybody rather than for just a few. That is what socialism was all about. I’m not saying that the whole system was perfect. But the way it is over in Germany now shows that East Germany had a far better social system. As far as I’m concerned, the people in East Germany were in favour of the system they had.

His wider impressions were similarly favourable: East Germans appeared to benefit from a high standard of living, a generous welfare state and a thorough ‘anti-fascist’ education. Unlike most other British visitors, Crow was even prepared to defend the Berlin Wall as a necessary response to the CIA and West Germany’s attempts to destabilise the GDR. Regardless of the position of Crow, Scargill, Milne, Christie and other pro-Soviet trade unionists, the GDR’s hard-line support for the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan and the military coup in Poland destroyed much of the good-will that had been present, in particular in left-of-centre circles and the wider labour movement, in 1970s Britain. Hence GDR officials tried to use the British miners’ strike of 1984/5 to improve relations. In talks with Arthur Scargill, FDGB officials gave moral support to the British miners and they followed this up with hard currency payments and the supply of clothing and food to the NUM.313 The East German media made much of the FDGB’s support for the British miners’ strike, contrasting the NUM’s plight with the job security offered to miners in the GDR. News reports on East German television emphasised the ‘humanitarian’ dimension to ‘international solidarity’, including the holidays offered to strikers’ wives and children and their reputed admiration for what they saw in East Germany.314 Officially the GDR wanted to avoid any impression that it was intervening in the internal affairs of other states.315 Yet the GDR was not as unequivocally loyal to the British miners as the NUM leader had been to the Soviet Bloc during the suppression of Solidarity. The FDGB’s support of the NUM was tempered by the GDR’s overriding need for foreign currency. During the strike, East German exports of lignite were fuelling industries 313 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 34/13097, ‘Zum Gespräch mit Arthur Scargill’, 14.3.1985, (1–3); ibid., ‘Mitteilung über den Stand der Solidaritätsaktion des WGB für die britischen Bergleute’ [undated: 1985], (1–6). ������������������������������� An estimated £1.4 million were given by Eastern European unions to the NUM. See ‘Scargill’s Ally was Stasi Agent’, Independent on Sunday, 19.09.1999. 314 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., ‘Zu einigen Hintergründen und Ursachen des Bergarbeiterstreiks in Gro������������������������������� ß������������������������������ britannien’, 12.6.1984, (1–4). 315 ����������������������������������������������������������������� Interview with Karl-Heinz Kern, 12.10.2001; Interview with David Rummelsberg, 16.8.2001.

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that would otherwise have ground to a halt.316 Public speculation at the time prompted Jack Berlin, the Secretary of the BGS, to ask the Embassy whether the stories were true. British Euro-communists once again vocally demonstrated their independence from the ideologues of ‘actually existing socialism’ by openly criticising the two-faced approach of the GDR to the British miners’ strike. The affair had also attracted unwanted press coverage in the Guardian and Morning Star.317

The GDR and Euro-communism in the CPGB The volatile relationship between the SED and the Euro-communist wing of the CPGB continued throughout the 1980s. The SED was enraged by the CPGB’s condemnation of the invasion of Afghanistan as yet another incident likely to give Western communist parties a bad name by association.318 Similarly, the two sister parties differed over the repression of Solidarity. On 11 January 1982, the Morning Star demanded that the military authorities release all political prisoners, end the state of emergency and ‘return to the Polish people their democratic rights’. The central organ of the CPGB was resolute in its belief that ‘socialism and democracy are inseparable’. Worse still, from the SED’s perspective, the rise of Solidarity as a mass movement was explained in terms of how Polish communism had lost the trust of the people through economic mismanagement and a yawning democratic deficit.319 An internal SED report detailing the meeting of the CPGB’s Executive Committee on 9 and 10 January 1982, presumably based on insider information, blamed the British party’s response on the dominant influence of Euro-communists, who had allegedly ‘abandoned the international class struggle’ and failed to understand the nature of ‘real socialism’.320 316 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� A. Bachmann. 1989. ‘Die Beziehungen der DDR zu den angelsächsischen Länder’, in H.-J. Veen and P. Weilmann (eds), Die Westpolitik der DDR. Beziehungen der DDR zu ausgewählten westlichen Industriestaaten in den 70er und 80er Jahren, Melle: Knoth, 119. 317 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� For the East German response to this, see SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3125, G. Menzel, ‘Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit dem Sekretär der Britain–GDR-Society, Jack Berlin, am 13.11.1984 in der Botschaft’, 14.11.1984, (1–2). 318 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY30/J IV 2/2/40780, Günter Sieber, ‘Information für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Bericht über den 37. Parteitag der KPGBs vom 14. bis 17. November 1981 in London’, 14.12.1981, (1–10). ������������������������ The condemnation of the invasion is explicit in Jack Woddis‘s report to the NEC of the CPGB of 12/13 January 1980. See CPAM, CP/IND/Wod/05/04. 319 Morning Star, 11.1.1982. 320 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY30/J IV 2/2/40780, Günter Sieber, ‘Information für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Tagung des Exekutivkomitees der KPGB am 9. und 10. Januar 1982’, 28.1.1982, (1–4), 3.

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Hence the SED decided to place greater emphasis on cultivating its links with the CPGB’s hard-line faction. After all, the CPGB’s official position vis-à-vis the Polish situation was contested by at least 30 per cent of party members and, to the SED’s evident satisfaction, this sizable minority was rooted among Communist trade unionists.321 Sheila Taylor was warned by an East German friend that, ‘EuroCommunist parties all over Europe were being deliberately split and that the British “would be next”.’ Immediately before this happened, her husband chanced upon a meeting in a London pub between Tom Durkin, a leading hardliner, and Edgar Uher, an embassy official. The Taylors suspected that East Germany would support the hardliners in the event of a split by proposing to help them buy the Morning Star. It might not have been an unfounded suspicion. Already in the mid 1970s the embassy had hoped that the BGS could act as an alternative communist party in the event of the CPGB ‘taking the wrong line’.322 However, officially the SED continued to denounce sectarianism within communist parties and it did make an attempt, in 1986, to patch up its relations with the CPGB by issuing an invitation to the British Communists to attend the XI Congress of the SED.323 In a speech given to the Central Committee of the SED, Peter Carter, the CPGB’s Industrial Organiser, pointed out that, although ‘differences can and do exist [between our parties] on some questions, [they] need not be a barrier to co-operation and good comradely relations.’324 The main differences between the parties, according to Carter, continued to be over genuine pluralism in politics, the independence of the trade unions from the state, freedom of religious worship and propaganda, and freedom of research, cultural, artistic and scientific activities. However, Carter’s speech also stressed that the capitalist governments in the USA and his own country were a threat to international peace which had to be countered by all communists – East and West. In 1987, when the SED and the West German SPD announced joint discussions with the objective of establishing a nuclear-free zone in central Europe, Gordon McLennan, the General Secretary of the CPGB, congratulated Honecker on his ‘peace initiative’.325 321 Ibid. 322 S. Taylor. 2005. ‘View from the Inside’, Berger and LaPorte (eds). The Other Germany, 315–29. 323 CPAM, CP/Cent/15/03, ‘Letter Erich Honecker to Gordon McLennan’, December 1985. 324 CPAM, Manchester, CP/Cent/15/03, Peter Carter, ‘Speech to the Central Committee of the SED’, April 1986. 325 CPAM, Manchester, CP/Cent/15/03, ‘Letter Gordon McLennan to Erich Honecker’, 30.4.1987; ibid., ‘Letter Gerry Pocock to Honecker’, 25.2.1986’.

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The International Department of the CPGB also sent party members on lecture tours of the GDR, during which they spoke to a diversity of audiences on SED training courses and other partysponsored events. The reports written by British Communists after visiting the GDR illustrate how these tours followed a standardised pattern.326 Typical of these visits was a series of seven lectures on ‘imperialism’ given by Neville Carey during a two-week stay in the GDR, most of which was spent in the district of Brandenburg. According to his report, Carey reached an audience of between seven and eight hundred local members of the SED. Visits also involved tours of factories and housing estates as well as discussions with members of the local party and state apparatus. They tended to conclude with a reception at the Central Committee buildings in East Berlin.327 Lectures avoided addressing controversial topics. Instead, they tended to focus on issues where broad consensus existed. In the mid 1980s, for example, the miners’ strike, the impact of Thatcherism and the unilateralism of the British peace movement were popular topics.328 Several of the lecturers felt that SED officials were not so much interested in learning about Britain but more in lecturing their British guests about the achievements of ‘actually existing socialism’ in the GDR.329 But the British Communists portrayed a picture of Britain which tended to be in line with the East German textbooks, according to which Britain was a country characterised by racial and class tensions, homelessness and mass unemployment, and a life in Dickensian slums for those lucky enough to have a job.330 It was a situation that horrified Jack Berlin, the Euro-communist secretary of the BGS. After returning from a visit to East Berlin in April 1986, Berlin wrote to Gordon McLennan to inform him that largely through the work of British Communist lecturers in the GDR, East German students of Britain ‘had the most distorted view of the British Reality and the policy of our Party’.331 326 A number of reports written for the International Department can be found in CPAM, Manchester, CP/Cent/15/03. Reports in the East German archives can be found in Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Abteilung Merseburg [henceforth: LHA-AM], BPA IV/0–5/01/129. 327 CPAM, CP/Cent/15/03, ‘Letter Neville Carey to Gerry Pocock’, 11.1.1982. 328 David McDowell, ‘Report of Lecture Visit to the GDR, 26.11.–6.12.1984’, in LPAM, CP/Cent/15/03. 329 Ibid. 330 See, for example, SED. 1983. Modern English for Teacher Students, Berlin: Volk und Wissen. 331 CPAM, CP/Cent/Int/15/03, ‘[Letter] Jack Berlin to Gordon McLennan’, 16.4.1986.

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The Labour Party’s Relations with the GDR in the Heydays of the Left In contrast to the SED’s ongoing problems with the CPGB, the East German communists were optimistic about their relationship with the Labour Party.332 With the onset of the second Cold War, and the attendant rise of the British peace movement, the GDR anticipated that the Labour Party would again come under pressure from its grass-roots members to move to the left. SED officials also saw with considerable satisfaction that important trade unions in Britain were led by left-wingers, whose leaders, by 1979, met regularly in the forum provided by the Labour Co-ordinating Committee in order to maximise their influence by acting as a homogenous group. At the same time, the Bennite Campaign for Labour Party Democracy looked capable of shifting the locus of power and policy making away from the PLP to the constituency parties, which were often dominated by left-wing activists. The cumulative outcome of these developments was the domination of the NEC by the party’s left wing, which, for the first time, was able to determine policy.333 Many of the Left’s causes célèbres, which now became manifesto commitments, suited the GDR, among them unilateral disarmament and improved trade and other relations with Eastern Bloc countries. But given that the left turn of the Labour Party did not prove popular with the electorate and led to the break-away of much of Labour’s social democratic right wing in 1981, the party began to move back to the centre ground under Neil Kinnock. SED officials were critical of these developments and noticed with increasing dissatisfaction how Labour’s new leadership was careful to avoid contact with representatives of communist Eastern Europe.334 Thus, despite repeated requests from the East German Ambassador, Kinnock declined to give him an audience. Developments in Poland encouraged the NEC to sever relations with the ruling communist parties throughout Eastern Europe in July 1982. Instead, attention was turned to supporting independent trade union movements in the Soviet bloc. The Labour leadership also declined all invitations to attend the SED’s IX and X party congresses. 332 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J IV 2/20/159, ‘Information für das Politbüro Nr. 144/1979. Betrifft: Bericht über die Teilnahme einer Delegation des ZK der SED an der 78. Jahreskonferenz der britischen Labour Party vom 1.–5.10.1979’, 16.10.1979, (1–6). 333 For details see E. Shaw. 1994. The Labour Party since 1979: Crisis and Transformation, London: Routledge. 334 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/J/IV/2/20/7, Günter Sieber, ‘Information für das Politbüro. Betrifft: Jahreskonferenz der Britischen Labour Party vom 29.9. bis 4.10.1985’, 15.10.1985, (1–3).

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When Labour’s principal foreign-policy expert and deputy leader, Dennis Healey, visited East Berlin in January 1986, he held discussions with Erich Honecker, Hermann Axen and Foreign Minister, Oskar Fischer. The SED’s internal reports readily concede that Healey was ‘one of the Labour Party’s most enthusiastic proponents’ of Britain’s membership of NATO and of Britain’s ‘nuclear deterrent’, but they also identify him as an opponent of the ‘adventurism’ of America’s ultra-hawks around Casper Weinberger and Richard Pearl.335 Healey was convinced that, by removing both Soviet and American medium-range weapons from the heart of Europe, East–West relations could return to the spirit of détente.336 A number of other Labour politicians were arguing in the same direction, e.g. Labour’s new General Secretary, John Mortimer, who held talks with leading East German official, Günter Schabowski, in March and November 1983, and Denzil Davies, who visited the GDR in his capacity as the shadow cabinet’s defence spokesman in May 1985 and talked, among others, to Axen and Sindermann.337 The Labour Party was in close contact with the West German SPD over their relations with the GDR and Eastern Europe more generally.338 SPD and Labour Party politicians met regularly during the 1980s to discuss their ideas about renewing Ostpolitik through a nuclear and chemical weapons-free zone in central Europe. Whether their foreign policy during the 1980s helped stabilise communist dictatorships or whether they undermined them remains a topic for contentious debate among scholars,339 but the issue of maintaining détente in Europe led Labour politicians straight into dialogue with East Germany. 335 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15645, ‘Besuch beim Präsidenten der Volkskammer’, 30.1.1986, (1–4), 3. 336 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, vorl. SED 40781, ‘Information für das Politbüro: Bericht über die Teilnahme einer Delegation des ZK der SED unter der Leitung von Manfred Banaschak an der 85. Jahreskonferenz der Labour Party Großbritanniens vom 28.9.–3.10.1986 in Blackpool’, 8.10.1986, (1–11), 5–6. 337 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA/1/15645, ‘Informationsmaterial über die Britische Labour Party’, [undated: January 1986?], (1–10), 10. 338 The work of the joint Labour Party–SPD Defence and Security Commission, which came into being in 1986, is documented in LPAM, ID/GER/DSC86; ibid., ID/GER/DSC90. 339 ������������������ F. Fischer. 2001. ‘Im deutschen Interesse‘. ���������������������������������������� Die Ostpolitik der SPD von 1969 bis 1989, Husum: Matthiesen, 301 ff., who also details the close alliance between SPD and Labour Party during the 1980s, and E. Hahn. 2002. SED und SPD. Ein Dialog, Berlin: Edition Ost; R. Reißig. 2002. Dialog durch die Mauer. Die umstrittene Annäherung von SPD und SED Frankfurt/Main: Campus.

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The IPU and British-GDR Contacts: During the early 1980s, the most important channel for bilateral parliamentary relations was offered by the international framework of the IPU. In 1982, after his election as chairman of the British Section of the IPU, the Conservative MP, Peter Temple Morris, set out to ‘politicise and professionalize’ its activities. Instead of allowing the IPU to act as a sort of ‘travel club’ for MPs, sending them on ‘jollies around the place’, he aimed to make a contribution to maintaining East–West dialogue at a time of mounting international tension. Looking back on his role, Temple Morris emphasises the importance of inter-parliamentary dialogue: If you work reasonably closely with the government of the day, you are very useful. Through you they can trail various things they are thinking of. Ministers are utterly constrained in what they can say. If you are an MP, you can say virtually anything. You always make clear that you are not speaking as a member of the government, but as an MP.340

In facilitating communication between Eastern and Western Europe, Temple Morris understood his own activities as ‘allied to’ Geoffrey Howe’s policy as Foreign Minister. In December 1981, Temple Morris hosted the fifth official visit to Britain by a delegation from the East German Volkskammer. As chairman of the British Section of the IPU, he accompanied the head of the visiting delegation, Horst Sindermann, on a series of meetings, which included high-level discussions with the Foreign Secretary, Francis Pym, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Malcolm Rifkind, the Minister for Trade and Industry, Peter Rees, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, Dennis Healey, and David Owen, the leader of the newly founded SDP. Sindermann also presented a talk to MPs on the development of the GDR.341 Temple Morris recalls that Sindermann had an affable personality and spoke fluent English, ensuring that his visit was well received, despite the fact that Temple Morris thought of him as a representative of a ‘totally artificial state’.342 In his report to the politburo and the Central Committee of the SED, Sindermann concluded that all of his discussion partners had ‘anti-Soviet views’, but that, at the same time, ‘all British participants in the discussions made it clear that they would like to keep open [the channels of] political dialogue’ in the interest of 340 Interview with Peter Temple Morris, 5.11.2003. 341 SAPMO-BArch, J IV 2/2 A/2534, Horst Sindermann, ‘Besuch einer Delegation der Volkskammer im Vereinigten Königreich’, 1; see also, PAL, ‘Annual Report of the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union 1982’. 342 Interview with Peter Temple Morris, 5.11.2003.

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European security. Hence he recommended further extending the contacts between the House of Commons and the Volkskammer and increasing invitations to individual MPs from Britain to the GDR.343 In June 1985, the veteran ‘friend’ of the GDR, Renée Short, headed the cross-party return delegation to the GDR under the aegis of the British section of the IPU. The delegation included her Labour colleagues Martin Redmond and Ron Leighton; Hugh Dykes, Michael Woodcock and Peter Rost from the Conservative Party; and the Liberal MP, Stephen Ross.344 During their stay, the delegation held a series of meetings with senior East German statesmen, including Sindermann, Oskar Fischer and his deputy Foreign Minister, Kurt Nier, Willi Stoph, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Volkskammer deputies. Both sides were in broad agreement about the importance of inter-parliamentary contacts in building a climate of trust between East and West.345 After her return Renée Short obliged her hosts with a BBC broadcast extolling the regime’s merits.346 However, as the war generation of left-wing Labour MPs died off, so too did British supporters of the GDR. In 1986 the Britain–GDR Parliamentary Group, which since 1973 had been admitted into the British section of the IPU, ceased to exist.347 After a final burst of activity in the early 1980s, William Wilson, one of the Group’s most active office holders, retired from parliament in 1983. His support for the GDR since the 1960s was recognised by the GDR, who gave him a medal for his promotion of ‘international solidarity’.348 During the second half of the 1980s the apparent inability of the GDR to follow the reform course of Gorbachev heightened the critical reception of the GDR in Britain. Immediately before Gorbachev took power in Moscow, his visit to Britain in December 1984 under the auspices of the British section of the IPU was regarded by Temple Morris as the highpoint of his chairmanship.349 By contrast, the stale socialism 343 ������������������������������������������������������� ‘Besuch einer Delegation der Volkskammer’, op. cit., 7. 344 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15645, ‘Sektatariat der DDR. Informationen ���������������������� für die Abgeordneten der Volkskammer 1985’, (1–9), 1; PAL, ‘Annual Report of the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union 1985’. 345 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Informationen für die Abgeordneten der Volkskammer 1985’, op. cit., 6–7; ‘Delegation des britischen Unterhauses besucht Mahn- und Gedenkstätten’, Neues Deutschland, 6.6.1985. 346 ����������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/16057, ‘Aufenthalt einer Delegation britischer Parlamentarier in der DDR’, 6.6.85, (1–2), 2. GDR ���������������������������������� transcription of broadcast on BBC/Germany Service. 347 See the Annual Reports issued by the IPU. 348 On Wilson’s activities as chairman of the Parliamentary Group in the early 1980s, see MRC, ‘William Wilson Papers’, MSS. 76, GDR 76 and 77. 349 PAL, ‘Annual Report of the IPU (BS) 1984’, 15–30.

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of the GDR and its gerontocratic leadership was increasingly unattractive to British audiences. In October 1988, a delegation from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee arrived in the GDR as part of a series of visits to Warsaw Pact states. The purpose of the visit was to inform parliament about the political consequences of disarmament in Europe after the conclusion of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which had been achieved in the new climate of superpower cooperation.350 The British delegation, which included the Labour MP Peter Shore, two Conservatives, John Lawrence and Owen Wells, and the British Ambassador, Nigel Broomfield, discussed the impact of reform in Eastern Europe with East German foreign policy experts. Almost four years into the Gorbachev era, some in Britain, like Peter Shore, hoped for the ‘introduction of a democratic component’ to political life in the GDR, whilst his Conservative colleagues adopted a less optimistic outlook.351 Overall, the British delegation agreed that the GDR was the state most resistant to the changes taking place in Eastern Europe. A report published by the Foreign Policy Committee in 1989, observed that change in the Soviet Union had come from ‘above’, in Poland it had come from ‘below’, but in the GDR there was ‘hardly any movement’.352 For all the GDR’s readiness to maintain dialogue during the 1980s, when it came to accepting substantial change in domestic or foreign policy it was a dialogue with the deaf.

The Britain–GDR Society during the 1980s The GDR’s unwillingness to accept even the slightest hint of criticism had clouded relations with the BGS in the 1970s.353 During the 1980s the LfV undertook renewed efforts to make the BGS into a more reliable ally. To this effect, it instigated the regionalisation of the BGS, which was encouraged to break out of its traditional focus on London and move to establishing regional centres in the industrial heartlands of England, Scotland and Wales.354 In the hope of recruiting more ‘uncritical friends’ of the GDR, the LfV ran ‘propaganda seminars’ for members of the London-based Executive 350 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15860, ‘Bericht über ein Gespräch mit einer Delegation des außenpolitischen Ausschusses des britischen Unterhauses im IPW am 25.10.1988’, (1–4), 1. 351 Ibid. 352 PAL, House of Commons, ‘Foreign Affairs Select Committee, First Report: Eastern Europe and the Soviet Unions’, 21.3.1989. 353 See chapter 3, p. 187f. 354 M. Howarth. 2003. ‘Freundschaft mit dem Klassenfeind. ��������������������� Imagepolitik der DDR in Großbritannien nach der diplomatischen Anerkennung’, Deutschland Archiv 36 (1), 25–34; Interview with Dieter Müller, 12.9.2001.

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Committee and the leadership of the local branches. Those attending the courses were told to maximise the political impact of their arguments by contrasting the positive features of the GDR and its ‘peace policies’ with the Thatcher government’s alleged responsibility for heightening international tensions and putting millions out of work.355 Horst Brasch, the president of the Liga, remained highly critical of the BGS, arguing that the main obstacle to winning more socially and politically diverse support in Britain was to be found in the inadequate work carried out by its London-based Executive Committee. Instead of prioritising events of interest to activists in the mushrooming peace movement, the youth and women’s movements and the trade unions, the Executive Committee stood accused of implementing a ‘cultural strategy’ of interest only to a narrow section of society – Germanists and other intellectuals.356 Just as East Berlin had been highly critical of Sheila Taylor in the 1970s, it now focused its discontent on her equally Euro-communist successor as secretary of the BGS, Jack Berlin, who occupied this office from 1981 to 1989.357 In 1985, the Embassy reported that, ‘relations with Jack Berlin have been exacerbated by his refusal to invite Embassy staff to the main annual meeting [of the Executive Committee]’.358 The GDR once again applied financial pressure. In the autumn of 1985, the Embassy official, Edgar Uher, who doubled up as Stasi agent ‘Eckhart’, informed the Society that, once again, it ‘could not afford’ to pay its secretary’s wages.359 This time, however, 355 ��������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, ‘Arbeitsgespräch mit Funktionären der britischen NFG, 19.–20.5.1981’, (1–5), 3; ibid., LfV, ‘Programmempfehlung für das Propagandistenseminar mit Sekretären und Vorsitzenden von lokalen Freundschaftskommittees sowie Mitgliedern der Gesellschaft Großbritannien– DDR zum Studium der aktuellen Probleme der Entwicklung und Politik der DDR sowie zum Erfahrungsaustausch und zu Arbeitsgesprächen, 16.–23. Juni’, 16.5.1984, (1–8), 1, 8; see also, ibid., DY 13/3121, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation von Persönlichkeiten der GB NFG, die friedenspolitisch engagiert sind’, [undated: December 1986], (1–4). 356 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3124, Horst Brasch, ‘Information über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der LfV in Großbritannien’, 6.6.1981, (1–7), 2–3. The other official on the visit was Dietmar Hahn. 357 ��������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3318, LfV, ‘Zur DDR-Freundschaftbewegung in Großbritannien’, [undated: 1989], (1–3). 358 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., DY 13/3125, ‘Information über Verlauf der Jahreskonferenz der Großbritannien–DDR-Society am 11.5.1985 in London’, 11.5.1985, (1–2), 2. Edgar Uher did, in fact, attend the Annual General Meeting in May 1985, see Taylor, ‘View from the Inside’; see also SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3123, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Abordnung der LfV in Großbritannien vom 25.5.–5.6.1986’, (1–12 and Appendix 1). 359 ����������������������������� Ibid., DY13/3125, Edgar Uher, ‘Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit dem Vorsitzenden der Britain–GDR-Society, John Kotz, am 5.9.1985 in der Botschaft’, 5.9.1985, (1– 2). ������������������������������������� On Uher as a Stasi agent, see Glees, Stasi Files, esp. 16, 208, 209, 221, 224–25, 226, 229–30, 232–29.

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the GDR did not manage to push the secretary from office by closing down the money supply. If Liga officials continued to be unhappy with the BGS’s secretary and the Euro-communists dominating the Society’s Executive committee, they were full of praise for the BGS’s chairman between 1983 and 1989, John Kotz, a hard-left Labour councillor in Hackney. Kotz was involved in an increasing number of confidential discussions at the Embassy and in East Berlin all dealing with the subject of how to sideline Jack Berlin and how best to maintain direct contact with the Society’s local branches. In Kotz the GDR had a supporter who offered unqualified praise in place of the Euro-communists’ ‘critical friendship’. At a meeting of the South East London branch in November 1987, for example, Kotz stressed that, on account of rising living standards and the absence of unemployment, ‘the GDR at the moment is just about the most successful country in Europe.’360 Although the Liga could not appoint and dismiss the BGS’s leading officials at will, it was able to develop a strategy of circumventing its Euro-communist leadership. In 1981, the leading figures in the Liga and GDR–Great Britain Society, Brasch and Hahn, met with Embassy staff to develop an initiative to extend the BGS’s social and political profile.361 Instead of dealing exclusively with the London-based Executive Committee, East Berlin decided to work directly with the Society’s local branches. This policy, coordinated by the GDR’s embassy in London, led not only to the formation of new provincial branches but to the inception of the Scotland–GDR Society and the London–Berlin Committee. Kotz was an important player concerning the plans to develop the independently organised London–Berlin Committee.362 By 1989 the BGS had expanded from eight to thirty local branches with an official membership of three thousand.363 The fact that only eighteen of twenty-eight branches had attended the 1986 Annual General Meeting in London demonstrated the increasing regional autonomy of the branches. As one of activists from the Manchester branch, Eric Nowell, remembers, relations between London and the branches were bad in the 1980s: there were conflicts over payment of dues to London and over organisational matters, where the branches 360 British Film Institute, London, Stanley Forman Papers. 361 For an overview of these developments, see ������������������ H.-G. Golz. 2004. Verordnete Völkerfreundschaft. Das Wirken der Freundschaftgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien und der Britain–GDR Society. Möglichkeiten ������������������������� und Grenzen, Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, 213–14. 362 See the correspondence between Kotz and GDR officials in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3125. 363 ��������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3318, LfV, ‘Zur DDR-Freundschaftbewegung in Großbritannien’, [undated: 1989], (1–3), 3.

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did not feel consulted enough.364 Only rarely did the BGS receive support from outside the circle of usual suspects. The Coventry– Dresden Society was headed by the Conservative councillor and one-time mayor of Coventry, Lord Kenneth Benfield, who took on the honorary position of Vice President of the BGS. Similarly, in Chippenham the Liberal councillor, Margaret Jenson, took on the chairmanship of the newly founded West of England branch.365 Yet these were exceptions presented, in public statements, as the rule. The GDR Review, for example, announced that, ‘at the Britain–GDR Society’s [1986] AGM, the Communist Peter Smith from Glasgow, the Liberal Councillor Margaret Jenson, and the Conservative, Sir Kenneth Benfield from Coventry, praised, above all, the active and consistent peace policy pursued by the GDR’s state leadership which is supported by the people.’366 In the same manner as the lack of genuine cross-party support for the GDR was hidden from sight, the tensions between the Executive Committee of the BGS and the Liga never surfaced in public. Both sides only ever voiced their differences behind closed doors. The Society’s public statements always remained in line with the official stance of the GDR on diverse policy issues. Promoting the GDR in Britain also meant promoting travel to the GDR. The BGS newsletters were full of bargain offers to visit the GDR by booking with one of the left-wing tourist operators, such as Progressive Tours or Yorkshire Tours. But the main player in the field was Berolina Travel, the official Tourist Office of the GDR, a section of the Reisebüro der DDR. Berolina Travel was entirely controlled and funded from East Berlin. While the others covered the entire East Bloc, Berolina specialised in sending British citizens on tours of the GDR.367 They arranged both individual travel and group travel. For the latter purpose they chartered Interflug planes, which started from various regional airports in the UK, as the GDR was not allowed to use the London airports. In 1981, Harry Holford, a long-standing member of the BGS and founding member of its Bristol branch, wrote a pamphlet detailing his own holiday making in the GDR. Published at his own expense, the GDR was depicted as a country with beautiful landscapes inhabited by a pleasant people who ate quality cuisine. The text was accompanied by tourist photographs as if to prove the point. Holford detailed the state’s sporting successes, high cultural 364 Interview with Eric Nowell, Manchester, 10.01.2008. 365 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3132, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der Freundschaftsgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien vom 2.– 10.10.1986 [in London]’, 15.10.1986, (1–11), 2. 366 Horst Brasch. ‘For Reason and Friendship in the Interest of Peace’, GDR Review 6 (1986), 49–50. 367 Taylor, ‘View from Inside’, 327 f..

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attainments and even its modern farming methods.368 In 1985, the number of ‘political tourists’ [Polittouristen] visiting the GDR reached a total of five hundred – three times the figure for the previous year, but far removed from any form of mass tourism.369 What is more, contacts between the British and the East German people were, by and large, only taking place on the territory of the GDR. With the restriction on East German citizens’ travel, the only GDR ‘tourists’ to arrive in Britain were those carefully selected and vetted by the SED as politically trustworthy. In October 1982, for example, an East German ‘friendship bus’ toured Britain to spread the good news about the GDR. Its twelve ‘tourists’ were handpicked experts in the fields of local government, industry, the official trade unions and women’s organisation, educationalists, an athlete and an artist.370 The following year, a FDJ ‘peace cruise’ travelled through Britain.371 Delegations from Britain were strictly controlled, offering the ‘guests’ no time or opportunity to meet ordinary people.372 As mentioned in the last chapter, language tourism from Britain to the GDR was also organised by the BGS after 1976 and throughout the 1980s. In 1986, for example, the GDR Review advertised places on three-week-long German-language courses for university and school teachers and translators at the cost of $250, including enrolment fees, full board and lodgings. The courses were run in Berlin, Weimar, Dresden, Halle, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Leipzig, Illmenau, Rostock, Greifswald, Magdeburg, and, according to the advert, offered an ‘opportunity of deepening one’s linguistic and literary knowledge and of gathering further first-hand information about the GDR’. The autumn 1989 edition of the Newsletter announced that, ‘Thirty-two students from 15 Universities and Polytechnics in England and Wales spent some three weeks in Berlin and Tharandt (near Dresden)’ participating in a ‘work camp and holiday’. The experience inspired some of them to join the Society.373 According to Sheila Taylor, direct experience of the GDR would be the best 368 H.W. Holford. 1981. Package Pilgrimage, Bristol: self-published. 369 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3132, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der Freundschaftsgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien vom 2.– 10.10.1986 [in London]’, 15.10.1986, (1–11), 2. 370 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘The Britain–GDR Society Newsletter’, April 1982. 371 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� LHSA-AM, BPA IV/E-2/3/114, ‘Vorlage für das Sekretariat der BL Halle der SED (Sekt. ����������������������� IV)’, 1.9.1983’, (1–2). 372 For extensive details, see the materials in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3319. The ‘study delegations’ are detailed in the Newsletters of the 1980s, in Dorothy Diamond Archive. 373 ‘International Summer College Course in the GDR in 1986’, GDR Review 2 (1986), 47. The advert stated that, in 1985, 1,700 foreign students had participated in these courses.

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advertisement for the socialist Germany and help to overcome the widespread ignorance in Britain.374 The Society was also responsible for organising a number of specific events that aimed to attract interest in the GDR’s peace policies in Britain, although it was always restricted in its activities by a tight budget. In 1983 the budget was £9,647.62.375 Only £791.50 of this came from individual membership fees, which means that it remained totally dependent on the GDR in terms of funding.376 Furthermore, the Society organised celebrations marking the anniversaries of the GDR’s foundation. For the 35th anniversary in October 1984, a ‘Souvenir Programme of the Britain–GDR Society’ was published. It carried a message from the Ambassador, Dr Gerhard Lindner, which centred on the ‘high quality of the GDR’s cultural achievements, her top performances in sport and sound educational system’. John Kotz placed anti-fascism and the successful campaign for recognition in the foreground, informing his audience that: ‘We are proud to celebrate with our friends in the GDR 35 years of progress and achievement in every field of economic and social endeavour’. With the expansion of the Society into the provinces, the ‘Souvenir Programme’ was also able to carry a statement from the Manchester City Councillor, Graham Stringer, recording the ‘pride’ of his city in its ‘close ties of friendship with Karl-Marx-Stadt and the League of People’s Friendship in Berlin’. Whilst anniversary celebrations in earlier years had also taken place in branches of the Society throughout the country, they became more prominent and numerous throughout the 1980s.377 Horst Brasch and Dietmar Hahn attended the celebrations in Birmingham, Carlisle, Blackpool, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Manchester, where an exhibition on the GDR had attracted popular interest.378 During the 40th anniversary celebrations marking Victory in Europe Day, the BGS organised a Liga delegation to Britain, which met with the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney General, the Bishop of Coventry, Labour MPs and Bruce Kent of CND. It also attended events in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford and Brighton.379 From the East German perspective, the objective 374 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3124, Sheila Taylor, ‘General Meeting 1980’; Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Newsletter, Spring, 1985’. 375 SAPMO-BArch, DY13/3125, ‘Britain GDR Society. AGM 1983 at Holborn Library’. 376 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Newsletter, Spring 1982’. 377 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3125, Botschaft der DDR, ‘Information über Verlauf der Jahreskonferenz der Großbritannien–GDR-Society am 11.5.1985 in London’, 20.5.1985, (1–8), 1. 378 The Society detailed the celebrations in its Spring 1985 Newsletter. 379 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Newsletter, Autumn 1985’. See also Hans Herzberg. ‘A Delegation of the GDR International Friendship League in Great Britain’, GDR Review 8 (1985), 28–29.

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was to link contemporary fears of nuclear war and the need for a ‘coalition of reason’ with the earlier ‘broad coalition against Hitler’s Germany’. Speaking in Liverpool, where he had spent time during the war, Herzberg informed his audience that, ‘We in the GDR are striving for an alliance of reason, for the survival of all people, for common sense. Whatever differences might exist, we have got to coexist’.380 Yet, as a BGS-organised Round Table Symposium in Sussex illustrates, the official GDR line often met with unwelcome questions. A member of a local peace group, Sussex Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament, wanted to know why the GDR would not adopt a unilateralist gesture, showing true initiative and independence of action. Another participant pointed out that preventing free travel to Britain ensured that the GDR maintained the ‘image of the enemy’ it purportedly aimed to overcome. Despite the best efforts of the local branch, which sent out a large number of press releases, the local media completely ignored the event.381 For most British people a meeting discussing East Germany’s part in defeating Hitler was not a big attraction. As an internal Embassy report was forced to concede, very few people attended the meetings and the hoped for ‘civic receptions’ fell flat.382 Undeterred, the Society’s veteran campaigner, Gordon Schaffer, published a pamphlet commending East Germany’s anti-fascism and commitment to peace. The Liga also financed the publication of a wide array of literature, which, in the same manner, set out to connect in the minds of their British readers the regime’s anti-fascism – including the Soviet liberation of concentration camps – with its present day ‘peace policies’.383 When the BGS celebrated the GDR’s 40th anniversary in October 1989, the second German state was already on its way out, but few in the society were willing to accept this. The East German ambassador, Dr Joachim Mitdank, had still sent an upbeat message for the 380 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3123, John Gibson, ‘Report on the visit to Liverpool of the delegation from the GDR on the 40th anniversary of the victory over fascism: 40 years of peace in Europe’, 23.5.1985, (1–2), 2. 381 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3123, Len Goldman, ‘GDR–Sussex Round Table Symposium, Brighton’, 17.5.1985, (1–3). 382 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Ibid., Edgar Uher, ‘Einschätzung der Veranstaltungen der NFG anlässlich des 40. Jahrestages der Befreiung vom Faschismus in den Branchen Birmingham, Coventry, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford and Brighton (Rundtischgespräche) unter Teilnahme einer Delegation der Liga für Völkerfrendschaft vom 13.–17.5.1985’, 27.5.1985, (1–6), 1, 5–6. 383 ‘History teaches us: Everything must be done for peace’ [Ravensbrück] (Berlin, 1985); ‘Let us act together before the world is set ablaze!’ [Buchenwald] (Berlin, 1985); ‘Our pledge: no more war!’ [Sachsenhausen] (Berlin, 1985); ‘Let us make an all-out effort to save peace’ [Brandeburg-Görden] (Berlin, 1985); see also ‘Upholding the Antifascist Legacy’ (Dresden, 1985). All in the possession of the authors.

