Modern history

East German Friendship Brigades and Specialists in Angola: A Socialist Globalization Project in the Global Cold War

Immanuel R. Harisch

Note: The article is based on research for my MA thesis, titled “Handel und Solidarität: Die Beziehungen der DDR mit Angola und São Tomé und Príncipe unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Austauschs ‘Ware-gegen-Ware’ ca. 1975–1990” (Vienna, 2018). I would like to thank the editor Katja Castryck-Naumann for her valuable thoughts and comments in the rework for this volume. I also thank my colleague Eric Burton for his comments on an early draft of this chapter.

1 Introduction

The order of the global Cold War was shaken politically in the mid-1970s with the establishment of self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist regimes in the African Lusophone territories and Ethiopia and, above all, with the US-American defeat in Vietnam, which seemed to have dealt imperialism a heavy blow, according to communist parties and left wingers around the world. Economically, skyrocketing prices of global commodities (such as oil, coffee, and cocoa¹), combined with rising interest rates on the global financial markets, severely constrained – both socialist and capitalist – import-dependent national economies and forced governments, like the one in East Berlin, to restructure their economic machine substantially. This was aggravated by the Soviet Union’s decision in 1975 to adjust the prices of raw materials within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) every year instead of the previously utilized five-year terms.² Eastern European countries had to react to these shifts, and they sought to secure scarce or unavailable goods and raw materials from producing countries in the Third World.³

In 1977, some people in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) leadership came to the conclusion that the East German economy was on the verge of bankruptcy. For some high-ranking economic leaders, it was a “question of existence”, given that projected expenditures for coffee and cocoa in the next five-year plan were practically unaffordable for the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED).⁴ To save the state economy from collapse, East German economic planners and foreign traders focused as quickly as possible on their foreign trade with the African “priority countries” with a “socialist orientation”, such as Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe, to acquire raw materials, such as coffee, without using convertible foreign exchange in specific barter trade agreements.⁵

East German citizens’ demand for coffee was jeopardizing both the regime’s finances and social stability,⁶ and the rising world market prices for oil and coffee, in principle, favoured resource-rich Angola. However, at the point of effectively taking over administrative power in 1976, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, MPLA), Angola’s future ruling party, was faced with the task of a complete social, political, and territorial (re)organization of the parts of the country it controlled. Lisbon’s post-colonial roadmap for Angola after the Carnation Revolution of April 1974, which had deposed the heirs of the Salazar regime, provided a transitional government made up of the three rival Angolan liberation movements until the planned proclamation of independence on 11 November 1975. This coalition between the MPLA,⁷ National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, UNITA),⁸ and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola, FLNA)⁹ had already fallen apart months before the envisaged transfer of power, resulting in open conflicts between the three constituents fuelled by fading Portuguese authority and mutual suspicion. In late August 1975, Fidel Castro persuaded the rather reluctant Leonid I. Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, to support the MPLA on an “internationalist mission”: thousands of Cuban and MPLA soldiers, equipped with Soviet military equipment, were ultimately able to retain control of Luanda and successively took back neighbouring provinces from an invading South African army and UNITA in the south and from FLNA in the north.¹⁰ As the Portuguese army withdrew from province after province, white settlers followed suit.¹¹ Altogether 90 percent of the 320,000 immigrants living in Angola – administrators, entrepreneurs, teachers, economists, plantation owners, truck drivers, engineers and technicians, to name a few – had fled the country.¹² The often inexperienced party functionaries and economists of the victorious MPLA were confronted with a sharp drop in productive capacity in all sectors of the economy. The coffee production was paralyzed by abandoned plantations, a scarcity of functioning harvest machines, a lack of means of transportation, and almost no trained personnel.

Given this dire situation, the MPLA leadership made it clear in early 1978 that Angola would expect “the states of the socialist community to make the greatest possible effort to support the country. It is important that every socialist country acts quickly”.¹³ Tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers, together with Soviet military equipment and advisers, had enabled the MPLA to assert its power over the capital Luanda, the oil-rich exclave of Cabinda, and a number of provincial towns in the north and on the coast. Yet, the MPLA was far from ruling over the vast country. The mammoth task ahead of the MPLA was to reach pre-independence levels of production, set up a mass education and health system, and reconstruct vital infrastructure. These aims proved incredibly difficult as the rebels of UNITA, who were supported by South Africa’s Apartheid regime and the USA, embarked on a destabilization war and aimed to destroy the gains of the MPLA wherever possible.¹⁴

