Cold War Myopia: Germany’s World in the 1970s and its Relations with Cambodia

Abstract

Kiran Klaus Patel Cold War Myopia Germany’s World in the 1970s and its Relations with Cambodia Introduction “We’re doing something that’s never been done before.” This was the title used by the West German news magazine Der Spiegel in May 1977 for an interview with Ieng Sary, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Cambodia. Ieng Sary was also known as “Brother Number Three,” a reference to his position as the third most powerful figure in the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot. In prefacing the interview, Der Spiegel briefly described how the Communists had been ruling the country since April 1975 “while keeping the global public mostly in the dark.” Refugees had told of a “barbaric stone age socialism with hundreds of thousands of victims.” This was, as Der Spiegel claimed, the first time a representative of the Cambodian leadership had given an interview to a Western press organ.1 The magazine was obviously proud of its major scoop. Hence, the article’s title took on a second level of meaning because it not only referred to what the regime was implementing, but also underlined the significance of the article itself. The West German magazine did not shy away from posing critical questions. It confronted the Cambodian leader with the findings of the French priest Fran- çois Ponchaud and the American journalists Anthony Paul and John Barron, who estimated the number of the regime’s victims to be at least one million.2 Yet Ieng Sary showed nothing but contempt for such criticism: “These people are mad.” He maintained that only dangerous criminals were sentenced to death in his country, while repentant members of the former regime were treated with leniency . At the same time, however, the article offered him plenty of space to present the regime’s alleged achievements.3 The essay by Tim Szatkowski in this volume takes us back to the years covered by this article in Der Spiegel as he examines how the government of the Federal 1 “Was wir machen, gab es noch nie,” in: Der Spiegel, May 9, 1977. 2 See François Ponchaud, Cambodge année zero. Document, Paris 1977. Penguin published an English translation in 1978; there was never a German version of Ponchaud’s book. See also John Barron/Anthony Paul, Murder of a Gentle Land. The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia, New York 1977. 3 “Was wir machen, gab es noch nie,” in: Der Spiegel, May 9, 1977. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110522990-003 64 Kiran Klaus Patel Republic of Germany reacted to the Khmer Rouge terror regime and the situation in Cambodia in general. His analysis revolves around the question of the position accorded to human rights in West Germany’s relations with the Southeast Asian country. The essay correctly points out the confusing and unclear political situation in Cambodia, which made it hard for Western states to find reasonable answers. Drawing mainly on archival holdings of the Federal Foreign Office, Szatkowski identifies and elaborates on the multi-layered and occasionally contradictory West German reactions to developments in the country. He concentrates on the years from 1975 to 1979, when Cambodia descended into the bloody terror of the Khmer Rouge dictatorship. Szatkowski emphasizes, however, that these years can only be properly assessed by placing them within a longer historical perspective. He therefore devotes – at least in light of this research question and claim – a striking amount of attention to the preceding historical phase from the mid-1960s onwards and sketches, for readers less familiar with this period, the general contemporary historical context for the Southeast Asian country. Overall, Szatkowski convincingly shows that the West German government distanced itself from the Pol Pot regime for a long time. In 1976, for example, the government decided not to resume diplomatic relations, not least because of the terror of the Khmer Rouge. At the critical juncture, however, Bonn backpedaled from its focus on human rights. In 1979, a decision loomed on the global level, namely whether the Khmer Rouge or the new regime under Heng Samrin was to be recognized as the legitimate representative of Cambodia at the United Nations. At the time, the...