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celebrations: ‘[T]he GDR has arrived. It has become an advanced industrial economy testifying to the vitality of socialism. It ranks today among the ten leading industrial nations of the world.’384 Yet, to the horror of the Society’s Executive Committee, much of the population was leaving. Their response was to accuse the British media of going ‘quite berserk’ in its coverage of East Germans fleeing to West Germany. In their minds, the British commentators had got it wrong – the SED state was not collapsing, only changing, and the growing number of refugees from the GDR only wished ‘to visit the West, not defect’.385 Some ‘critical friends’, such as Sheila Taylor, were hoping for a democratic renewal of communism in the GDR under a Modrow government. Taylor in fact propagated these views on Channel 4 television and Radio Scotland in late 1989.386 After many decades of supporting ‘actually existing socialism’, BGS members found it difficult to accept that the object of their efforts was vanishing before their very eyes.

The Scotland–GDR Society One of the most active BGS members in Scotland was Margaret Rose, from Aberdeen. Rose was referred to in East Berlin as ‘the soul of Scotland’ on account of her ability to run her branch ‘in a model manner’.387 What this meant in practice was that she had contacts with the local press, could organise receptions with the mayor, had good contacts with the local Labour Party, put on exhibitions in Aberdeen Arts Centre and built up contacts with the churches, including winning over the Reverend James Tyrell as Vice-President of her branch.388 While the BGS was only able to set up one branch in the industrial heartland of South Wales (Blaenau Gwent), Scotland proved to be a relative success story.389 By the early 1980s, there were six branches, 384 Dorothy Diamond Archive, J. Mitdank, ‘A Message from the Ambassador of the GDR’, in ‘40th Anniversary of the GDR. Souvenir Programme of the Britain–GDR Society’ (our italics). 385 Ibid., ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, in ‘Newsletter, Autumn 1989’. 386 Sheila Taylor Archive, London. (In the private possession of Sheila Taylor). 387 On the role of Rose: interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001. 388 Margaret Rose, ‘I’ve got many good friends here’, GDR Review 11 (1985), 39. 389 For a detailed treatment of the Scotland–GDR Society, see Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 252–71 and M. Howarth, ‘The Pipes of Peace: Projecting “Scottishness” to the GDR’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 107–122 as well as M. Howarth. 2004. ‘Projecting the Self – Reflecting the Other: Scotland, Wales and the GDR’, in J. Fischer, P. Ó Dochartaigh and H. Kelly-Holmes (eds), Irish – German Studies 2001/2002, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 88–102, which also deals with Wales.

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located primarily in the urban centres of Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Although the membership of the Society in Scotland never exceeded 550,390 a number of developments produced optimism in East Berlin. Cooperation was not complicated by the type of ‘critical friendship’ offered by the London-based, Euro-communist Executive Committee. In Peter Smith, the Secretary of the Society in Scotland, East Berlin found an active, unreconstructed communist.391 Already in the early 1980s, Smith had built a network of contacts including twenty of the twenty-two members of the General Council of the STUC, numerous Labour councillors, church representatives, prominent figures in the Scottish peace movement and ‘progressive’ student teachers at the Jordanhill Teacher Training College.392 In the annual Burns’ Night Suppers, which were held in the GDR from 1983 until 1990, East Berlin finally found a cultural event with a claim to genuinely popular appeal.393 Burns, as a contemporary supporter of the French Revolution, was a suitably ‘progressive’ and ‘internationalist’ figure to please all participants. More importantly, the emphasis was on celebration rather than on learning about the ‘achievements’ of East German socialism. According to Inge Fischer, ‘We ate haggis, poems were read out, sung Scottish songs and drank whisky and the bagpipes were played.’394 Every year, between sixty and seventy Scotsmen arrived in the GDR to offer a libation to their national bard; many of them were sufficiently impressed to join the Society on their return home. In 1988, for example, thirty-two of the seventy-six ‘delegates’ took out membership of the Scotland–GDR Society.395 Apart from Burns’ Night suppers, the Scotland–GDR Society also organised several delegations from the GDR to Scotland, including, in 1985 and 1987, two FDJ delegations.396 390 The figure of 550 members in 1988 is given by Howarth, ‘Pipes of Peace’, 113; according to Howarth, the information comes from SAPMO-BArch, but she also feels that it might well be exaggerated; the following year, membership was given as 400, which might be more realistic. See ��������������������������������������� LfV, ‘Zur DDR–Freundschaftbewegung in Großbritannien’, op. cit., 1. 391 ��������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, the reports in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3129. 392 ������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3120, Dietmar Hahn, ‘Information über das Propagandistenseminar mit Mitgliedern des Vorstandes und Vertretern von Branchen der NFG GB–DDR vom 14. bis 21.5.1981 zum Thema: “Grundfragen der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung in der DDR nach dem X Parteitag der SED” sowie zu Arbeitsberatungen’, (1–3), 2–3. 393 ������������������������������������������������������������� Hermann Bohlen, ‘Eingepfiffen, weggeputzt und gut begossen’, Neues Deutschland, 8.2.1994. 394 Interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001. 395 Howarth, ‘Pipes of Peace’, 118. 396 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam [henceforth: BLHA-P], Rep. 943, Nr. 830, Rainer Konietzky, ‘Reiseleiterbericht, 22.6.–9.6.1985’, (1–4), 3.

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Relations between East Berlin and the Scotland–GDR Society were, however, not an unqualified success. The Liga had wanted to coordinate the activities of the Society’s branches using the Embassy to circumvent the Euro-communist-dominated Executive Committee in London; but it had not wanted all cooperation between the centre and the provinces to break down. Yet this is precisely what did happen by the end of the decade. After opening Pandora’s Box, the Liga now complained that there was ‘no longer a united National Friendship Society in Great Britain’. Instead, the English branches and the Scottish–GDR Society decided to take East Berlin’s initiative to its logical conclusion, acting as quasi-autonomous organisations, liaising with the Embassy and, on occasion, with other branches.397 By 1986, Scottish representatives no longer saw fit to attend nationally organised meetings of branch secretaries; nor did they want to pay London a proportion of their membership dues. The GDR’s predication that the Scotland–GDR Society would now push for ‘full sovereignty’ proved accurate.398 On 6 September 1986, the Scotland–GDR Society was officially founded.399

The London-Berlin Committee: From the beginning of the 1980s, the Liga’s campaign to sidestep the executive of the BGS in an attempt to increase the attractiveness of the friendship movement in Britain became particularly evident in London. In 1980, the Liga placed high hopes in the Heathrow airport branch of the BGS. The Liga began dealing directly with the Heathrow branch taking advantage of tensions which had existed between the branch and the EC of the BGS.400 The leading lights of the Heathrow branch were left-wing trade unionists who sat on the airport’s Joint Shop Stewards Committee, which represented 57,000 employees. The branch secretary, Dennis Munn, was the deputy convenor of the engineering workers’ union; George Reader, the other main player, was an official in the EETPU and member of the neo-Stalinist New Communist Party. Initially, the Liga held out hopes that the new branch could serve as a conveyor belt bringing 397 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� LfV, ‘Zur DDR–Freundschaftsbewegung in Großbritannien’, op. cit., 2. 398 ������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3125, Dietmar Hahn, ‘Arbeitsgespräch vom 24.6.1986 mit dem Vorsitzenden der britischen NFG, John Kotz, und dem Sekretär, Jack Berlin’, 30.6.1986, (1–3), 2–3. 399 Ibid., DY 13/3311 ‘Statute of the Scotland–GDR Society’. 400 Information provided by Sheila Taylor to the authors, 29.8.2005.

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trade unionists into the ‘friendship movement’, and expanding into Manchester, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports. 401 Many members of the Heathrow Airport branch went to ‘see the GDR for themselves’. They flew to East Berlin on the concessionary tickets available to British Airways employees, and the Liga covered the cost of accommodation and a programme of events. On the East German side, the event was known as a ‘weekend seminar’ in which the delegates met with their colleagues in Schönefeld Airport, were received by the president of the GDR–Great Britain Society, Gerhard Lindner, and took part in a whistle-stop sightseeing tour.402 However, it soon became obvious to Liga officials that the touristic aspects of the visit were more important to the visitors than the political ones. Fewer and fewer trade union officials came to visit, and those who did come demanded a non-political sightseeing programme, refusing to visit the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and to listen to political lectures on ‘actually existing socialism’.403 In 1983 the airport group was dissolved and its remaining members were integrated into the new South-west London branch. After the demise of the Heathrow airport experiment, the Liga revived the idea of setting up a committee of ‘prominent personalities’ to raise the profile of the GDR in the capital city. From the outset, the Berlin–London Committee, founded in 1983, attempted to encourage the foundation of a British sister organisation, the London–Berlin Committee, which was conceived of by Liga officials as an autonomous organisation from the BGS. Yet the Liga had little option but to draw on the support of the Executive Committee of the BGS, which it relied upon to organise events. There were no other ‘friends’ of the GDR whom East German officials could have turned to. Relations between the two capitals had been a prestige project pursued for a considerable time by officials in East Berlin. Since the later 1950s there had been unsuccessful attempts to set up ‘partnerships’ between various London boroughs and East Berlin city districts.404 In 1975 the mayor of East Berlin, Herbert Fechner, 401 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3120, Dietmar Hahn, ‘Bericht über das Wochenendseminar mit Vertretern des Komittees der Gewerkschaftsvertrauensleute des Londoner Flughafens Heathrow in der Zeit vom 17.–20.10.1980’, 24.10.1980, (1–2), 1. 402 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., LfV, Konzeption zur Durchführung eines Wochenendseminars mit 10 Vertretern des Komitees der Gewerkschaftsvertrauensleute des Londoner Flughafens Heathrow in der Zeit vom 4.–7.12.1981’, 27.10.1981, (1–2). 403 ������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., DY 13/3119, Dietmar Hahn, ‘Bericht zum Wochenendseminar mit Gewerkschaften des Londoner Flughafens Heathrow vom 18.–12.11.1983’, 30.11.1983, (1–5), 2–3. 404 Bell (now Howarth), ‘Non-Recognition’, 243.

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was received by his counterpart in County Hall.405 While no formal agreement was signed, there were good relations in particular with the Labour members of the London council. The deputy head of the GLC, Iltyd Harrington, and chairman of the Labour faction, Charles Rossi, made several visits to the GDR.406 There were also contacts with left-wing London town halls, such as Hackney, through the activities of leading Society members who served on these councils, such as John Kotz.407 The abolition of the GLC by the Thatcher government came as a blow to East German attempts to use its council links for setting up a more formal exchange agreement between East Berlin and London.408 The London–Berlin Committee was finally founded at a meeting in the House of Commons, rather than the London town hall, on 24 June 1986. The letter of invitation to the inaugural meeting had been sent out by the Committee’s chairman, the London Labour MP, Tony Banks.409 In his appeal to ‘prominent personalities’ to get involved, Banks stated that, ‘considerable points of contact exist between ourselves and the FRG and West Berlin. However, little has been done to make contact with the GDR in general and East Berlin in particular … [We aim to] rectify this situation.’ The objective was to reduce East–West tensions ‘over the dividing lines in Europe’410 by establishing contacts across all fields of cultural life, education, parliamentary and municipal politics, trade relations, the churches, the British Youth Council, the media, academics and, last but not least, women’s organisations. The LBC, according to Banks, was to spread ‘the truth’ about the GDR.411 Particular emphasis was placed on gaining media attention for the celebration of Berlin’s 750th anniversary.412 The Liga’s ambitious plans were met with sceptical realism on the part of the BGS. As early as February 1984, its secretary, Jack Berlin, warned Dietmar Hahn that, ‘prominent 405 ��������������������������������������������������� ‘Londoner Stadtoberhaupt empfing Herbert Fechner’, Neues Deutschland, 9.11.1975 406 ���������������������������������������������������������������� LAB, C Rep 122, Nr. 246, ‘Information über ein Gespräch mit dem ehemaligen Oberbürgermeister von London, Iltyd Harrington, am 29.8.1986 im Roten Rathaus’. 407 Interview with Inge Fischer, 25.10.2001. 408 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3132, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der Freundschaftsgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien vom 2.– 10.10.1986 [in London]’, 15.10.1986, (1–11). 409 Of the 103 ‘prominent personalities’, 37 of them attended the meeting, see Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Report of the Inaugural Meeting of the LBC’. 410 The letter is in the Dorothy Diamond Archive. 411 �������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3132, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der Freundschaftsgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien vom 2.– 10.10.1986 [in London]’, 15.10.1986, (1–11), 1��� –�� 2. 412 ‘London–Berlin (GDR) Committee Founded’, in GDR Review 7 (1986), 43.

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personalities might take part in occasional delegations, but they are always too busy to become active in the friendship movement.’413 Jack Berlin’s prognosis was particularly fitting for the Committee’s chairman, Tony Banks. In many ways, Banks had initially seemed a very suitable person due to his East German contacts. During his period as one of the most prominent members of the GLC, he had gained a reputation as a ‘man of the people’; in 1983 he entered parliament as the firmly Bennite member for West Ham. He had also cultivated a long-term relationship with the GDR, first visiting East Berlin in 1970. In an RBI interview, he stated that: This is not the first time that I have been to Berlin. I came here 16 years ago, and the thing it means to me most is the amount of social advancement you have made over that gap of 16 years. Berlin is a city of peace. And that’s not only what Berlin should be for me but for the world. It was the origin of two devastating world wars but now it must be seen as a symbol of peace for all of humankind.414

Off the record, his support for ‘actually existing socialism’ was considerably stronger. During the visit to the GDR in October 1986 Banks and Brandon expressed their admiration for the peace policies of the GDR, its ‘socialist achievements’ and stress on anti-fascism.415 During Banks’ visit to East Berlin in 1987, his party leader, Neil Kinnock, was in West Berlin. According to an internal report, Banks became furious after Kinnock made a set-piece plea for the Wall to be torn down. Turning to his East German hosts, he stated that rather than a ‘flying visit around the Wall he [Kinnock] should visit the GDR and its capital to get a real picture’ of the country he was criticising. Banks went on to suggest that the GDR should issue a pamphlet countering the West’s ‘enduring propaganda’ about the Wall.416 However, when practical action was required, Banks fell short of East Berlin’s expectations. The minutes of the Executive Committee of the LBC indicate that he was rarely present.417 The vast majority of the day-to-day organisational work was carried by three members of the BGS. First, there was the Committee’s Secretary, Ted Brandon, a London trade union official with the ASTMS who was elected 413 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/303, ‘[Letter] Jack Berlin to Dietmar Hahn’, 15.2.1984. 414 Eva Köpsel, ‘Visiting the Capital on the Eve of its Anniversary. An interview with Tony Banks, Chairman of the London–Berlin (GDR) Committee’, GDR Review 2 (1987), 32. 415 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� LAB, C Rep 122, Nr. 376, ‘Information über den Aufenthalt der Delegation des Komitees London–Berlin (DDR) vom 12.–18.10.1986 in Berlin’, (1–4), 3. 416 Ibid. 417 The minutes are in the Dorothy Diamond Archive.

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to the Society’s Executive Committee in 1982 and took on the chairmanship of the Society’s South-west London branch in 1984.418 Herzberg’s judgment on Brandon from September 1988 was entirely positive: ‘He is a good friend of the GDR. He shows much political understanding and is reliable and punctual in fulfilling agreed tasks.’419 The other principle activists were the stalwart supporters of the GDR, Sheila Taylor and Dorothy Diamond. Taylor organised two teachers’ delegations to Berlin and led the first one herself. Diamond’s activities were primarily concerned with organising public meetings in London, finding venues for film shows, distributing literature and staging the photographic exhibition ‘Berlin Today’.420 All of the activities were done on a shoestring budget of £1,200 per annum, most of which was provided by the East Berlin city council.421 It fell largely to Brandon to liaise with the Berlin–London Committee (BLC). His counterpart in East Berlin was Hans Herzberg.422 According to Herzberg, the BLC was in practice a loose organisation, bringing together city councillors and Volkskammer deputies, trade union officials and an assortment of other representatives from public life. It met twice a year to establish a programme of activities focusing on organising ‘study visits’ of professional groups. In 1987 and 1988 five delegations headed out from London to East Berlin: two delegations of teachers, two delegations of trade union officials and one delegation of doctors from a London-based medical group. The main objective was to convince the visitors that the GDR had achieved a high standard of professional practice and provision in their respective fields.423 Positive statements about the GDR were highlighted in the media. On 29 June 1988, for example, Neues Deutschland quoted John Gibson, the chairman of the London transport workers’ union, praising industrial relations in an East Berlin air conditioning and heating factory: ‘For me, the most amazing thing is the way in which your union and management consider it their common responsibility to work towards higher productivity and better living and working conditions. The union clearly has considerable influence on 418 ���������������������������������������� Interview with Hans Herzberg, 25.8.2001. 419 ����������������������������������������������������������������� LAB, C Rep 122 Nr. 370, ‘Diskussionspapier zu den bevorstehenden Gesprächen mit Mr Edward Brandon’, 29.9.1988, (1–4), 3. 420 See, for example, ibid., C Rep 122 Nr. 395, ‘[Letter] Ted Brandon to Hans Herzberg’, 16.1.1987. 421 The figure is for 1987, see ibid., C Rep 122 Nr. 392, ‘LBC. Report to the Annual General Meeting for the Period ending 31.12.1987’, (1–7), 5; the figure is confirmed by a statement in the private papers of Dorothy Diamond. 422 For Herzberg, see chapter 1, p. 47f. 423 Interview with Hans Herzberg, 25.8.2001.

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decisions made within the enterprise’.424 What did not reach the public domain was the concern of the ‘study delegation’ of London medics, who sought assurances from their hosts that psychiatry in the GDR was not being used for political purposes.425 Tellingly, however, only one delegation of Volkskammer deputies and teachers arrived in London from East Berlin.426 The lack of exchange visits from Berlin to London prompted Brandon to inform the BLC that, if they ‘did not send more delegations to London the work [of the Committees] will become politically unhealthy.’427 The London–Berlin venture illustrates the central dilemma for East Berlin’s policy of ‘image cultivation’: the BGS could not build up a cross-class, nationwide ‘friendship’ movement, but it was the GDR’s only reliable British ally. Yet the SED always refused to accept this, blaming the Euro-communist Executive Committee for the limitation of British interest in the ‘other’ Germany. Despite the London Committee’s best efforts, the celebrations marking the 750th anniversary of Berlin received no coverage in the mainstream media.428 Horst Brasch’s fantasies about staging a major parallel festival in Wembley Stadium, including the participation of international sportsmen, artists and politicians, remained a will o’ the wisp.429 Dorothy Diamond complained about the lack of enthusiasm even among friends of the GDR when it came to staging a ‘central event’ in London to mark Berlin’s 750 years.430 By that time sympathy for the hard-line GDR in Britain was suffering from the Gorbachev effect. After presenting a talk on East Berlin’s domestic and foreign policy to a gathering of left-wing Labour MPs in the House of Commons in March 1988, which had been arranged by the LBC, Brasch reported that his audience held many ‘false opinions’ – namely, an inability to understand why the Soviet reforms were so unattractive to East Berlin.431 424 ‘London Trade Unionists Meet Berlin Workers’, Neues Deutschland, 29.6.1988. 425 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Delegation Report’ [undated]. 426 ���������������������������������������� Interview with Hans Herzberg, 25.8.2001. 427 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� LAB, C Rep 122 Nr. 375, ‘Information über den Aufenthalt des Sekretärs des Komitees London–Berlin (DDR), Edward Brandon, in der Zeit vom 7.12. bis 13.12.1987 in Berlin’, 18.1.1988, (1–2), 2. 428 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Manfred Rudolf, ‘Bericht ueber die auslandsinformatorische Arbeit’, op. cit., 10. 429 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� Horst Brasch, ‘Delegation der Freundschaftsgesellschaft’, op. cit., 3. 430 Dorothy Diamond Archive, ‘Note dated 14.1.1987’. 431 ������ Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 247–48.

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Other Attempts to Improve the GDR’s Image in Britain Reiner Oschmann, Neues Deutschland’s London correspondent during the 1980s, regretted that his own country was regularly stereotyped in the British media as a ‘drab, grey country inhabited by goose-stepping soldiers with its citizens trying to jump over the Wall.’432 How did the Liga attempt to counter such negative images? For a start, it portrayed the GDR in its many publications as a country safe for families to live in: the streets were clean and free from crime, there was no pornography and its citizens were hard working, orderly and disciplined. Reporting on a visit to Karl-Marx-Stadt by children from its twin city Manchester, the GDR Review commented with evident satisfaction: ‘Among the many impressions which the British friends gained … one stood out: GDR parents, they said, are much less permissive to their children in public than British fathers and mothers. Children in the GDR were much more obedient.’433 When a group of British educationalists, including a TES journalist, the director of Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Dundee, and the National Secretary of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), visited the GDR in November 1980, they also waxed lyrical not only about the standards of technical education under ‘actually existing socialism’, but also about the discipline which ruled the East German classroom. Even the fact that they encountered photographs of Erich Honecker in every classroom was described as ‘an interesting form of encouragement to patriotism and personal success for the services of the nation that we appear genuinely to have abandoned.’434 The Liga also propagated the idea of the GDR as a land of ‘poets and thinkers’, a country in which high culture was available to all. This image attracted not only those on the British left, but also the Conservative Party activist, (Lord) Kenneth Benfield, who became president of the Coventry branch of the BGS. After one of his regular visits to Dresden, he commented on East German television that: One of the things in Dresden was that the people could go to the opera or symphony concert or to the restaurants as families and return home through the streets in peace. I saw no evidence of vandalism and I was impressed with the People’s Palace of Culture and with the happiness of 432 Oschmann, ‘GDR Foreign Correspondent’. 433 Peter Schulze, ‘Young Britons Visit the “Saxon Manchester”’, GDR Review 7 (1986), 46–47. 434 SAPMO-BArch, DR 2/A/3279, ‘Report on the Educational Study Tour of the GDR 6–13 November 1980’.

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the people we saw everywhere on the boats of the Spreewald. People were really enjoying their leisure.435

Whilst admiration for East German culture was welcome, the GDR authorities did not want any transfer of British values and culture. Although the Young Vic theatre was able to perform Shakespeare in 1988 and, in 1989, Richard Attenborough’s ‘Cry Freedom’ was screened in the GDR, the import of British films remained subject to the censor’s approval. The SED was wary of allowing Western popular culture connecting with an East German audience. Films that were passed for viewing had been identified by politically trusted officials attending Western film festivals.436 Throughout the 1980s, Stanley Forman, the communist proprietor of ETV, continued to play a prominent role in bringing East German films to British audiences. He arranged occasional showings of GDR films at the National Film Theatre and sometimes invited the director over from the GDR to speak.437 The Liga set its sights high in their discussions with Forman, including plans to interest the newly established Channel Four in screening East German films.438 One of the most interesting projects involved cooperation between the GDR’s DEFA and a small left-wing British film company, Amber Film.439 A film team from Amber travelled to Rostock to document everyday life in the city, and a DEFA team did the same in Newcastleupon-Tyne. The result, titled From Marx & Engels to Marks & Spencer (1988) was indeed shown on Channel 4, albeit late at night. Although East German film did occasionally make the programme of art-house cinemas and film festivals, audiences were predominantly composed of either real film fans or the small circles reached by the BGS.440 Attempts to get the GDR’s message across to the British public through the literature printed in the UK fared little better. Despite Robert Maxwell’s sympathies for the GDR, which resulted in an 800–page compendium Information GDR, published by his Oxfordbased Pergamon Press,441 little information on the GDR was available in Britain. The GDR’s home-made propaganda, such as 435 ACC, Box 23, ‘Transcript of TV Broadcast on East German Television of an Interview with Lord Benfield’. 436 R. Stott. 2005. ‘The British Feature Film Import in the GDR’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 255–268. 437 B. Hogenkamp. 2005. ‘GDR films and the British Left: A Failed Breakthrough’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 237. 438 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3123, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der LfV in Gro������������������������������������������������� ß������������������������������������������������ britannien, 2.–10.10.1986’, 3.11.1986, (1–2), 2. 439 http://www.amber-online.com/history_chapters/1982–1991; accessed 3 April 2009. 440 Ibid., DY 13/3122, ‘[Letter] Jack Berlin to Dietmar Hahn’, 19.1.1984. 441 Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 215–16.

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the 1986 pamphlet entitled ‘What say does the individual have? Questions and answers on democracy in the GDR’, were too obviously propagandistic to reach beyond the circle of the already converted. And yet, while the GDR’s attempts to improve the country’s image in Britain cannot be called successful by any stretch of the imagination, left-of-centre published opinion in Britain remained relatively well disposed towards the GDR. In the year the wall fell, in 1989, Michael Simmons published a book on the GDR reflecting his experience in the country during the 1980s. Simmons had been the Eastern European correspondent of the BBC since the 1960s. He had covered Prague in 1968 and he spoke fluent German. His judgement on the GDR was surprisingly positive: [T]he achievement [of East Germany] has been, by any standards, impressive … the GDR has progressed to establish their identity beyond doubt, to treat and be treated as an equal on the international stage, and to argue on equal terms about political tactics and political strategy with the hand (in this case, the Soviet Union) which delivered them less than half a century ago.

In his experience, the GDR was ‘a country where the majority seem for much of the time to be reasonably satisfied with life’. It had produced ‘one of the most prosperous economies in Eastern Europe’. Recognition of the country in 1972 had allegedly been greeted by the population with ‘rejoicing in the streets’. And Gorbachev’s glasnost was ‘already an established fact of life in East Germany’ during the 1980s.442 With hindsight it is easy to ridicule such views, but one should not underestimate to what extent the GDR was perceived as a good place, in particular for workers, with good social security, guaranteed employment, high standards of living and low crime rates. Especially on the centre left, one was all-too willing to underline the positive aspects and de-emphasise the lack of democracy and the all-pervasive mechanisms of control characteristic of communist dictatorships. British–GDR Exchanges in the World of Higher Education By the early 1980s, the GDR made renewed efforts to intensify academic contacts between Britain and the GDR and breathe life into the formal agreements regulating such contacts, which had been signed in 1979 and 1980 respectively. In 1982, Hans Joachim Böhme, the East German Minister for Culture and Education, was invited to London to discuss the issue.443 East German officials 442 M. Simmons. 1989. The Unloved Country. A Portrait of East Germany Today, Tunbridge Wells: Abacus, 2f, 19, 108, 110. 443 The talks leading to the agreement and Böhme’s visit are detailed in SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/IV B2/9.04/63.

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were particularly keen to use academics as public opinion leaders who could improve the image of the GDR in British society.444 Much attention was given in particular to Ian Wallace and David Childs, who, it was hoped, would become active on behalf of the GDR in the friendship movement.445 But, as the reports from GDR Lektors make clear, it continued to be an uphill struggle: ‘The GDR is quite unknown. One has heard of it, but the mass of the people know nothing else. If I introduce myself as a citizen of the GDR, I am more exotic than someone from the Fiji islands.’446 Ealing College of Higher Education (ECHE) in London signed an agreement with East Berlin’s Humboldt university in 1981 for an exchange of language assistants and students.447 A report written by Manfred Severin, an East German language assistant who took up a placement at Ealing College in 1982, details how his time in Britain was spent trying ‘to close the gap in knowledge about the GDR which is otherwise filled by the Federal Republic’. In the college itself, the objective was to ‘match the supply of West German literature’, to ensure that students had ready access to East German materials, including the provision of Neues Deutschland, the foreign-affairs magazine Horizont and a range of textbooks published by Dietz Verlag. Severin’s report implied that Bonn seemed to have endless resources with which to supply his rival assistants from West Germany. Severin also promoted the GDR at a series of guest lectures given at institutes of higher education, including Oxford Polytechnic, which aimed to extend East Berlin’s network of contacts with British institutions of 444 ������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DR3/1377 (2. Schicht), ‘Arbeitsprogramm für die hochschulpolitischen Beziehungen der Karl-Marx Universität zu britischen Universitäten’; see also, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313, ‘Zum britischen Hochschulwesen’, 6.5.1988, (1–9), 1–2; SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, LfV, ‘Programmempfehlung für den Studienenthalt einer Delegation von DDRLandeskundlern aus dem Bereich der Germanistik zur Geschichte der DDR und aktuellen Problemen der Entwicklung und Politik der DDR, in der Zeit vom 3.9.– 10.9.1983’, 11.10.1983, (1–5), 5; Interview with Dieter Müller, 12.9.2001. For ���� the sponsorship of academic conferences, see the example of the Loughborough conference, see SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313, ‘The GDR: Problems and Perspectives’, [undated: 1987], (1–4). 445 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313, Werner Hartig, ‘Discussion with Prof. Ian Wallace von der Universität Loughborough’, 5.10.1988, (1–3). 446 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/2922, ‘Arbeitsbericht Dr. Christa Hartwig, Universität Leeds, 1986/7’, [undated: 1987], (1–11), 2. 447 ������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/B 1572/5 (2 Schicht), ‘Vereinbarte Aktennotiz’, [undated], (1–2). �������������������������������������������������������������� According to Sandford the link between Ealing College and the Humboldt remained one of the most important academic contacts of the GDR in Britain, see email interview with John Sandford, 2004. According to information received from Marianne Howarth, one of the first language assistants from the GDR to go to Ealing College was John Peet’s daughter, who always held a British passport.

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higher education.448 Furthermore he and his colleagues gave talks to sixth-form students and their teachers.449 Despite Severin’s energetic initiatives, however, the Minister for Culture and Education, Böhme, recommended his early replacement on the grounds that he had made no impact.450 That the Minister for Culture should concern himself personally with the fate of university language assistants shows what importance the GDR attached to these contacts. During the 1980s, relations between British academics and the GDR became more routine and frequent.451 According to a Stasi report written in 1985, Britain’s leading GDR experts at the time were Childs, Wallace and McCauley. The Stasi recruited Robin Pearson as well as Vic Allen to give them inside information about British GDR studies and, in Allen’s case, about CND.452 Pearson was in fact recruited whilst being an exchange student at Leipzig university. According to Pearson’s Stasi handler, Bernhart Kartheus, the Stasi were successful in recruiting one in ten British exchange students they approached.453 Ian Wallace was the leading light in setting up the official British-GDR researchers’ conference, which took place in 1981 (Dundee), 1983 (Dundee), 1985 (Loughborough) and 1987 (ECHE).454 The conferences were well attended, usually numbering between fifty and sixty participants, and the proceedings were published as special issues of GDR Monitor. East German academics and embassy officials regularly participated in them. East German officials were particularly concerned about the involvement of the West German Goethe Institute in academic conferences on the GDR held in Britain.455 The GDR had its own cultural organisation, the Herder Institute, which aimed to present the West with a positive image of the GDR. Tellingly, however, it did not have premises in Britain from which to coordinate a response to the Goethe Institute. Britain came under the remit of the nearest Herder Institute outside the country, located in Dublin. Furthermore, the GDR’s own Lektors at British universities criticised the materials 448 ������������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht), ‘Hauptbericht über meine Gastlehrtätigkeiten an der Division of German Studies des Ealing College of Higher Education in der Zeit vom 31.1. bis 9.7.1982’, [undated], (pp.1–10), 3. 449 The schools were based in Ealing and Hounslow; see the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DR3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht). 450 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., DR 3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht), ‘[Letter] Professor Dr Nast an Hans Joachim Böhme’, 19.2.1982. 451 See the reports on these contacts in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3313. 452 Ht p p : //ne w s .bb c.c o.u k /1/ h i /s p e c ia l­ _ r e p o r t /1999/ 09/99/ B r it a i n _ betrayed/451031031.stm; accessed 1.7.2005. 453 ‘Scargill’s Ally was Stasi Agent’, Independent on Sunday, 19.09.1999. 454 For Wallace see also chapter 3, p. 206. 455 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DR 3/B 1572/5 (2. Schicht), ‘Konferenz über die DDR am Goethe Institut der BRD in London am 13.2.1982’, 13.3.1982, (1–3).

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from the Herder Institute as being totally unsuitable for teaching German at British universities.456 When, during the second half of the 1980s, the reform policies of Gorbachev and their repercussions throughout communist Eastern Europe met with keen interest from Western governments, the British Foreign Office set up three specialist committees charged with initiating round-table talks with the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe. Initially, the hard-line GDR was left out of the states to be invited. However, during Fischer’s visit to London in November 1986, Howe proposed a series of round-table discussions between foreign-policy experts to complement the ongoing discussions between the two countries’ foreign ministries. Although East Berlin suspected Britain of wanting to undermine the communist regime, Fischer accepted the offer to deepen bilateral relations in the belief that understanding the ‘enemy’ would help ‘consolidate the position of the GDR’.457 Chatham House in London, under Lord Roper, and the Institut für Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft (IPW) in East Berlin, under Professor Max Schmidt, were to coordinate the meetings.458 Between 1987 and 1989, three round-table talks were held at the International Press Centre in East Berlin and at Wilton Park in Sussex. They discussed security and cooperation in Europe. Lord Roper’s team of specialists drew on the expertise of the academics Martin McCauley (SSEES), Alan Smith (SSEES), Tessa Blackstone (Rector of Birkbeck), and R. Morgan (LSE), as well as the journalists Edwina Moreton (Economist) and Richard Davies. Additional contributions were made by politicians and civil servants, including the Labour MPs Martin O’Neil and George Robertson, the Conservative Minister of State at the Foreign Office, David Mellor and Pauline Neville-Jones at the Foreign Office. Other prominent guests included the former Prime Minister, James Callaghan. Representatives of British industry stressed that any improvement in the economic relations between the two countries would necessitate structural reforms in the GDR’s economy, notably the convertibility of the East German currency and the possibility of dealing directly with individual companies. Internal East German reports of the talks detail the GDR’s fixation with international security, above all opposition to the American 456 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., DR 3/3922, ‘Arbeitsbericht Dr. Christa Hartwig, Universität Leeds, 1986/7’, (1–10), 9. 457 ����������������������������������������������� ‘Oskar Fischer in Großbritannien’, op. cit., 1. 458 Chatham House had already played an influential role in Anglo-West German relations after the Second World War and contributed in particular to West Germany’s transformation to a liberal, ‘Western’ society. See C. Haase. 2007. ‘In Search of a European Settlement: Chatham House and British–German Relations, 1920–1955’, in European History Quarterly 37 (4), 371–397.

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‘Star Wars’ programme. Britain, however, continued to raise issues related to the human-rights provision contained in the Helsinki Agreement.459 The SED was criticised for its reluctance to reform on the model provided by Poland and Hungary and, although the East German dissident movement was not mentioned by name, issues of environmental pollution, freedom of travel and economic stagnation were raised. Unknown to Chatham House, its partner organisation, the IPW, was used as a front organisation for Markus Wolf’s HVA – the foreign intelligence arm of the Stasi.460

The GDR and the British Peace Movement As the decade of détente gave way to the ‘second cold war’ of the early 1980s, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) underwent a meteoric return to public prominence. Numbering at most three thousand paid-up members at the end of the 1970s, by the mid 1980s CND organised a hundred thousand members at national level and as many as half a million members belonging to over a thousand local branches.461 Its annual income rose from £461,000 in 1983 to £782,000 in 1985 by which time CND employed forty full-time paid members of staff.462 In 1980 the setting up of European Nuclear Disarmament (END) as a kind of intellectual wing of CND (nicknamed ‘Ph.D. CND’) sought to link the peace agenda with concerns over human rights abuses on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The END Appeal of April 1980 was a clarion call to the peoples of Europe to enforce nuclear disarmament in what became known as ‘détente from below’. The objective was to achieve a united, bloc-free Europe in which peace would be secured by its citizens rather than by statesmen. The Appeal called for its supporters to ‘act as if a united, neutral and pacific Europe already exists. We must learn to be loyal, 459 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15806, IPW, ‘Bericht über das zweite Rundtischgespräch DDR–Großbritannien (20.–22.1.1988 in Wilton Park, Großbritannien)’, 27.5.1989; ibid., IPW, ‘Bericht über das 3. Rundtischgespräch ���������������������� DDR– Großbritannien (2.5.1989–5.5.1989 in Berlin)’, 10.5.1989. 460 M. Wolf. 1997. Man Without a Face: The Autobiography of Communism’s Greatest Spymaster, London: Jonathan Cape, 244. Glees, Stasi Files, 230, 242, 284, 285–87, 301, 302–3, 311–12. 461 J. Sandford. 2002. ‘Mutual (Mis-)Perceptions: The GDR and the British Peace Movement in the 1980s’, in A. Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR. Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World, Berlin: Philo, 355; see also B. Kent. 1992. Undiscovered Ends. An Autobiography, London: Harper Collins, 168–69. 462 L.S. Wittner. 2003. The Struggle against the Bomb, vol. 3: Toward Nuclear Abolition. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 138.