At that time, Cuba had around 3,500 aid workers – mostly teachers, construction workers, and doctors – in the country.¹⁵ The first East German specialists in Angola were sent by the East German Ministry of Transport to manage ship clearance in Angola’s ports, conduct surveys on the national road network, and inspect the Benguela railway.¹⁶

In June 1977, on extremely short notice, the MPLA requested some 380 East German aid workers to assist with the upcoming coffee harvest and related transportation issues.¹⁷ In April 1977, the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, told Erich Honecker, the general secretary of the SED, that an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 tons of Angolan coffee were still in warehouses.¹⁸ Due to the excellent relations between the two ruling parties and the geostrategic and economic importance of Angola, the top levels of the SED responded positively to the Angolan request. From 1 September 1977 onwards, hastily recruited East German staff were deployed at several locations in Angola with the task of securing the import of Angolan coffee and fostering the export of the East German W50 truck by setting up a network of on-site workshops, providing customer services and repairs, combined with vocational training. Within less than a decade, Angola emerged as the largest export market for W50 trucks in Africa and ranked eighth in importing countries worldwide.¹⁹ The specialists – skilled and experienced workers (Facharbeiter) – were accompanied by Friendship Brigades (Freundschaftsbrigaden). The GDR’s Friendship Brigades, founded in 1963, acted as a tool for solidarity, foreign policy, and development work abroad. A brigade was usually comprised of 10 to 30 young adults in their 20s and early 30s, with an emphasis on collective work organization and social life in contrast to Western aid workers who were often dispatched in small groups or individually.²⁰

More than 200 East Germans had arrived in Angola by mid-1978 in response to the MPLA’s request, which was accompanied by a so-called “coffee agreement” that guaranteed East Germany’s coffee shipments from Angola would be traded through a barter system for goods from the GDR.²¹ In the early 1980s, the number of active brigades in the socialist republic of Angola increased to 8, out of a total of 19 brigades dispatched around the world, thereby making up roughly half of the East German “brigadists” dispatched abroad at that time.²²

I situate this “coffee agreement” between the MPLA and the SED, which included the Friendship Brigades and other East German specialists, in the context of global socialist development programmes. By using a comparative concept of significant ruptures and multiple crises that both the governments in East Berlin and Luanda faced in the mid-1970s (as outlined above), I show how global developments greatly impacted the legitimacy of the ruling classes of both countries and their mutual task of warding off economic collapse of their respective national economies. Moreover, the dispatch of the East German personnel to Angola demonstrates how these transformations on a global scale led to new strategies of resource-poor Eastern European countries, such as the GDR, to adapt to changing economic relations.

In this chapter, I highlight both the broader structural interlinking of the two socialist states’ economic, political, and ideological interests into which the Friendship Brigades were inserted and the “micro structures of implementation”²³ and challenges on the ground in Angola from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. I attempt to explain this socialist globalization project in the context of a period characterized by multiple ruptures, which heavily impacted the respective socialist parties – the SED and MPLA – and led to the deployment of the Friendship Brigades in Angola in the first place. As a competing project to Western capitalist globalization, this socialist globalization project, together with others, aimed at alternative forms of economic integration and political alliances, leading to new connections between communist and post-colonial states.²⁴

The chapter is based on archival research, drawing from documents from the Ministry of General Agricultural Machinery and Vehicles (Ministerium für Allgemeinen Maschinen-, Landmaschinen- und Fahrzeugbau, MALF) and the Ministry of Transport (Ministerium für Verkehrswesen, MfV), and the Central Council of the Free German Youth (Zentralrat der Freien Deutschen Jugend, ZFDJ) and from the brigades’ semi-official diaries²⁵ – all of which can be found in the Federal Archives in Berlin in the section Foundation Archives of Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR (Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen, SAPMO). This archival material is combined with a number of narrative interviews I conducted with former members of the Friendship Brigades and specialists in 2017 and 2018.²⁶ The narratives provided by the interview partners were especially instructive to examine the limits of the East German deliveries in Angola beyond the official representations in the archives.

The chapter is structured as follows. The first section sketches out the emergence and objectives of the East German Friendship Brigades within the field of global development policy of the 1960s. Furthermore, the joint development strategies of the SED and the MPLA, together with the specific conditions and goals of the brigades’ mission in Angola, are explained. Through my analysis, it will become clear that the solidarity discourse, which was crucial for the brigades’ self-understanding, was closely interwoven with the GDR’s foreign trade interests.

