In the Shadow of the Federal Republic: Cultural Relations Between the GDR and the United States

Abstract

Translated by Tradukas CULTURAL RELATIONS BEFORE DIPLOMATIC RECOGNITION Cultural contacts between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the United States did not exist until the 1960s. The ideological rifts between them were too deep, and the GDR was too insignificant in the eyes of the United States. In addition, the GDR had to compete with the Federal Republic of Germany. East Germany was and remained the second German state in the shadow of its economically more powerful and politically more influential western neighbor, which still claimed in the 1960s to speak for all Germans. The Federal Republic staked out a de facto monopoly position in the United States that also applied to the representation of German culture abroad. East German cultural policy abroad must be seen as a means of compensating for the lack of internal legitimacy through external acceptance. The GDR attempted to present itself as an antifascist and humanist German alternative to the Federal Republic. But it was not until the normalization of Soviet-American and German-German relations in the early 1970s that East German foreign policy gained room for maneuver in the Western world. The GDR's cultural foreign policy was an important instrument of East German foreign policy, in particular when political and economic contacts were blocked for the most part. Cultural contacts with the United States began in the second half of the 1960s. It was important to East German foreign policy to project a positive image and to gain international recognition, especially after the building of the Berlin Wall. Cultural policy was given both of these tasks.