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not to “East” or “West”, but to each other, and we must disregard the prohibitions and limitations imposed by any national state.’463 END did not see itself as a rival organisation to CND, and, in fact, many of its leading members were long-standing members of CND. By the mid 1980s, the leadership of CND was dominated by END supporters, such as Dan Smith and Meg Beresford. END also provided CND with its most prominent public intellectuals, in the persons of E.P. Thompson and Mary Kaldor, who were in constant demand at public meetings and in the press. Within a matter of months, the END Appeal was signed by an impressive array of highprofile supporters, including sixty Labour MPs and the well-known Soviet dissident, Roy Medvedev. The Appeal had been the work of the Nottingham-based Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. Bertrand Russell himself, of course, had a roller-coaster relationship with the GDR which ranged from accepting the Ossietzky prize for his peace work to giving it back over the arrest of Heinz Brandt by the East German authorities. After that the Peace Foundation had hardly any contacts with the official GDR peace movement, but tried hard to maintain relations with dissidents such as Robert Havemann and Rainer Eppelmann.464 Under the leadership of Ken Coates, the Nottingham-based wing of END initiated a ‘convention movement’ which, between 1982 and 1991, brought together the main players in the Eastern and Western European peace and human rights movements at annual gatherings held in diverse European cities. The London-based wing of END, associated in particular with Thompson, also participated in the convention movement, but focused its energies on establishing contacts with dissidents in Eastern Europe and publicising their activities in Britain.465 The first ever END convention met in Brussels in 1982. The conference was an organisational success, winning the support of political parties, trade union leaders and prominent personalities. But the delegates were one-sidedly West European. Coates had invited East European delegates, but their governments had refused to grant them visas.466 It was clear that the communist regimes of Eastern Europe resented the idea of building up a Peace Movement 463 Cited in Sandford, ‘British Peace Movement’, 357. 464 Letter Ken Coates to the authors, 2.5.2003. 465 A large number of Stasi documents provide highly ideologically constructed interpretations of Thompson’s role and theoretical influence in END and draw on material supplied by the Czech and Soviet intelligence services, see the dossier of information in the file Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854 (CND/END). 466 For a detailed discussion of the convention process, see J. Sandford. 2005. ‘The GDR and the British Peace Movement in the 1980s’, in Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 159–71.

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International from below. END now had to face the decision whether to talk to representatives of the official East European peace movements and thereby snub the dissidents or exclusively attempt to maintain contact with the dissidents. There were those who argued that the issue of nuclear disarmament had to take precedence over demands for internal reform of the communist dictatorships. Bruce Kent, among others, argued forcefully that the peace movement should not double up as a human rights movement.467 He was not alone in these views. In a hard-hitting attack on the ‘détente from below’ strategy, Franco Perna, a member of the Quaker’s Friends World Committee, warned against the ‘extremists [who] want to rupture dialogue with the official East Bloc peace movements … in favour of grassroots contacts.’ 468 After a protracted debate, a compromise was finally found whereby Eastern Europe’s ‘independent’ peace activists were to be involved in the preparations for END conventions, but representatives from the official communist-run peace movements would be invited as ‘guests’. Whilst such a compromise might have been acceptable to many Western peace campaigners, it was not for dissident peace campaigners in Eastern Europe who reminded the 1984 Convention that the official East European peace movements were acting on behalf of dictatorships locking up and otherwise silencing representatives of an independent peace movement.469 London END’s five ‘lateral groups’, which were responsible for developing contacts with dissidents in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the GDR, were divided on whether to enter into dialogue with the representatives of the ‘official’ peace movements in Eastern Europe.470 While the Soviet, Polish and Czech groups ruled this out, the Hungarian and GDR groups felt that it was 467 LSE Archive, CND Additions, 1/5 (International Committee, 1982–84), Bruce Kent, ‘For CND International Committee. A Personal View [of the] Perugia Convention END, 17.–21.7.1984’, 1.8.1984. 468 SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/649/3003, Franco Perna, ‘Friends’ World Committee for Consultation. European and Near East Section. Limited Circulation. Third END Convention (Perugia/Italy, 17.–21.7.1984)’, 23.7.1984, (1–2), 2. The Quakers continued their good relations with the GDR, with Horst Brasch remaining in contact with Peter Jayman in the mid 1980s and Quaker youth groups travelling to the GDR. ������������������������������������������� See SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3132, Horst Brasch, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation der Freundschaftsgesellschaft DDR–Großbritannien vom 2.–10.10.1986 [in London]’, 15.10.1986, (1–11). 469 LSE Archive, CND Additions, 1/5 (International Committee, 1982–84), ‘Perugia: Jane Mayes’, [undated: 1984]. 470 Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘Operative Auskunft zur britischen Organisation “European Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament” (END)’, [December 1985], (208–14).

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beneficial to retain contact.471 Although the GDR Working Group was not formally set up until early 1984, it began to take shape over the preceding years. In February 1982, a one-day conference was held at Bedford College in London for peace-movement sympathisers with an interest in the two Germanys. Out of this meeting emerged a nationwide network of activists, many of whom were academics involved in GDR Studies at British universities, including John Sandford, Barbara Einhorn, Peter Findlay, John Theobald and Gwyneth Edwards. Ian Wallace, one of the leading lights of GDR Studies during the 1980s, had, after all, argued that the scholarly interest in the GDR was also a contribution to peace.472 The group already had contacts with West German peace activists in the Green Party, including Petra Kelly.473 There were also early contacts with Pastor Rainer Eppelmann who, together with Robert Havemann, authored a manifesto for the independent peace movement in January 1982. Concurring with END’s own stance, the Appeal identified the removal of both Warsaw Pact and NATO troops from German soil as a precondition for peace.474 It was the decision to popularise the Appeal and its message in Britain that galvanised the key players in the later GDR Working Group for the first time, not least in the belief that Western attention would help prevent the persecution of its authors and supporters. In order to raise the money needed to place an advert in a national newspaper, a translation of the Appeal was circulated under a masthead showing the END emblem interlocking with the image on the ‘Swords into Ploughshares’ badge of the East German dissident peace movement. On 11 May 1983, the Times published a quarter-page advert, with a list of over 460 high profile signatories, from the Labour politicians Tony Benn, Robin Cook and Neil Kinnock to the filmmaker Ken Loach and the author Salman Rushdie.475 471 At least one reason explaining the stance of the Soviet, Polish and Czech groups was the involvement of dissidents living in Britain. 472 �������������������������������������������������������������� H.-G. Golz. 2003. ‘Von East Germany zur DDR. DDR-Forschung in Großbritannien vor 1990’, Deutschland Archiv 36 (1), 22 f. 473 Sandford, email interview; Kelly was a co-initiator of the Bertrand Russell Campaign for a Nuclear-Free Europe and of the Krefelder Appell against the stationing of Pershing II missiles in Europe. The Krefeld Forums were among the most prominent peace forums in Germany during the early 1980s. On GDR studies see also I. Wallace. 1987/88. ‘GDR Studies in Great Britain’, East Central Europe 14/15, 17–30; J. Theobald. 1984. ‘Cutting the Barbed Wire of Prejudice’, Journal of Area Studies 9, 7–10. 474 An English translation of the Berlin Appeal can be found in J. Sandford. 1983. The Sword and the Ploughshare: Autonomous Peace Initiatives in East Germany, London, Merlin Press, 97–98. 475 Sandford, ‘British Peace Movement’, 362–64.

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The formation of the group proper aimed at maintaining the momentum already put into motion by the translation of the Appeal. Although small in itself, comprising a core twelve active members with around fifty individuals on its mailing list, their conference contributions and articles in peace movement journals including the national press and the END journal reached a far wider audience. But it was the spectacular arrest of Barbara Einhorn in the GDR in 1983 which drew national public attention to the group. In December 1983, Barbara Einhorn, a Sussex-based Germanist, met with dissidents in ‘Women for Peace’ (Frauen für den Frieden) in East Berlin. Her intention was to collect the information necessary to write a pamphlet publicising their activities in Britain. Unknown to all of the participants, however, a Stasi informer in END had tipped off the East German secret police. Einhorn was arrested at the border crossing, when she tried to get back to West Berlin. The documentation supplied by ‘Women for Peace’ was confiscated and Einhorn was interrogated at the Stasi prison at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. After a few days, a lobbying campaign organised by Paul Oestreicher had all charges against her dropped. In fact, Einhorn and Oestreicher had already foreseen the possibility of her arrest and made contingency plans should that happen. Hence the lobbying campaign came under way immediately and put a great deal of pressure on the GDR. However, after the GDR released her, the regime placed an entry ban on her (rescinded in 1989), which not only obstructed her academic research but, as the daughter of communist exiles in New Zealand, also ruptured family connections in East Germany. Einhorn’s friends in East Berlin, among them Ulrike Poppe and Bärbel Bohley, faced terms of imprisonment in Hohenschönhausen for their contacts with Einhorn.476 Einhorn was not the only activist in the Working Group to become persona non grata in the GDR. In 1983 John Sandford authored an END special report on the autonomous peace initiatives in the GDR, entitled The Sword and the Ploughshare.477 It provided an incisive critique of the regime’s official peace propaganda and a knowledgeable account of how autonomous groupings were able to operate under the protective umbrella offered by the Protestant Church. It was this that prompted East Berlin to impose an entry ban 476 Interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000. From a perspective highly critical of Einhorn and END, see Glees, Stasi Files, 323f. Einhorn’s and Sandford’s ripostes to Glees can be found in ‘From a GDR Prison to a Cold War of Words’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 6.1.2006 and ‘Scholar Bites Back at Stasi Innuendo’, ibid., 4.11.2006. The events surrounding Einhorn’s arrest are summarised in an untitled Stasi document in the file, Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, 261–64. 477 Sandford, Sword and the Ploughshare.

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on Sandford in order to rupture END’s contacts inside the GDR. On several occasions CND’s International Committee tested the ban by including Sandford and Einhorn on lists of prospective persons who would participate in ‘study delegations’ to East Berlin. The regime’s decision to reject altogether a high profile CND delegation, if it included ‘unwanted individuals’, demonstrated the extent to which the Stasi prioritised closing the dissidents’ window to the West.478 Its measures were not only aimed at its own citizens. The Stasi invested time and resources in a campaign to destroy END, which was blamed for CND’s newfound interest in the human rights of independent peace campaigners in Eastern Europe. According to the Stasi, the ‘growing pressure of anti-Communist and anti-Soviet forces have weakened the anti-imperialist strategy’ of CND.479 The Stasi believed that END was financially supported by the American government and that it operated in conjunction with the British secret service to strengthen ‘anti-socialist forces in the GDR’.480 Undermining the GDR Working Group was facilitated through the offices of three wellplaced informers providing the Stasi with detailed reports.481 The Stasi also tried hard to use the ‘Bruce Kent wing’ of CND, which it regarded quite favourably, in order to delegitimate END.482 Not unlike the Euro-communists in the BGS, several leading END activists with a special interest in Germany understood themselves as ‘critical friends’ of the GDR rather than the impeccable enemies that they were in the eyes of the Stasi. Paul Oestreicher recalled that, ‘Even though we were very critical of the GDR and were suspected there, we still had an enormous amount of emotional attachment to it … We all had friends in Eastern Germany who dreamed of, I suppose, socialism with a human face’.483 In his study of the autonomous peace initiatives, Sandford stressed that many members of the independent peace groups shared these sentiments. They were 478 Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘Operative Auskunft zur britischen Organisation “European Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament” (END)’, [December 1985], (208–14), ���� 214. 479 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Stasi Archive, MfS HAII 18570, ‘Information. Aktivitäten der britischen “Kampagne für nukleare Abrüstung” (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND) im Sinne der blockübergreifenden Friedensbewegung’, [undated: 1985], (1–7), 6–7. 480 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS, HA XX 854, ‘Einschätzung des tschecheslowakischen Geheimdienstes zur britischen Friedensbewegung und Entwurf eines Berichtes zu CND’, (121 –25), 121. 481 In addition to reports on END by Irene Fick, the Stasi also received inside formation from Vic Alan and the Loughborough-based academic Gwyneth Edwards, who was a member of the GDR Working Group. Their reports to the Stasi are contained in the files Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX AKG II and MfS HA XX 854. Also see, Glees, Stasi Files, 339, 268–69. 482 ����������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854. 483 Interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000.

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not altogether ‘opposed to the State and its policies. Time and again … [they] have affirmed the State’s peace initiatives and those of the Soviet Union’.484 In what amounted to a statement of affinity with the Protestant Church’s understanding of its role as a ‘mediator’ between SED-state and the grassroots peace activists, Sandford concluded that: What has been increasingly evident over the past year or so is that the authorities have been concerned to embrace grass-roots initiatives as far as possible, and to avoid criminalising them. The concern of the autonomous peace movement has been steadily but firmly to widen that embrace, to keep open and expand the space for dialogue and the breadth of argument.485

Sandford and his colleagues in END were right that important sections of the alternative political culture in which the independent peace movement existed wanted a reformed, democratised socialism, with respect for human rights, rather than its complete collapse. The Working Group wanted to support their East German friends by encouraging the official communist state to enter into a dialogue with what were perceived as ‘loyal dissidents’. CND activist Stephen Brown, who had studied theology at the Humboldt university during the academic year 1983/84, where he became part of the church-based scene in East Berlin,486 requested that Rümpel open the doors to contacts with the Association of Protestant Churches and the peace activists working under its protection at a meeting with the Friedensrat in London in October 1985.487 The aim was to demonstrate to the authorities that the British peace movement would not accept the Friedensrat as the only legitimate representative of the peace movement in the GDR. END’s policy of dialogue with the representatives of the East German state in order to further the cause of the independent peace movement was an immensely difficult tightrope to walk. It was motivated by an idealism rooted in hostility to Western militarism and an optimistic belief in the capacity of GDR-style socialism to institute political reforms from within. Many British peace activists built up personal friendships with dissidents in the GDR. When, in January 1988, members of the autonomous peace group Initiative for Peace and Human Rights were deported for using ‘independent 484 Sandford, Sword and the Ploughshare, 79. 485 ���������� Sandford, Sword and the Ploughshare, 77. 486 ����������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘Information zur Durchdringung der britischen Kampagne für Nukleare Abrüstung (CND) von Führungskräften der END’, 25.11.1985, (216–17), 216. 487 Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘Operative Auskunft zur britischen Organisation “European Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament” (END)’, [December 1985], (208–14), ����� 209.

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slogans’ at the annual Luxemburg-Liebknecht-Lenin demonstration in East Berlin,488 Paul Oestreicher offered them a six-month-long stay in Britain as guests of the Archbishop of Canterbury. During their stay, Bärbel Bohley, Werner Fischer and Vera Wollenberger further developed their friendship with the members of the END Working Group. Yet, once again, the circle was penetrated by the Stasi. Wollenberger’s husband, Knut, was one of the Stasi’s many ‘informal collaborators’ in the independent peace movement.489 Eastern European dissidents were often sceptical of Western peace activists who maintained cordial relations with their oppressors, but both CND and END ultimately decided to embark on the difficult path of maintaining dialogue with communist governments and dissidents in Eastern Europe. How uncomfortable that position was is not only exemplified by the fate of the GDR Working Group and the END convention movement, but also by the career of Bruce Kent, who had replaced Duncan Rees as General Secretary of CND in January 1980. Like many British clergymen, Kent saw the issue of nuclear disarmament as a moral imperative. His long experience as a senior member of CND had led him to the conclusion that the Soviet bloc shared many of his own objectives, such as a test-ban treaty, a nuclear freeze and a no-first-strike policy, and was willing to accept United Nations resolutions on disarmament.490 This made him vulnerable to charges of pro-Sovietism and being in the pay of the Soviet Union – with rumours of ‘Moscow gold’ being discussed among those critical of Kent and his leadership of CND. According to Lawrence Wittner, the British government even started a concerned campaign of disinformation and lies, centring on the issue of communist infiltration, in order to weaken CND.491 But Communists made up only 0.3 per cent of CND’s members in 1985, and only 1 per cent favoured Communist candidates at elections for CND offices. In 1981 Joan Ruddock, a Labour Party supporter, soundly defeated its Communist rival for the chair of CND, and in 1985 the Communist candidate, Vic Allen, came a distant last in a field of five candidates for the chair.492 With the objective of preserving the peace movement’s unity, Kent tried to balance the pro- and anti-Soviet forces in CND 488 The group had built up contacts with Western peace movements over the last five years. It was the first autonomous group to come out from under the protective umbrella offered by the churches, see, W. Templin and R. Weißhuhn, ‘Die Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte’ in E. Kuhrt (ed.). 1999. ������ Opposition in der DDR von den 70er Jahren bis zum Zusammenbruch der SED-Herrschaft, Opladen: Leske, 171–211. 489 Sandford, email interview. 490 Interview with Bruce Kent, 11.7.2002. On Kent’s tactic of lobbying the United Nations, see idem, Autobiography, 175–76. 491 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, 276. 492 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, 137.

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and END by criticising aspects of Soviet policy, such as the invasion of Afghanistan, and the deployment of SS 20 missiles in central Europe, while praising others. He also supported conscientious objectors behind the Iron Curtain. Yet this was not what got media attention in Britain, where CND’s hostility to American military bases in Britain and the ‘modernisation’ of the country’s ‘nuclear deterrent’ were far more likely to catch the headlines. As Stasi reports on Kent make clear, this was also what made him persona grata in East Berlin.493 It was the task of the Friedensrat under Werner Rümpel to develop contacts with CND and to encourage it in the belief that the GDR actively promoted world peace. During 1981 and 1982, a number of meetings took place between Rümpel and Bruce Kent, Joan Ruddock and Meg Beresford at the East German embassy and CND’s national offices in London.494 Rümpel was able to exploit anti-American feelings in CND by focusing on the role of the USA in accelerating the arms race. Importantly, too, he emphasised what could be presented as the common cause of the British and East German peace movements: ‘[F]or all our different points of view we are close allies in the main task of our time which is to prevent a nuclear world conflagration’.495 The Friedensrat president, Drehfahl, also sent a telegram expressing his ‘close solidarity’ with the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in 1982, and one year later the GDR awarded the women’s peace camp the Carl von Ossietzky peace medal.496 It used in particular the Deutscher Frauenbund (DFB) to woo groups such as Mothers for Peace and the International League for Peace and Freedom.497 Yet, despite the good working relationship between Kent and Rümpel, the Friedensrat aspirations fell short of its achievements. Despite repeated invitations to CND to send a delegation to the GDR, no national-level delegation ever arrived in East Berlin during the 493 This is made explicit in the Stasi files on the British peace movement, see, for example, Stasi Archive, MfS HA 854, ‘Information über das Gespräch zwischen Vertretern des Friedensrates der DDR und Msg. ��������������������������� Bruce Kent am 13.5.1983 im Friedensrat’, (pp.413–15). 494 ������������������������������������������������ See the reports in Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854. 495 SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 746, ‘[Letter] Werner Rümpel to Bruce Kent’, 24.11.1982. 496 SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/150/A 746, ‘[Letter] Günter Drefahl to Dear Friends [Greenham Common]’, 1.12.1982; ibid., DZ 9/406/2179, ‘[Letter] Günter Drefahl to Bruce Kent’, 24.8.1981’. 497 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 31/484, ‘Protokoll Nr. 9/1987 der Sitzung des Sekretariats des Bundesvorstandes des DFD vom 26.5.1987’, (118–34), 130–31; ibid., ‘Bundesvorstand des DFB, Sekretariat. Einschätzung der internationalen Arbeit des Bundesvorstandes und der Bezirksvorstände des DFD im Jahre 1987’, (39–54). The DFB had haphazard and intermittent contact with a variety of British women‘s organisations from the 1970s onwards, but it never appeared to have sought to develop these contacts in a more systematic way.

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1980s to discuss ‘world peace’.498 In 1988, a regional-level delegation of the People to People group did arrive in East Berlin as part of a drive to unite capital cities in the East and West in opposition to nuclear weapons, and there were several regional CND delegations to East Berlin.499 Kent and other leading CND figures valued dialogue with the GDR. While attending the 1983 END convention in West Berlin, Kent led a group of CND leaders into East Berlin to hold talks with the Friedensrat.500 From Kent’s perspective, this was to let Rümpel see that ‘not everybody in END had an implacable hatred towards the GDR’.501 In 1987, a CND report went as far as claiming that the SED was pursuing ‘Glasnost with a German Face’. The authors of the report were particularly hopeful that the communists in East Berlin had given up on spreading communism in the world and were genuinely willing to enter into dialogue with capitalist countries.502 As Kent was one of the most prominent peace activists in Britain willing to pursue dialogue with the SED, East Berlin was keen to nurture the relationship with him. In 1988, when he requested transit through the GDR on a ‘One World Walk’ from Warsaw to Brussels as part of an anti-nuclear public awareness campaign, the GDR authorities regarded it as opportune to allow him to proceed, despite the fact that he was calling explicitly for the dissolution of both military blocs. It was Kent’s impression that Rümpel, whom he held in high regard, had persuaded the relevant people.503 The offer was made conditional on Kent’s assurance that the walk aimed to mobilise public opinion in Britain and that he did not intend to play the part of a ‘Pied Piper’ leading East German dissidents onto the streets.504 His route was carefully chosen by the authorities, 498 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘Bericht über ein Gespräch mit dem stellver. Generalsekretär der Kampagne für nukleare Abrüstung (CND), Mike Penz, am 20.12.1983 im Friedensrat der DDR’, 28.12.1983, (410–12), 412; ibid., ‘CNDDelegation in die DDR’, [undated: 1987], (41–45); ibid., ‘[Letter] Paul Johns to Gerhard Lindner’, 29.11.1985. 499 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� See Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘Information über den Aufenthalt der Delegation der Londoner Regionalgruppe der Kampagne für Nukleare Abrüstung (London Region CND), Gro�������������������������������������������������� ß������������������������������������������������� britannien, vom 13.–18.12.1988’, 6.2.1989, (2–5). 500 The group comprised Jane Mayes, D. Smith and Stephen Brown; see Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘CND-Delegation in die DDR’. 501 Interview with Bruce Kent, 11.7.2002. 502 Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘CND-Delegation in die DDR’. 503 Interview with Bruce Kent, 11.7.2002. This is confirmed by the documentation, see Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854. 504 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/536/2654, Helga Schiebe, ‘Information über Bruce Kents Marsch “One World Walk” ohne Atomwaffen von Warschau nach Brüssel über das Territorium der DDR vom 27.7. bis 2.8.1988’, 9.8.1988, (1–4), 1.

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who feared that independent peace groups might use Kent to attract attention to themselves.505 The city of Dresden was avoided for fear of sparking demonstrations.506 The Stasi monitored the entire walk, tapping Kent’s telephone calls, stage-managing his meetings with state officials and ‘ordinary people’, making sure that the leaflets that Kent distributed on his walk did not fall into the ‘wrong hands’, and locking up potentially troublesome dissidents.507 The Stasi’s efforts ensured the outcome the SED wanted. Already in December 1984 it had named Kent and Ruddock as forces in CND close to the GDR, who were engaged in an intra-CND battle against right-wing groups.508 In May 1983 the Friedensrat had talks with Kent, which, on Kent’s insistence, were not made public, as Kent feared further allegations of communist fellow-travelling. But in these talks, Kent voiced his criticism of END and stressed his own agreement with the positions of the Friedensrat.509 In interviews with the East German media, Kent praised his warm reception and the regime’s commitment to ‘peace’.510 In a series of articles for the Guardian he also praised his East German hosts for having converted a SS 22 missile base into a holiday home. His descriptions of the GDR compare favourably with his more negative assessments of the FRG.511 The Friedensrat, after a visit to Britain in September 1986, felt confident about being able to deepen its relations with the British peace movement: ‘In all our meetings we could demonstrably see the growing recognition of the GDR due to its active policy of dialogue in the interest of peace, disarmament and détente.’512 Kent was not a communist and felt personally slighted by the constant accusation in the right-wing British press that CND was funded by the Soviet bloc.513 Those British Communists in senior position in CND, such as John Cox, were never able to dictate policy to a democratic mass movement. The Stasi, however, used 505 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘CND Delegation in Ostberlin, April 1988’, (378–82), 378. 506 ������������������������������������� Interview with Bruce Kent, 11.7.2002. 507 ������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/536/2654, Helga Schiebe, ‘Information über Bruce Kents One-World Walk’, 9.8.1988, (1–4), 1. 508 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS, HA XX 584, ‘Hausmitteilung Feist an Axen’, 3.12.1984, (314–16), 316. 509 ����������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., ‘Gespräche Kent mit Friedensrat, Mai 1983’, (145–50), 145. 510 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, Günter Bräuer, ‘Bereich Arbeit in der DDR. Information über Bruce Kents Marsch “One World Walk”, 10.8.1988’, (187–91), 189. 511 Bruce Kent, ‘Into the Security-Conscious Frontline’, Guardian, 1.8.1988; ‘Reflections in the Distorting Mirror of Propaganda’, ibid., 8.8.1988. 512 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS, HA XX 854, Schultz, ‘Aufenthalt einer Delegation des Friedensrats in Gro���������������������������������������� ß��������������������������������������� britannien, Sept. 1986’, (365–70), 365. 513 This is stressed in Kent, Autobiography, 168 ff.

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communist sympathisers to obtain inside information on the situation in CND’s National Council. In 1999, Vic Allen, a professor from Leeds University, was identified as the source of much of the information passed on to the East German embassy. In addition to tipping off East Berlin about arrangements to organise a protest demonstration during the visit to Britain by Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, in March 1985, Allen offered ‘tactical’ advice. As CND’s national leadership became dominated by those sceptical about the Soviet bloc’s ‘peace policies’, Allen recommended that ‘the Peace Councils of the socialist states must continue discussions with regional divisions of CND’ where pro-Soviet feeling was allegedly stronger. Indeed, the Friedensrat enjoyed very cordial relations with the London region of CND, which sent a delegation to East Berlin in 1988 reporting back favourably on what they had heard about ‘actually existing socialism’.514 Above all, however, Allen’s reports centred on the rise of END in the leadership of CND and what he called its ‘unambiguous orientation towards strengthening contacts with the so-called independent peace movement in the socialist countries.’515 The GDR could ultimately only rely on its uncritical supporters, many of whom still assembled in Labour Action for Peace, which included many Labour MPs. LAP activists in the 1980s such as William McKelvey, Gavin Stang and Ernie Ross endorsed the East European peace initiatives, criticised their own governments for increasing international tensions and admired the achievements of ‘actually existing socialism’. When Ernie Ross met the Guardian journalist Hella Pick in the British embassy in East Berlin, he was full of admiration for a country where everyone had the opportunity to study and work, while in his constituency at home, 20 per cent of the working people only had the ‘freedom’ to be unemployed. McKelvey countered allegations of censorship in the GDR with insinuations that the British media coverage of the brutal use of the police in the miners’ strike was itself highly restricted and selective.516 Unsurprisingly GDR officials were at pains to stress that relations with the LAP were excellent. 517 514 ����������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX AKG II, ‘Information von Vic Allen, Soziologie Professor an der Universität Leeds’, 1.2.1985, (1–4), 3. 515 Ibid. On Allen see also Glees, Stasi Files, 251 f., 268 f. 516 Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX 854, ‘Delegation Labour Action for Peace, Feb. 1987’, (214–24). 517 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� LAB, C Rep 122 Nr. 246, ‘Information über das Gespräch mit der Delegation der Labour Action for Peace am 12.10.1984 im Berliner Rathaus’, 15.10.1984, (1–2), 2.

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Church Relations between Britain and the GDR during the 1980s During the 1980s, relations between the British Council of Churches (BCC) and the Federation of Evangelical Churches (EKB) continued to develop within the limits set by the SED. In 1981, Oestreicher invited Klaus Gysi, the SED central committee’s Secretary for Church Affairs, to give a guest lecture to the influential Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House.518 The visit provided Gysi with an opportunity to hold talks with leading members of the BCC on East–West relations, including a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace.519 The BCC received Gysi’s visit as further indication of the relaxation of church–state relations in the GDR. In 1983, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, visited East Germany during the commemorations staged to mark ‘Luther Year’.520 The celebrations provided a platform from which to develop further ecumenical relations, including a sustained theological dialogue about differences between Lutheranism and Anglicanism, which continued throughout the 1980s and culminated in the so-called Anglo-Meißen Agreement of 1988.521 Cultural exchanges during the Luther year included performances of the choirs of Canterbury and Rochester Cathedrals in East Germany, as well as a Luther exhibition at London University.522 Yet the East German state’s readiness to encourage high-profile international contacts continued to contrast with its reluctance to allow pastors to take up periods of study in Britain. In 1981, the East German authorities threw up one obstacle after another to prevent Pastor Christa Grengel taking up an extended stay as a guest of the Church of England to enable research into the liturgy of the Anglican Church.523 Those visits subsequently taking place tended to take the 518 Interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000; SAPMO-BArch, DO 4/4887, [Klaus] Gysi, ‘Information’, 22.5.1981, (1–2), 2. 519 EZA, 101/1447, Paul Oestreicher, ‘Memorandum to BCC, Division of International Affairs’, [Undated: 1981], (1–3), 1. 520 EZA, 101/1451, ‘[Letter] Canon Moore to Pastorin Maria Herrbruck’, 29.1.1980; ibid., ‘[Brief] an Herrn Direktor Watzinger [Künstleragentur der DDR]’, 4.2.1980. On the cooperation between the Protestant churches and state, see J. Madarász. 2003. Conflict and Compromise in East Germany, 1971–1989. A Precarious Stability, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 182–84. 521 Ibid. 522 EZA, 101/1447, ‘[Letter] Albrecht Schönherr to the Archbishop of Canterbury [Robert Runcie]’, 8.5.1981’; SAPMO-BArch, DY 309/vorl. ���� SED 34917, [Botschaft in London], ‘Bericht über die Martin-Luther-Ausstellung an der University of London’, 20.7.1983, (1–3). 523 See the correspondence between Klaus Gysi and Manfred Stolpe and Paul Oestreicher and the British embassy and Stolpe in EZA, 101/1447.

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form of occasional one-off short-term ‘study visits’. For example, in October 1981 Pastor Christoph Zimmer spent ten days as the guest of Oxford University’s department of theology, where he gave a lecture on Martin Luther.524 In the spring of 1983, a delegation of five churchmen from a number of towns and cities participated in a ten-day ‘study visit’ to Leipzig. The delegation held discussions with officials from the State Secretariat of Church Affairs and local clergy which emphasised the importance of the East German churches in the provision of social policy.525 Even the traditionally anti-communist Salvation Army received a delegation from the GDR in 1981.526 But overall, East German reluctance to allow anything more permanent to be set up also continued to prevent the Church of England’s long-proposed exchange programme for theology students. Instead, a series of officially sanctioned short-stay visits between Queen’s College in Birmingham and a theological training centre in Leipzig were organised on an annual basis after 1982. However, East Berlin’s tendency to complicate the procedures required to obtain an exit visa became a perennial feature of these contacts.527 The SED was keen to use contacts between British and East German churches if it could link them to its own ‘peace policies’. In 1981, Canon Kenyon Wright, the Director of the Centre for International Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral accepted an invitation to speak to the Friedensrat in East Berlin about the British churches’ opposition to nuclear weapons.528 As Vice-President of the Christian Peace Conference during the 1970s, Wright had already long-established contacts with East German churchmen.529 In 1980, he was able to invite from Cottbus Pastor Gröpler to the events held in Coventry to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the city’s destruction by the Luftwaffe.530 In 1983, he travelled to the GDR to participate in a ‘ten524 �������������������������������������������������������������������� EZA, 101/1446, ‘Brief Franke an die Regierung der DDR, Sekretär für Kirchenfragen’, 30.7.1981. 525 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� The delegates were Dr Benjamin Rees (Liverpool), Peter Berry (Coventry), Bruce Grainger (Shipley), Christopher Ford (Manchester) and James Tyrell (Aberdeen), see SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, LfV, ‘Bericht über den Studienaufenthalt kirchlicher Kreise Großbritanniens von 28.5. bis 4.6.1983’, (1–5), 1. 526 EZA, 101/1446, ‘[Letter] Norman S. Marshall (International Secretary, Salvation Army) to Dr Heinz Blauert’, 24.2.1981. 527 EZA, 101/3956, ’21. Konferenz der International Ecumenical Fellowship, Chester, 2–9 August 1988’, (1–3); see also the correspondence and reports in ibid., 101/3960. 528 ������������������������������������������������������� ‘Verstärktes Engagement der Christen Großbritanniens’, Neue Zeit 13.5.1981. 529 See chapter 3, p. 199f. 530 EZA 101/1446, ‘[Letter] Canon Kenyon Wright to Pastor Gröpler’, 18.9.1980.

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days of peace’ event [Friedensdekade].531 In his report to the Scottish churches he conveyed his impression that ‘it is I believe deeply unfair and a profound misunderstanding to see their (the Friedensrat’s) wish for peace as some cynical cover for Soviet aggression.’ He had no sympathy for the unofficial peace movement, referring to Rainer Eppelmann as representing ‘a luxury which neither the Church nor the people can afford’. According to Wright, the majority of the East German church was not behind Eppelmann who stood in the way of further improvement in the relations between church and state.532 After moving to Scotland, Wright’s contacts with the Friedensrat continued. In 1985 and 1986, he hosted visits by the Friedensrat under Werner Rümpel, introducing them to a number of local CND groups and churchmen.533 In a contribution to the GDR magazine Horizont, Wright wrote in 1985: ‘GDR foreign policy has one big aim: the securing of peace’.534 In 1986 he led a delegation of Scottish churchmen to the GDR, where they were hosted by the Friedensrat, which hoped to gain greater influence within the peace movement through the contacts with friends, such as Wright.535 Within the global framework provided by the World Council of Churches, a Christian response to the prospect of nuclear war was developed at the national and international levels. Following the lead given by the Dutch Inter-Church Peace Council, the November 1981 BCC congress charged its Division of International Affairs with setting in motion a wide-ranging discussion on the role of the British churches in opposing the nuclear arms race. When the first ‘Peace Consultation’ convened in London on 4 March 1982, it brought together representatives from the churches in Britain, France, Holland and East and West Germany as well as the main national and international church-based peace movements, from the leftleaning Christian CND, Pax Christi and the World Disarmament Campaign to the conservative Council for Arms Control. Although there were disagreements on the extent to which a Christian agenda should be brought into the wider peace movement, common ground was found not only on opposition to nuclear weapons but also the linkage between peace, human rights and social justice. It was 531 Interview with Canon Kenyan Wright, 5.1.2004. 532 Kenyon Wright’s report on his visit to the second Peace Decade 1982 (Nov.), in SAPMO-BArch, DO 4/3712, (1–4), 3. 533 SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/649/3003, ‘[Letter] Canon Kenyon Wright to Werner Rümpel’, 9.10.1985; ibid., ‘[Letter] Werner Rümpel to Canon Kenyon Wright’, 22.11.1985. 534 ���������������������������������������������������������������� Kenyon E. Wright, ‘Wie werten Sie die Aussenpolitik der DDR? ’, Horizont, 19 (4) (1986), 4. 535 ������������������������������������������������������������������� Stasi Archive, MfS HA XX AKG/II, ‘Information zum Aufenthalt einer Delegation des Schottischen Kirchenrates unter Leitung von Reverend Kenyon Wright vom 28.1.–3.2.1986 in der DDR’, 20.1.1986, (194–98), 194.

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a position made explicit in a BCC discussion document written by Dr Roger Williams, which was entitled ‘Human Rights, Peace and Disarmament’.536 In conspicuous contrast to the position of the East German government, it was a stance readily subscribed to by the EKB, which had consistently condemned the rearmament policies pursued by both the Warsaw Pact and NATO, while defending the human rights of conscientious objectors in the GDR.537 This was precisely what the SED was wary of – an independent church position which came into conflict with its own ‘peace policies’. Yet, as part of the dynamics set in train by the ‘Peace Consultation’, three bilateral meetings between December 1982 and November 1987 addressed the role of the British and East German churches in overcoming East–West tensions. On the British side, the main personalities involved were Oestreicher, Roger Williams, Peter Jarman, the European Secretary of the Society of Friends, and END activist Stephen Brown.538 In what symbolised an attempt to distance the EKB from East Berlin’s official ‘peace policy’, the East German delegations were headed by the Bishop of Erfurt, Heino Falcke, a well-known critic of SED-rule who enjoyed widespread popularity with Western churchmen.539 A high point in these discussions was reached at the talks in East Berlin and Potsdam in May 1984, which produced a joint statement on the two churches’ fundamental opposition to the military blocs’ conception of ‘nuclear deterrence’ and a call for ‘nuclear freeze’ on all nuclear testing, production and deployment.540 Equally significant, the BCC and EKB promoted ‘increasing political, economic, cultural and personal contacts’ between Britain and the GDR as the surest guarantor of peace.541 The EKB was invited, alongside the Friedensrat, to attend a high-profile ‘Peace Consultation’ organised by the Church of England at Hertford College, Oxford, in July 1985. The main purpose of the event was to ‘clarify the fundamental foreign-policy objectives behind the postures of the two superpowers’. In addition to the presence of Catholic and Protestant Churchmen from East and West, the event’s organisers 536 EZA, 101/3957, ‘Report on the Consultation between Representatives of the Federation of Protestant Churches in the GDR and the British Council of Churches, Berlin and Potsdam, May 14/15 1984’. On the importance of Falke in British relations with the EKB, see Interview with Paul Oestreicher, 15.8.2000. 537 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ EZA, 101/3957, Helmut Domke, ‘Bericht über die Friedenskonsultation des Britischen Kirchenrats in London vom 4.3.1982’, (1–5), 3��� –�� 4. 538 For Brown see above, p. 271. 539 EZA, 101/3957, ‘Report on the Consultation between Representatives of the Federation of Protestant Churches in the GDR and the British Council of Churches, Berlin and Potsdam, May 14/15 1984’. 540 ‘Report on the Consultation’, op. cit., 4–5. 541 Ibid., 5.