The main part of this chapter examines the personnel sent and the fine structures of implementation on the ground in Angola from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, such as the complex tripartite remuneration scheme. Next, the section discusses what the mostly young men and few women perceived as obstacles to their mission of exercising solidarity more than 6,000 kilometres away from home in a challenging environment, constantly overshadowed by a raging internationalized destabilization war that was mainly fuelled, according to their (and the MPLA’s) perspective, by Pretoria and Washington.²⁷ Other challenges faced included how to cope with everyday life in general and the transfer of knowledge within the vocational training programme, which was impaired by insufficient language skills on the East German side and a low level of education and supposed lack of discipline on the Angolan side.

Contact between the East Germans and the Angolans, Cubans, and Soviets on the ground – under the banner of socialist “internationalism” – will be emphasized throughout this contribution. This emphasis supports the overall argument that the presence of the GDR’s Friendship Brigades in socialist Angola was part of socialist global entanglements, with the intersection of solidarity and trade in the relationship between the SED and MPLA leadership acting as a nodal point.

2 East German Friendship Brigades of the Free German Youth: A Socialist Instrument of Development Policy

Development policy had become a global endeavour in the early 1960s, and youth organizations were involved, to a large degree, to assert their sending country’s interests and to “universalize their own social system”.²⁸ In 1963, the two German states followed, respectively, the footsteps of the volunteers of the Peace Corps (USA) and the youths who were dispatched by the Komsomol (Soviet Union). The Federal Republic’s German Development Service was founded on 24 June 1963, and the GDR followed less than three months later with the founding of the Friendship Brigades of the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend, FDJ).²⁹ Initially, the brigades’ main aim was to show “active solidarity with the people living in the young nation states” and to support these countries in achieving political and economic independence and social progress.³⁰ In 1978, the secretariat of the ZFDJ refined their objectives to include increasing the GDR’s international reputation, propagating Marxist-Leninist ideology and peace policy, sharing experiences of socialist construction and youth associations, and training young citizens in host countries to become qualified specialists.³¹

Starting in 1964, the ZFDJ dispatched more than 60 Friendship Brigades to their work locations in 26 African, Asian, and Latin American countries.³² By the 1980s, with an average of 300 members per year, a few thousand brigadists were sent to their work locations.³³

Production brigades, in the form of youth brigades, had existed in the Soviet-occupied zone since the 1940s. A decade later, work brigades emerged, which were followed by the Brigades of Socialist Work, established in 1959.³⁴ Made up of mostly young men and a few women in their 20s and early 30s, the youth were sent as collectives (Kollektive) and not individually or in small groups, as was the common practice for Western aid workers, especially for volunteers.³⁵ In that sense, the internationally active Friendship Brigades represented a unique extension of the internal brigade movement in the GDR.³⁶

The occupational background of the brigade members varied depending on the requirements for the specific mission, but in general it comprised a wide range of technical, medical, and pedagogical professions.

In the GDR, state-delegated experts with operational tasks were referred to officially as cooperators (Kooperanten), skilled workers as specialists (Spezialisten), and the members of the Friendship Brigades of the Free German Youth as brigadists (Brigadisten).³⁷ There were clear differences between the brigade members and specialists on the ground. According to Neues Deutschland, the central organ of the SED, the brigadists, being mostly very young, came “with the enthusiasm of the youth and with the willingness to actively show solidarity” and with “the firm will to make sacrifices”.³⁸ This “active solidarity” and “willingness to make sacrifices” was used to justify the poorer accommodation, worse situation regarding supplies, and lower remuneration of brigadists compared to that of specialists.

Unlike other forms of solidarity, which were usually handled centrally by the GDR’s Solidarity Committee (Solidaritätskomitee), the ZFDJ was responsible for the staff deployment of the Friendship Brigades.³⁹ However, the Angolan case was different. Due to the mission’s entanglement with the export of W50 trucks,⁴⁰ in addition to the ZFDJ, the MALF and MfV were also responsible. The specialist brigade, named “Solidarity”, of the Industrial Association for Vehicle Construction (Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau, IFA),⁴¹ through the IFA combine for commercial vehicles in Ludwigsfelde, was handled by the MALF itself.⁴²

