East Germany and Detente: Building Authority after the Wall

Abstract

The emergence of East Germany as one of Europe's most vocal advocates of East-West detente in the 1980s represented a remarkable political transformation. Prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, East Germany had been amongst the most intransigent proponents of the Cold War, largely because of the perceived threat to the domestic authority of its own leadership. Renewed exposure, however, prompted that leadership to regard good relations with the West as integral rather than inimical to its own pursuit of legitimacy. Of interest not only to scholars of communist politics but to all students of East-West affairs, Professor McAdams' study demonstrates both the changing historical significance of the idea of detente, and the way in which non-superpower states can take initially adverse circumstances and turn them into instances of opportunity.