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anticipated the participation of the former British Foreign Secretary, Francis Pym, the former American Secretary of State for Defence, James Schlesinger, and Alexei Arbatov, a foreign policy expert at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.542 However, the removal of intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe in 1987 pushed disarmament down the priorities pursued by the British churches. An EKB report on the third bilateral talks, which were held in Winfred House in London from 28–31 September 1987, noted that BCC prioritisation of race relations in South Africa and its recent ‘Faith in the City’ report into inner city poverty had all but pushed disarmament issues off the agenda.543 In the new spirit of détente, the issue of a nuclear holocaust was not altogether forgotten, but it was relegated to the role of subcommittees within the BCC’s Division of International Affairs and the EKB’s Church and Society Committee.544 Christian Marxism à la Oestreicher545 was still a strong motivation for British churchmen interested in the GDR. After participating in a BCC delegation to the GDR in 1970, Professor Gordon Rupp, a Methodist Minister and academic expert on Martin Luther, stated that: ‘I have got to know Marxists with whom I feel more closely connected in the fundamental question of our age, in taking action for world peace, than with certain representatives of Christianity.’546 In the 1980s, Bruce Kent believed that, ‘the church has more in common with communism than free-market capitalism. Both believe in community; in a capitalist society it is everyone for themselves.’547 Yet by the 1980s there was a rising new generation of British Christians, who were less sympathetic towards the claims of a ‘socialist’ state which had ‘learned the lessons’ of the German past. Instead, their interest devolved on showing solidarity with Christians whose faith brought with it state-sanctioned social discrimination.548 In 1986, the Church of England Minister, Brian Shand, spent a week with a Protestant parish in the Saxon small town of Aue. In his report 542 EZA, 101/3958, ‘[Letter] Hugh Montefiore to Christa Lewek’, 25.4.1985. 543 ������������������������������������������������������������������������ EZA, 101/3957, Helmut Domke, ‘Bericht über die Friedenskonsultation des Britischen Kirchenrats in London vom 4.3.1982’, (1–5), 3. 544 See the correspondence between Michael Smart and Irene Koenig in EZA, 101/3958. 545 See chapter 2, pp. 157–160 and chapter 3, p. 198f. 546 ������������������������������������������������������������������ Both quotes are in Hans Seigewasser, ‘Für vertiefte Beziehungen’, Neue Zeit, Nr.295, 16.12.1969. ��������������������������������������������������������� For other contacts between the GDR and British Methodism see also EZA, 101/1446, ‘[Letter] L.J. Rogers to Dr Ute Minor’, 17.6.1980. 547 ������������������������������������� Interview with Bruce Kent, 11.7.2002. 548 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, EZA, 101/3957, Kathleen Cross, ‘Studienaufenthalt in der Lutherkirchgemeinde Radebeul. Eindrücke und Erfahrungen’, 17.7.1984,(1–7), 3–4.

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to the BCC after the visit, Shand commented on the state’s disregard for the environment and an almost all-pervasive authoritarianism in which there was no freedom to travel, no open access to information or respect for Christians’ human rights: [M]y own impressions were … predominantly ones of oppression. … [T]his Westerner at least felt that the country had the air …of a prison. The obvious fact that its citizens are infrequently allowed to leave its borders was never far from my mind and the crude, self-laudatory propaganda of the media was claustrophobic and wearying. Reality must be more complex than a perpetual underlying assertion that the right-wing Western powers are bad while Marxist-Leninist societies are good. East Germany … is very clearly a police state. 549

Criticisms such as these made the SED unwilling to consider extending church relations between the two countries. Instead it turned with increasing frequency to developing relations between town councils in Britain and the GDR.

Town Twinning Before 1973 the GDR promoted town-twinning links in the hope that local level contacts would serve as a step on the road to diplomatic recognition at the international level.550 After recognition was achieved, the GDR still pursued the aim of finding twin towns in Britain, as twinning arrangements would serve as a platform for promoting a more positive image of the GDR through public exhibitions and increased media coverage. In particular, the GDR sought to exploit the sympathies of local left-wing politicians for what they perceived as ‘socialist construction’ in East Germany and détente in international relations. However, the GDR consciously prioritised countries with bigger communist parties, such as France or Italy, as it perceived town twinning to be more effective where a communist mayor or communist majorities on local councils were in existence. And the GDR was also acutely aware that town twinning cost money and especially where hard currency was concerned, the GDR was cautious to commit itself too enthusiastically. Nevertheless, during the 1980s, the Liga revived town twinning as a vehicle with which to promote the so-called ‘coalition of reason’ against nuclear rearmament and Cold War tensions in East–West relations. At strategy meetings in East Berlin, national and local 549 EZA, 101/3961, Brian Shand, ‘Preliminary Report of My Stay in Aue, GDR. Sept. 1986’, (1–6), 2. 550 For town twinning in the 1960s and 1970s see above, pp. 115f.

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officials in the BGS were instructed on how best to establish contacts with municipal politicians in order to pave the way for twinning agreements between British and East German cities. Labour-run councils were regarded as particularly promising targets.551 From the East German perspective, all town-twinning arrangements were best served by formal agreements signed by the mayors of both cities, which emphasised municipalities’ ‘joint responsibility’ for world peace. According to the set-piece text of the ‘agreement’, information about twin towns should be disseminated at exhibitions and in the media and ‘study delegations’ should be exchanged.552 The concept of municipal ‘partnerships for peace’ gained the approval of CND, which hoped that the campaign for municipal ‘nuclear-free zones’ would demonstrate the ‘relevance of the peace movement to people in their own communities and the need to set achievable objectives which lead, step by step, to complete disarmament’.553 According to Wittner, the nuclear-free zone movement in Britain did indeed lead to the collapse of the government’s civil defence measures against nuclear attack.554 The long-standing relationship between Coventry and Dresden often served as a model for other partnerships. The 1980s witnessed an ongoing exchange of delegations of church, trade-union and youth groups – some of which were organised with the help from the national secretary of the BGS, Jack Berlin.555 In addition to sending a delegation to Dresden to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1985, the Society was more generally involved in promoting public events aimed at reinforcing mutual post-war reconciliation. For example, on Armistice Day in 1988 East German television was able to transmit a live link-up between both city cathedrals. The following year, BBC Radio Four broadcast a similar link-up in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of war.556 From the GDR’s perspective, the broad base of the Coventry– 551 ������������������������������������������������������������������ See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3121, Dietmar Hahn, ‘Bericht über das Propaganda Seminar mit Funktionären der Freundschaftsgesellschaft Großbritannien–DDR zum Studium aktueller Probleme der Entwicklung und Politik der DDR sowie zum Erfahrungsaustausch und zu Arbeitsgesprächen, 1.–8.6.1985’, 12.6.1985, (1–7), 7. 552 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3324, ‘Willenserklärung (Entwurf) zwischen dem Rat der Stadt Dresden und dem Rat der Grafschaft Gwent’, [undated], (1–3). 553 LSE Archive, CND Additions 5/11, ‘N-Free Zones, Campaigning Pack’, [1982]. 554 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, 294. 555 ACC, CCN Box 23, ‘Newsletter of the Coventry–Dresden Friendship Society’, June 1986. 556 ACC, Community of the Cross of Nails (CCN), Box 22, ‘Relations with Dresden, 1974–92’, (1–110), 1–2.

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Dresden Friendship Society was unusually successful in expanding contacts beyond political circles on the British left. Few other town twinning projects were as successful as the Dresden–Coventry link. Arrangements since the 1960s, such as those between Hackney and the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, Oelsnitz and Buckhaven and Meißen and Stoke-on-Trent, all came to little.557 For the GDR, the most disappointing development was the abolition of the Greater London Council. In an attempt to maintain some relations between the British capital and East Berlin, the London-based Labour MP Tony Banks headed a delegation of ‘crossparty municipal personalities’ to an international meeting of mayors, which met in East Berlin in 1987.558 In the hope of accelerating developments, John Kotz led a delegation of representatives from seven local authorities on a fact-finding tour of the East German city of Halle in February 1984. The emphasis on ‘municipal socialism’ in action made a positive impression on the delegates.559 But there was a limit to what individual councillors favourably disposed towards twinning with East German cities could do to prompt their colleagues to enter into a ‘Friendship Agreement’. In 1989, when the GDR collapsed, intermittent discussion continued between Labour-run local councils in the cities of Aberdeen and Rostock, Birmingham and Leipzig, Bradford and Erfurt, and Dundee and Cottbus.560 In 1986, the Welsh county of Blaenau Gwent was twinned with Bautzen. What gave this link significance was less what the partnership did than the high-profile presence of the local MP, Michael Foot. Although Foot was in no way a ‘friend’ of the GDR, he was prepared to reminisce about the common anti-fascism of socialists before the Second World War and to offer his support for East Berlin’s ‘peace policy’.561 His presence at a civic reception for East German guests provided the opportunity to take a photograph of Foot with the Liga’s Horst Brasch, which was printed with an article in GDR Review stating that: 557 Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 245. 558 LAB, C Rep 122 Nr. 392, London–Berlin Committee, ‘Report to the Annual General Meeting for the Period ending 31.12.1987’, (1–5), 1. 559 ��������������������������������������� ‘British Councillors visited the GDR’, GDR Review 2 (1985), 25–27; see also, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, LfV, ‘Bericht über den Studienaufenthalt einer kommunalpolitischen Delegation aus Gro���������������������������������� ß��������������������������������� britannien vom 20.–27.10.1984 (7 Personen) in der DDR’, (1–4). 560 See the documentation in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3323. 561 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3299, ‘[Letter] Michael Foot to Lothar Müller’, 11.11.1986. For the visit of a delegation from Gwynedd to the GDR see SAPMOBArch, DY13/31221, LfV, ‘Bericht über den Aufenthalt einer Delegation des Rates des Borogh Blaenau Gwent/Wales in der DDR, 29.11.–6.12.1986’, (1–6).

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Labour MP Michael Foot, who would have become PM if Labour had won the 1983 election, delivered a moving address. Recalling the struggle of the Anti-Hitler-coalition and the fighting of German anti-fascists in its ranks, he came out in favour of a worldwide coalition to prevent a war that could destroy civilisation in a nuclear holocaust, before it breaks out.562

It was the emphasis on the GDR’s ‘peace policy’ that finally convinced Glasgow City Council to sign a ‘Friendship Agreement’ in 1988. Addressing a conference of nuclear-free authorities held in the Scottish city that year, Dietmar Heyne stated that: We [the GDR] regard your movement for nuclear-free communities and zones in Great Britain as a major element in the struggle for the further mobilisation of the general public, informing them about the nuclear threat and making them sensitive to the need to take further steps towards disarmament. You can rely on the solidarity and support on the part of the GDR’s people in your dedicated work.563

The Liga was unsuccessful in achieving its goal significantly to extend ‘Friendship Agreements’ with British cities, which would then act as a coherent group in the promotion of the GDR’s ‘peace policy’.564 But the intersection between the milieus of the communist-dominated local branches of the BGS and the ‘old’ Left of the Labour Party running a significant number of British cities during the 1980s was still striking. The correspondence between the Liga and the BGS details how leading local officials, such as Graham Smith (Glasgow), Ray Hill (Blaenau Gwent), Margaret Chambers (Birmingham) and Hilda Baruch (Bradford), used their contacts with Labour councillors to promote the interests of the GDR.565 It was these contacts which enabled the most successful British–East German town twinning during the 1980s between Manchester and Karl-Marx-Stadt. In March 1983, a ‘Friendship Agreement’ was signed by the mayors of Manchester and Karl-Marx-Stadt, which was often referred to as the ‘German Manchester’ on account of the two cities’ shared 562 Horst Brasch, ‘For Reason and Friendship in the Interest of Peace’, in GDR Review, 6 (1986), 49–50. 563 SAPMO-BArch, DZ 9/595/2933, Dietmar Heyne, ‘Address to the Annual Meeting and General Conference of the Nuclear-Free Zone Local Authorities in Great Britain, Glasgow, 19–21 Sept. 1986’, (1–11), 1–2. 564 �������������������������������������������������������������������� See, for example, SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3324, Inge Schönherr, ‘Vermerk über eine Beratung zu Problemen der Partnerschaftsbeziehungen’, 21.7.1989, (1–2), 1. 565 The correspondence is extensive, see, for example, the files in SAPMOBArch, DY 13/3324 and ibid., DY 13/3299. For a detailed appraisal of the role of the local branch of the BGS in attempts to twin Dundee and Cottbus, see the reports in Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam [BLHA-P-P], Rep 943, Nr. 830.

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heritage in textile manufacturing. The Liga also noted the symbolic importance of the date, which marked the 100th anniversary of Karl Marx’s death, whose name the city of Chemnitz had taken after 1945.566 The most important factor bringing about the town twinning was the close relationship between the local branch of the BGS, numbering 250 members, and the Labour majority in the Town Hall. Councillor William Risby, who claimed to have been in the GDR forty-eight times,567 was an active member on the Society’s local executive committee and other Labour councillors saw in the relationship with an Eastern European state an opportunity to oppose the escalation of the arms race under the Conservative governments of the 1980s.568 In 1980, Manchester led the way among left-wing municipal councils by declaring the city a Nuclear Free Zone and calling on other local authorities to follow its lead.569 In March 1985, the municipal authorities in Manchester, Karl-MarxStadt and Leningrad signed a ‘Declaration for Peace’, voicing their common opposition to the ‘threat of nuclear annihilation’.570 But it was not just mutual concern for peace which brought the two sides together. From the mid 1980s to the end of the GDR there were on average about one delegation per month going either from Manchester to the GDR or the other way. Church delegations, youth delegations, professional groupings, holiday groups, and, above all, trade unionists were in the forefront of the most intensive exchange programme on a local level that existed between a British city and an East German one. The international youth camps, organised by the GDR, were popular among some Manchester youth workers, and a Manchester delegation regularly visited these camps during the second half of the 1980s.571 By 1990 regular youth exchanges, usually involving about twenty youth, took place between Birmingham and Leipzig, Wolverhampton and Altenberg, Coventry and Dresden, 566 Golz, Völkerfreundschaft, 246–47. 567 ����������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, ‘Bericht über eine Delegation der Transportarbeitergewerkschaft’, 2.3.1984, (1–3), 3. 568 ����������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, ‘Programmempfehlung für den Studienaufenthalt einer Delegation der Freundschaftsgesellschaft Großbritannien–DDR’, 22.8.1984, (1–5), 1–2. 569 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3118, ‘Historical Development of the Local Authorities Nuclear Free Zone Campaign’, April 1984, (1–20). 570 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3118, ‘Manchester. A Nuclear Free City. Development of Initiatives by the City Council’ [pamphlet], 3. 571 David Whitney, International Childrens’ Camp Karl-Marx-Stadt’, 89, typescript; ‘Programme for Youth Visit from the GDR, Oct. 1988’, typescript; ‘Youth Tour Manchester–Karl-Marx-Stadt July 1988’, typescript; ‘International Childrens’ Summer Camp, Karl-Marx-Stadt, July 1987’, typescript: we would like to thank Eric Nowell for giving us copies of these typescripts.

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Manchester and Karl-Marx-Stadt, Liverpool and Rostock, Wales and Bautzen, London and Berlin, Oundle and Naumburg, Loughborough and Naumburg, Portsmouth and Magdeburg, Newcastle upon Tyne and Neubrandenburg, Bradford and Erfurt, York and Weimar, Sheffield and Gotha, South Yorkshire and Erfurt county, Ormskirk and Stralsund.572 However, once again, the GDR was paranoid about ‘Western contacts’ – the British youth were told that they were allowed to send one postcard to their hosts in Karl-Marx-Stadt but should not attempt to retain more permanent contact.573 When some of the Manchester children turned out to be a little unruly, the GDR hosts made it clear that such behaviour would not be tolerated and would threaten the whole exchange scheme.574 Unionists in particular liked the GDR, the full employment that it guaranteed, the material conditions for workers, their comparatively high living standards, cheap prices and provision of good health care and holidays. By comparison, they knew many British workers who were unemployed in the third generation.575 From around 1980 the Greater Manchester Industrial Mission was also actively engaged in dialogue with the Gossner Mission in the GDR, a church organisation with close ties to the SED state. Delegations went to Karl Marx Stadt and Manchester on an annual basis, and there is some evidence that the GDR was reasonably successful in providing for its British guests a Potemkin village that many of them liked. They even moderately criticised those Christians in the GDR unwilling to engage with the communist state.576 The 35th anniversary of the GDR was commemorated in Manchester by a series of events, in which a leading role was played by the head of the council, Graham Stringer. The main event was the 572 Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting of the Britain–GDR Society, 09.09.1989. We would like to thank Eric Nowell for giving us a copy of the minutes. 573 Interview Eric Nowell, Manchester, 10.01.2008. 574 ‘Report of the delegation from Manchester to Karl-Marx-Stadt on the occation of the 40th Anniversary Celebrations of the founding of the GDR’, typescript. Thanks to Eric Nowell again for providing us with a copy. 575 Interview with Pia Sachs from the Manchester City Council, Manchester, 31.01.2008. Pia Sachs was mainly responsible for developing the Manchester– Karl-Marx-Stadt link between 1985 and 1989. 576 Interview with Keith Archer, an Anglican clergyman, who worked as an industrial chaplain for the Greater Manchester Industrial Mission, 13.02.2008; for quite a positive report on the GDR, which is not uncritical, but pleads for a constructive engagement with the communist state, see K. Archer (ed.). 1986. People – Society – Justice – Peace. Reflections on a Group Visit to the GDR in May 1986, Manchester: Greater Manchester Industrial Mission. We are grateful to Keith Archer for giving us a copy of this report.

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staging of an exhibition from 8 until 19 October 1984 in the Great Hall of the municipal buildings entitled, ‘Look to the East: a close view of Manchester’s Friendship-link city, Karl-Marx-Stadt’, which presented the city’s residents with a highly favourable depiction of life and leisure in the GDR. It informed about social and political life, housing, industry, commerce, agriculture, health, arts and culture, education and youth and it even had a pub selling typical GDR beverages. A string quartet, an organist, a gymnasts’ group and a folklore group were all flown in, as were journalists, representatives from the Liga and the Friedensrat as well as representatives from the LDPD and a priest who was supposed to make contact with religious groups. The GDR produced a glossy brochure with lots of pictures – again presenting the GDR from its best angle.577 Unionists were once again at the forefront of those broadly supportive of the GDR. In Manchester the Transport and General Workers’ Union sent several ‘study delegations’ to Karl-Marx-Stadt and contributed to financing a holiday for miners’ children in 1986.578 Three members of the BGS’s local executive committee, Walter Wainwright, William Risby and Lesley Bunting, were also regional officials with the TGWU.579 Yet, as ever, the East German authorities shied away from contacts that they could not closely control. As early as the spring of 1985, Walter Wainwright, the secretary of the local branch, protested to Dietmar Hahn that the Liga was obstructing his initiatives to further develop relations. For reasons Wainwright was at a loss to explain, the Liga had responded so slowly to the offer of a visit by the left-wing youth group, the Woodcraft Folk, that it had to be cancelled.580 Risby, on a visit to the GDR, had pleaded with his hosts: ‘There can only be a real partnership when there are reciprocal visits to Manchester and as many people as possible visit Manchester.’581 But this was precisely the kind of 577 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3118, Edgar Uher, ‘Information über den Verlauf der Jahreskonferenz (AGM) der Manchester Branch der Britain–GDR Society vom 23.4.85 in der Manchester Town Hall’, 24.4.1985, (1–4). ������������������������� See also ibid., ‘Meeting held between Peter Mearns and Councillor Risby of Manchester City Council and Dietmar Hahn and Gerhard Kasper of the GDR Britain Friendship Society, 24–27 July 1984’, (1–9). ��������������������������������������������������� The Manchester event is also described in Howarth, ‘Freundschaft mit dem Klassenfeind’. 578 ‘Young Britons Visit the “Saxon Manchester”’, GDR Review, 7 (86), 49–50. 579 ����������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch. DY 13/3119, LfV, ‘Programmempfehlung für eine Delegation von Repräsentanten der Transportarbeitergewerkschaft aus GroßManchester/Großbritannien zum Studium der Arbeit der Gewerkschaften in der DDR, der Arbeits- und Lebensbedingungen der Werktätigen und zum Kennenlernen der Partnerstadt K-M-Stadt’, 27.1.1984, (1–3), 3. 580 SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3118, ‘[Letter] Walter Wainwright to Dietmar Hahn’, 24.4.1985. 581 ����������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3119, ‘Bericht über eine Delegation der Transportarbeitergewerkschaft. Rat der Stadt. Sekretär des Rates’, 2.3.1984, (1–4), 3.

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language that frightened GDR officials. Perhaps more importantly, cooperation between the local branch of the Society and the town council became more distant, impacting adversely on relations with Karl-Marx-Stadt.582

British Reactions to the Crisis in the GDR in 1989 When, in the autumn of 1989, the edifice of the GDR was crumbling, the East German embassy in London blamed West Germany for instigating the protests on East German streets. The FRG was allegedly attempting to recreate a Greater German Reich, which would again threaten détente and cooperation in Europe.583 The ‘warmongers’ in Bonn were also accused of allowing Nazism to resurface, while the GDR continued to portray itself as an anti-fascist state committed to peaceful coexistence in Europe.584 Faced with a popular mass protest movement, fewer and fewer of the GDR’s friends in Britain were willing to support the SED regime uncritically. They were still convinced of the GDR representing social and economic progress, but they also believed that the moment for political reform had finally come.585 Their enthusiasm for the last head of state, Hans Modrow, was explicitly linked to his track record as a proponent of reform long before the collapse of 1989/90.586 Whilst GDR sympathisers in Britain backed the moderate reformers in the SED, they were critical of those forces which demanded reunification. The same position was also taken by END, whose chairperson argued in October 1989 for the continued existence of a democratic socialist GDR.587 When the proponents of reunification eventually won the day, the members of the friendship society and other ‘critical friends’ of the GDR had to face an existential question: what to do with a friendship society whose object had ceased to exist? An extraordinary general meeting convened in London on 15 December 1990, where Jack Berlin reported on developments in East Germany. The sixty582 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/3324, LfV, ‘Aktennotiz über eine Beratung zur Gestaltung der Beziehungen zwischen Karl-Marx-Stadt und der Stadt bez. dem Ortskomitee Manchester der Freundschaftsgesellschaft Großbritannien–DDR’, [undated: 1989], (1–5). 583 CPCBA-M, CP/Cent/Int/15/03, ‘ADN Press Release’, 19.9.1989. 584 See, for example, ‘The end of antifascist traditions?’ GDR Review, 5 (1990), 6–8; ‘Beware the Beginnings. Neo-Nazis in Parliaments of the FRG and West Berlin’ (Panorama GDR: Dresden, 1989). Pamphlet in possession of authors. 585 Interview with Sheila Taylor, 9.3.2001. 586 Dorothy Diamond Archive, see Jack Berlin, ‘British Friends of Germany Association Newsletter’, January 1991, (1–6), 5–6. 587 MRC, MSS.181, Box 3, File 26 (GDR), ‘[Letter] Jan Mayes to Dr Mitdank’, 12.10.1989.

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eight members in attendance voted to reconstitute the Society as the British Friends of Germany Association. Thus the Society hoped to maintain their old relationships.588 Throughout the early 1990s, the Association and its local branches continued to send delegates to eastern Germany, where, for the first time, human contacts and a genuine cultural exchange were unimpeded by an intrusive state.589 In the former GDR, a series of parallel developments had taken place. Although the Liga was not officially dissolved until April 1992, the GDR–Great Britain Friendship Society reconstituted itself as the Berlin–Brandenburg Society under its secretary, Dieter Müller. It continued to organise contacts with Britain into the twentyfirst century.590 Like the British Friends of Germany Association it supported the SED’s successor party, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). The newsletters of the British association, which were intermittently issued by Jack Berlin, were broadsides against what he alleged was a West German ‘takeover’ of the GDR. The rise of unemployment and the dismissal of communist academics from the universities were singled out as especially despicable acts of the victors in the Cold War.591 Continued support for the legacy of the GDR went hand in hand with attempts to make sense of its failure. Most ‘critical friends’ of the GDR, like John Green, accepted that the GDR had created the contradictions precipitating its own decline: ‘It was in the late 1980s that I realised that you had a very ossified leadership and they didn’t seem willing to change and embrace any form of party democracy … That was when I realised that it was getting impossible to change [the GDR] and that was when I became more pessimistic.’592 In the midst of the GDR’s collapse, fatalism and pessimism mingled with sadness that the object of their endeavours was about to disappear. Hilda Forman, a founding member and leading light in the British friendship movement, recalled ‘the general feeling that everything was dripping away, just running away.’ Personally, she felt ‘a certain amount of sadness for what had been a ‘lost opportunity … things that never came to fruition’.593 Diane Löser, who had lived in the GDR since the mid 1950s, concurred: It’s 588 Dorothy Diamond Archive, John Schooling, ‘Britain–GDR Society. ExtraOrdinary General Meeting, 15.12.1990’, 17.12.1990, (1–6). 589 For details of the London, Coventry and Liverpool branches, see the collection of newssheets in Dorothy Diamond Archive. 590 Interview with Dieter Müller, 12.9.2001. 591 Dorothy Diamond Archive, Jack Berlin, ‘British Friends of Germany Association Newsletter’, January 1991 and January 1992. 592 Interview with John Green, 12.12.2001. For Green’s work on behalf of the GDR see above, p. ?. 593 Interview with Hilda Forman, 1.8.2000.

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been a failure … Many of my generation feel that they’ve wasted their lives. It’s a real tragedy, both historically and personally.’594 But amidst sadness and despair, there was also defiance. In separate analyses of the fall of the GDR published in January 1990, Len Goldman and Jack Berlin captured the spirit of ‘critical friendship’ that had characterised the BGS. They were both in no doubt about the failure of the SED leadership to address the GDR’s democratic deficits. But this was balanced by what Goldman regarded as the state’s ‘social achievements’. The East German David had been pitted against a West German Goliath. Its achievements had been all the more remarkable as they had been gained against the odds. The Berlin Wall had been an act of self-preservation, holding back the destabilising influence of the Federal Republic long enough to allow a ‘minor economic miracle’ during the 1960s. Yet, Goldman argued, too many East Germans had become discontented, even bitter, about their lack of freedoms. He predicted, however, that reunification was not going to be the quick fix they hoped for.595 Berlin was equally critical of developments in the unified Germany. In his first visit to the new federal states, he remarked how ‘the streets are dirty and the cities had lost their individuality’. The fall of socialism had pushed up rents and the dole queues and closed crèches and kindergartens. He saw the changing of street names as an exercise in expunging the socialist past. Yet his indictment of the SED was unequivocal: they were responsible for corruption and for depoliticising large segments of the East German population: ‘The old GDR is dead. The experiment failed. However, there are millions in Germany, east and west, who want to develop a broad, peaceful, democratic and humanist society.’596 The reactions of Gordon Schaffer to the collapse of the GDR illustrate how difficult such a self-critical stance was for those who had been most loyal to ‘actually existing socialism’.597 In 1995, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, he published an article in the journal of the New Communist Party lavishing fulsome praise on the GDR’s efforts to build socialism, which, he argued, were in danger of being written out of history: ‘[T]he spirit of the [socialist] struggles of the German people finds no echo in this year’s anniversary. In the British media, any mention of the positive 594 Robert McCrum, ‘The Lost Comrades’, Weekend Guardian, 27/28.6.1992. 595 Len Goldmann, ‘Commentary on Recent Events in the German Democratic Republic’, in Capital and Class (without date and volume number [1990/1991?]), Dorothy Diamond archive. 596 Dorothy Diamond Archive, Jack Berlin, ‘The GDR: End of an Experiment’, in ‘British Friends of Germany Association Newsletter, Jan. 1991’. 597 For Schaffer’s forty-year activism on behalf of the GDR see above, pp. 50–52.

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role of the German Democratic Republic has been virtually D-noticed – as though wiped from memory.’598 Among the Labour left, the war generation of socialists, who had sympathies for ‘actually existing socialism’ in Eastern Europe, were literally dying off. The leading figures in the Britain–GDR Parliamentary Group, William Wilson and Renée Short, had left politics. Those who had maintained contacts with the GDR during the 1980s, such as Tony Banks, no longer wanted to be reminded of their association with a discredited political project.599 Not everyone renounced their former support for the GDR. The Labour MEP Stan Newens, recalled how, ‘It achieved a vast increase in output. It provided its population as a whole with basic minimum standards which were in some respects (e.g. for women and the poor) superior to those available in the West. It provided aid for many Third World liberation movements.’ But Newens was at pains to point out that, ‘It is a mistake to classify this type of bureaucratic state economy, which has now been overthrown in Eastern Europe, as socialist.’ Abandoning his earlier beliefs, he now described how he had been ‘uncomfortable about describing societies like the GDR as socialist but I was sometimes obliged to use the term.’ Where he had previously praised East German socialists struggling against the odds to build a better society, he now criticised the careerists in the SED leadership who sought only their own advantage and had lost sight of socialism’s ideological and political struggle.600 Some of the most loyal supporters of the GDR had come from the trade union wing of the labour movement, but they, by and large, remained silent in 1989. Only the anti-communist critics could be heard loud and clear. During the velvet revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, the International Committee of the TUC monitored events closely, at times showing great concern that East Berlin would use force to stabilise a situation in what became known as the ‘Chinese solution’ to the GDR’s problems.601 Within a short period, however, these anxieties turned to jubilation as Soviet-imposed communism fell throughout Eastern Europe. The TUC leadership welcomed the cutting of the FDGB’s ties with the SED, and its successor party, the PDS, in the spring of 1990. From the General Council’s perspective, 598 Gordon Schaffer, ‘Dresden: rebuilt by the people’, The New Worker, 24.2.1995. 599 After several requests for an interview, in July 2003 Tony Bank’s secretary finally sent the authors an email stating that Banks ‘could not recall the events described’. 600 S. Newens. [1991]. ‘Reflections on the East German Experience’, in East Germany. Revolution; Re-unification, Redirection, ed. by the CRS (London) Political Committee and the UK Sonnenberg Association, London: no publisher given. 601 MRC, MSS.292D, ‘TUC IC Meeting’, 9.10.89.

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the FDGB’s subsequent merger with the DGB in the process of German reunification represented the final return to ‘free’ trade unionism in East Germany.602 Among those who begged to differ, conspiracy theories proved popular. The future General Secretary of the RMT, Bob Crow, who had visited the GDR as a young union official in the early 1980s, argued: ‘The collapse in the Soviet Union was stagemanaged … Gorbachev was being used by the CIA to bankrupt the country. … The Americans wanted access to Caspian Sea oil. Getting access to these oil fields for big business was the policy all along.’603 The Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher had no regrets about the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, but Thatcher was worried about the implications of German reunification. Officially, all British post-war governments had paid lip-service to the demand of German reunification, but de facto, all of them had been happy with the status quo of a divided Germany. Thatcher’s belief in an unchanging German ‘national character’ exacerbated anxieties about the reunified Germany’s overmighty economic muscle and the threat it might pose to the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the USA. It also incorporated vague fears about Germany threatening peace and stability in Europe.604 Hence the British Prime Minister was keen to slow down and, if possible, prevent the reunification process.605 Luckily for the German government of Helmut Kohl, Thatcher’s transatlantic and European allies as well as the USSR under Gorbachev had greater trust in a revamped and reformed West Germany, and also at home Thatcher’s anti-German position found itself in a minority. Thus, Foreign Secretary Hurd gained a margin of independence in pursuing British diplomacy.606 In a speech made in Berlin on 22 January 1990, he conceded that, ‘The relationship 602 See, for example, MRC, MSS.292D, ‘TUC IC Meeting’, 5.2.1990; ibid., ‘Meeting’, 2.4.1990. The FDGB was rapidly absorbed by the DGB. See also, TUC Annual Congress (1990), 140–46, esp. 141–42. 603 Interview with Bob Crow, 29.1.2001; for Crow’s position see also above, p. 235f. 604 See, for example, M. Thatcher. 1993. The Downing Street Years, London: Harper Collins Publishers, 791; see also the interview with Thatcher in Sunday Times, 25.2.1990. For anti-German sentiments during the reunification process see more generally H. James and M. Stone (eds). 1992. When the Wall Came Down. Reactions to German Unification, London: Routledge, 233–39; L. Kettenacker, ‘Britain and German Unification, 1989/90’, in K. Larres and E. Meehan (eds). 2000. Uneasy Allies. British–German Relations and European Integration Since 1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 63–98; B. Rowe. 2001. �������������� ‘Das Ende der Mauer aus britischer Sicht’, in H. Timmermann (ed.), Die DDR in Deutschland. Ein Rückblick auf 50 Jahre, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 917–934. 605 ������������������������������������������������������������� I. Connor. 2004. ‘Die Thatcher Regierung und die Vereinigung Deutschlands’, in Crome, Franzke and Krämer (eds), Die verschwundene Diplomatie, 243–56. 606 ������������������ N. Himmler. 2001. Zwischen Macht und Mittelmaß. Großbritanniens Außenpolitik und das Ende des Kalten Krieges, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

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between the two Germanys is a matter for the Germans to decide, freely and democratically.’ He went on to state, in what amounted to a model of diplomacy when compared to the bellicosity of his party leader, that Britain’s views on reunification were in agreement with those already set out by the European Council and NATO.607 In June 1990, through the international framework offered by the IPU, British parliamentarians met with a delegation from the first democratically elected East German government. In the discussion held with David Howell, MP, the Conservative chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, diplomacy was also the watchword. Again Germany’s right to self-determination was acknowledged, but a wide spectrum of potential concerns surfaced. A report written by the East German delegation emphasised that, while their hosts had ‘frequently expressed their sympathy for the events in the GDR since the revolutionary changes since autumn 1989’, there were repeated references to British concerns. Foremost among these were the belief that ‘the process of reunification should not be left to the Germans alone’, and that an ‘overly rapid reunification could result in negative implications for the process of security and co-operation in Europe’, even precipitating social unrest in East Germany itself. The delegation was also left in no doubt about British anxieties about the further rise of the German ‘economic giant’.608 The traditionally jingoist and anti-German yellow press in Britain echoed those anxieties over German unification. When the German ambassador, Manfred von Richthofen, gave the Sun an interview to dispel fears about reunification, it titled its story: ‘The Hun talks to the Sun!’609 The British quality press took a more reasonable stance.610 Hella Pick warned in the Guardian about West Germany intervening in democratisation processes in the GDR. Hugh Trevor Roper wrote in the same paper about his continuing anxieties about a reunited Germany only to add that he was ready to trust the Germans. The Times repeatedly warned about rushing to German unity. The 607 SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/15806, ‘Speech by the Right Honourable Douglas Hurd CBE MP in Berlin, 22.1.1990’, (1–15), 1–2, 15. 608 ������������������������������������������������������������ SAPMO-BArch, DA 1/17013, ‘Information über den Besuch einer Delegation der Volkskammer in Großbritannien vom 10. bis 13.6.1990’, (1–4), 4. 609 R.G. Hughes. 2006. ‘“Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans’: Britain and the German Affair in History’, Twentieth Century British History 17 (2), 257–83, 279. 610 On the press reaction to German reunification see I. Lehmann. ������ 1996. Die deutsche Vereinigung von aussen gesehen. Angst, Bedenken und Erwartungen in der ausländischen Presse, vol. 1: Die Presse der Vereinigten Staaten, Großbritanniens und Frankreichs, Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 269–430; see also: C. Peters. 1999. Deutschland und die Deutschen im Spiegel britischer Tageszeitungen. Die Berichterstattung der überregionalen Presse Großbritanniens 1989–1994, Münster: Lit-Verlag.

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Independent considered a revival of German nationalism, but Roy Jenkins and Lord Rees-Mogg both defended the contemporary Germans. Overall, the quality papers expressed much more concern regarding the damage that Thatcher’s policies were doing to British– German relations than worries about German reunification itself. A notable exception was an article written by the Irish journalist and professional maverick Connor Cruise O’Brien, which was published in the Times on 31 October 1989.611 According to O’Brien, ‘We are on the road to the Fourth Reich: a pan-German entity, commanding the full allegiance of German nationalists and constituting a focus for national pride … In the new, proud, united Germany, the nationalists will proclaim the Fourth Reich’. He forecast an Orwellian rewriting of history, in which the negative sides of the German past, above all the Third Reich and the holocaust, would be wiped away. His article prompted a wave of hostile letters and a riposte by Bernard Levin, who sought to counter O’Brien’s pessimistic vision, arguing that the FRG had become a model democracy which Britain should trust to deal with unification sensibly. The majority of the British public agreed. Opinion surveys conducted at this time put public support for German reunification between 60 and 70 per cent, lower than the approval rates in every other West European country but still amounting to a clear majority. Few people in Britain shed tears over the disappearance of the GDR.

Conclusion The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of communism’s hold over Eastern Europe and the beginning of the end for the GDR. In 1989 the Cold Warrior Margaret Thatcher stood seemingly victorious. But, as this chapter has attempted to demonstrate, appearances can be deceptive. For a start, Britain’s Cold War rhetoric was never matched by British foreign policy towards the GDR in the 1980s. While the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the suppression of Solidarity in Poland were condemned by all mainstream politicians and political commentators, such condemnation was combined with a widespread desire to continue policies of détente in Europe. In many respects relations between the two countries continued to develop modestly – along the slow and uneven progress already made during the 1970s. Ministerial contacts became more common, as did regular exchanges at the foreign ministry level, but, unlike other West European states, Britain never invited Erich Honecker on an official state visit. The second German state seemed too unimportant 611 C. O’Brien, ‘Beware a Reich resurgent’, The Times, 31.10.1989.