Because the Friendship Brigades were integrated into party structures through the ZFDJ, the SED, overall, had a definitive influence on GDR development policy since civil society and church groups were only able to make themselves heard effectively at the end of the 1980s.⁴³ The notion of “solidarity”, commonly framed as “anti-imperialist solidarity” (anti-imperialistische Solidarität), was paramount in the SED’s political-ideological discourse towards the colonial territories and independent nation-states of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.⁴⁴ The GDR’s politically and ideologically motivated Südpolitik (a policy oriented towards states in the Global South) sought to strengthen the “progressive forces” on the African continent and, thus, advance the construction of socialism worldwide.⁴⁵ Accordingly, it is unsurprising that the seizure of power of the socialist MPLA in resource-rich Angola created high hopes amongst the SED leadership:⁴⁶ “For the first time, a developing country [Angola] with the foundations of a modern economy is on our side. Under the current power relations, a socialist state with a model effect for the whole of Africa can be created in a short space of time.”⁴⁷

3 “Solidarity” and Trade Matters: Aims and Conditions of the Friendship Brigades’ Deployment in Angola

In the years that followed the battles over Luanda and its hinterland, the victorious Marxist liberation movement – the MPLA – had to establish control over most of the country’s provinces. Reviving the devastated agricultural sector proved to be a monumental challenge for the new government, which was overseeing an economy whose productivity dropped roughly two-thirds in almost all sectors compared to pre-independence levels. As for coffee, production fell from over 200,000 tons prior to independence to a mere 25,170 tons in 1978, and the MPLA government was deprived of substantial export revenues due to the slump in coffee production.⁴⁸

From 1976 onwards, relations between Angola – whose first president as well as the leader of the MPLA, Agostinho Neto, embarked on a “socialist path to development” – and the socialist countries, such as the GDR, developed fast.⁴⁹ In turn, the SED and MPLA agreed upon agreements for credit, trade, and commercial shipments as well as cooperation in construction and geology, agriculture, transport, plant construction, and health and social services, amongst many more endeavours. The personnel dispatched to Angola included technical and educational specialists from a similar variety of fields as well as the Friendship Brigades.⁵⁰

In accordance with a decision made on 1 September 1977 by the Central Committee of the SED, the brigades would be deployed at several locations in Angola and were given a twofold task. Firstly, they should help to secure the import of Angolan coffee through the construction of a “coffee line”. At the request of the MPLA, the necessary coffee peeling machines would be repaired at harvest time and the transport and marketing of the harvest would be supported through GDR aid. The brigades would be supported by East German coffee experts, roasting masters, truck drivers, civil engineers, and economists. Secondly, they should secure the export of the East German W50 trucks by setting up a network of on-site workshops as well as customer and repair services. In addition, Angolans would receive vocational training in these workshops.

Thus, the “coffee agreement”, which included the Friendship Brigades, was described by both East German and Angolan actors as “mutually beneficial”: Angolan coffee – bartered for East German trucks and personnel who, in turn, assisted in repairing Angola’s war-damaged and neglected coffee commodity chain – seemed a win-win situation. On the one hand, it acted as a viable option to save precious hard currency for the leadership of the SED in East Berlin, and, on the other hand, it strengthened the standing of MPLA’s politicians in Luanda, who shared considerable trust towards the socialist bloc due to its commitment during the year-long anti-colonial war against the Portuguese colonialists backed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.⁵¹

The sending strategy of the Friendship Brigades clearly demonstrates the intermingling of “solidarity” with East German foreign trade interests,⁵² and a number of scholars highlight the connections with the general “commercialization” of the GDR’s development policy during the critical juncture of the late 1970s.⁵³ One example suffices: Heinz-Jürgen Hagenmüller, head of the department managing the Friendship Brigades, stated in 1982:

The stronger orientation of the brigades’ tasks towards GDR objects and exports can also be witnessed in other states. While in Angola the focus is on repairing W50 trucks and securing coffee exports, in Cuba the focus is on the cement plant Karl Marx, in Mozambique on the coal plant Moatize, and in Ethiopia on repairing GDR combine harvesters.⁵⁴

In principle, the export of East German goods made it possible to earn foreign currency while pursuing the GDR’s import efforts. Thus, the work of the brigades within the framework of the Angolan “coffee line”⁵⁵ and the repairing of the exported W50 trucks for Angola is not a new factor affecting the aims of the brigades during this period. Nevertheless, the spontaneity and the number of staff sent over the course of the Angola mission is remarkable. More importantly, the MPLA explicitly requested the ZFDJ Friendship Brigades, and the GDR’s man in charge of the agreement, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, fulfilled the MPLA’s wish within a very short time.⁵⁶

The special agreement to purchase 10,000 tons of raw coffee from Angola was signed on 23 June 1977, and the Politbüro decision to send the brigades followed promptly after on 28 June 1977. This was successful due to tough negotiations between bureaucrats and foreign traders of both governments. Angola was not willing to bear any part of the operational costs, especially in convertible currency, as President Neto assumed that Angola would receive the same conditions as other countries for the deployment of “ambassadors in blue shirts” (as the Friendship Brigades were also called).⁵⁷ In the end, the basis of the operating conditions of the brigadists in Angola was agreed upon with the representative GDR companies and Angolan authorities in August 1977, which included, amongst others, working times, vacation time, financed travel to and from the country, and restrictions on import for personal use only.⁵⁸ Additionally, the deployment period for brigade members was set one year, with the option to extend for another year. Specialists were usually deployed for one to three years, depending on the contract with the GDR company that dispatched them.⁵⁹

The first four locations were in Luanda, Gabela, N’Dalatando, and Uíge. The capital, Luanda, functioned as the main base for East German involvement in Angola because the Central Operation Management was located there. Gabela, surrounded by coffee plantations, is located around 300 km south of Luanda and functioned as an important station between the capital and the more southern towns of Benguela and Lobito. The nearby town of Porto Amboim was Angola’s only area for cultivating arabica coffee. Most of Angola’s robusta coffee was produced in the areas around Uíge, 250 km north-east of Luanda, and N’Dalatando, located 200 km east of Luanda. By May 1978, 25 East German Friendship Brigade members and specialists were deployed in Luanda, 60 in Gabela, 64 in N’Dalatando, and 68 in Uíge, and, numbering altogether 217 GDR citizens in the coffee and transportation sector, of which 128 were brigadists.⁶⁰

This was followed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by car repair workshops in Lobito, Lubango, Huambo, Malanje, and Luena in the far east, and in the mid-1980s, a vocational training centre in the Angolan exclave of Cabinda started to operate. The brigade in the town of Gabela can act as an example to emphasize the aim of the Friendship Brigades to support autarchy as well as the multitude of occupational backgrounds mentioned above. The Gabela brigade consisted of a brigade leader, a party secretary, four locksmiths, two car mechanics, one driving school instructor, one electrician, one water wagon driver,⁶¹ one supplier (Versorger),⁶² one interpreter, one nurse, and one cook.

4 Dispatched to a Collapsing Economy: The Brigades and Specialists’ Main Fields of Activity

Two main fields of engagement existed for the East German brigades and specialists on the ground: firstly, the coffee supply chain and, secondly, the car repair workshops, where Angolans received vocational training. Those brigadists active in the coffee sector were mainly assigned to repairing coffee peeling machines and generators from Portuguese or British manufacturers or to assisting with the collection and transport of the harvest. These repair teams usually comprised five members and were referred to as “mobile brigades” since they were not permanently tied to a specific location, as was the case with the workshop brigades. Apart from the tasks mentioned above, “mobile brigadists” took over a number of organizational and repair tasks depending on their occupational background and what tasks the Angolans and Cubans asked them to do. As one East German electrical engineer who was part of a “mobile brigade” remembered, he was usually assigned various tasks by the Angolans or Cubans on site:

Most of the problems that we were supposed to solve, as far as I was concerned, were always decentralized somewhere in the area, kilometres away, sometimes 100 kilometres or so, and those were always problems that the Angolans told us where they needed help, we couldn’t even know that […] or the Cubans who were working in a certain area told us that it would be good if the place was connected to the power circuit again.⁶³

In fact, the tasks of the electrical engineer in question ranged from repairing emergency power generators (most Angolan villages and even smaller towns were not connected to an integrated power grid) to restarting machines in joineries and workshops to connecting dozens of households, sawmills, and car workshops to the power grid.⁶⁴

The work of the young East German men and women also concerned other fields, some of which was carried out outside working hours – for example, some tasks were undertaken semi-voluntarily on institutionalized “Red Saturdays”. This included tasks such as ensuring the water supply of individual municipalities or maintaining large generators, which could sometimes take a brigade member or specialist to a training camp of the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO)⁶⁵ over a weekend. A former brigadist and later business traveller for the VEB Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde, for example, told me that he and a colleague worked for free over a weekend to repair a generator in a SWAPO training camp since this was requested by the Angolan partners. To do this kind of work free of charge – “where a Swede would certainly have asked for several hundred dollars” – was seen by one interviewee as a unique characteristic of the GDR staff as a whole, given its mission of internationalism and solidarity.⁶⁶