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for that, and the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher were wary about human rights abuses east of the Iron Curtain and the GDR’s hard-line stance over Afghanistan and Poland. The GDR still attempted to improve its image in the UK, using, once again, the Britain–GDR Society as main channel of communication. Governments continued to pursue trade relations, although these remained disappointing for Britain which was never able to reverse a negative trade imbalance. Communists still belonged to the most committed supporters of the GDR in Britain, despite the forward march of Euro-communism with its attitude of ‘critical friendship’ towards the countries of ‘actually existing socialism’. It would appear as though the GDR attempted to back up the hardliners in the CPGB in the hope of stemming the rot of ideological ‘deviation’, but such interventions were always covert and indirect. At the beginning of the 1980s the SED could feel vindicated in its long-standing policy of prioritising the broad Left, Labour Party and trade unions, over the CPGB. After all, the first years of the 1980s saw the Labour Left at the height of its influence within the labour movement and the Labour Party. The SED kept a range of channels of communication open to the Labour Party, but it was increasingly disappointed about Kinnock moving the party back to the centre ground after 1983. From an East German perspective one of the most influential means of engaging high-level British politicians in dialogue with GDR representatives were parliamentary delegations organised through the IPU. The British chairman of the IPU in the 1980s, Peter Temple Morris, also saw the IPU as an important channel of communication between East and West at a time when détente was threatened by the revival of Cold War rhetoric. With Conservatives like Temple Morris, the GDR’s ‘actually existing socialism’ cut little ice and he remained acutely aware of the many shortcomings of the SED regime; Labour left-wingers, like Short, by contrast, were stuck in a time warp, where desire for peace and sympathy for something perceived as socialism mingled to produce highly sympathetic accounts of the GDR. But the generation of Labour MPs feeling some kind of affinity to the GDR was beginning to die out in the second half of the 1980s, and to most the GDR looked increasingly ossified and authoritarian at a time, during the second half of the 1980s, when the Soviet Union undertook a series of bold reforms under Gorbachev. The inability of the East German communists to accept even the slightest criticism of their regime continued to cloud relations between the Liga and the BGS. The Liga was unhappy with what it perceived to be a failing strategy of the BGS of mobilising support

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for the GDR in the cultural and HE sectors of British society. Keen to present itself as an organisation enjoying all-party support, the BGS was in reality narrowly supported by an array of usual suspects coming from the left of the labour movement. The Liga was sceptical of its Euro-communist leanings and actively sought to undermine its Euro-communist secretary, Jack Berlin. It relied on hardliners, such as John Kotz, to promote strategies which might circumvent the Euro-communist leadership of the BGS. One such strategy involved the regionalisation of the BGS with new branches to be founded outside of London. This strategy had some success, notably in Scotland and in London, where the Scotland–GDR Society and the London–Berlin Committee attempted to create some momentum in British–GDR relations. Especially in Scotland, individual activists such as Margaret Rose and Peter Smith were successful in building up an impressive-looking network of support for the GDR – mainly on the left of Scottish politics. Outdoing its London comrades, the Scottish supporters of the GDR set up their own independent friendship society in 1986. In London, the London–Berlin Committee and its counterpart in East Berlin were active organising visits of professional organisations to the East German capital and promoting East Berlin – especially in the context of its 750th year celebrations in 1987. However, prominent individuals, such as Tony Banks, were unwilling to devote much time and energy to the organisation that he fronted, and the work therefore fell to the usual suspects of the BGS. The BGS promoted the GDR’s anti-fascism and its ‘peace policies’ to a disinterested and sceptical British public. Any hopes of the BGS for the development of genuine grassroots contacts between British and GDR citizens amounted to wishful thinking as the GDR leadership remained as committed as ever to a strict policy of Abgrenzung to the West. Visitors to Britain from the GDR were carefully selected for political reliability and were meant to act strictly as ambassadors for ‘actually existing socialism’ in Britain. Journalists accredited in Britain during the 1980s, such as Rainer Oschmann, deplored the lack of interest of the British media in his country and sought to present to his East German audience a vivid and interesting picture of Britain. He worked under certain restrictions and was told by his superiors not to report too critically about the Thatcher government’s policies for fear of upsetting the relations between Britain and the GDR. Through film and literature the GDR attempted to portray its own country in a more favourable light. It could rely on allies such as the film distributor Stanley Forman and the publisher Robert Maxwell. But it is unlikely that these efforts reached a broader audience outside the narrow circles of

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the already converted. Remarkably, the GDR often portrayed itself as a socially conservative society, where youth was well-behaved, the streets were clean and the population pursued leisure activities in an orderly fashion. The GDR was perhaps most successful in presenting itself as a country of ‘high culture’ which was accessible to all. But at the same time it was clearly not interested in genuine cultural exchanges, as this would expose East Germans to Western cultural products and undermine the regime. Apart from print media and film the GDR also attempted to make use of its academic contacts in Britain to present a more positive image of the GDR to the British public. During the 1980s efforts concentrated on countering the influence of the Goethe Institute, on sending its own representatives to conferences about the GDR organised in Britain and on influencing academic publications focusing on the GDR. At the end of the 1980s regular foreign policy consultations between the foreign ministries were accompanied by academic roundtables organised jointly by Chatham House and IWP. In all those contacts, as with everything to do with the West, the East German Stasi had a hand, attempting to recruit Westerners as informants and making use of the GDR’s academics, who sometimes doubled up as Stasi informants. The same is true for the peace movement, which formed another focus for GDR activities in Britain during the 1980s. While the CND’s unilateralism was welcome in East Berlin, END’s sustained attempts to tie the issue of human rights to the concern with disarmament was seen as meddling in the GDR’s domestic affairs. The British peace movement was precariously poised between contacts with the official and the unofficial peace groups behind the Iron Curtain. The relations between Kent and Rümpel on the one hand and between Einhorn/ Oestreicher and Bohley on the other demonstrate that both could and did work. But END’s Convention movement ultimately failed to reconcile the two strategies, not the least because East German dissidents were less inclined to subscribe to the Westerner’s sometimes idealistic belief in the possibility of reform from above. Within END the East German Working Group played an important role in publicising the aims and objectives of the independent peace groups in the GDR to a wider and largely ignorant British public. Key members of the groups had to pay a high price for that engagement: Einhorn’s imprisonment and subsequent ban and Sandford’s ban from the GDR were clear signs that ‘actually existing socialism’ still did not appreciate any criticism of its regime. Churchmen like Oestreicher were prominent campaigners in the peace movement, and the joint moral opposition to the arms race brought the churches in Britain and the GDR closer together

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in the 1980s. As the case of Manfred Stolpe demonstrates, it was often difficult to gauge for British church representatives how closely involved church representatives of the GDR churches were with the state. But the British churches hoped that contact would not only contribute to peace but would also help the beleaguered position of the churches in ‘actually existing socialism’. The ruling party of the GDR was interested in high-level contacts between the churches, as it exploited those contacts propagandistically. In line with its policy of Abgrenzung, however, it remained implacably opposed to the extension of grassroots contacts between the churches. Many churchmen who got involved with the GDR, and Eastern Europe more generally, had degrees of sympathy for a regime seeking to overcome capitalism and build a socialist society, even if they also had many criticisms of the way the SED regime went about doing this. However, a younger generation of church activists, who were less influenced by ideas of a Christian–Marxist dialogue, were more openly critical of the persistent lack of freedom in the GDR. The same cannot be said for left-of-centre town councillors who entered into harmonious relations with their GDR counterparts in the context of the town twinning arrangements during the 1980s. They were motivated, above all, by issues of peace and, on the left, by sympathy for a country supposedly building socialism. Many Labour-dominated councils in the 1980s took up CND’s promotion of local ‘partnerships for peace’ which coincided fortuitously with the GDR’s promotion of a ‘coalition of reason’. In particular the Manchester–Karl-Marx-Stadt link gained prominence in the 1980s. Other agreements between East German and British towns remained at a far less developed level and did not meet the high expectations that Liga officials initially invested in them. The final crisis of the GDR in 1989 was at first met by denial from GDR officials and the friends of the GDR in Britain who tended to blame West German ‘warmongering’ for the unsettling news about demonstrations and a mass exodus of the population. Many ‘critical friends’ of the GDR supported the political reformists within the SED but opposed reunification. Once the GDR had gone, the BGS and the Liga reconstituted themselves to continue exchanges and contacts into the 1990s. Those most closely involved with contacts between Britain and the GDR over the past forty years were deeply saddened about the failure of the socialist experiment in the GDR. The hardliners, like Schaffer, kept an entirely positive view of the GDR and accused the West of rewriting its history. Many others provided more self-critical reflections emphasising in particular the GDR’s shortcomings in political democracy and their own failings in recognising these shortcomings. The mainstream labour movement,

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like the Thatcher government, welcomed the fall of communism in the GDR and across East Germany. But Thatcher’s well-publicised opposition to reunification gave rise to a new and different set of anxieties over the ‘German problem’, which were occasionally to haunt British–German relations into the 1990s.

Conclusion

Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990

British–GDR Relations: What did they Amount to? The governing elites in Britain and the GDR had very different ideas about democracy, civil society and politics. The country’s economic systems were diametrically opposed. And they belonged to antagonistic power blocs during the Cold War. All of this, one might argue, does not exactly amount to an ideal scenario for blossoming relationships between the two countries. And yet, as the previous pages have shown, manifold links across the Iron Curtain existed from early on and persisted through various phases of Cold War history, undergoing many permutations over the course of forty years. Once the decision had been taken among the Western allies to press ahead with the foundation of a separate West German state, British foreign policy was geared towards integrating this state into the West. This also meant supporting West Germany’s demand that the GDR should be given no legitimacy and no recognition. Britain was important in ensuring the international success of the FRG’s policy of non-recognition. In particular, it used its influence in the Commonwealth to ensure that no Commonwealth state established official relations with the GDR. From the start, the GDR was therefore relevant to British foreign policy primarily in connection to British relations with the FRG. The GDR remained throughout its existence in the shadow of British–FRG relations. If Britain, in its relations with East Germany, had to look over its shoulder to West Germany, the GDR certainly had to look over its shoulder to the Soviet Union when it came to contacts with Britain and the ‘capitalist West’ more generally. The Soviet Union, up until the Stalin notes, reserved the option of exchanging a separate

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socialist Germany for a neutral united Germany which quite possibly would not have been socialist. But even after the GDR had sovereignty conferred on it in 1955, it remained severely limited in how far it could deviate in its foreign policy from the desires and interests of the Soviet Union. Because the GDR was a separate state, but not a separate nation, its existence was far more tightly linked to the survival of the communist Eastern bloc than that of any other Eastern European communist state. Others would remain nation states even if communism was gone; in the GDR’s case this was questionable. And because of this sense of existential insecurity, the GDR leadership felt obliged to side closely with the Soviet Union’s foreign policy – especially where the survival of the Warsaw pact was in question. Hence the GDR’s hard-line stance on Hungary in 1956 and on Czechoslovakia in 1968; hence also the GDR’s support for the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the suppression of the Solidarity trade union movement in 1981. The only time the GDR cautiously distanced itself from the policies of the Soviet Union was over the stationing of new Soviet missiles on East German territory in the first half of the 1980s. The SED now portrayed the GDR as a ‘peace state’ (Friedensstaat) intent on maintaining the collective security frameworks of the 1970s. The desire to maintain détente in Europe regardless of the new superpower rivalries was a joint one between East and West German governments, and it was shared in many other European capitals as well. But, when Honecker’s visit to West Germany was cancelled in 1984, it demonstrated that the grounds for autonomous actions were extremely limited. This only changed in the late 1980s when Gorbachev made it clear that the Soviet Union had no objection to Eastern European states finding their own ways to perestroika and glasnost. But this was precisely the kind of Soviet abrogation of responsibility for the communist bloc that the GDR feared, for it spelt the end of communism in many Eastern European countries and gave nourishment to dissident movements in the GDR. Unable to generate momentum for reform from within, SED rule collapsed in the autumn of 1989 when it conceded victory to a broad people’s movement. The fall of the Wall in November 1989 opened the gates to a reunified Germany, which came about in October 1990. British foreign policy had been content to live with two Germanys after the Second World War. Publicly, successive British governments voiced their support for West German demands for reunification, but it is clear that, from the second half of the 1950s onwards, they sought to find a way in which two Germanys would coexist peacefully in a wider framework of stable Cold War relations between the two power blocs. In particular the uncertainties over the status of Berlin

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created tension between the blocs and made Europe inherently unstable. Some de facto recognition of the GDR was urgently called for, but for British governments improving relations with the ‘other Germany’ without antagonising the FRG remained a difficult tight rope act until the arrival of West Germany’s Neue Ostpolitik in the 1960s. As we argued above, the Labour Party’s Dick Crossman had already championed ideas resembling those of the later WestGerman Ostpolitik from the mid 1950s onwards. His views developed in parallel with those of Willy Brandt and might well have been the result of exchanges between these two leading social democrats. However, neither Crossman’s nor Brandt’s ideas were very popular in either Britain or Germany in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But they gained ground in the different international situation after 1961, when the American administrations under Kennedy and Johnson explored their own ideas about de-escalating the Cold War Conflict. It is not surprising, therefore, that the FRG’s move from confrontation to dialogue was eventually welcomed widely in Britain (and not only in Britain), for it promised to remove a major obstacle en route to stabilising Cold War relations in Europe. British–GDR relations did not ‘take off’ following official recognition in 1973, but they became more routine. Normalisation meant diplomatic relations interspersed with occasional spy scandals. Regular ministerial visits stood alongside ongoing talks about trade and politics. The GDR was reluctant to develop cultural contacts for fear of Western Unterwanderung. In Britain, old stereotypes about the GDR died hard. When, in 1974, the GDR incarcerated British citizens over allegations of ‘people smuggling’, a media campaign followed which rekindled all the negative images about the GDR carefully nurtured during the 1950s and 1960s. And yet many political observers in Britain came to think of the GDR as a normal, viable state on the European map, here to stay and doing well, especially economically. During the 1980s Conservative British governments broadly championed human rights behind the Iron Curtain, but, despite the Cold War rhetoric of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, they also were keen to maintain dialogue with Eastern European communism, including the GDR. In the second half of the 1980s Britain was wholly supportive of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in the Soviet Union. The GDR was perceived largely as a dogmatic, hard-line regime unable and unwilling to reform. When the SED hold in East Berlin finally crumbled, worries about reunification immediately surfaced and British politics had to come to terms with the fact that it had lived happily with the assumption of two Germanys. The GDR, over the course of four decades, had become a ‘friendly enemy’; what the

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reunified Germany might turn into, few political commentators were entirely sure about in 1990. Governmental and diplomatic relations were only a small part of the interchanges between Britain and the GDR. Throughout the book we have traced relations involving parliamentarians from both countries. Labour Party MPs, in particular, were frequent visitors to the GDR, but Conservative and Liberal MPs also occasionally spent time in East Germany. In 1958 the Volkskammer had appealed to the House of Commons to prevent the armament of West Germany with nuclear weapons and its call was taken up in the House by a number of Labour left-wingers. An East–West Parliamentary Group promoted the GDR in parliament even before the foundation of the Britain–GDR Parliamentary Friendship Group in 1965. In name the latter was allparty, but in reality it was entirely dominated by left-wingers from the Labour Party, such as William Wilson, Renée Short and Julius Silverman. The same year saw the foundation of a Parliamentary Friendship Committee GDR–Britain in the Volkskammer, and both coordinated their campaigns on behalf of the GDR. During the second half of the 1960s mutual exchanges of parliamentary delegations between the House of Commons and the Volkskammer started. Following recognition of the GDR, parliamentary relations between the countries developed smoothly if unspectacularly under the IPU. In the 1980s the British section of the IPU, under the chairmanship of Peter Temple Morris, developed a keen interest in using parliamentary contacts to maintain dialogue with Eastern European communists in the spirit of détente but without harbouring any illusions about the dictatorial character of the regimes east of the Iron Curtain. Temple Morris himself, for example, got on well with the Volkskammer president, Horst Sindermann, but retained a healthy scepticism regarding the viability of the GDR. The party most strongly in support of the GDR was not represented in parliament. During the second half of the 1940s, members of the Communist Party, such as Dorothy Diamond, were mobilising support in the British Council for German Democracy. Many British Communists and leftists had made contacts with German communists in exile in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s. ProSoviet voices close to the Communist Party, such as Gordon Schaffer, were among the most influential propagandists for the socialist transformation taking place in East Germany after 1945. Yet right from the beginning relations between the SED and the CPGB were characterised by a lack of intimacy. This cannot just be explained by the practical difficulties of communicating across Cold War borders, but it also had much to do with the perception of the SED that the CPGB was an insignificant political force. It was therefore much

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keener to develop close political contacts with the Labour Party, through which it hoped to wield significantly more influence. But the CPGB still offered considerable help with the GDR’s campaign for recognition. Daily Worker/ Morning Star correspondent Alan Winnington and members of the CPGB Historians’ Group, such as Allan Merson and Eric Hobsbawm, were supportive of the GDR’s causes. The advances of Euro-communism in the CPGB brought renewed tensions – with some indication that the SED, horrified by the ideological deviations of its sister party, intervened in CPGB affairs to strengthen the hard-line ‘tankie’ faction against the Eurocommunists during the 1980s. If the SED never was entirely happy with the CPGB, its hopes for greater influence over Labour also did not materialise. Whilst some of the most important supporters of the GDR did indeed come from the Labour Left, the expectation of influence always proved to be a mirage. The Labour leadership might have had sympathies with aspects of GDR-style socialism (Harold Wilson and Michael Foot spring readily to mind), but overall it retained a healthy distance from the GDR and its foreign-policy ambitions. Harold Wilson did not deliver the recognition that he had talked about in private with GDR representatives before becoming Prime Minister. The first official Labour Party delegation to the GDR happened two years after recognition. In 1975 Ron Hayward did express a surprising amount of admiration for the GDR’s ‘socialist achievements’ – sentiments perhaps characteristic for a period in which Labour drifted far to the left of the social democratic mainstream in Europe. The heydays of the Left in the Labour Party during the late 1970s and early 1980s produced unilateralism and considerable pro-Soviet sentiments, but it also ended in a party split and electoral disaster, which saw the party move back to a centrist and more firmly anti-communist position after 1983. Regarding relations between the British and East German trade unions, they got off to a bad start, as the strong anti-communism of the TUC after 1945 prevented any official recognition of the FDGB. However, a strong Communist presence in many British unions ensured that East German trade unionism was not without allies in the British trade union movement. Harry Knight and ASSETT as well as the Scottish NUM gave continuous support to the GDR from early on. But the TUC only began taking up relations with its East German counterpart in the 1970s following international recognition of the GDR. Harry Tisch struck up a friendly relationship with both Jack Jones and Len Murray, while the STUC’s endorsement of the GDR brought embarrassment to the West German DGB. In Scotland James Milne and Mick McGahey were unreconstructed supporters

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of ‘actually existing socialism’ and admired the ‘achievements’ of the GDR, a country they perceived as being far advanced on the road to socialism. Relations between the TUC and the FDGB took a turn for the worse following the 1981 declaration of martial law in Poland. The FDGB’s arrogant reaction towards a TUC circular asking East European unions to do everything to restore the freedom of Solidarity in Poland led to the breaking off of official relations lasting from 1982 to 1988. Yet there were many in the trade unions determined not to let Solidarity stand in the way of good relations with communist official unions in Eastern Europe. Some unionists such as Arthur Scargill and Bob Crow openly denounced Solidarity as a counter-revolutionary force in the pay of American capitalism. But when Polish and GDR communists readily sold coal to Britain during the miners’ strike of 1984/5, it became clear that workingclass solidarity did not necessarily mean much for ruling communist parties in Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, Cold War rivalries in an atomic age gave rise to powerful peace movements which urged replacing confrontation with dialogue. But who should they be talking to in Eastern Europe: the official, communist and state-run peace organisations, or the dissident movements? During the 1960s the East German Peace Council made contact with a variety of organisations in Britain trying to sell its message that the Eastern European states were genuine advocates of peace and ‘peaceful coexistence’. But the high point of contacts of the Peace Council with the British peace movement came during the 1980s, when CND in Britain organised hundreds of thousands of peace activists. The strength of the British peace movement at that time made it an appealing object to try and influence. The Friedensrat did their best to ensure that East German influence grew in the British peace movement. Some, like Bruce Kent, were persistently criticised for what were widely regarded as proSoviet views. But overall, the influence of communism on CND should not be overestimated. Many peace activists in Britain tried to walk a difficult line between supporting the dissident peace movements behind the Iron Curtain while not precluding dialogue with the official peace movements of communist states. END in particular took a highly critical stance of Eastern European communist regimes and aligned their campaign for peace with a concern for human and political rights behind the Iron Curtain. That made many END activists persona non grata in the GDR and wider Eastern Europe. Ultimately the East German Peace Council was not successful in pulling the wool over the eyes of the British peace movement, which retained a good deal of scepticism about the ‘peace state’ GDR. The

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overt militarism of the GDR all too blatantly contradicted the rhetoric of the official East German peace movement. Moral concerns about nuclear armaments also played an important role in motivating British and GDR churches to take up contact and begin a dialogue of their own which necessarily also involved the British and East German states. While the SED regime attempted to exploit those contacts for its own purposes (recognition; the GDR as ‘peace state’), the British state carefully monitored contacts in order to ensure that they would not upset diplomatic relations with West Germany. Representatives of the Christian churches in Britain were often motivated by a desire to help the beleaguered churches under communism but they could not avoid international politics in doing so. An influential group of Christian Marxists, of whom Paul Oestreicher was easily the most prominent in British–GDR church relations, helped this dialogue along. They were crucial in moderating the strong anti-communism which had characterised practically all Western churches in the 1950s. Coventry Cathedral, where Oestreicher worked from the 1980s onwards, became a focal point for church policies of reconciliation across the Iron Curtain, such as the rebuilding of a hospital in Dresden in 1965. The links between Coventry cathedral and Dresden were the foundation stone for the oldest and most successful town-twinning arrangement between Britain and the GDR. The SED sought to expand town-twinning arrangements in the 1960s as a means to propagate its policies of recognition. Partnerships were established between about half a dozen towns and cities in both countries. In the 1970s and 1980s this network of local contacts was regarded as an important means of correcting the still largely negative image of the GDR in Britain. In the 1980s Left-controlled town councils declared themselves nuclear-free zones and entered into partnership agreements with East European cities in the hope of thus furthering peace and understanding between East and West. One of the most prominent partnerships in this mould was the one between KarlMarx-Stadt and Manchester. Town-twinning arrangements often involved activists from the Britain–GDR Society (BGS). Founded in 1965, the BGS was the most important organisation for mobilising support for the GDR in Britain. It campaigned among MPs and the labour movement on behalf of the GDR. It organised roundtable discussions and anniversary celebrations. It promoted the GDR’s ‘peace policies’. It helped establish cultural contacts between the two countries and, through cooperation with film distribution companies, such as Stanley Forman’s Plato Films, it also introduced East German documentaries to Britain. Films such as ‘The German Story’ or ‘Operation Teutonic

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Sword’ were powerful propaganda statements against the FRG and in favour of the GDR, but they never reached a mass audience, which was a perennial complaint of GDR representatives from Debrig and the Liga. The BGS was more successful with tours of East German writers, theatre groups and music ensembles: East German culture from Brecht to Christa Wolff had its appeal in Britain, and the ‘cultural achievements’ of the GDR found a keen audience. The BGS was led by Communists and pro-Soviet left-of centre activists and, from the 1970s, was firmly under the leadership of Euro-communists who can best be described as ‘critical friends’ of the GDR, i.e., broadly supportive of ‘actually existing socialism’ but not entirely without suggestions on how to improve it. However, even the slightest criticism was anathema to the GDR leadership. Hence it sought to undermine Euro-communist leaders of the BGS, such as the highly effective Sheila Taylor and the more hapless Jack Berlin. The Liga, responsible for the GDR’s links with foreign friendship societies, accused the BGS of being inefficient and unable to reach out to mainstream British society. It seems hard to deny this, as the BGS remained, by and large, confined to the motley crowd of usual suspects and the already converted. In the 1980s the GDR encouraged the regionalisation of the BGS in the hope that it would energise the organisation, but it only led to the break-away of a Scotland–GDR Society, which was comparatively more successful in its appeal to mainstream sections of Scottish society. Attempts to build up a separate organisation in London, by comparison, stalled, as the London–Berlin Committee was still dependent on the BGS activists. Despairing of the lack of public appeal of the BGS, the GDR sought to develop educational links between the two countries. Dorothy Diamond, a teacher by profession, was instrumental in setting up summer schools for British teachers in the GDR from the 1950s onwards. An official teacher exchange programme was operating between the two countries from 1978 onwards. All the East German candidates coming to Britain were carefully vetted by the SED, whereas the programme caused little enthusiasm among British teachers – with the exception of those who had communist sympathies. The GDR recruited some of its English teachers from the summer schools organised by Diamond. It offered them positions at East German universities and institutes for higher education, and some of them became mediators between Britain and the GDR – at least among the small group of people in Britain interested in the GDR. Contacts between British and East German higher education only began to blossom after the GDR was officially recognised. GDR

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representatives perceived higher education as a forum in which effectively to counter the predominantly negative image of the GDR in the British media. Where the GDR succeeded in placing GDR language assistants in university German departments, GDR assistants campaigned on behalf of their ‘workers’ and farmers’ state’. The GDR sought to influence British academics with a professional interest in the GDR. In rare cases the Stasi was successful in recruiting British academics to act as informers, e.g., Robin Pearson at Hull University or Vic Allen at Leeds University, but there is little evidence to suggest that this seriously undermined the substance and quality of GDR research in the UK. Overall, then, taking into account governmental and nongovernmental relations between Britain and the GDR, one might conclude that whilst they were hardly widespread and certainly never rivalled the more extensive and important relations with the FRG, they nevertheless amounted to an intriguing story of Cold War relations across the Iron Curtain. Especially among left-of-centre politicians, unionists, churchmen and peace activists, interest in the GDR was, at times, surprisingly high – which raises the question what motivated such interest?

The British Interest in the GDR Far from representing a ‘fifth column’ of fellow travellers duped by the GDR’s propaganda and the GDR’s secret service, most British citizens entering into dialogue with East Berlin had their own, independent motivations which were often rooted in Western political concerns. First and foremost among them was the attempt to stabilise the Cold War. From the mid 1950s an increasing number of Britons believed that their government’s continued non-recognition of the GDR made it more likely that the Cold War might turn into a hot one and therefore urged their government to move towards recognition. Their concern with peace met with the GDR’s desire to achieve official recognition. But this does not mean that most British advocates of recognition were uncritical of the GDR. The British desire to facilitate détente through some kind of de facto recognition of the GDR sat awkwardly with West German politics until the second half of the 1960s. Ever since the second Berlin crisis, chancellor Adenauer, for example, remained mistrustful of British foreign policy. But Britain ultimately never risked moving out of step with its West German ally. Especially as British foreign policy sought to curry favours with West Germany, which represented Britain’s best hope of eventually overcoming the French veto against British

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membership of the EU, it was increasingly unthinkable to upset the West Germans over the British stance vis-à-vis the GDR. Even Harold Wilson, who, more than any other Prime Minister before him, had expressed his sympathies for the GDR and for recognising the GDR, did not dare to take up the issue during his occupancy of No. 10 Downing Street. More ambitious than plans to stabilise the Cold War were plans to overcome the Cold War. Well into the 1950s representatives of the hard Left, in particular, had clung to the idea that a united socialist Europe should be the aim of a socialist foreign policy. The Labour government had already abandoned this idea by 1946 and the Labour mainstream moved steadily towards endorsing Atlanticism in the second half of the 1940s. Only a small band of left-wing Labour MPs, together with Communists and independent left-wingers, still championed the idea of Britain taking a stance as leader of a ‘socialist third force’ between the two superpowers. If it was more ambitious it was also less realistic, but the GDR and its aim of recognition found some of its most reliable allies among this stratum of the Left. They fought the division of Germany and the division of Europe and were inclined to see in the Soviet Union a force for world peace. An intriguing attempt to combine the aim of stabilising the Cold War with overcoming it could be found in Richard Crossman’s idea of ‘killing Communism with kindness’. From the second half of the 1950s Crossman argued consistently in favour of dialogue with Eastern European communism, including the GDR. He had no time for Adenauer and those West Germans who, he argued, stuck their heads in the sand pretending that political realities did not exist. He travelled extensively to the GDR and was among the foremost advocates of recognising the second German state in Britain. He was also willing publicly to endorse many of the alleged achievements of ‘actually existing socialism’ and to criticise crude anti-communist stereotypes in the West. However, the East Germans also noticed early on that Crossman was no friend of communism. His willingness to talk to communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain was rooted, first, in the recognition that dialogue was the best means of détente and avoiding nuclear Armageddon. But secondly, it was also located in Crossman’s belief that dialogue would ultimately undermine communism’s stranglehold over Eastern Europe. Western social democratic values would prove themselves superior and their attractiveness would lead to reforms in Eastern Europe. Through dialogue, the rigid division of Europe along ideological lines would be overcome. Crossman believed in the potential for reform from above, which is the reason why he never tired talking to communists and those in power in Eastern

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Europe. In his beliefs, Crossman anticipated the West German Neue Ostpolitik by a good ten years, although, it has to be said, that his version never included an element that was crucial to the West German variant, i.e., reunification as the end result of dialogue. Those wanting to stabilise the Cold War and those wanting to overcome it were both motivated by fear of a third world war, which might see the use of atomic weapons and the self-extermination of mankind. Fear of a nuclear holocaust not only motivated peace activists in CND and END to establish contacts with Eastern Europe and the GDR. It also was a major reason for those working within the churches, such as Paul Oestreicher, who combined his central role in church relations with activities in Christian CND. Labour politicians, such as Frank Allaun, a leading light in the pro-GDR LAP, argued powerfully that Britain should focus on social policy rather than spend millions on armaments. The desire to avert military conflict was a major motivating factor for almost all Western contacts with the GDR. Dislike of crude anti-communist stereotyping was another important motivating factor for representatives of the Left to make contact with the GDR and Eastern European communism more generally. Dialogue was to prove that communists were not devils incarnate, but sensible human beings who shared an interest in peaceful coexistence. Some on the Left were too naïve about the character of communism in Eastern Europe, not seeing or not wanting to see the repressive and criminal side of these dictatorships. During the 1950s anti-anti-communist sentiments were restricted to the hard Left and a motley group of individuals who were regarded as fellow travellers and apologists for Soviet communism by mainstream public opinion in Britain. During the 1960s, though, the climate began to change, as the political mood of the younger generation shifted to the left, and in the 1970s anti-anti-communism moved into the mainstream, as the case of Jonathan Steele and the positive reception of his 1977 book about the GDR clearly demonstrated. Even journalists less sympathetic to East German socialism than Steele, such as Neal Ascherson and Peter Johnson, still argued consistently for dialogue and recognition throughout the 1960s. During the Second Cold War any return to the crude anticommunist stereotyping of the 1950s brought immediate criticism and ridicule from within mainstream sections of British society, demonstrating the success of anti-anti-communists in changing the political climate. Nevertheless, during the entire Cold War communists and communism remained the main enemies of the West, and thus also of Britain. But the memory of the main enemy during the first half

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of the twentieth century, Germany, lingered on. A range of factors demonstrated how uneasy British–German relations remained throughout the second half of the twentieth century: the debates immediately after the war about the costs of the occupation regime, the anxious reaction towards German rearmament, the fear of Germany being the cause of a third World War, the nagging doubts about the motivations for German Ostpolitik and the suspicions surrounding German reunification. Above all, Britain was envious and mistrustful of a Federal Republic which, during the 1950s and 1960s, seemed to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the Second World War. Of course, economic historians have pointed out that the West German ‘economic miracle’ was only the most spectacular example of an economic boom which benefited all West European economies in the post-war period. And yet the public perception in Britain and Germany was of German ascendancy and British decline. West German attitudes were frequently perceived as condescending, arrogant and smug. Under such circumstances, many in Britain felt sympathetically inclined towards the ‘German underdog’ – the GDR. This was particularly the case for those who saw their political home on the left and who retained scepticism about the capitalist economic order. But West Germany was not only to be mistrusted because of its economic success. British published opinion looked for any sign of neo-Nazism resurfacing in the FRG. Given the lacklustre approach of West Germany towards denazification after 1949, many former Nazis re-emerged in positions of power in politics, the economy and wider society. Throughout the history of the FRG there were recurring scares about local and regional successes of neo-Nazi parties, antiSemitic incidents and fascist thugs. Political scientists and analysts familiar with the FRG tended to agree that these did not amount to a serious threat to West German democracy, which was stable and in many respects exemplary. But this did not cut any ice with much of British published opinion, especially with the tabloid press, which continued to see the fourth Reich re-emerging and which loved to play on old enmities and stereotypes. The GDR’s propaganda in Britain exploited those sentiments and fed the British public additional information on the Nazi past of leading West Germans, alleging that West Germany was the true heir of fascism whilst only East Germany was genuinely anti-fascist. Once again this message was particularly well received on the Left, where anti-fascism had been a personal experience for many in the 1930s and 1940s. As these decades increasingly moved into history, the crude dichotomy between an anti-fascist GDR and a fascist FRG cut less and less ice with British observers of the two Germanys.

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If, by the 1980s, anti-fascism looked an increasingly tired argument in favour of the GDR, many British observers felt far more willing to believe in East Germany’s economic potential. It was widely reported that the GDR had surpassed Britain in the league of most powerful industrial nations. The GDR was believed to be among the top ten of industrial nations in the 1980s, and praise for the socialist achievements of the GDR could not only be heard on the far Left: nationalised industries appealed to socialist trade unionists and socialists of varying denomination, as did workers’ rights. Full employment, a comprehensive welfare state and social equality were alleged achievements with which social democrats and left liberals could also easily identify. Still, few, even on the communist Left, were without doubts and criticisms of ‘actually existing socialism’. Sure enough, the East Germans had made mistakes and their system was not perfect. Few saw the GDR and Eastern European communism as models to be entirely adopted in Britain. But in the Cold War they felt that defending communism was a contribution to peace, and for some the communist regimes in Eastern Europe were the lesser evil when compared with capitalism in the West. As Eric Hobsbawm wrote with hindsight: As far as communists were concerned, supporting and defending the Soviet Union was still the essential international priority. So we swallowed our doubts and mental reservations and defended it. Or rather, because it was easier, we attacked the capitalist camp for preferring a West Germany run by old Nazis, and soon actually to be rearmed against the USSR, to an East Germany run by old prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.

Arguments could often be heard among the Left, and not just the communist Left, that the GDR and other communist states in Eastern Europe had at least abolished capitalism. They had made an important first step in creating socialism. Especially those on the Left who believed that the reforms of the post-war Attlee governments had not gone far enough, were likely to champion the socialist transformation of the GDR as having been more thorough and farreaching than the one in Britain. They saw potential in ‘actually existing socialism’ and that is why it seemed worth defending against anti-communists in the West. It is also worth remembering that British socialists, whatever their specific party affiliations, shared an almost religious belief in socialism. Many British Communists and Labour Party members were convinced that ultimately they shared the same ideal. Hence 

E. Hobsbawm. 2002. Interesting Times. A Twentieth-Century Life, London: Allen Lane, 195.

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Labour politicians were often far less wary of East European communist overtures than many social democrats in continental European countries, notably the FRG, where the demarcation lines between communism and social democracy had been drawn far more rigorously by the events in 1918/19, 1933 and 1946. On a deeper ideological level, certain affinities between ‘actually existing socialism’ and Western social democratic beliefs and ideals facilitated a reception of East European communism which was not entirely negative. Thus, statism, avant-gardism and ideas of social engineering were shared by both East European communists and West European social democrats. Both had a long tradition of seeing workers as passive objects of their policies rather than active agents. This is not to deny the very important differences between Western social democratic parties, such as the Labour Party, and East European communist parties, such as the SED. Over issues of democracy, constitutionalism, free speech and many other issues which reached to the core of societal understanding, they did not see eye to eye, and yet they were never entirely opposites. There was an overlap, a Schnittmenge between the two which facilitated the positive reception of aspects of East German communism among the British Left. When the GDR was gone, many of its former supporters asked themselves why they had not seen its weaknesses and why they had not criticised more sharply its shortcomings, especially its lack of democracy. Some denied that they ever harboured sympathies for the ‘other’ Germany, but the overwhelming sentiment was one of sadness at the death of a state in which one had believed and for which one had fought battles in Britain. Whilst the GDR’s relations with Britain relied heavily on the political Left within the UK, it was by no means restricted to it. Among British Liberals and Conservatives it was above all a sense of realpolitik which brought them into contact with the GDR. They were often willing to cooperate in areas which were seen as benefiting Britain’s interests. One of those areas was trade. Great Britain was at times the most important Western trading partner of the GDR after, and indeed well after the FRG. The Conservative businessman and MP Burnaby Drayson was the first to clinch a trade deal with East Germany in 1953. After 1955 the Board of Trade consistently pressed for improving trade relations with the GDR and received considerable support from a variety of MPs, including Conservatives such as Lord Hinchingbrooke. The first agreement between FBI and KfA was signed in 1959. Especially in the mid 1960s trade relations seemed of growing importance and the British Board of Trade showed considerable interest in extending them. The first long-term trade agreement was concluded in 1969, and 1970/71 saw an exchange

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of high-level trade delegations. But, despite great expectations, trade relations did not take off following recognition in 1973. Overall, those in favour of contacts with the GDR in Britain were a very heterogeneous group with very different motivations, which might also explain why the GDR was not all that successful in mobilising its ‘friends’ in Britain for its own concerns. Britain, throughout the entire period from 1949 to 1990 always prioritised its relations with the FRG over its relations with the GDR and the latter never managed to overcome its predominantly negative image in the perception of the wider British public.