Regarding the coffee preparation infrastructure (peeling, cleaning, and pre-sorting) in the four main coffee-cultivating areas of Angola, it was reported in early 1978 that only 220 of 660 coffee enterprises were still in operation. The remaining 440 enterprises were not operating due to broken diesel electric stations because of a lack of skilled staff for operation, maintenance, and repair. Owing to these shortcomings, it was estimated that a whole year’s harvest was going to waste in abandoned warehouses in Angola’s countryside. As for the follow-up processing (post-cleaning, sorting, storing, and shipping), the roughly 40 enterprises were limited in their production capacity due to a lack of skilled personnel.⁶⁷

How effective the deployment of the brigades was perceived by the Central Operations Management in Luanda and the Central Council of the FDJ in East Berlin was determined by the reporting of local agents. The East German workshop and brigade leaders gave a detailed account of the brigade’s productivity in their biannual reports. The latter recorded repaired W50 trucks as well as coffee peeling and processing machines, together with overtime worked. The vocational training activities and any problems that occurred were also written down. According to Eric Burton, the exclusively male brigade leaders were “in a particularly important, but also precarious situation as mediators of reality between local experiences and the Central Council of the Free German Youth [in Berlin]”.⁶⁸

Therefore, the table below (Table 1), with figures calculated from the brigade leaders and specialists’ reports, has to be seen against the tendency of the reporting agents to probably portray things more favourably than they were in reality. The detailed reports and tables on the brigades’ work – which are available in the Angolan case up until 1984 – also reveal a habit of quantifying work performance.⁶⁹ Quantifiable targets for the brigade collective were detailed in the annual “fighting programmes” (Kampfprogramme), some of which were written down in the brigade diaries. With their individual targets the brigades competed with each other for the honorary title “Collective of socialist work/Kollektiv der sozialistischen Arbeit”.⁷⁰ Taking all this into account, the table compiled below gives an idea of the number of repairs conducted on the ground. With Angola’s truck fleet being estimated at around 500 in 1976 and the number of coffee enterprises at around 660 in 1978, the table emphasizes the major influence the work of the brigades and specialists’ work had. It is also important to keep in mind that a functioning transport system was key to delivering the coffee harvest to the roasteries and then to the ports for export.

Table 1:Number of trucks and machines repaired by the East German personnel.

Period	Trucks (total)	Foreign trucks	W50 trucks	Truck inspections	Coffee peeling and processing machines	Agricultural machinery	Stationary diesel engines	Overtime (hours)
09/1977–05/1978⁷¹	3,806	306	3,550	n/a	91	n/a	n/a	5,885
09/1977–09/1979⁷²	13,252	n/a	n/a	n/a	1,200	691	827	20,966
1982⁷³	4,724	1,294	3,430	2,003	593			19,106
1983⁷⁴	5,802	2,011	3,791	2,365	1,763			15,011

However, the effectiveness of the Angolan, East German, and Cuban attempts in improving the coffee commodity chain were adversely influenced by a number of factors. These included continuously raging armed conflicts in many coffee-

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growing areas,⁷⁵ which resulted in decreased production; a lack of necessary technical knowledge about machines, fertilizers, and processing following the Portuguese exodus; the mismanagement and incompetence of the managers appointed by the MPLA government; a lack of support for small-scale farmers growing coffee; and a drought at the beginning of the 1980s. These circumstances contributed to a further decline in production.⁷⁶

Importantly, the shortage of labour remained an acute, unresolved problem. Before independence, up to 120,000 Ovimbundu “contract workers” from the central highlands of Angola had picked, washed, and dried the coffee cherries under a system of “neo-slavery”.⁷⁷ The structural problem of a post-colonial labour supply was never solved and is symptomatic of the MPLA’s neglect of establishing a policy of incentives in rural areas. Coffee production had fallen to a meagre 17,400 tons by 1982, and the once most important foreign currency earner was now one agricultural commodity amongst many.