The East German Interest in Britain If we turn the tables and ask what motivated East Germans to make contact with Britain, the answer is far more straightforward, because, under communism, all contact with Britain, and with the West more generally, was carefully stage-managed and monitored by the East German dictatorship and its agencies, especially the SED and the Stasi. Those East German communists who had been in exile in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s often had established a variety of contacts among the British Left, from which they could draw later on. Many of those charged by the SED with maintaining and developing contacts with Britain had such a background, e.g., Horst Brasch, David Rummelsberg, Hans Herzberg and Jürgen Kuczynski. Before the mid 1950s, the GDR leadership pushed ahead with creating socialism, whilst talking the language of reunification. Given that the latter was only championed under conditions of socialism, it seemed an increasingly remote prospect, but the GDR leadership could not be sure about the intentions of the Soviet Union until the mid 1950s. From then on, the key aim of the GDR’s foreign policy was to achieve recognition and to overcome and undermine West Germany’s Hallstein Doctrine. As the GDR was barred from developing official channels of communication, it established friendship societies under the umbrella of the Liga, and sought to promote the GDR’s aims by treating those who were willing to come and listen to the GDR to highly organised trips meant to impress the visitors. British delegations to the GDR followed a uniform pattern which always included visits to concentration camps and factories and meetings with trade unionists and party representatives. If, at the end of their stay, the British guests were willing to go on record to praise the GDR’s anti-fascism and its ‘socialist achievements’, their hosts were happy, as they could rely on such statements, published in the GDR press,

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producing waves of annoyance across the border in West Germany. In fact, things got so bad that the West German SPD intervened with the Labour Party leadership in order to prevent visits to the GDR by Labour MPs. At the same time as promoting official delegations, the GDR also offered free holidays at FDGB holiday homes, and, more importantly, it published a wide variety of pamphlets, high-gloss journals and news-sheets for dissemination in the English-speaking world, putting across the GDR’s view. The most influential and important channel of communication was John Peet’s Democratic German Report. The GDR presented itself as anti-fascist, peace-loving and intent on creating a new socialist society with more and better opportunities for workers in particular. It portrayed itself as the morally better Germany battling against the odds to establish socialism. West Germany, the GDR alleged, was dominated by old Nazis. Whenever neo-Nazism raised its head in the FRG it was portrayed as confirming the danger emanating from an unreconstructed West Germany. The GDR successfully played on British fears about West German rearmament – an issue which became incredibly divisive for the Labour Party in particular. From early on the GDR also sought to instrumentalise trade in the struggle for recognition, arguing to its British partners at the Leipzig trade fairs and elsewhere that trading opportunities would blossom once diplomatic recognition was achieved. The Leipzig Fair Agency was set up in London in 1955 with the aim of promoting trade and political contacts, and KfA Ltd. pursued similar aims after it was set up in the British capital in 1959. Visitors to the Leipzig trade fair were carefully managed by the GDR to win them over to supporting the GDR’s wider aim of recognition. Whilst the pro-recognition lobby in Britain grew more vocal in the course of the 1960s and early 1970s, it did not succeed in pre-empting a British move towards recognition. Labour and Conservative governments alike always tactfully remained one step behind their West German allies when it came to contacts with the second German state. Following recognition in 1973, the GDR sought to develop relations with Britain in order to cement its international claim of a separate East German citizenship and nationality. When in 1976 the British government did accept GDR citizenship, it was careful to clear this step with its West German ally. The GDR also continued to make a range of attempts to improve its broader public image in Britain, which was to the end dominated by perceptions of a police state imprisoning its own population behind the Berlin Wall and a protectorate of the Soviet Union. In 1961 and after, it was time and again the Berlin Wall which came to symbolise the inhumanity

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and oppressiveness of the SED regime in the British media. The GDR never managed substantially to change its negative image as a drab dictatorship. Although British observers routinely endorsed views of the GDR as an industrial giant and conceded that it had ‘socialist achievements’ in welfare, employment and social rights, the lack of political freedom and the rigorous control of the SED over its own population never endeared the GDR to the wider British public. The negative perception of the GDR was re-enforced periodically by the suppression of internal dissent and hard-line statements about the suppression of reform communist or dissident movements elsewhere in the Eastern bloc. The Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948, the 1953 rising in the GDR, the 1956 invasion of Hungary and the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia as well as the expatriation of Wolf Biermann in 1976 and the incarceration of Rudolf Bahro in 1977, and finally, the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the suppression of Solidarity in 1981, all provided opportunities for intensely negative press coverage in Britain. The GDR’s desire to present itself in a more positive light also had repercussions on East German reports about Britain. As one of the victorious powers of the Second World War, with a permanent seat on the UN, and as a key Western political and military power, Britain was important to the GDR. It was also the ideological enemy, the home of ‘Manchester capitalism’ and the first workshop of the world, in which Marx and Engels had developed their theories of historical and dialectical materialism. During the 1940s and 1950s the portrayal of Britain as part and parcel of the West was entirely negative. During the latter half of the 1940s Britain was viciously attacked in the East German media as the main sponsor of the SPD in the Western zones of occupation. It was portrayed as politically reactionary and a bulwark of finance capitalism well into the 1950s. Anti-British discourse was part and parcel of a prevalent anti-Western discourse in the GDR. In the course of the 1960s and 1970s that anti-Western discourse became less and less important, although Britain did not make life easy for foreign correspondents from the GDR. Between 1962 and 1972 no East German journalist got an accreditation in Britain. By the 1980s, when Rainer Oschmann was foreign correspondent of Neues Deutschland in London, things had changed. The GDR was keen to avoid offending Britain through negative reports in the GDR media. Of course, they would still emphasise the decline of capitalism, the social misery under capitalism and the imperialist designs of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the Falklands, but at the same time

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the majority of the articles concentrated on the portrayal of everyday life in Britain. GDR media reports could not paint too positive a picture of capitalist Britain, as the SED was keen to discourage any grass-roots contacts between ordinary East Germans and ordinary Britons. Especially from the late 1960s onwards, when Neue Ostpolitik sought to widen the channels of communication between East and West, the GDR government responded by a more rigorous policy of Abgrenzung. Cultural contacts remained totally one-sided. Organised mainly through BRIDGE and Debrig, they focused on winning over persons of importance in British public life and propagating a positive image of the GDR in Britain. There was no serious attempt to bring British culture and ideas to the GDR. Quite the contrary, every contact with the West was to be avoided as far as possible. Not surprisingly British suggestions to set up a British cultural institute in East Berlin in the 1970s came to nothing. From the GDR’s perspective, contacts with the West had to be carefully controlled and managed at all times. Those allowed to travel to the West and make contact with Westerners were hand picked and often had links to the Stasi. Whenever East Germans talked to British citizens, whether in the context of the peace movements, church relations, party and trade union contacts, higher education or trade relations, the Stasi was usually well-informed about those talks. Occasionally it succeeded in recruiting British citizens as informants for the secret service. And yet one should perhaps not overestimate the Stasi influence over British–GDR relations. Whilst nothing happened without the Stasi being involved or at least informed, the Stasi’s possibilities of influencing British public opinion or politics was distinctly limited. The British state was never undermined or under threat, decisions by British governments were never seriously influenced by the work of the Stasi, and organisations such as trade unions, political parties, churches and even the peace movement were not directly or indirectly guided by the Stasi. The Stasi collected an enormous amount of information; it was well-informed about everything that went on; it had its eyes and ears everywhere; it had the power to cause misery and pain to many individuals; it no doubt morally corrupted many other individuals, but the sum total of its influence on British–German relations still remains relatively minor. If one were to ask what would have been different in British–GDR relations without the Stasi, the answer is: little.  R. Oschmann. 2005. ‘The Unknown and Unloved Germans from the East: Memories of a GDR Foreign Correspondent in the Thatcher Years’, in S. Berger and LaPorte (eds), The Other Germany, 309–14.

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Overall, then, there was much less diversity of motivation and far more central direction in the GDR’s relations with Britain than we encountered in the British relations with the GDR. Given the pluralist society in Britain and lack of pluralism in the GDR this is hardly surprising.

British–GDR Relations in the Context of the GDR’s Relations with Other Western States Liga officials made highly unfavourable comparisons between the activities of the friendship society in Britain and the extent of engagement of the GDR friendship society in France. The British friendship society, which organised an estimated one thousand members in London and a handful of local branches, was a fringe group. The French society, by contrast, was a friendship movement, organising seventeen thousand members from a cross-section of social classes, in four regional committees, fifty-one departments and one hundred and fifty local branches. Such comparisons point to the need to locate the relationship between Britain and the GDR within the wider context of the GDR’s contacts to other Western states. Especially the FRG, the USA and a range of other West, South and North European states were important partners for the GDR, which raises the question: was Britain in any way special for the GDR among the community of non-communist industrial states? Some things were the same for all Western states. Sympathies for the GDR were particularly strong among the generational cohort on the Left for whom anti-fascism had been a lived experience. Here the GDR was widely accepted as the morally better Germany. But the repeated repression of dissidence within the East German population, the building of the Wall and support for clampdowns on popular risings elsewhere in the communist hemisphere ensured that the GDR had, on balance, a very negative press in the Western World. Nevertheless, after the building of the Wall in 1961, many West European states sought some de facto acceptance of the GDR, even if they had no sympathy with ‘actually existing socialism’. Commentators from the left and right argued that one could not ignore political realities. Accepting the GDR was the necessary precondition for stabilising Cold War relations. However, all Western states were careful not to upset West German sensibilities  The statistics are in SAPMO-BArch, DY 13/2747. According to David Rummelsberg, who regularly visited the UK with the GDR–Great Britain Society in the 1980s and was married to an official in the GDR–France Society, the ‘friendship’ contacts were lively with France but comparatively dead with Britain. See interview with David Rummelsberg, 16.8.2001.

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and stayed one step behind the West German government. When the Grundlagenvertrag between the two Germanys had cleared the way for others to establish official relations with the GDR, many governments faced additional problems over the question of redress for nationalised foreign property in the GDR. Trade, which was a carrot held up by GDR officials from time to time, proved to be disappointing for virtually all Western states with the exception of the FRG. Those countries which participated in the Marshall plan ultimately reoriented their trade towards Western Europe and North America, whereas the communist Eastern European states formed their own trading bloc which, by and large, followed its own rules. But interest in the GDR was never just economic. During the first half of the 1980s, when the GDR leadership seemed cautiously to distance itself from the Soviet leadership over détente, many in the West sought contact with the ‘peace state’. However, in the second half of the 1980s concern with the GDR plummeted, as it was perceived as an inflexible and orthodox communist dictatorship out of touch with Gorbachev’s reforms in the Soviet Union. By the 1980s the antifascist shine of the GDR was looking increasingly tired and unable to mobilise new generations of supporters in the West. Yet, regardless of such similarities, we can also observe some special characteristics of Western states in their relations with the ‘other’ Germany. Clearly, the FRG was of particular importance to the GDR throughout its history. In some respects East Germany remained totally fixated on West Germany. The FRG was, after all, the one country against which the GDR’s population measured the achievements of the SED regime. It was also the country, which, according to SED officials, posed the greatest threat to the GDR. Hence Abgrenzung was particularly well policed in relation to West Germany. The fixation with the FRG was obvious in the GDR’s talk of ‘overtaking’ the FRG economically in the 1950s and into the 1960s, in its constant self-portrayal as anti-fascist in contrast to the FRG, and in its underlining of socialist ‘achievements’ in comparison to the alleged misery of workers under capitalism in the FRG. In its cultural contacts with the West, the GDR could not emphasise enough the distance between itself and West Germany. Economically, the FRG was the most important trading partner for the GDR by far, and 

Useful summaries of the GDR’s positioning vis-à-vis diverse Western states can be found in: H.-J. Fink. 1979. ‘Die ����������������������������������������� DDR und der Westen (I). Problem und Interessen’, Deutschland Archiv 12 (3), 290–302; idem. 1979. ‘Die DDR im Westen (II). Bilaterale Beziehungen’, Deutschland Archiv 12 (4), 495–508; J. Kuppe. 1979. ‘Die DDR im Westen (III). Die Beziehungen zu den drei Westmächten’, Deutschland Archiv 12 (12), 1299–1311.  ����������������������������������� H. Lindemann. and K. Müller. 1974. Auswärtige Kulturpolitik der DDR. Die kulturelle Abgrenzung der DDR von der Bundesrepublik Deutschlands, Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft.

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no other Western country even remotely rivalled the importance of the FRG for the GDR in virtually every aspect of international relations. On the other end of the spectrum was the USA, which was the least interested Western state when it came to contacts with the GDR. Its government was one of the last to take up diplomatic relations in 1974. There was very little support for recognition before the early 1970s. And US policies actively attempted to delegitimise and undermine the GDR politically and economically in the 1950s. The American government engaged in psychological warfare against the GDR and used its political weight to back up West Germany’s Hallstein Doctrine. It was only when US governments under Johnson and Kennedy realised that mass revolts against communism were unlikely and began to rethink their attitudes towards the GDR and communist Eastern Europe more generally that they came into conflict with the West German policy of non-recognition. For a brief period East Germany gained significance for American foreign policy, but after Neue Ostpolitik had kicked in and following recognition, relations between the GDR and the USA stagnated again. Trade relations were always insignificant and the American public, with the exception of some left-of-centre intellectuals, artists, academics and civil rights activists, took hardly any notice of the ‘other’ Germany. When, during the early 1980s, the GDR looked as though it might develop a more independent foreign policy from the Soviet Union, American interest revived only to decline sharply with the onset of the Gorbachev era, which left the East German communists looking increasingly antiquated and out of touch. Some limited academic and church contacts could not alter the fact that the GDR enjoyed precious few transatlantic contacts. In Europe, many countries enjoyed better relations with the GDR than Britain. Above all, relations with France were excellent, in particular with Communist trade unions (CGT) and the Communist Party (PCF). By comparison, relations with the socialist SFIO and 

German–German relations have been the subject of intense research since 1990. The strong interrelatedness of both Germanys in virtually all policy areas is well brought out in the survey of post-war German history edited by C. Burrichter, D. Nakath and G.-R. Stephan (eds). 2006. Deutsche Zeitgeschichte von 1945 bis 2000. Gesellschaft – Staat – Politik, Berlin: Dietz; here are also extensive bibliographic links to further literature on German–German relations.  ��������������������������������������������������������������������� C. Ostermann, ‘Im Schatten der Bundesrepublik: Die DDR im Kalkül der amerikanischen Deutschlandpolitik’, in K. Larres and T. Oppelland (eds). 2000. Deutschland und die USA im 20. Jahrhundert. Geschichte der politischen Beziehungen, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 230–253; U. Balbier. 2004. ‘Tagungsbericht: „Geliebter Klassenfeind“ ������������������������������������� – ����������������������������������� das schwierige Verhältnis zwischen der DDR und den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, 1949������ –����� 89’, http://hsozkult. geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=732; accessed 8 May 2009.

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later with the PS remained always much weaker, even if, in the 1960s, the SED had some success in attracting interest from socialists who were sceptical of the revisionist course of the West German SPD. The SED also attempted to woo the Gaullist party in the 1960s, but the political Right in France never showed a keen interest in East Germany and the General only used the GDR as a bargaining chip in his power games with the FRG and the USA. However, this did not change the fact that, already by the mid 1950s, French voices could be heard loud and clear demanding some form of recognition of the GDR in the interest of European stability. Contacts increased from then on and reached into mainstream French society – with the French foreign office occasionally reminding everyone that these contacts still had an unofficial character. This did not stop wider political circles from dealing with an existing state like the GDR and agreeing that some form of acceptance of the East German state was overdue. The KfA opened a bureau in Paris in 1955, which managed to obtain the grander title of a Representation of the Office of Foreign Relations of the GDR (Vertretung des Amtes für Auswärtige Beziehungen der DDR). However, pressure from the GDR to establish official relations were always strictly rejected by France. From 1958 the Échange franco-allemands worked for the recognition of the GDR and, as we have seen above, it was far more successful than the British friendship society in mobilising a broad cross-section of French society. Nowhere else did the GDR establish as many town-twinning agreements than in France – reaching a peak of around a hundred and fifty in the 1980s. A serious academic interest in the GDR arose during the 1960s and remained particularly strong and positive among literary scholars. Here the positive reception of a GDR identified with cultural icons such as Brecht was contrasted with a more critical view of the political system identified with Walter Ulbricht. The journal Connaissance de la RDA had a similar function in France that GDR Monitor had in Britain. Relations with universities expanded in the 1980s and focused on the prestige contacts between the Humboldt university and Paris VIII. The Protestant church in France organised meetings between French and East German students as early as 1953. French scepticism vis-à-vis social-liberal Ostpolitik, which seemed to many French observers to indicate a renewed turn of Germany eastwards and raised fears about a cunning plot to achieve reunification over the head of France, meant that French governments postrecognition were willing to enter into even closer contact with the GDR. Ministerial visits were frequent and, despite the fact that France never accepted a separate East German citizenship, Honecker was invited to Paris in 1988. However, French attempts

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to establish a cultural centre in East Berlin were frustrated by East German fears that such a centre might undermine the stability of SED rule. But the GDR founded a cultural centre of its own in Paris in 1983, which propagated the official SED view of East Germany. It was not mere coincidence that President Mitterrand travelled to East Berlin in 1990 to give a boost to an ailing and vulnerable but still separate GDR. The GDR’s relations with Italy were also much better than with Britain. As anti-fascism became such an important foundational myth of the post-war Italian republic, GDR anti-fascism struck a chord in Italy and was the basis for widespread and often harmonious relations. The GDR tried to exploit the conflict in Southern Tyrol in order to accuse the Federal Republic of supporting the separatists, thereby aiming for the creation of another ‘greater Germany’. The continuity between previous fascism and contemporary West Germany was constantly stressed. Many public voices for the recognition of the GDR could be heard well before the 1970s and not only from communists. There were about ten town-twinning arrangements, of which the most important were the ones between Leipzig and Bologna and Potsdam and Siena. Italy signed the first trade agreement with the GDR in 1957. The KfA had a permanent home in Rome after 1959 and Italy was also the first NATO country to sign a three-year trade treaty with the GDR in 1962. But Italian trade with the GDR never amounted to more than 0.2 per cent of the entire Italian foreign trade. Exactly like in Britain, the official stance of all Italian governments supported their West German ally, even if successive governments conceded in internal documents that to all intents and purposes there would be two German states for the foreseeable future. The foundation of the GDR received its most enthusiastic welcome in the communist press. It justified the repression of the rising of 17 June 1953 and was most influential in organising the recognition lobby in Italy. In 1961 the building of the wall was again defended in terms provided by the SED. The communist press also provided a platform for GDR officials to put the case of the GDR to the communist electorate in Italy, and the Communist Party (PCI) published translations of speeches and propaganda brochures of the GDR. Liga officials even attempted to win over the communist Italian ‘guest workers’ in the Federal Republic and make them into pro-GDR voices in West Germany. 

French–GDR relations are well examined. See, �������������������������� above all, U. Pfeil, Die ‘anderen’ deutsch–französischen Beziehungen. Die DDR und Frankreich 1949–1990, Cologne: Böhlau; idem. (ed.). 2000. La RDA et l‘Occident 1949–1990, Paris: Institut Allemand; D. Röseberg (ed.), Frankreich und ‘das andere Deutschland’. Analysen ��������� und Zeitzeugnisse, Tübingen: Stauffenburg-Verlag.

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From the mid 1960s, the PCI played an important part as mediator between the West German SPD and the East German SED in questions of Neue Ostpolitik. The strong links between SED and PCI were, however, severely tested in the 1970s when the PCI spearheaded Euro-communism. Relations were strained before, e.g., over the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, or the treatment of Robert Havemann. The communist trade union federation CGIL moved so far away from communist unionism in the Eastern bloc that it left the communist world federation and joined the West European social democratic rival in the 1970s. Nevertheless, the intensity of the relations between the SED and the PCI in the 1970s were not matched by any other contacts that the GDR enjoyed with Western parties or other groups. The cultural institute Centro Thomas Mann, founded in Rome in 1957, and the friendship committee Italy –GDR, founded in 1961, were vitally important in making the GDR known among the Italian public and giving it a positive image. The Centro Thomas Mann was successful because it remained relatively open towards West German intellectuals and allowed some ‘loyal’ criticism of the GDR – something that East German officials regularly complained about. Like in Britain, any criticism of the GDR was one step too far for the SED. But this could not change the perception on the Italian left that the GDR was the better Germany, a thesis structuring, for example, Enzo Collotti’s 1968 book on the ‘history of the two Germanys’.10 By comparison with the PCI, the GDR’s contacts with the socialists from the PSI were negligible. Some relations existed with the left wing of the PSI, but after 1973 hardly any official contacts were maintained. However, the GDR’s contacts were not restricted to the left of the political spectrum. The East German CDU, for example, had strong and regular links with politicians from the DC. After 1960, all-party Parliamentary delegations regularly travelled to the GDR, supporting recognition and praising the achievements of East Germany. Only France and Belgium sent a comparable number of parliamentary delegations to the GDR, and in all three countries the parliamentary interest in the GDR far outweighed what we observed for Britain above. After recognition, there were frequent visits on the ministerial level, and a state visit of Bettino Craxi to East Berlin in 1984 was followed by a return visit of Erich Honecker to Rome in 1985. The intellectual sympathies for the GDR in Italy increased  ��������������� J. Lill. 2002. Völkerfreundschaft im Kalten Krieg? Die politischen, kulturellen und ökonomischen Beziehungen der DDR zu Italien 1949–1973, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang; see also C. Pöttig. 1980. Italien und die DDR. Die politischen, ökonomischen und kulturellen Beziehungen von 1949 bis 1980, Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang. 10 E. Collotti. 1968. Storia delle due Germanie (1945 – 1968), Turin: Einaudi.

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even further after recognition, when the charismatic Klaus Gysi became the first GDR ambassador in Italy and pursued a successful cultural policy. Smaller West European countries, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, displayed at least the same levels of pro-GDR sentiments as Britain. In the Netherlands the GDR could count on strong support from among communists, the left wing of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) and left Protestant circles. Sympathy for the East German underdog mingled with resentment against the capitalist FRG and illusions about the socialist character of the GDR. In the 1970s, some on the Dutch Left even perceived the GDR as some kind of socialist model state. But more mainstream political analysts tended to perceive the GDR as an East German variant of the totalitarian police states erected by the Soviet Union across Eastern Europe after 1945. Nevertheless, in the following decade the Netherlands developed a strong movement for the recognition of the GDR. Its main protagonists included mainstream political parties, such as the PvdA and D66. In particular the left wing of the PvdA and the SED discussed the question of recognition intensively after 1966. Even mainstream PvdA politicians argued in favour of recognition in exchange for security guarantees for West Berlin. Most politicians in favour of recognition were motivated by their desire to remove an important obstacle on the road to greater stability and peace in Europe. But, once again, it was more important for all Dutch governments not to upset its West German neighbour and ally than to push the recognition issue. Unsurprisingly, West German Neue Ostpolitik was greeted with almost universal applause in Dutch political circles. The perception of ‘actually existing socialism’ in the Netherlands, however, continued to be largely critical. In fact, after 1970 many Dutch commentators emphasised the idea of ‘Red Prussia’, alleging that the GDR was more German than the FRG. Following the Helsinki accord of 1975, Dutch published opinion showed a growing interest in ongoing human rights’ abuses and the growth of dissident and independent peace movements. Relations between Dutch Communists and the SED turned sour over the support by the Dutch Communist Party for Euro-communism. Despite the SED’s willingness to invite young Dutch Communists to spend their holidays in children’s camps in the GDR and to help finance the Communist Party newspaper, ideological differences persisted and grew. The Netherlands were one of the most important Western trading partners for the GDR throughout the entire period of its existence – on occasion rivalling and overtaking Britain as secondplaced, but also always staying well behind the FRG. The first trade

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agreement was signed with the SMAD as early as 1947. The Dutch Chamber of Commerce was particularly active in this area. There was much talk in the Netherlands of a second German economic miracle in the GDR during the 1960s and the prospects for economic relations were viewed positively. Church contacts were also widespread and involved in particular two key individuals on the Dutch side, Hebe Kohlbrugge and Bé Ruys. Christian student organisations had extensive contacts. Exchanges were hardly ever mutual, with the GDR once again following its policy of Abgrenzung.11 Détente was a major motif for those favouring recognition in Belgium, where policies vis-à-vis the GDR became increasingly pragmatic as contacts became more widespread and trade expanded.12 Belgium was, in fact, the first Western country to take up diplomatic relations with the GDR, three days before the FRG. As early as 1957 the GDR had funded a Belgian–GDR Cultural and Information Centre in Brussels, which impacted on a more favourable and widespread perception of the GDR in Belgium. Politicians from all political parties and influential circles of the Belgium economy had long been in favour of accepting the GDR. Belgium was the first NATO country to which the GDR foreign minister travelled in 1973. Yet one also encounters Western countries where interest in the GDR was less developed than in Britain. The fact that there were still 4,284 Swiss citizens living in East Germany in 1949 meant that the Swiss representation in East Berlin – the so-called Heimschaffungsdelegation – still numbered sixty-eight people in 1948, by far the biggest Western representation in East Berlin at the time. It also ensured various ministerial contacts between Switzerland and the GDR, albeit on a level that always remained below official recognition of the ‘other’ Germany. But other contacts remained underdeveloped, as Switzerland prioritised relations with the FRG over any development of relations with the GDR.13 East German officials argued from the 1950s onwards that Swiss neutrality should mean that it recognised both the FRG and the GDR and did not take sides in what was part and parcel of the Cold War conflict, but this cut little ice with Swiss governments. Like in Britain, the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena succeeded in having its name and existence in Switzerland confirmed by the Swiss legal system. But non-governmental relations between Switzerland and the GDR 11 ������������������� J. Pekelder. 2002. Die Niederlande und die DDR. Bildformung und Beziehungen 1949–1989, Münster: Agenda. 12 ��������������������������������������������������������������� C. Horstmeier. 2001. ‘Die DDR und Belgien’, in U. Pfeil (ed.), Die DDR und der Westen: Transnationale Beziehungen, 1949–1990, Berlin: Ch. Links, 309–28. 13 ����������������� T. Gerber. 2002. Das Kreuz mit Hammer, Zirkel, Ährenkranz: Die Beziehungen zwischen der Schweiz und der DDR in den Jahren 1949–1972, Berlin: Verlag A. Spitz.

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remained entirely underdeveloped – with the GDR never prioritising Switzerland in its relations with the West. Within the wider Swiss population the GDR was hardly known. East Germany never sought to organise a campaign for recognition and no significant attempts were undertaken to improve the GDR’s image in Switzerland. Trade relations stagnated from the 1950s onwards, and Switzerland was in fact one of the last Western countries to sign a formal trade agreement with the GDR in the summer of 1975. Austria, another neutral country which belonged to the Western cultural hemisphere of the divided Europe, was equally unresponsive as Switzerland to GDR calls to accept the GDR in order to demonstrate their neutral credentials in the Cold War, and this despite the fact that the GDR tried hard to make progress with Austria. However, in 1975 Austria was the first ‘Western’ country to recognise officially East German citizenship – a step for which the Austrian government was duly criticised by West Germany. In 1978 Bruno Kreisky was the first Western head of government to make an official state visit to the GDR. This was just the tip of an iceberg of official contacts on ministerial and sub-ministerial levels between the two countries. However, little concrete emerged from these contacts.14 Sweden was yet another European country claiming neutrality in the Cold War, but being in practice part and parcel of the Western hemisphere. The GDR tried hard to gain recognition and change its image in Swedish society.15 In particular the Baltic Week in Rostock was an annual occasion where the GDR attempted to win support from other Baltic states, including Sweden. GDR officials saw it as major rival to the West German Kieler Woche. The SED felt encouraged by Swedish foreign policy ideas expressed by foreign minister Östen Undén in the 1950s, who argued that the neutralisation of both Germanys was the first step towards overcoming the division of 14 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Fink, ‘Die DDR im Westen’, 501–3; E. Seewald. 2008. ‘Im Windschatten der Ostpolitik. Die Aufnahme der diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Österreich’, Zeitschrift des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat 23. 15 ������������������ M. Muschik. 2005. Die beiden deutschen Staaten und das neutrale Schweden. Eine Dreiecksbeziehung im Schatten der offenen Deutschlandfrage, 1949–1972, Münster: Lit.-Verlag; N. Abraham. 2007. ������ Die politische Auslandsarbeit der DDR in Schweden. Zur Public Diplomacy der DDR gegenüber Schweden nach der diplomatischen Anerkennung (1972–1989), Münster: Lit; G. Eriksson. 2003. DDR, Stasi und Schweden, Berlin: Wissenschafts-Verlag; J. Hecker-Stampehl (ed.). 2007. Nordeuropa und die beiden deutschen Staaten 1949–1989, Leipzig, Edition Kirchhof & Franke; R. Bohn et al. (eds). 2000. Deutsch-skandinavische Beziehungen nach 1945, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. On the early period see also K. Misgeld. 1984. Sozialdemokratie und Aussenpolitik in Schweden. Sozialistische Internationale, Europapolitik und die Deutschlandfrage, 1945–1955, Frankfurt/Main: Campus Verlag.

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Germany.16 Making use of excellent contacts with the Swedish Communist Party (SKP), the SED launched a number of specific campaigns to improve the image of the GDR in Sweden and create a more favourable climate for mutual relations. In the GDR itself the University of Greifswald was given the resources to serve as a cultural bridge towards the Scandinavian countries in particular. And the GDR Cultural Centre in Stockholm, which opened its doors in December 1967, also did what it could to promote the GDR in Sweden. But all attempts to create a permanent visa bureau or a trade mission as stepping stones towards recognition came to nothing. The leadership of the Swedish Social Democrats remained cool towards GDR overtures and steadfast in their support for Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik. As in Britain, the popularity of Brandt ensured that Swedish foreign policy stayed one step behind that of the FRG. Swedish published opinion did indeed increasingly accept the GDR as a normal European state, and Swedish governments were interested in dialogue with East German communists over questions of détente and peace during the 1970s and 1980s, but this did not amount to high levels of genuine sympathy for ‘actually existing socialism’ in Sweden. Unlike almost every other Western or neutral state in Europe, Finland signalled as early as July 1972 that it was willing to take up diplomatic relations with both Germanys. The West German government was worried by this initiative and did all it could to prevent other states from following suit before the FRG had concluded its treaty deliberations with the GDR. Finland had long been a focus of the GDR’s ‘Western policy’, as its special relationship with the USSR and its delicate positioning in the Cold War were perceived as good preconditions for a concerted recognition campaign.17 In Denmark ideas about the necessity of some form of de facto recognition also surfaced as early as the 1950s. They grew stronger during the 1960s, but Danish governments, like those elsewhere stayed one step behind policies promoted by Bonn. Denmark was one of the few Western countries which shared a border with the GDR, which created special problems that had to be solved in a pragmatic way. On the other hand, unlike Sweden and Finland, Denmark was a NATO country and hence it was bound even more to the common line of non-recognition dictated by Bonn. But even more so than in Britain, West German intransigence regarding any form 16 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� M. Scholz. 1993. ‘Östen Undén und die DDR. Schwedische Deutschlandpolitik in den fünfziger Jahren’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 41 (3), 391–417. 17 ���������������� P. Lübbe. 1981. Kulturelle Auslandsbeziehungen der DDR. Das Beispiel Finnland, Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung; D. Putensen. 2000. Im Konfliktfeld zwischen Ost und West. Finnland, der Kalte Krieg und die deutsche Frage, 1947–1974, Berlin: Spitz-Verlag.

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of recognition of the GDR caused consternation in Copenhagen, and much of the Danish political elite was relieved when Neue Ostpolitik put German–German relations on a different footing.18 Ireland was almost entirely uninterested in the GDR, despite the GDR’s overt sympathies for the nationalist cause in Northern Ireland. The GDR media consistently supported Irish nationalism, usually following closely the line of the Irish Communist Party. Support for Irish nationalism was closely tied to criticism of the ‘imperial’ British state, which was accused of using ‘fascist methods’ in Northern Ireland to repress the nationalist movement. In the 1950s the GDR authorities hoped that the Republic of Ireland might become a potential ally in the GDR’s championing for German unity, as both countries were, after all, suffering under an ‘artificial’ partition. As the GDR did repeatedly point out, it was the British government which was opposed to all plans for either Irish or German unity. But the strong anti-communism of all main Irish political parties meant that the GDR only had the insignificant communists to talk to, and in fact the Republic of Ireland was one of the last countries to take up official relations with the GDR in 1980. The Ireland–GDR Friendship Society tried hard in the 1970s and 1980s to improve relations, but it always remained even smaller than its British counterparts and had little influence over public opinion makers in Ireland.19 When the GDR established diplomatic relations with the Franco dictatorship just before Franco’s death, the SED was criticised sharply by Spanish communist exiles in the GDR and those German veterans of the Spanish civil war who were still around. It was, of course, totally against the ideology of the GDR and once again demonstrated how little communist internationalism counted for in the GDR’s foreign policy, which was always based much more on realpolitik and national interest. But when the dictatorship sentenced several members of the left-wing opposition to death in September 1975, the GDR broke off diplomatic relations again, which were only reestablished after Spain’s transition to democracy. Despite ideological differences over Euro-communism, relations were closest with the Communist party. From 1978 onwards, the SED also had established contact with the PSOE following a similar strategy as in Britain in that the SED was keen to mobilise support from all left-wing forces.20 In Greece, as in Spain, the GDR took up official relations with an extreme right-wing regime that had persecuted communists and 18 �������������������������������������������������������������������� K.-C. Lammers. 2001. ‘Nachbarschaft und Nicht-Anerkennung. Probleme der Beziehungen zwischen Dänemark und der DDR’ in Pfeil (ed.). Die DDR und der Westen, 273–90. 19 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� D. Mac Con Uladh. 2005������������������������������������������������ . ‘The GDR and Northern Ireland’, in Berger and Laporte (eds). The Other Germany, 91–105. 20 ������������������������������������������������������������������� On Spain, Greece and Portugal see Fink, ‘Die DDR im Westen’, 503–7.

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other left-wingers. But the hunger of the GDR for recognition was greater than its ideological reservations. In May 1973 the recognition arrangements with the military dictatorship were agreed upon, although the GDR tactfully waited before sending an ambassador to Athens until democracy was re-established. The Communist Party of Greece remained the most important partner of the SED throughout the 1970s and 1980s. With Portugal the GDR only established official relations after the end of the dictatorship. In 1974 a friendship society was founded, which was extremely active on behalf of the GDR. Once again, relations with the Communist party were particularly close, although wide-ranging contacts were also established with trade union federations and left-of-centre youth groups. Some left-wing generals in Portugal even saw in the GDR an interesting model of how socialism might be implemented in Portugal. Turkey, as a member of NATO, enjoyed close political and economic relationships with the FRG and ignored the overtures of the GDR almost entirely.21 Israel perhaps enjoyed one of the most problematic relationships with the GDR. Although first contacts between East German communists and representatives of the future Israeli state can be traced back to 1948, only sporadic contacts characterised the relationship throughout the 1950s and first half of the 1960s. AntiZionism, which occasionally was hard to distinguish from antiSemitism, marred any prospects of improved relations in this period. Relations between the SED and the Communist Party of Israel were used in order to start a campaign in Israel against the alleged revival of fascism in West Germany, but otherwise these relations were not regarded as terribly important in East Berlin, even if the SED occasionally subsidised financially the pro-Soviet Communist Party in Israel. By contrast, the GDR’s increasing success in establishing relations with Arab states made it far more willing to criticise Israel and develop a very partisan position in the Middle East conflict. The GDR shied away from inviting representatives of Israel or the Jewish World Congress to international events in East Germany. Instead its press published strong condemnations of Israel’s foreign policy which were sometimes tinged with hints of anti-Semitism, and the GDR also sent weapons and money to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to support its armed struggle against Israel. Within the Eastern Bloc, the GDR was in fact the earliest and most ardent supporter of the PLO. Although the GDR officially distanced itself from acts of terrorism, its moral and material support of the 21 ���������������� C. Özren. 1999. Die Beziehungen der beiden deutschen Staaten zur Türkei (1945/49–1963). Politische und ökonomische Interessen im Zeichen der deutschen Teilung, Münster: Lit-Verlag.

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PLO de facto supported Palestinian terrorism in the Middle East. It was only during the second half of the 1980s that the GDR attempted a cautious rapprochement with Israel, culminating in the events planned for the 50th anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogroms of 9 November 1938. For the first time official representatives of the state of Israel were invited. The following year a GDR state secretary visited Israel for the first time, and there was talk about normalising the GDR’s relations with Israel. But the end of the GDR stopped this process of normalising GDR–Israeli relations in its tracks.22 Another country which never established official relations with the GDR was the Vatican. However, the Vatican on principle did not enter into diplomatic relations with communist countries. This did not mean that there were no points of contact with the GDR. In fact, the GDR was particularly interested in redrawing the boundaries of the Catholic bishoprics so as to reflect the inner-German border. In 1973 the Vatican did meet the GDR’s demand half way by sending papal administrators into the GDR-part of all-German bishoprics. In 1976 it went all the way by endorsing the setting up of an independent bishops’ conference in East Berlin. One year before, the GDR authorities had allowed the first Catholic pilgrims to go to Rome, and the papal nuntio, Bishop Casaroli, had official talks in East Berlin. From the second half of the 1970s there were channels of communication between the Vatican and the GDR which stopped short of diplomatic recognition.23 As we can see from these studies of the GDR’s relations with other Western states, the overall patterns resemble each other closely. Everywhere relations were strongest with the political Left. Especially in countries with strong indigenous communist parties, such as France and Italy, the SED could build stronger relations than in Britain. However, where Euro-communism was strong, as in Italy and the Netherlands, the SED found it difficult to accept and live with such ‘ideological deviation’. Only small groups perceived the GDR as a socialist model. Many more were disgusted with crude Western anti-communism and sought to enter into a dialogue in the interest of preventing another war with potentially devastating consequences for the whole of Europe. Prioritising détente over confrontation brought virtually all Western states into conflict with the West German Hallstein Doctrine, and it signals the power and significance of the FRG that none of these states broke rank with West Germany over the issue of recognising the GDR. Virtually all were relieved when West Germany moved towards Neue Ostpolitik in 22 ��������������� A. Timm. 1997. Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern. Das gestörte Verhältnis der DDR zu Zionismus und Staat Israel, Bonn: Bouvier. 23 ��������������������������������������� Fink, ‘Die DDR im Westen (II)’, 507 f.

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the 1960s, but they did not pre-empt the move towards recognition, which had to be started by Bonn. Relations below the governmental and diplomatic levels often relied on friendship associations, which were set up almost everywhere. In addition, contacts between churches (especially in Protestant countries, such as the Netherlands), peace movements, institutions of higher education and the trade unions were commonplace. The GDR used all those contacts to further its own interests, in particular recognition and gaining international prestige. Its foreign policy remained far more geared towards realpolitik than towards ideology throughout the entire period of its existence. Overall, then, in terms of range of contacts and motivations for contact, Britain was by no means exceptional in Europe. From the 1960s, GDR foreign policy invested most heavily in improving relations with France, Italy and Britain, but it was in Britain that the GDR was at its least successful. In Britain, interest in and dialogue with the GDR remained, by and large, the preserve of the dedicated hard Left and a motley group of individuals outside the Left with highly diverse motifs. Britain seems to stand somewhere in between greater interest in the GDR among many continental European countries and a comparative lack of interest in the USA.

British–GDR Relations in the Context of British– German Relations during the Cold War Martin McCauley memorably summarised British–GDR relations thus: Britain developed never any rapport with the GDR. Part of the problem was that the relationship with the Soviet Union came first, followed by concern to support the West German position in Berlin and the east. … Britain never developed much love towards the GDR. It remained an unloved country. There was a remarkable level of ignorance about the GDR among the British public.24

If relations of the GDR with Britain were comparatively less well developed than was the case elsewhere in Western Europe, was this because Britain’s relations with Germany were less close than was the case with other continental European countries? What, in other words, does the story of British–GDR relations tell us about British– German relations during the Cold War? 24 M. McCauley. 2002. ‘British–GDR Relations. A See-Saw Relationship’, in Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR, 60f.

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First of all, it confirms that Britain had no great difficulties in coming to terms with two Germanys after 1945. Alongside the Americans it had pushed for the setting up of a separate West German state in the second half of the 1940s. It remained a reliable ally of the FRG thereafter, maintaining outward support for the FRG’s policy of non-recognition of the GDR. Yet, as we have seen above, below the surface, tensions grew. From the second half of the 1950s mainstream British public opinion began to look for ways of stabilising the Cold War. Tensions over Berlin and the recognition of the GDR quickly got in the way. Hence, secondly, the British political establishment greeted Neue Ostpolitik with a sense of relief and supported it, even if it occasionally sparked suspicions about where West German foreign policy would be heading. Thirdly, the GDR never managed to overcome its overwhelmingly negative image in Britain. In the Cold War, a communist Germany was a convenient public enemy, as it allowed British published opinion to combine its traditional Germanophobia with anti-communism. The old enemy No. 1 from the first half of the twentieth century and the new enemy No. 1 from the second half of the twentieth century could be brought into one. Such mergers were nowhere more obvious than in the genre of the spy thriller, but as Patrick Major observed, even in the spy thriller dealing directly with East Germany, the country and its people remained often extremely nebulous and faceless.25 This brings us to the fourth point: the predominant attitude in Britain towards the GDR was disinterest. Time and time again reports from GDR sources stressed how little was known about the GDR in Britain. This did not change over the forty years that the second German state was in existence. Even where contacts with the GDR were considerable, they often did not signal any genuine interest in the GDR as such, but rather interest in global issues, such as the maintenance of peace. If anything, the interest in the GDR decreased over time. The more the country moved away from the Second World War and from questions about the influence of old Nazis in German society, the less interesting the GDR’s anti-fascism became and the less effective the GDR’s propaganda regarding the prominence of Nazis in West Germany was. Following recognition of the GDR, it became even less interesting, because it had ceased to be an obstacle to détente in Europe. This only began to change again with the rise of the Western peace movement in the first half of the 1980s, when CND and END positioned themselves rather differently towards ‘actually existing socialism’. 25 P. Major. 2002. ‘Coming in from the Cold: The GDR in the British Spy Thriller’, in Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR, 339–52.

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And yet, groups sympathetic to the GDR could be found right from the foundation of the ‘second German state’. They were most numerous among the British Left – trade unionists, Communist Party and left-leaning Labour Party members. What does it tell us about the British Left, which, after all, was, in its vast majority, a democratic left movement, that it could be wearing such rosetinted spectacles when it came to ‘actually existing socialism’? Often representatives of the democratic Left were willing to take at face value the GDR’s claims that it was building socialism. Sometimes they were prepared to ignore the lack of democracy and the dictatorial aspects of the GDR, arguing that at least the country had taken the most important step towards building a better society – the abolition of capitalism. Hence we can say that, fifthly, the prioritisation of anti-capitalism over democracy by the British Left made its representatives vulnerable to the appeals of East European communism during the Cold War.26 As long as economics was more important to the West European Left than politics, it listened to the siren songs of East European communist parties. Many on the British Left were distinctly uneasy with the regime’s dictatorial nature, yet they, at the same time, felt obliged to recognise that the GDR was some kind of socialist system which one would obviously wish well. Nationalisation, economic planning, the important role that unions played in the social fabric of the GDR – all of those aspects made GDR socialism recognisable to British socialists. Their unwillingness to condemn the political dictatorship unequivocally derived from their considerable sympathies for the economic and social system the GDR represented. Sixthly, despite sympathies for the GDR on the British Left, the GDR’s foreign policy towards Britain was never geared primarily to promoting communism and its own social system as a model for Britain and the West to follow. It is true that the GDR made considerable attempts to convince Britons that it was not the evil dictatorship which Western Cold War propaganda made it out to be. But overall, the GDR’s foreign policy was reactive to an agenda set largely in West Germany. Before 1973 virtually all of the GDR’s efforts were directed against the West German policy of nonrecognition. And after recognition again much of the GDR’s energies in foreign policy were geared towards others accepting a separate GDR citizenship. It was realpolitik, not ideology, that determined the triangular relationship between Britain, the GDR and the FRG during the Cold War. The ideological proximity between Britain and the FRG did not prevent the emergence of tensions over détente 26 S. Berger. 2005. ‘Communism, Social Democracy and the Democracy Gap’, Socialist History 27, 1–20.

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and relations with Eastern Europe, and the ideological differences between Britain and the GDR did not stop a rapprochement that both sides at various times perceived to be in their mutual interest. Seventhly, if the GDR failed to convince the British public of its merits, this had also to do with the fact that its representatives were unable to tolerate even the friendliest of criticisms. The small group of those in Britain willing to support it was hampered by the GDR’s demand for total loyalty and subservience. Initiative and especially attempts to do things without prior consultation and agreement with the GDR authorities were frowned upon and the GDR more than once undermined key personalities in the friendship society, such as Sheila Taylor and Jack Berlin, whom it regarded as unreliable. From the outside it all looked too much like child’s play in the sandpit, and the broader British public was not interested in the intricacies of ideological debate among communists and the far Left. Hence any broader interest in the GDR only revived with the fall of the second German state and the daunting prospect of German unification. But by then, it was unease with the prospect of the re-emergence of a reunified Germany rather than any genuinely GDR-specific issues which created concern. When the GDR’s newly constituted Länder acceded to the FRG in 1990, there was a genuine sense of loss and sadness among the small circle of friends of the GDR, critical or not, but overall, few people in Britain were concerned about seeing ‘actually existing socialism’ disappear.

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Index Aberdeen, 119, 181, 249, 251–2, 254, 284 Arts Centre, 251 Abgrenzung, 3, 23–4, 84, 221, 297, 299, 318, 320, 326 Abteilung Auslands Information, 9 academic links, 16, 23, 115, 123, 130, 152, 181, 184–5, 198, 202–14, 255, 261–5, 268–71, 298, 309, 321–2 Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 281 Academy of State and Legal Sciences, 9 Adenauer, Konrad, 2, 56, 58, 62–3, 71, 74, 79, 82, 86, 89, 151, 157, 309–10 Adler, Catherine, 202, 210 Adler, Fred, 202 ADN, 114, 191, 228n AEU, AUEW, see engineering workers’ union Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of, 23, 190, 208, 216, 225, 233–4, 236–7, 273, 295–6, 302, 317 Africa, 128 Agartz, Victor, 40 agriculture, GDR, 95, 98, 232, 248 Akademie der Wissenschaften, 204, 213 Aktion Sühnezeichen, 160 Albu, Austin, 37 Allaun, Frank, 88, 115, 165, 201, 311 Allen, Vic, 263, 272, 276, 309 Allied Travel Office, 113 All-Party Parliamentary Friendship Group Britain-GDR, 131–2, 166, 173, 304 Altenberg, 287 The Alternative in Eastern Europe, 190

Amber Film, 260 American Federation of Labour, 42 Americanisation, 36, 231 Amnesty International, 159 Anglo-Meißen Agreement, 277 Angster, Julia, 36 anti-Americanism, 33, 165, 273 anti-fascism, 40, 45, 50–1, 53–4, 57, 117, 218, 284–5, 319 official, in GDR, 9, 11, 48, 52, 65, 67–8, 74, 88, 92, 97, 112, 117, 128, 141, 151, 174, 178, 199, 212, 219, 236, 249–50, 256, 289, 297, 312, 315–16, 320, 323, 333 anti-Germanism, British, 1n, 27, 37, 58n, 59, 62, 88, 293–4, 330 anti-Semitism, 87, 312, 330 anti-Sovietism, 28, 57, 103, 190–1, 194, 218, 242, 270, 272 anti-Zionism, 330 Arbatov, Alexei, 281 Archer, Keith, 287n army British, 48, 127 FRG (Bundeswehr), 62, 88–9, 93, 178 GDR (NVA), 56, 76, 140, 144, 178, 201 Nazi (Wehrmacht), 88, 144, 201 Red, 50, 68 Arnold, Canon John, 198 Arnot, Robin Page, 50 Ascherson, Neal, 86–7, 120, 177, 216, 234, 311 Ashington, 115 ASLEF, 141 ASSET, 44, 77, 138, 141, 305 Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians, 141

366

ASTMS, 256 Athens, 329 Attenborough, Richard, 260 Attlee, Clement, 35, 60, 313 Aue, 282 Auschwitz, 49 Austria, Austrians, 70, 111, 143, 172, 208–9, 227, 327 Axen, Hermann, 8, 215, 227–9, 241 Bachmann, Axel, 19 Bahr, Egon, 81 Bahr, Hans, 114 Bahro, Rudolf, 168, 190, 217–8, 317 Baird, John, 77 bakers’ union, 44 Ballantine, Susan, 176–7 Baltic Week, Rostock, 327 Bange, Oliver, 6 Banks, Tony, 255–6, 284, 292, 297 Barker, Peter, 208 Baruch, Hilda, 285 Bauerkämper, Arnd, 20 Bautzen, 126, 284, 287 BBC, 24, 41, 126–7, 134, 186, 243, 261, 283 blacklist, 127 German Service, 17, 158 BCC, British Council of Churches, 157–8, 161–2, 194–5, 197, 277, 279–82 BCGD, British Council for German Democracy, 52–3, 304 Becker, Bert, 19 Bedford College, 268 Beeson, Trevor, 194–5 Beil, Gerhard, 108 BEK, Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen, 158–9, 161–2, 195, 198, 271, 277, 280–1 Belcher, Percy, 142n, 145 Belgian–GDR Cultural and Information Centre, 326 Belgium, Belgians, 36, 143, 227, 324, 326 Bell, Marianne, see Howarth, Marianne Benfield, Kenneth, 247, 259 Benn, Tony, 215, 234, 268

Index

Bennites, 240, 256 Beresford, Meg, 266, 273 Bergen-Belsen, 60 Bergholz, Wolfgang, 149 Berlin, see also West Berlin, East Berlin, 3, 5, 11, 16–17, 42, 49, 70, 75, 86, 95–9, 124, 129, 151, 155, 169, 175, 222, 258, 284, 294, 302, 332 750th anniversary celebrations, 232, 255, 258, 297 trade unions, 42–3 Berlin crisis 1st, 1948–49, 26, 30, 35, 317 2nd, 1958–63, 79, 94, 98, 153, 309 Berlin Today exhibition, 257 Berlin Wall, 75, 83, 94, 97–100, 114, 117, 120, 128, 140, 150, 155, 161, 167, 177, 211, 216, 228–32 shoot to kill policy, 85, 229 Berlin, Jack, 184, 211, 237, 239, 245–6, 255–6, 283, 289–91, 297, 308, 335 Berlin–Brandenburg Society, 280 Berliner Ensemble, 125 Berlin–London Committee, 15, 254, 257–8 Bernal, John, 130 Bernal Peace Library, 200 Berolina Travel Ltd., 113, 185, 247 Bertrand Russell Campaign for a Nuclear-Free Europe, 268n Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 266, 268n Berufsverbote, FRG, 179 Bevan, Aneurin, 35, 59–60, 68 Bevanites, 60, 62, 165 Bevin, Ernest, 1, 29, 31–32, 56, 59, 61 Bielefeld school, 152 Biermann, Wolf, 168–9, 189, 205, 317 Biffen, John, 229 Bing, Geoffrey, 34 Birmingham, 44, 47, 176, 214, 249, 278, 284–5, 287 Blackpool, 102, 249 Blackstone, Tessa, 264 Blaenau Gwent, 251, 284–5

Index

Blaker, Peter, 234 Board of Trade, 17, 72–3, 104, 108, 113, 125, 133, 314 Bohley, Bärbel, 269, 272, 298 Böhme, Hans Joachim, 261, 263 Böll, Heinrich, 190 Bologna, 323 Bonn, 17, 58, 62, 71, 86, 88, 142, 157, 165, 289 University, 157 Boothby, Lord, 72, 110 Bowden, Herbert W., 95 Bowman, James, 42–3 Bradford, 249, 284–5, 287 Bishop of, 52 University of, 203, 207 Brandenburg, 239 Brandon, Ted, 256–8 Brandt, Heinz, 266 Brandt, Willy, 80–5, 96, 117, 167, 303, 328 Brasch, Horst, 15, 47, 90, 114–5, 180, 186, 192, 245–6, 249, 258, 267n, 285, 315 Brattke, 126 Braun, Volker, 183 Brecht, Bertolt, 125, 308, 322 Brennan, Irene, 192 Brezhnev, Leonid, 228n BRIDGE, British–German Information Exchange, 13, 117–21, 180, 185, 318 Brighton, 119, 185, 213, 249 Bristol University, 127 Britain–GDR Parliamentary Group, 112, 136, 243, 292 Britain–GDR Society, 51, 166, 168, 206, 213, 244–51, 256, 291 Bristol branch, 247 Coventry branch, 259 Euro-communists in, 23–4, 188, 239, 246, 270, 297, 308 funding of, 171 Heathrow Airport branch, 253–4 narrow appeal of, 187, 245, 247, 258, 260, 297, 308 organizes delegations and exchanges, 211, 217, 222, 247–9, 283, 288, 308 SW London branch, 254, 257 tensions with LfV, 237, 244–7, 253–5, 297

367



town-twinning role, 14, 283, 285–6, 307 use by GDR, 14, 16, 180–8, 225, 232, 238, 296 West of England branch, 247 British Academy, 204 British Airways, 254 British Commonwealth, 2, 28, 81, 301 British Council, 73, 116, 169, 182, 205, 209–10 British Council for the Promotion of International Trade, 72, 104 British Empire, 2, 39, 105, 208 British European Airways, 106 British Exhibitioners’ Leipzig Fair Association, 104 British Friends of Germany Association, 290 British GDR researchers’ conference, 263 British Military Government, Berlin, 17, 42 British military intelligence, 17 British Peace Assembly, 200–1 British Peace Council, 51–2, 164, 166, 183, 200 British Petroleum, 105 British Road to Socialism, 148–9, 191–3, 222 British Steel, 105 British Youth Council, 255 British–Soviet Parliamentary Group, 112, 136 Broomfield, Nigel, 244 Brown, George, 83 Brown, Ron, 216 Brown, Stephen, 271, 280 Brown, Tom, 115 Brüsewitz, Pastor, 169 Brussels, 42, 266, 274, 326 Brussels Treaty, 63 Buchenwald, 60, 92–3, 141, 184 Buckhaven, 115, 284 Buckinghamshire College, 203 Buckton, Ray, 141 Budapest, 77–8 Budzislawski, Hermann, 132, 134 Bünger, Siegfried, 152 Bunting, Lesley, 288 Burden, Eric, 154–5 Burns, Robert, 252

368

Bush, Alan, 67, 128–9, 193n Butters, Dieter, 108 Calcutta, 200 Calder, Colleague, 142 Callaghan, James, 1, 84, 177, 216–7, 264 Cambridge University, 151 Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, 240 Canada, 48 Canterbury Cathedral, 277 Canterbury Archbishop of, 158, 173, 195–6, 272, 277 Dean of, see Johnson, Hewlett Carey, Neville, 239 Carl von Ossietzky peace medal, 266, 273 Carl Zeiss, 109, 326 Carlisle, 249 Carrington, Lord, 226, 228–9 Carter, Peter, 238 Casaroli, Bishop, 331 Caspar David Friedrich exhibition, 125 Caspian Sea, 293 Castle, Barbara, 62 Catholics, 156, 165, 201, 234, 281, 331 CBI, Confederation of British Industry, 104, 108 CDU, Christian-Democratic Union East, 14, 158, 162, 324 West, 85 Ceausescu, Nicolae, 154 Central Asia, 233 Central Pedagogical Library of the GDR, 125 Centro Thomas Mann, 324 CGIL, 324 CGT, Confédération général du travail, 321 Chamber of Commerce, GDR (KfA), 13, 73, 104–5, 108, 132, 314, 322–3 Chambers, Margaret, 285 Chambers, Sir Paul, 106 Channel Four, 185, 251, 260 Chatham House, 264–5, 267, 298 Chichester, Bishop of, 52

Index

Childs, David, 19n, 66–7, 204–5, 207, 262–3 China, People’s Republic, 136, 264 Chippenham, 247 Chomsky, Noam, 179 Christian CND, 165, 279, 311 Christian Marxists, 156–7, 166, 168, 281, 307 Christian Peace Conference, 156, 199–200, 278 Christian-Marxist dialogue, 75, 156–63, 194, 197, 223, 299 Christians, British, perceptions of GDR, 156, 198, 281–2, 287, 307 Christians, in GDR, 157, 160, 163, 196 Christie, Campbell, 220, 235–6 Church of England, Anglicans, 196, 198–9, 223, 277, 280, 282, 287n churches British contacts with GDR, 16, 19,  156–66, 168, 173, 183, 194–9, 222, 226, 251, 255, 307, 321, 331 delegations to GDR, 90, 93,  162, 195, 198, 278–9, 283, 286 peace campaigns, 14, 19, 23–4, 159, 163, 165, 224, 277–80, 299, 311 GDR, 95, 158–65, 230, 269, 271, 279, 282, 287, 319 in peace campaigns, 14, 199, 224, 269, 271, 279 persecution of, 93, 95, 156–7, 195, 212, 282, 299, 307 Churchill, Winston, 28, 58 churchmen, clergy, 16, 22, 52, 121, 156–65, 196–7, 223, 272, 278, 288, 299, 308 CIA, Central Intelligence Agency, 70, 235–6, 293 Clarke, Brigadier, 110 Clarke, Terence, 72 CND, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 14, 157, 159, 164, 166, 200–1, 223, 249, 263, 265–6, 270–6, 279, 283, 298–9, 306, 311, 333

Index

London region, 276 Coates, Ken, 266 Coggan, Donald, 197 Collins, John, 156, 157n, 165 Colloquium of European Municipal Politics, 116 Collotti, Enzo, 324 colonies, British, 44 Comecon, 56 Comitato Italia–Repubblica Democratica Tedesca, 324 Comment, 192 Committee for German Unity, 94 Committee for the Peaceful Solution to the German Question, 89 Committee for the Recognition of the GDR, 13, 16, 121–2, 157n, 188 Committee of Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters, 149 Communist Party of Greece, 329–30 Communist Party of Ireland, 329 Communist Party of Israel, 330 Communist Party of Spain, 329 concentration camps, 39, 40n, 60, 92, 141, 144, 184, 250, 254, 313 Conference of European CPs, 1976, 193 Connaissance de la RDA, 322 conscientious objectors, GDR, 195, 273, 280 Conservative governments, 7n, 57, 59n, 81, 85, 222, 226–9, 286, 293, 296, 303, 316 Conservative Party, Conservatives, 12, 59, 72–3, 101, 104, 106, 110, 121, 130, 153, 155–6, 160, 170, 174, 177, 214, 226, 229, 242–4, 247, 259, 264, 294, 296, 304, 314 construction workers’ union, 140, 142 Contemporary Films, 66, 127 Control Commission, 27 Cook, Dave, 190 Cook, Robin, 268 Cooper, Brian, 161 Cooper, Charles, 127 Cooper, Cyril, 144

369

co-operative societies, 48, 50–2, 66, 118–20, 185, 200, 214 Cottbus, 115, 199, 278, 285n Council Against Fascism, 137 Council for Arms Control, 279 Council of Ministers, 8, 243 Court of Appeal, London, 109 Coventry, 160, 214, 247, 249, 287, 290n Cathedral, 160–1, 165, 194n, 199, 278, 309 Labour Party, 99n link with Dresden, 115, 160–1, 165, 199, 283, 307 University, 161 Coventry Committee for International Understanding, 160 Coventry Peace Council, 212 Coventry–Dresden Friendship Society, 160, 247, 284 Cowood, William, 67–8, 142 Cox, John, 275 CPGB, British Communists, 26, 68, 72, 115, 125, 127–9, 131, 135, 142, 179, 202, 207, 209, 223, 310, 313 Executive Committee, 67, 103, 237 and GDR, 12, 21–4, 46–55, 57, 73, 91, 117, 119, 148– 53, 167–71, 180, 185–94, 211–12, 222, 224–5, 237–40, 247, 260, 285, 296, 304–05, 308, 333 and German rearmament, 63 hardliners within, 120, 238, 296, 305 Historians’ Group, 49, 151, 305 International Department, 67, 103, 237 and invasion of Afghanistan, 237 and invasion of Czechoslovakia, 102–3, 147–8, 190 and invasion of Hungary, 78 in peace movement, 164, 166, 200, 270, 272, 275–6 teachers, 122, 124 trade unionists, 45–6, 50, 67–8, 73, 78, 93, 139, 142, 146–7, 191, 218, 220, 234, 238

370

CPSU, 192, 194 Crawley, 115 Craxi, Bettino, 324 ‘critical friendship’ with GDR, 23, 182, 185, 188–9, 194, 222, 225–6, 246, 251–2, 270, 289– 91, 296, 299, 308 Crossman, Richard, 13, 30, 32–3, 36, 60–2, 69, 80–1, 98–9, 103, 131, 155, 160, 161n, 171–2, 176n, 303, 310 Crow, Bob, 235–6, 293, 306 Cry Freedom, 260 CSCE, Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, See also Helsinki Agreement, 172–3 Cuba, 76 Cudlipp, Percy, 31 Cunnersdorf, 126 Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovaks, 22, 26, 35, 64, 98, 102–3, 131, 148, 158, 190, 199, 267, 302, 317, 323 D66, 325 DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service, 203 Dachau, 60 Daily Express, 88, 98 Daily Herald, 31, 77, 100 Daily Mail, 61 Daily Telegraph, 232 Daily Worker, 43, 57, 70, 78, 119, 139, 150, 305 Dalton, Hugh, 37, 58–9 DATA, 142n Davies, A. C., 100 Davies, Clement, 106, 154 Davies, Denzil, 241 Davies, G. Alfred, 140 Davies, Richard, 264 Davies, S. O., 52, 63, 70, 115, 136 Davis, Ivor, 126 DC, Christian Democrats (Italy), 324 Deakin, Arthur, 43–4, 68 Deane, Sir Patrick, 29 Debrig, Deutsch–Britische Gesellschaft, 13, 15, 47, 114–21, 132, 137, 308, 318 DEFA, 127–8, 260 Deighton, Anne, 19

Index

Deighton, Len, 150 Delmer, Sefton, 88 Democratic German Report, 11, 53, 65, 68, 116, 316 denazification, 38, 41, 51–2, 54, 312 Denmark, 143, 328 Dennis, Mike, 204 Department for Trade and Industry, 109n, 175–6, 229 Dessau, 115 de-Stalinisation, 148–9 Deutsche Außenpolitik, 10, 51, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, 19 Deutsch–Englische Gesellschaft, 120 Deutscher Frauenbund, 273 DGB, (West) German Trade Union Federation, 27, 37, 40, 42–3, 99, 139, 144–5, 147, 293, 305 Diamond, Dorothy, 10n, 52–4, 122– 5, 213, 257–8, 304, 308, Die Arbeit, 41 Dieckmann, Johannes, 92, 94, 155 Dietz Verlag, 262 dissidents, 102, 148, 158–9, 171, 183, 189, 212, 215, 217–8, 265–72, 274–5, 298, 302, 306, 317, 319, 325 Dobb, Maurice, 49 Dominion Export Ltd, 72 Donnelly, Desmond, 61, 70, 99, 111 The Draughtsman, 142n Drayson, Burnaby, 72, 88–9, 101, 106, 132n, 134, 155 Drefahl, Günter, 273 Dresden, 10, 67, 87, 93, 110, 116, 125–6, 160–1, 215, 248, 259, 275, 187 city council, 114 link with Coventry, 115, 160–1, 165, 199, 283, 307 Technical University, 150n, 203 Dresdner Gemäldegalerie, 125 Driberg, Tom, 52, 60, 133 Dublin, 263 Dundee, 249, 252, 284, 285n University of, 206, 259, 263 Dunn, Jack, 139 Durkin, Tom, 238 Dutch Chamber of Commerce, 325

Index

Dutch Communist Party, 325 Dutch Inter-Church Peace Council, 279 Dutt, Rajani Palme, 49, 127 Dykes, Hugh, 243 Ealing College of Higher Education, 203, 207–8, 262 East Berlin, 59, 65, 67, 69, 76, 86, 128, 150, 213, 322 British representation in, 108, 134, 168–9, 187, 318 church delegations to, 90, 161, 197–9, 201, 280, 331 city council, 257 delegations from, 68, 258 delegations to, 12, 66, 71, 90, 146, 182, 239, 257, 270, 273–4, 276 individual visitors to, 77, 82, 131, 138, 142, 153, 174, 186, 209, 215–16, 229, 241, 254, 256, 269, 323–4 meetings and conferences in, 130, 132, 149, 193, 246, 264, 283–4 youth festivals, 54, 209 Eastern Europe Solidarity Campaign, 217 Eastern Europe Today, 154 The Eastern European Alternative, 190 Eastern European Trade Council, 107–8 East-West Trade Parliamentary Group, 111–12, 132 Eberlein, Gotthard, 91–2 Échange franco-allemands, 322 The Economist, 219 Ede, Chuter, 66 Eden, Anthony, 58 Edinburgh, 115, 252 Film Festival, 127 University of, 198, 203, 207–8 Edinburgh Evening News, 139 Education Today and Tomorrow, 53, 123 Edwards, Ebby, 47 Edwards, Gwyneth, 204, 268, 270n Edwards, Robert, 62 Einhorn, Barbara, 185, 268–70, 298

371

Eisenhüttenstadt, 115 Eisler, Georg, 152 EKB, Evanglischer Kirchenbund, see BEK, Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen Elbe, River, 133 Electoral Reform Society, 17 electricians’ union, 44, 67, 143, 253 Elizabeth II, 195 Ellis, L., 139 END, European Nuclear Disarmament, 159, 165, 185, 265–76, 280, 289, 306, 311, 333 GDR Working Group, 159, 268– 72, 298 London group, 266–7 Engelberg, Ernst, 152 Engels, Friedrich, 317 engineering workers’ union, 44, 140–1, 144, 253 England, Jean, 201 Ennals, David, 96 Eppelmann, Pastor Rainer, 198, 266, 268, 279 Erfurt, 84, 280, 284, 287 Erler, Fritz, 96 ETV, 127, 260 Euro-communism in Britain-GDR Society, 23–4, 121n, 184–5, 188, 222, 245– 6, 252–3, 258, 270, 297, 308 in CPGB, 123, 183–5, 187–8, 190, 192, 218, 222–3, 237– 9, 296, 305 in Western Europe, 323, 325, 329, 331 European Council, 294 European Defence Community, 61 European Economic Community, EEC, 2–3, 81, 107–8, 227, 309 Evangelicals, See Protestants Evans, Moss, 220 Fabian Society Colonial Bureau, 37 Faith in the City, 281 Falcke, Heino, 159, 280 Falklands War, 170, 317 Faringdon, Lord, 131 fascism, fascists, 49, 51, 68, 184, 212, 312, 323, 330

372

FBI, Federation of British Industry, 13, 73, 104, 314 FBU, Fire Brigades Union, 63, 68, 78, 141 FDGB (East German trade union federation), 11–12, 21, 42–5, 51, 73, 100, 114, 124, 137–44, 146, 178, 212, 218–20, 225, 234–6, 238, 248, 292–3, 305– 6, 315–16 holiday homes, 141, 143–4, 236, 316 FDGB Review, 11 FDJ, Free German Youth, 12, 47–8, 53, 66, 114, 137, 181, 208–9, 248, 252 FDP, Freie Demokratische Partei, 153 Feather, Victor, 219 Fechner, Herbert, 254 Feist, Manfred, 114 Feltham, Liesel, 120, 182 Fick, Irene, 181, 270n Fifty Fighting Years, 127 Film and Television Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, 164 films British, 67, 164, 260 GDR, 14, 63, 66–7, 88–9, 118– 19, 127–8, 257, 260, 297–9, 307 Financial Times, 108, 232 Findlay, Peter, 268 Finland, 76, 121, 143, 328 First World War, 37, 59, 256 Fischer, Inge, 47, 188, 252 Fischer, Oskar, 8, 106, 174–5, 229– 31, 241, 243, 264 Fischer, Professor, 123 Fischer, Werner, 272 Flanders, Allan, 37 Fleischhacker, Alfred, 48–9 Fletcher, Eric, 60 Foot, Michael, 32, 52, 71, 102, 173, 216, 228, 284–5, 305 Ford, Christopher, 278n Ford, Gerald, 173 Foreign Affairs Bulletin, 10 Foreign Office, 22, 28, 60, 89, 94, 113, 224, 234, 264 attitude to Soviet zone, 31–2, 39, 70

Index



German Department, 29 and German unity, 58, 69, 71, 77 and MFA, 9, 231 and non-recognition of GDR, 16, 18–19, 29, 57, 81, 83–5, 104, 109, 112, 118, 125, 135 post-recognition relations, 169–71, 176–7, 202, 221 trade union policies, 44, 146–7 and trade with GDR, 13, 72, 105, 108, 175 Western Department, 17 Forman, Hilda, 13, 117–20, 127, 184–5, 290 Forman, Stanley, 102, 117, 127–8, 260, 297–8, 307 Foulkes, Frank, 67, 142 Foundry Workers’ Union, 46, 52, 142 four-power talks, 58, 69 ‘Fourth Reich’, 295, 312 France, 2–3, 5–6, 20, 30, 36, 44, 67, 76, 81, 103, 107, 121, 127, 131, 143, 227, 279, 282, 309, 319, 321–4, 331–2 National Assembly, 61 Francis, David, 100, 139 Franco, Francisco, 329 Franco-German axis, 2 Free German League of Culture, 47 Free German Movement, 47 Freedom in Berlin campaign, 99 French Revolution, 252 French socialists (SFIO, PS), 321 Fried, Erich, 158 Friedensrat, GDR Peace Council, 11, 14–15, 47, 90, 114, 137, 157, 163–4, 197, 200–1, 205, 223, 271, 273–6, 278–80, 288, 306 Friedländer, Erich, 119–21 Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena, 203 ‘friendship bus’, 248 From Marx & Engels to Marks & Spencer, 260 Fürstenwald, 116 Gaitskell, Hugh, 70, 80, 94–6 GALLA Films, 127 Gallacher, William, 148–9

Index

Garton Ash, Timothy, 230 Gaulle, Charles de, 2 Gaullists, 321 GDR Cultural Centre, Stockholm, 328 GDR Monitor, 206, 263, 322 GDR Review, 11, 232, 247–8, 259, 285 GDR–Great Britain Society, 47, 182, 184, 188, 193, 200, 246, 254, 319n Geneva, 73 Gera, 115, 147 Gerlach, Manfred, 114n ‘German question’, 3, 55–60, 71, 79, 92, 99, 104, 139 The German Story, 88, 307 German Youth, 70 Gibson, John, 257 Gill, Ken, 141, 142n GkV, Society for Foreign Cultural Relations, 13, 114 Glamorgan County Council, 126 Glasgow, 47, 247, 249, 252, 254 City Council, 285 University of, 203 Glees, Anthony, 20 Globke, Hans, 89, 94 Godden, Charles, 121 Goethe Institutes, 10, 263, 298 Goldman, Leonard, 54, 124, 185–6, 212–3, 291 Goldsmiths College, 203 Goldstein, Werner, 101 Gollan, John, 78n, 103, 149 Gollancz, Victor, 37, 50 Golz, Hans-Georg, 20, 118n Gorbachev, Mikhail, 23, 205, 225, 243–4, 258, 261, 264, 293, 296, 302–3, 320 Gordon Walker, Patrick, 36, 60, 112 Gormley, Joe, 219n, 220 Gossner Mission, GDR, 287 Gotha, 287 Gottfurcht, Hans, 41–3 Götting, Gerald, 173 Graham, Paul, 184 Grahl, J.G., 68 Grass, Günter, 190 Greater London Council, 255–6, 284

373

Greater Manchester Industrial Mission, 287 Greece, 227, 329 Communist Party of, 330 Green, Blanche, 211, 213 Greene, Graham, 190 Green, John, 127–8, 290 Green Party, German, 268 Greenham Common, 273 Gregory, Arnold, 132 Greifswald University, 211, 248, 328 Grengel, Pastor Christa, 277 Grimond, Jo, 153–4 Gromyko, Andrei, 276 Gröpler, Pastor, 278 Grotewohl, 92 The Guardian, 95, 103, 109, 154, 177, 205, 229n, 232, 237, 275–6, 294 Gysi, Irene, 128 Gysi, Klaus, 277, 324 Hackney, 115, 188, 246, 255, 284 Hager, Kurt, 47 Hahn, Dietmar, 182–3, 186, 245n, 246, 249, 255, 288 Halle, 182, 248, 284 University of, 207 Hallstein doctrine, 2, 22, 76–87, 136, 166, 315, 321, 331 Hargreaves, Raymond, 202, 208 Harman, Harriet, 186 Harrington, Illtyd, 255 Harrison, James, 142 Harvey-Jones, John, 229, 233 Havemann, Robert, 218, 266, 268, 324 Hayes, Denis, 73, 104, 113 Hayward, Ronald, 215–6, 305 Healey, Denis, 18, 32, 96, 216, 241–2 Heartfield, John, 150 Heath, Edward, 194, 170, 196, 226 Heathrow Airport Joint Shop Stewards’ Committee, 253 Heffer, Eric, 190, 217 Heidenheim, 109 Heimschaffungsdelegation, 326 Heine, Fritz, 40

374

Helsinki Agreement, 174, 183, 201, 230, 265, 325 Herder Institutes, 10, 263–4 Herriott-Watt University, 203 Herzberg, Hans, 15, 47–8, 250, 257, 315 Herzfelde, Wieland, 150 Heusinger, Adolf, 90 Hewitt, Patricia, 186 Heyday, F., 145 Heyne, Dietmar, 285 High Court, London, 120 High Wycombe College of Technology and Art, 207 Highgate Cemetery, London, 55 Hill, Christopher, 49 Hill, James, 93n, 95 Hill, Ray, 285 Hinchingbrooke, Viscount, 110, 155, 314 Hinden, Rita, 37 Hindorf, Annemarie, 207 Hitler, Adolf, 30, 55, 62, 88, 144, 151, 228, 250 Hobsbawm, Eric, 52, 78, 151–3, 305, 313 Hoff, Henning, 20 Hohenschönhausen, 269 Holford, Harry, 247 Holland, Harry, 148 Honecker, Erich, 66, 173, 175, 189, 197, 215, 227, 229–30, 238, 241, 259, 296, 302, 322, 324 Horizont, 10, 262, 279 Horner, Arthur, 138 Horner, John, 63, 78 Hornsby, Lex, 116, 121, 188 House of Commons, 12, 38, 59–60, 62, 67, 88–9, 91, 110–12, 131, 133–4, 173–4, 228–9, 233, 243–4, 255, 258, 304 Foreign Affairs Committee, 228, 233, 244, 294 House of Lords, 174, 196 Howarth, Marianne, 19–20, 204, 252n, 262n Howe, Geoffrey, 229–32, 242, 264 Howell, David, 294 Hughes, Emrys, 62, 67, 73, 95 Hull, 115, 119 University of, 309