Due to the rapidly growing presence of East German W50 trucks on Angolan roads – from none at independence to over 7,000 by 1980 and 10,000 by 1984⁷⁸ – the work of the East German brigades and specialists increasingly concentrated on the second main field of activity: the transport sector and technical vocational training. Car repair workshops were set up in Luanda, Gabela, N’Dalatando, and Uíge. Facilities in Lobito, Lubango, Huambo, Malanje, and Luena followed afterwards. Some 30 to 90 Angolans worked alongside the East German (and sometimes Cuban, Soviet, Portuguese, or Swedish) staff in these workshops. Local workers comprised already skilled workers and a number of apprentices, seeing that each brigade member and specialist usually had one to two apprentices. The rest of Angolan workforce was made up of secretaries, cleaning staff, and, sometimes, street children, who did not go to school.⁷⁹ The resident workshop manager was assisted by a counterpart from the GDR, but the operational management and ultimate decision-making authority was always reserved for the Angolan workshop director, who was, theoretically, positioned one level higher in the hierarchy than either the Angolan or East German workshop manager. The work relationship between these actors oscillated between a constructive one, where the East German side was invited to management meetings in some workshops, and a conflictual one regarding authority: “Another problem is that the Angolan director is reluctant to accept our proposals and advice. His mentality is that he is director and that he can do everything and knows everything.”⁸⁰ In some instances, the East German perceived superiority in constructing a socialist order was justified with what was seen as the result of colonialism on the mental state of their Angolan counterparts: “Our main daily collective task is to constantly consult with our Angolan colleagues on the professional and ideological aspects of the work process. The colleagues should recognize the necessity of learning, knowledge, work, and quality. They must come to the realization that they must first work if they want to buy more or satisfy their needs.”⁸¹

Although the Angolan apprentices’ skills focused on East German trucks and spare parts, other vehicles (mainly Swedish Volvo and Scania, which were also imported in greater numbers by the MPLA government) were also repaired in the workshops.⁸² It is increasingly reported that the workshops maintained vehicles for SWAPO, the Namibian liberation movement, which the MPLA government had supported since Angola’s independence.⁸³ In this context, it is noteworthy that several hundreds, if not thousands, of the more than 13,000 W50 trucks exported to Angola were delivered to the Angolan army to fight UNITA rebels⁸⁴ – a utilization of the W50 truck that was widely unknown amongst the East German populace. As an extension of the work in the car repair workshops, some of the East German brigadists also helped to unload the East German W50 trucks at the ports of Luanda and Lobito, brought the trucks to the large distribution centre, assembled them together there, and carried out the initial inspection before the trucks were handed over to the Angolan Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Transport.⁸⁵

The vocational training, which was initially tied mostly to the car repair workshops, was soon expanded to include other fields. Whereas Angolan-Cuban cooperation predominantly focused on the education sector and literacy campaigns,⁸⁶ the GDR trained local people mostly in technical occupations. Locksmiths for agricultural machinery were trained in Malanje from 1984 onwards.⁸⁷ More than 500 young people were said to have been trained as locksmiths, motor mechanics, and bricklayers in the vocational training centre in Angola’s exclave of Cabinda.⁸⁸

The construction and expansion of these local vocational training centres were continuously demanded by the high-ranking Angolan delegation during negotiations in the Joint Economic Council (Gemeinsamer Wirtschaftsausschuss), which took place alternately in Luanda and East Berlin every one to three years from 1977 onwards.

Regarding the division of labour of the different socialist states engaged in Angola – that is to say, Cuba in general education, transport, and medicine; the GDR in transport, machinery, and vocational training; the Soviet Union in fishery; and Vietnam and Bulgaria in agriculture – this specialization was a result of a bilateral coordination process managed by the MPLA government. Lopo do Nascimento, Angola’s prime minister, approached the GDR with options for future cooperation in the sectors of transport and machinery (trucks, railways, and ports), agriculture, and vocational training.⁸⁹ Cooperation coexisted with competition on the ground in these socialist globalization projects: while Eastern European staff were often treated by Cuban doctors and guarded by Cuban and Soviet soldiers, the repair teams of East German and Bulgarian agricultural machinery competed rather than cooperated.⁹⁰

Considering that the Eastern European socialist states, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Vietnam were all members of COMECON at that time, it is surprising how little economic organization seemed to play a role in the coordination and setting up of development plans in Angola.⁹¹ Whereas COMECON had set up orientation guidelines for the pricing mechanisms in barter trade and remuneration of specialists, actual involvement remained low. In 1977, the GDR side informed the MPLA that 200 specialists would be sent to Angola as part of a COMECON initiative. In turn, the Angolan side provided a detailed list of the specialists needed.⁹² Yet, since the initiative is not mentioned again in the sources, it is difficult to assess how many specialists were sent, if at all. Additionally, in 1985, there was a COMECON proposal for multilateral projects and joint ventures with socialist companies in various Angolan sectors, such as transport, education, and raw material exploration, with the aim of countering the Western dominance of Angolan trade and securing a long-term supply of mineral and agricultural raw materials. It was met with modest enthusiasm: the GDR government was, in principle, in favour of the proposal but made it clear that the bulk of East German involvement should be bilateral.⁹³