Index

human rights in GDR, 39, 92, 97, 159, 169–70, 173, 189, 198, 201, 215–7, 229–31, 265–7, 270–1, 279–80, 282, 296, 298, 303, 325 Humboldt University, Berlin, 118, 130, 152, 203, 206, 262, 271, 322 Hungary, Hungarians, 127, 197, 265, 267 1956 events, 77–9, 97, 103, 148, 302, 317 Hurd, Douglas, 283 Hutt, Allen, 50 HVA, Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, 7, 171, 217, 265 ICFTU, 42, 44, 77, 220 ICI, 106, 229, 233 Illmenau, 248 ILO, International Labour Organisation, 79 Immer Bereit, 66 Imperial College London, 203 INF Treaty, 244 Information (GDR Peace Council), 11 Information GDR, 260 Initiative for Peace and Human Rights, 271 Inside Nazi Germany, 49 Institut für Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft, 264 Institute for German History, 130 Institute for International Relations, 8, 10 Interflug, 247 International, 164 International Brigades, 112, 219 International League for Peace and Freedom, 273 International Olympic Commitee, 129 International Press Centre, 264 International Railway Association, 79 International Society for the Study of the Old Testament, 198 Inter-Parliamentary Group, GDR, 12, 47, 91, 131–3, 140 Inter-Parliamentary Union, 12, 91, 135, 137n, 173–4, 225, 229, 233, 242–4, 294, 296, 304

Index

Intertext, 210 Ipswich, 115 Ireland, Irish, 83, 295, 329 Ireland–GDR Friendship Society, 329 ISK, Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund, 36 Islamic extremism, 233 Israel, 330 Communist Party, 330 Italy-GDR friendship committee, 324 Italy, Italians, 32, 44, 76, 124, 143, 227, 282, 323–4, 331–2 ITU, International Telecommunication Union, 79 Jack, James, 146 Japan, 188, 227 Jay, Peter, 104 Jayman, Peter, 267n Jeger, George, 111 Jena, 109, 152–3, 203 Jendretzki, Hans, 43 Jenkins, Roy, 62, 295 Jenson, Margaret, 247 Jewish Clarion, 53 Jewish World Congress, 330 Jews, 48, 89, 157 Johnson, Hewlett, 52, 165 Johnson, Lyndon B., 303, 321 Johnson, Peter, 86, 88, 143, 206, 311 Jones, Jack, 219–20, 305 Jordanhill Teacher Training College, 252 Junge Welt, 124 Junkers, 51 Kaldor, Mary, 266 Kallmann, Ruth, 101 Kane, Jock, 139 Kann, Kurt, 47, 117, 120, 137 Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), 248–9, 259, 285–9, 299, 307 Technical University, 123 Kartheus, Bernhart, 263 Keep Left, 30, 33, 35, 60, 62n, 66n Kelly, I.J. , 100 Kelly, Petra, 268 Kelly, Richard, 131

375

Kennedy, John F., 94, 303, 321 Kent, Bruce, 165, 200–1, 249, 267, 270, 272–5, 281, 298, 306 Kent University 203 Kern, Karl-Heinz, 9, 105, 170, 177, 182, 188, 193, 215–6, 231 Kershaw, Richard, 186 KfA Bureau Paris, 322 Rome, 323 KfA Ltd. (GDR Trade Mission, London), 105, 108, 112, 118, 166, 176, 316 Khrushchev, N.S., 76, 99, 213 Kieler Woche, 327 Kinnock, Neil, 240, 256, 268, 296 Kitson, Alex, 141, 216 Klein, Fritz, 152 Kleinmachnow, 192–3 Kloetzer, Wilfried, 182 Knight, Harry, 77, 138, 305 Knight, John, see Kuczynski, Jürgen Knothe, Wilhelm, 40 Kocka, Jürgen, 152 Koenen, Wilhelm, 15, 47, 90–1, 94 Kohl, Helmut, 227, 293 Kohlbrugge, Hebe, 326 Königswinter Conference, 120 Korea, 70, 150 Korean War, 69, 150 Kossock, Manfred, 152 Kotz, John, 188, 246, 249, 255, 284, 297 KPD ban in FRG, 149 exiles in Britain, 47–9 Krahl, Franz, 96, 101 Krefelder Appell, 268n Kreisky, Bruno, 327 Krummacher, Bishop, 161 Kuckhoff, Greta, 114 Kuczynski, Jürgen, 49–50, 52, 152, 315 Kursche, Jan, 158–9 Laabs, Hans-Joachim, 121 Labour Action for Peace, 165–6, 201, 276, 311 Labour Co-ordinating Committee, 240 Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, 218

376

Labour Monthly, 49, 127, 187 Labour Party and Berlin rising 1953, 68–70 delegations to GDR, 91–5, 99– 100, 126, 139–40, 142, 144, 148, 186, 241

and GDR recognition, 81, 84–6, 96, 98, 102, 121 and German rearmament, 59–63, 88–90, 316 and Hungarian rising 1956, 77 and invasion of Czechoslovakia, 102–03 MPs’ interest in GDR, 17–18, 66, 73, 80, 106, 111, 115–6, 118, 120, 131, 134–6, 166, 188, 243, 255, 258, 284, 304 NEC, 32, 67, 131, 141, 147, 215, 217, 220, 240 Parliamentary (PLP), 30–1, 60, 63, 67, 91, 97–8, 240 postwar policy, 21, 27–8, 30–1, 34, 57 pro-Sovietism in, 18, 26, 30, 33–4, 112, 216, 292, 305 relations with SED, 169, 214–8, 223, 231, 240–1, 296, 305 relations with SPD, 32, 35–7, 58, 83, 94–7, 144, 241 Laird, Gavin, 220 Lambeth Palace, 277 Lamond, James, 187–8, 200, 216 Larres, Klaus, 20 Laski, Harold, 33, 37, 50, 52 Latin America, 128 Law Lords, 109–10 Lawrence, John, 244 Lawther, William, 43, 70 LDPD, Liberal-Democratic Party of Germany, 12, 114n, 154–5, 288 Le Paradis, 127 Leeds, 44, 202, 214 University of, 203, 207–8, 210, 276, 309 Left Book Club, 47, 49 Leighton, Ron, 243 Leipzig, 210, 213, 248, 278, 284, 297, 323 Documentary Film Festival, 117, 127 Karl Marx University, 124, 185, 203, 212, 263

Index

Leipzig Fair Agency, 13, 73, 104, 316 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, 129 Leipzig Trade Fair, 13, 71–2, 104–06, 110, 112, 134, 154, 166, 175, 316 Leningrad, 286 Leser, Lottie, 184 Lester, Joan, 216 Levin, Bernard, 171, 295 Lewis, Arthur, 91–2, 96, 110–12 Lex Hornsby and Partners, 116, 205 Liberal Party, Liberals, British, 12–13, 59, 106, 109, 121, 134, 138, 153–6, 243, 247, 304, 314 liberalisation, West German, 66, 69, 264n Lidice Kantate, 129 Liga für Völkerfreundschaft (LfV), 13, 15–6, 24, 47, 114, 116, 118, 120, 175, 180–4, 186–8, 205– 06, 211, 222, 244–7, 249–50, 253–5, 259–60, 282, 285–6, 288, 290, 297, 299, 308, 315, 319, 323 Lindner, Gerhard, 182, 200, 249, 254 Lipton, Marcus, 115 Lister, Peter, 99 Liverpool, 214, 249–50, 287 living standards, GDR, 65, 95, 175, 187, 246, 261, 287 Lloyd, Selwyn, 79 Loach, Ken, 268 Lomas, Alf, 120, 188 London conferences and meetings in, 39, 131, 208, 273, 279, 281 cultural events, 125–6, 129 delegations and visitors to, 37, 40, 90–1, 96, 108, 134, 176, 180, 184, 195, 216, 219, 236, 258, 261, 264, 271 GDR friendship activities in, 117–19, 181, 214, 244–6, 249, 252–3, 257–8, 289, 308, 319 GDR representation in, 13, 73, 96, 101, 104–5, 108, 113, 118, 166, 168–9, 189, 221, 226, 259, 289, 316–7 wartime émigrés in, 15, 47–8, 53, 101, 150

Index

London Chamber of Commerce, 176 London Co-operative Society, 120, 200 London Mozart Players, 129 London Trades Council, 44 London University, 126, 203, 277 London–Berlin Committee, 24, 225, 246, 253–8, 297, 308 Löser, Diana, 118, 128, 213, 290 Löser, Franz, 128 Loughborough, 287 University of, 206, 262n, 263 Lubbock, Eric, 134, 154–5 Luftwaffe, 278 Lugau, 115 Lutherans, 162, 277 Luther, Martin, 278, 281 Luther Year, 277 Luxembourg, 143 Luxemburg-Liebknecht-Lenin demonstration, 272 MacDiarmid, Hugh, 115 MacKenzie, Norman, 47 Macmillan, Harold, 79–81, 89 Macmillan, Isabel, 122 MAD (ophthalmic hospital), 203 Magdeburg, 159, 248, 287 Maine, Robert, 115 Major, Patrick, 333 Malik, Ambassador, 68 Manchester, 44, 47, 119, 214, 246, 249, 254, 259, 285–8, 299, 307 University of, 207, Manchester Guardian, 154 Manning, John, 213 Markov, Walter, 152 Markowski, Paul, 8n, 191, 215 Marshall Plan, 34, 44, 320 Martin-Luther University, Wittenberg, 203 Marx, Karl, 55, 215, 317 Marx Memorial Library, 10n Marxism–Leninism, MarxistLeninists, 7, 18, 86, 123, 150, 193, 208, 210, 212, 282 Marxism, Marxists, 48, 154, 162, 183, 192, 281 Marxism Today, 192 Massey Ferguson, 72 Master, Alexander, 220

377

Matthews, Betty, 192n Matthews, George, 103 Maxim Gorky Theatre, 125 Maxwell, Robert, 111, 260, 298 McAdden, Sir Stephen, 110 McCarthyism, 71 McCauley, Martin, 204, 263–4, 332 McCluskie, Sam, 216 McDermott, Geoffrey, 16, 122, 188 McGahey, Mick, 147–8, 223, 305 McKelvey, William, 276 McLennan, Gordon, 189, 191, 194, 238–9 McPherson, Karin, 208 Medvedev, Roy, 264 Meißen, 115, 284 Mellor, David, 264 Mendelson, John, 93–4, 97, 131 Merson, Allan, 151, 305 metal workers’ union, 44–5, 140 Methodists, 90, 162, 281 Meusel, Alfred, 49 Mexico, 227 Meyer, Ernst Herman, 128–9 MI5, 159, 185 Mielke, Renate, 200 Mikardo, Ian, 89, 91, 103, 110–2, 131, 215 Militant Tendency, 217 Miller, Arthur, 190 Milne, James, 220, 223, 235–6, 305 miners British, see NUM European, 41, 220 GDR, 70, 236 Ruhr, 40, 44 Russian, 41 Spanish, 41 Ministry of Culture, GDR, 126, 187 Ministry of Education, GDR, 123, 207, 209–10 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MfAA), 8–9, 13, 77, 81, 90–1, 105, 114, 116–17, 120, 130, 132, 134, 150, 160, 210, 231 Ministry of Foreign Trade, GDR, 105 Ministry of Higher Education, GDR, 208 Mitdank, Joachim, 226, 250–1 Mitterrand, François, 322 Modrow, Hans, 249, 289

378

Moffat, Abe, 138–40 Mommsen, Wolfgang, 152 Montagu, Alexander, 110 Montagu, Ivor, 57, 127, 200 Monthly Technical Review, 11 Moreton, Edwina, 264 Morgan, David, 212, 232 Morgan, Marguerite, 212–3, 232 Morgan, R., 264 Morning Star, 101, 103, 136, 150, 189–90, 232, 237–8, 305 Morris, John, 126 Morrison, Geoffrey, 137 Morrison, Herbert, 31, 60–1, 66 Mortimer, Jim, 241 Morton, A.L., 49 Moscow, 42, 58, 79, 164, 214, 227, 228n, 243, 281 Mothers for Peace, 273 Munich, 125 Munn, Dennis, 253 Murray, Len, 219, 234, 305 musical exchanges, 128–9 Myant, Chris, 190 Nagy, Imre, 77 Nairn, W., 220 Nakath, Detlef, 5 NATFHE, National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, 259 National Assembly of Women, 186 National Coal Board, 105 National Committee for a Free Germany, 42 National Film Theatre, 260 National Front (GDR), 90, 100 National Union of Railwaymen, [Railway Workers’ Union], 43, 46, 140 nationalism, German, 64, 84, 295 NATO, 16, 56–7, 61, 65, 84, 88–90, 102–3, 131, 171, 229, 241, 268, 280, 294, 323, 326, 328, 330 FRG joins, 22, 59, 76 Naumburg, 287 Nazi Germany, 10, 29, 36, 50, 87, 157, 213 Nazism, Nazis, 56, 127, 131, 176 alleged, in FRG and West Berlin,

Index

9, 39, 48, 55, 61–5, 70, 87–9, 92, 117, 149, 160, 166, 178, 289, 312–3, 316, 330, 333 Nenni telegram, 32 neo-Nazism, 38, 88, 96, 312, 316 Netherlands, 107, 143, 227, 279, 324–5, 332 Neubrandenburg, 287 Neues Deutschland, 93, 95–6, 101, 232, 257, 259, 262, 317 Neumann, Franz, 40, 94–5 Neville-Jones, Pauline, 264 New Central European Observer, 53 New Communist Party, 193, 253, 291 New Era, 67 New Society, 179 New Statesman, 35, 47, 179 New Zealand, 157, 269 Newbiggin, 115 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 260, 297 University of, 203, 207–8, 210 Newens, Stan, 292 Nicosia, 136 Niedhart, Gottfried, 6, 83n, Nier, Kurt, 216, 231, 243 Noel-Baker, Philip, 61, 133 Norden, Albert, 93, 98, 114, 120, 149, 232 Northumberland, 115 Norway, 143 Notley’s Advertising Ltd., 106, 116 Nottingham, 266 University of, 202 Nove, Alec, 111 Nowell, Eric, 150n, 246, 286n, 287n NPD, 140 NUAAW, [union of rural workers], 140 nuclear disarmament, See also CND, END, 265, 267, 272, 281 nuclear war, threat of, 71, 99, 165, 220, 250, 273, 279, 281, 283, 285, 310–1 nuclear weapons, 274, 278–80, 307 British, 217, 241, 273 FRG access to, 65, 88–9, 93, 165, 304 Soviet, 229

Index

nuclear-free zones, 80, 94, 96, 217, 231, 238, 241, 283, 285–6, 307 NUM, National Union of Mineworkers, 41, 43–4, 46–7, 100– 1, 106, 139, 140–1, 235–6 delegations to GDR, 101, 105, 140 Derbyshire, 105 Kent, 139 Northumbria, 46, 115 Notts, 139 parliamentary group, 134, 140 Scottish, 46, 138–9, 147, 305 South Wales, 46, 70, 100, 139 strike, 1984–85, 170, 225, 233, 236–7, 239, 276 Yorkshire, 46, 139 Nuremberg Laws (1935), 89 NUS, National Union of Students, 66, 209 NUT, National Union of Teachers, 124–5, 140, 210 O’Brien, Conor Cruise, 295 Oberhof, 144 Oberländer, Theodor, 89 Oder–Neisse line, 37, 64 Oelsnitz, 115, 284 Oestreicher, Paul, 13, 156–63, 165, 188, 197–9, 223, 269–70, 272, 277, 280–1, 298–9, 307, 311 Ollenhauer, Erich, 96 Olympic Games, 129–30 Open University, 207 Operation Teutonic Sword, 89, 307 Ormskirk, 287 Orthodox Churches, 196 Osborne, Cyril, 102 Oschmann, Rainer, 232, 259, 297, 317 Ostpolitik, West German, 6, 22, 83–5, 94–5, 122, 167–8, 195, 221, 227, 230, 232, 241, 303, 310, 312, 318, 321–3, 325, 328, 331, 333 ÖTV, 144 Oundle, 287 Our History, 150 Owen, David, 242 Owen, Will, 12, 72, 90–1, 110–1, 131–2,

379

Oxford, 260 Oxford Polytechnic, 262 Oxford University, 130, 202, 210, 278 Extra-Mural Studies Department, 202 Hertford College, 280 New College, 131 Palestine Liberation Organisation, PLO, 330 Pannell, Charles, 144 Panorama GDR, 10 Parry, Steve, 209 Parry, Terry, 78 Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), 290, 292 Pattinson, Derek, 198 Pax Christi, 201, 279 Paynter, William, 139 PCF, French Communist Party, 321 PCI, Italian Communist Party, 323–4 Pearce, Bert, 192 Pearson, Robin, 263, 309 Peart, Lord, 174 Peet, John, 11, 53, 65, 90, 116, 118, 127, 150–1, 202, 262n, 316 Peet, Stephen, 127 People to People group, 274 People’s Congress Movement, 30, 39 People’s Solidarity, 51 Pergamon Press, 260 Perle, Richard, 241 Perna, Franco, 267 Pfeil, Ulrich, 20 Pheby, John, 213 Philips, John, 148 Phillips, Morgan, 32, 96 Pick, Hella, 276, 294 Pieck, Wilhelm, 57 Plaschke, Herbert, 114, 132 Plato Films, 66–7, 307 Platts-Mills, John, 30, 32, 34, 47, 52 Plenikowski, Anton, 132 Plötschke, Günter, 101 Plumbing Trades Union, [pipelayers’ union], 93 Plummer, Sir Leslie, 111, 131 Plurenden, Lord, 72, 112

380

Poland, Poles, 6, 23, 37, 64, 78, 87, 131, 197n, 224–5, 228–9, 233– 7, 240, 244, 265, 267–8, 295 political prisoners, 237 political prisoners, GDR, 68, 94, 97, 159, 170 Pollitt, Harry, 50, 57, 72, 78n Poppe, Ulrike, 269 Portsmouth, 287 Portugal, 330 Communist Party, 330 potash, 72, 107 Pötschke, Günter, 114 Potsdam, 27, 120, 122, 280, 323 Teacher Training Institute, 193n, 212 Potsdam Discussions, 120, 216 Powel, Professor, 130 Prague, 261 ‘Prague Spring’, 83, 97, 102, 120, 148, 154, 159, 162, 189, 200 Prenzlau, 137 Prenzlauer Berg, 115, 284 Prescher, Jost, 112 Pritt, D. N. , 34, 50, 52, 115, 164 Profile of East Germany, 205 Progressive Tours, 247 pro-Sovietism, British, 18, 33–4, 43, 66, 71, 77, 102, 111–2, 115, 130–1, 136, 138, 165, 187, 191, 193, 200–2, 216, 222–3, 234, 236, 272, 276, 304–05, 308, 310–1, 313 Protestants French, 322 GDR, 126, 161, 191, 195–8, 230, 269, 271, 277n, 281–2 PSI, 324 PSOE, 329 public opinion, British, 1, 4, 17–18, 21, 27, 49–50, 55, 64, 74, 77, 80, 85, 89–90, 101, 121, 143, 150, 166, 177, 221, 262, 274, 295, 311–2, 318, 333 PvdA, Dutch Labour Party, 325 Pym, Francis, 229, 242, 281 Quakers, 162–3, 197, 267, 280 Queen’s College, Birmingham, 278 Radio Berlin International, 10, 47, 146, 256

Index

Radio Scotland, 249 railways, GDR, 79 Ramsden, John, 86n Ramsey, Michael, 196–7 Rapacki Plan, 80, 94 Rapallo complex, 29 Rathbone, Eleanor, 47, 52 Ratti, Luca, 94 Rau, Heinrich, 112 Reader, George, 253 Reagan, Ronald, 225, 227, 234 Recklinghausen, 42 Red Cross, 79 Redmond, Martin, 243 Rees, Benjamin, 278n Rees, Duncan, 272 Rees, Peter, 229, 242 Rees-Mogg, William, 295 refugees, 47, 50–1, 95, 129, 206, 251 reparations to USSR, 38, 50 Research Institute of Sorbian Folk Culture, 126 reunification, German, 19, 24, 30, 33, 76–7, 80, 82, 98, 144, 149, 155, 221, 226, 289, 291, 293– 5, 299–300, 302–3, 311–2, 315, 322 Reuters News Agency, 11, 65, 86, 88, 143 Reykjavik summit, 1986, 231 Reynold’s News, 10, 50, 88 RIAS, 196 Richardson, Jo, 112 Richthofen, Manfred von, 294 Riefenstahl, Leni, 66 Rifkind, Malcolm, 242 Risby, William, 286, 288 rising, June 1953, 22, 27, 68–71, 74, 78, 178, 317, 323 Rix, Mick, 235 RMT, 235, 293 Robertson, General Sir Brian, 31 Robertson, George, 264 Rochester Cathedral, 277 Roesler, Jörg, 206 Rolls-Royce, 72 Romania, 154, 233 Romanka, Joseph, 199 Rome, 323–4, 331 Roper, Hugh Trevor, 294 Roper, Lord, 264

Index

Rose, Margaret, 251, 297 Rosner, Phyllis, 150 Ross, Alexander, 108 Ross, Ernie, 216, 276 Ross, Stephen, 243 Rossi, Charles, 255 Rost, Peter, 243 Rothstein, Andrew, 50 Rowan, Sir Leslie, 108 Royal Institute of International Affairs, 277 Royal Society, 204 Ruddock, Joan, 272–3, 275 Rümpel, Werner, 137, 271, 273–4, 279, 298 Rugeley, 116 Ruhr miners, 27, 40 Rummelsberg, David, 47–8, 89, 116, 120, 121n, 315, 319n Runcie, Robert, 277 Rupp, Gordon, 162, 281 Rushdie, Salman, 268 Russ, Walter, 193 Russell, Bertrand, 103, 266 Russell, Sam, 103 The Russian Zone (Schaffer), 50–1 Ruys, Bé, 326 Sabrow, Martin, 3 Sachs, Pia, 287n Sachsen-Anhalt, 21, 162 Sachsenhausen, 254 Sagatelyan, 192 Saison, 11 Salford University, 203 Salvation Army, 278 Sandford, John, 204, 208, 262n, 268–71, 298 Sansbury, Bishop, 161 Sapper, Alan, 141, 220 Scargill, Arthur, 235–6, 306 Schabowski, Günter, 241 Schaffer, Gordon, 10, 47, 50–3, 102, 117, 119–20, 164, 184, 187–8, 200–1, 291, 299, 304 Scheel doctrine, 83 Schilfert, Gerhard, 130, 152 Schlesinger, James, 281 Schmidt, Helmut, 1, 173 Schmidt, Professor Max, 264 Schmidt, Wolfgang, 80 Scholze, Johann, 126

381

Schönefeld Airport, 254 Schönemann, Erika, 208 Schönherr, Bishop Albrecht, 158, 161–2 The Schoolmaster, 124 Schumacher, Kurt, 37, 40 Scotland–GDR Society, 24, 225, 246, 251–3, 297, 308 The Scotsman, 95 Searchlight, 52 Searchlight on Germany, 164 Second World War, 8, 47, 64, 74, 78–9, 117, 256, 264n, 283–4, 302, 312, 317, 333 SED, Socialist Unity Party of Germany Central Committee, 9, 114, 119, 242 and CPGB, 12, 23, 55, 168, 188–94, 222–3, 237–40, 304–5 creation of, 31, 38, 148–50 Department for International Relations, 8, 191 and Labour Party, 169, 215–7, 231, 240–1, 296, 305 politburo, 6–8, 15, 120, 180, 190, 205, 214, 242 Secretariat for International Relations, 8 and SPD, 97, 231, 323 Seibt, Kurt, 55 Seidel, Hans, 198 Seidowsky, Hans-Joachim, 158 Seigewasser, Hans, 158, 199 Severin, Manfred, 262–3 Shakespeare, William, 210, 260 Shand, Brian, 282 Sheffield, 142, 207, 287 Sheffield Polytechnic, 207 Shell International, 105 Shinwell, Emanuel, 60, 93, 96–7, 99, 101 Shore, Peter, 244 Short, Renée, 12, 91, 112, 118, 131–4, 136, 243, 292, 296, 304 Siebert, Günter, 8n Siegmund-Schulz, Dorothea, 184 Siena, 323 Silverman, Julius, 30, 304 Silverman, Sydney, 34, 60, 62, 71–2, 96, 136, 138

382

Simmons, Michael, 261 Sindermann, Horst, 174, 177, 229, 233, 241–3 Smith, Alan, 264 Smith, Dan, 266 Smith, Graham, 285 Smith, Peter, 247, 252, 297 Smith, Rennie, 27, 37, 110 social democracy, 23, 32, 81, 137, 240, 303, 305, 310, 313–4, 324 social engineering, 112, 314 Socialism with a German Face, 177–8 socialism, ‘actually existing’, 4, 17– 8, 22, 54, 82, 86, 137, 139, 153, 155, 159, 166, 180–1, 189–95, 205, 210–2, 216–7, 220, 222, 224, 237, 239, 251, 254, 256, 259, 276, 291–2, 296–9, 305, 308, 310, 313–4, 319, 325, 328, 333, 335 Socialist Clarity, 36 Socialist Europe, 192 Socialist Fellowship, 33 Socialist International, 36, 95 Socialist Vanguard Group, 36 Society for Social and International Reconciliation, 199 Society of Technical Civil Servants, 144 SOGAT, 140–1 Solidarity, Poland, 23, 225, 234–7, 295, 301, 306, 317 Sölle, Horst, 176 Soper, Donald, 90 Sorbian region, Sorbs, 126–7 South Africa, 155, 281 Soviet Occupation Authority, 109, 325 Soviet threat, 5, 29–30, 57, 60, 70 Soviet Union, 1, 5, 16, 18, 21, 26, 30, 135, 156, 158, 160, 191, 193, 227–8, 244, 325 British wartime alliance with, 26–8, 55 collapse of, 293 delegations to, 70 dissidents in, 266–7 economic potential of, 82 foreign policy of, 35, 56, 64, 135, 201, 273, 293, 301–2, 328 German reparations to, 38, 50 as guarantor of GDR, 5, 22,

Index

73–4, 98, 151, 153, 174, 232, 301–2, 315–6 negotiations with, 79, 98 reforms in, 244, 258, 296, 302–3, 320 trade unions, 102, 145, 240 troops in Germany, 17, 42, 68–9, 147, 302 Soviet Zone, Germany, 21–2, 26–7, 31–2, 38–40, 50–1, 53, 56n, 94, 109, 136, 204, 206 Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst, 35 Spain, 227, 329 Spanish Civil War, 112, 199, 219, 329 SPD, German social democrats, 27, 31–2, 35–8, 40–1, 58, 62, 69, 83, 85, 92, 94–7, 144, 231, 238, 241, 315, 317, 321, 323 SPD-KPD merger, 1946, 26, 30–2, 38, 50, 151 Speidel, Hans, 89 sport, GDR, 11, 18, 129, 178, 207, 233, 247, 249 Sport in the GDR, 11 SS 20 missiles, 229, 273 St Pancras, London, 115 St Fagan’s Welsh Folk Museum, 210 Stalin, Joseph, 34, 55–6, 58 ‘Stalin Note’, 58, 74, 301 Stalin Prize, 115, 165 Stalinallee construction site, 141 Stalinstadt, GDR, 67 Standard Motors, 72, 104 ‘Star Wars’ programme, 230, 265 Stasi, GDR Ministry of State Security activity in Britain, 20, 171, 221, 245 British recruits, 206, 215, 263, 270n, 309 foreign political analysis, 7–8, 102–03, 190–1, 205, 214, 217, 263, 265, 318 and GDR dissidents, 128, 171, 189, 269–70, 272 vets foreign contacts, 14, 24, 65n, 72, 158, 185, 273, 275, 298, 315, 318 State Broadcasting Committee, GDR, 10 State Ensemble for Sorbian Folk Culture, 126

Index

State Secretariat of Church Affairs, 278 Stebbings, Joyce, 121 Stechford CLP, 62 Steel, David, 13, 109, 153–5 Steele, Jonathan, 172, 177–9, 218, 311 Sternberg, Rudy, 72 Stewart, Michael, 102, 107 Stockholm, 164, 328 Stockport, 119, 137 Stoke-on-Trent, 115, 284 Stolpe, Manfred, 158, 198, 277n, 299 Stonehouse, John, 111 Stoph, Willi, 174, 196, 229–30, 243 storm troopers, 56n Story of Private Pooley, 127 Strachey, John, 50 Stralsund, 287 Strang, Gavin, 276 Strang, Sir William, 31 Stratford-upon-Avon, 210 Strathclyde, University of, 203 Stringer, Graham, 249, 287 STUC, Scottish TUC, 23, 146–7, 230, 235, 252, 305 Suez, 2, 103 The Sun, 294 Surrey, 193 Sussex, 250, 264, 269 University of, 203 Sussex Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament, 250 Swain, Tom, 96 Swansea University, 210 Sweden, Swedes, 77, 81, 107, 121, 143, 227, 327–8 Swedish Communist Party, 327 Swedish Social Democrats, 329 Swingler, Stephen, 90–1, 96, 130–1 Switzerland, 143, 176, 326–7 The Sword and the Ploughshare, 269 Tarver, John, 213 TASS, 141, 142n Tate Gallery, 125–6 Taylor, A. J. P. , 130 Taylor, Graham, 183, 238

383

Taylor, Sheila, 181–6, 197, 211, 222, 238, 245, 248, 241, 257, 308, 335 teachers, British, delegations to GDR, 115, 124, 126, 160, 202, 257–9 exchanges and summer schools, 23, 54, 118, 122–5, 161n, 169, 209–14, 248, 308 interest in GDR, 11, 13, 65, 120, 182, 185, 252, 263 teachers, GDR, 54, 122, 124, 211, 258 Tebbit, Norman, 229 Temple Morris, Peter, 229, 233, 242–3, 296, 304 Tewson, Vincent, 43–4 TGWU, 43, 46, 140–1, 219, 235, 257, 288 Tharandt, 248 Thatcher, Margaret, 225–8, 233–4, 245, 255, 293, 295–7, 300, 303, 317 Thatcherism, 239 Theatre Workshop, 125 Theobald, John, 268 Theodorakis, Mikis, 190 ‘Third Force’ foreign policy, 30, 32–3, 133, 310 Third Reich, See also Nazi Germany, 35, 56, 64, 80, 87–8, 90, 93, 178, 295 Third World, GDR relations with, 7, 11, 76, 173, 200, 228, 292 third world war, fear of, 4, 63, 71, 88, 311 Thomas, George, 173 Thompson, E. P., 266 Thorneycroft, Peter, 73 Thorpe, Jeremy, 155 Thur, J. D., 108 Thuringia, 138, 192n, 213 The Times, 16, 28–9, 37, 41, 40, 121, 123, 171, 176n, 189, 196, 229–30, 232, 268, 295 Times Education Supplement, 123, 259 Tisch, Harry, 137–8, 219, 235, 305 Tito, Josip Broz, 33–4

384

Tobacco Workers’ Union, 44, 142n, 145 Torr, Dona, 49 ‘totalitarian paradigm’, 29, 42, 74, 97, 203–4, 325 town-twinning, 14, 24, 115–6, 137, 160, 165, 217, 226, 282– 9, 299, 307, 322–3 trade agreements, 13, 72–3, 104, 108, 133, 323, 325 trade deficit, British with GDR, 108, 176, 221, 233, 296 trade delegations, 71, 108, 176 trade relations, 12, 85, 110–12, 134, 139, 155–6, 163, 168, 171–2, 175, 177, 214, 230, 233, 255, 296, 314, 318, GDR encourages, 11, 13, 22, 71–3, 75, 103–08, 113, 133, 174, 319 Trade Union Centre for German Workers in Great Britain, 40 trade unions, trade unionists, British, see also TUC. 34, 48, 185, 188, 194 attitude to GDR, 18–9, 24, 26, 40–45, 52, 65–6, 70, 100, 120, 143–4, 148, 169, 216, 223, 225, 234–5, 253, 256, 292, 305–06, 313, 333 CPGB members in, 50, 73, 78, 139, 147, 150, 166, 191, 234, 238 delegations to GDR, 45–6, 118– 19, 121, 137, 140–2, 183, 235, 257, 283, 286 GDR interest in, 7, 13, 16, 22–3, 45, 91, 105, 114–15, 170, 184, 214, 217–20, 223, 240, 245, 254, 296, 318 trade unions, GDR, see FDGB trades councils, 44, 141, 145, 214 Tribune, 28, 33, 35, 62, 69, 71, 179 Tribune Group, 62 Trotskyists, 217 TUC, Trade Union Congress, 47, 99, 102, 146, 233 anti-communism, official, 21, 43, 73, 77, 137, 145, 305 and Berlin rising 1953, 68–9 and FDGB, 12, 23, 42–5, 138, 144, 218–19, 223, 234, 292, 304–05

Index



General Council, 40, 42, 45, 68, 73, 77, 100, 144–6, 218–19, 252, 292 and German rearmament, 63, 88, 100n, 165 International Committee, 292 post-war policy on Germany, 40–5, 58 Tweedy, William, 146 Tyrell, Rev. James, 251, 278n UGO, Independent Trade Union Organisation, West Berlin, 42–3 Uher, Edgar, 238, 245 UK–GDR Association, 188 Ulbricht, Walter, 16, 86, 91–2, 99– 100, 120, 197, 109, 114, 139, 149, 152, 189, 322 Ulster, Northern Ireland, 83, 329 UN, United Nations, 79, 135, 172, 177, 221, 317 Student Association, 202 Undén, Östen, 327 UNESCO, 79 union of car manufacturers, 43–4 United Nations United States of America, 2, 5, 26, 56, 62–3, 71, 171, 188, 208, 227, 230, 238, 273, 293, 319, 321–2, 332 foreign policy of, 28–30, 57, 60, 65, 70, 103, 230, 233, 241, 293, 321, 332 government, 34, 58, 225, 270, 303, 321 imperialism, 34, 42, 103, 148 military bases, 273 State Department, 28 trade unions, 36, 42 Unity Theatre, 48 University College Cardiff, 203 USSR, see Soviet Union. Vanovitch, Kathy, 181, 184, 206 Vansittart, Robert, 27 Varley, Ed, 133, 140 Vatican, 331 Vetter, Heinz, 147 Vetterlein, Tom, 67–8, 142 Vidler, Bob, 193 Vietnam, Vietnamese, 103, 148, 155, 165 Vincent, Tom, 67

Index

visa restrictions, 101, 112–3, 133–4, 145, 152, 163, 185, 215, 266, 278 Volk und Welt, 123 Volkskammer, GDR parliament, 88, 92, 114, 132, 134, 135n, 140, 155, 167, 173–4, 177, 242–3, 257–8, 304 Wainwright, Edwin, 140 Wainwright, Walter, 288 Wales, Welsh people, 93, 100, 126, 244, 251, 287 Walesa, Lech, 234 Wallace, Ian, 204, 206, 262–3, 268 Walthamstow, 115 Wandel, Paul, 90 Warbey, William, 34, 96 Warren, Kenneth, 174 Warsaw, 274 Warsaw Pact, 5, 22, 76, 102, 229, 233, 244, 268, 280, 302, Waschewski, Gerhand, 91 Watson, Alan, 177, 215 Watson, Sam, 35, 99 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, 152 Wehner, Herbert, 96 Weimar, 92, 122–3, 213, 248, 287 Weimar Republic, 129 Weinberger, Casper, 241 Weiss, Gerhard, 155 Wells, Owen, 244 Welsh Eisteddfod, 126 Welt der Arbeiter, 144 Wembley Stadium, 258 West Berlin, 17, 35, 65, 82–3, 98–100, 122, 144, 153, 196, 255–6, 269, 274, 325 West German Academic Exchange Service, 184 Western alliance, see also NATO, 1, 5, 26, 29, 31, 55–6, 58, 69, 133, 135, 171, 301 WFTU, 44, 235 What You Should Know about the Wall, 101 Whitehead, Phillip, 190 Wilhelm-Pieck University, Rostock, 203 William Turner exhibition, 126 Williams, E., 100

385

Williams, Llywelyn, 126 Williams, Rev. Bill, 160 Williams, Roger, 280 Williams, Thomas, 174 Williams, Very Rev. H. C. N., 194n Willis, Norman, 43 Wilson, Harold, 63, 81–2, 96, 99, 101, 110, 173, 177, 214–5, 305, 310 Wilson, William, 102, 132–3, 136, 243, 292, 304 Wilton Park, 35–6, 41, 265 Winkelmann, Egon, 8n Winnington, Alan, 150–1, 179, 232, 305 Winzer, Otto, 8, 84, 169, Wittner, Lawrence, 272, 283 WMO, World Meteorological Organization, 79 Woddis, Jack, 103, 190–1, 237n Wolf, Kurt, 105 Wolf, Markus, 265 Wolff, Christa, 308 Wollenberger, Knut, 272 Wollenberger, Vera, 272 Wolverhampton, 287 Wolverhampton Polytechnic, 129, 207 Women for Peace, East Berlin, 269 Women for World Disarmament, 200–1 Woodcock, George, 100 Woodcock, Michael, 243 Woodcraft Folk, 288 Woods, Roger, 204 Woollam, John, 110 Workers’ Music Association, 67, 128 Working Class Movement Library, 10n, 121n, World Council of Churches, 279 World Federation of City Partners, 116 World Federation of Sciences, 130 World News, 53 World Peace Conference, 1951, 45 World Youth Festivals, 54, 66–7, 163, 209 Wright, Canon Kenyon, 199–200, 223, 278–9 Wynn, Herbert, 105

386

Yorkshire Tours, 247 Young Communist League, Britain, 131, 149, 150n Young Liberals, Britain, 154 Young Socialist International, 137 Young Socialists, Britain, 137 Young Vic theatre, 260 Younger, Kenneth, 61 Yugoslavia, 33–4, 76, 103, 154

Index

Zechlin, Ruth, 129 Zeit im Bild, 10 Zilliacus, Konni, 30, 32, 34, 91, 96, 165 Zimmer, Pastor Christoph, 278 Zwahr, Hartmut, 152 Zwickau, 147