Regarding the vocational training programmes of the brigades and specialists, I principally agree with the important legacy of the vocational training programmes in Angola to counter colonialisms’ conscious neglect of education,⁹⁴ which will be focused upon in the next section. Still, it is important to highlight here that these endeavours in Angola were, on a broader scale, interwoven with the foreign trade interests of the GDR at a crucial economic juncture, while on an individual scale, the mission in Angola was presented to the brigadists as a mission for a socialist brother country.

As for the Angolan side, the MPLA top leadership and province commissioners were continuously expressing their satisfaction with the work of the East German brigades and specialists and demanded an extension of their mission.⁹⁵ It is important that it was stated repeatedly in the protocols documents of the Joint Economic Council that the efforts of the personnel dispatched to Angola were one important factor amongst others for the Angolan government to stick to the barter agreement with the GDR for its coffee instead of selling it for hard currency – since “coffee, oil, and quartz crystal as strategic goods are usually only sold [by Angola] for convertible currency”.⁹⁶ This is a valuable insight considering that most research assumes that the GDR had to pay for Angolan coffee and oil with hard currency.⁹⁷

The work of the East German Friendship Brigades and specialists in Angola safeguarded a coffee supply for the GDR population at home – roughly 20 per cent of East German coffee imports came from Angola at its peak – and guaranteed the East German economy a continuous export of W50 trucks while their efforts in the Angolan infrastructure sector legitimized the socialist sister party, the MPLA. However, when the East German personnel arrived in Angola in the mid-1970s, they found an internationalized civil war environment. The MPLA’s ongoing war with UNITA and South Africa posed a number of problems for the globalization project of the GDR in Angola, reducing its potential for success since its inception.

5 Living Conditions and Survival Strategies of the East German Personnel on the Ground

Following the agreement for the deployment of the Friendship Brigades, the Angolan partner mainly had to provide accommodation and food, but given the near collapse of the economy, continuing UNITA incursions, and generally a severe setback in agricultural produce, this was a difficult task for the Angolan partners. Only a few months after deployment, in November 1977, a list of complaints raised by brigade members and specialists was delivered to the desk of Egon Krenz, the first secretary of the ZFDJ, concerning the “inadequate food situation, insufficient supply of spare parts for motor vehicles, lack of interpreters in the places of work, insufficient medical care and hardly any materials for leisure activities”.⁹⁸

In order to comfort the protesting brigade members, they individually received additional pocket money in the amount of 2,000 kwanza,⁹⁹ of which 1,400 went to Versina’s Catering Fund for Supplementary Catering, which could be obtained locally. Versina was a GDR institution for East German citizens sent abroad. In local Versina shops (e.g., in Luanda), imported food and beverages could usually be bought.

Despite these early corrective attempts, the poor supply of food and beer remained a continuous point of friction. Beer and other alcoholic beverages played an important role for many East Germans on the ground as entertainment options were scarce and curfews limited the time they could spend outside their lodgings.¹⁰⁰ The supply situation was apparently so miserable in the first years of service in some places of residence that many brigadists did not even want to return to Angola after their holidays in the GDR. The food in some places consisted almost exclusively of rice and dried fish, which had often already been partially infested with maggots.¹⁰¹ For those brigades deployed on the coast, there were rare opportunities to obtain much sought after “additional food” (Zusatzverpflegung) from the GDR ships mooring at Angola’s ports, where a number of East German harbour pilots, together with Cuban specialists, were also deployed to manage the incoming and outgoing cargo after the Portuguese exodus.¹⁰² The dire supply situation on the ground amidst an ongoing war not only severely constrained the effectiveness of the brigade members and specialists dispatched but also diminished the spirit of solidarity as conditions became unbearable for some East Germans.

Another bone of contention was the remuneration scheme. Admittedly, the salary schemes of the staff sent are rather difficult to grasp. It seems that a tripartite remuneration scheme was in operation, at least from the beginning of the dispatching in 1977 until the mid-1980s, when all brigades in Angola were placed under the aegis of the ZFDJ and salary schemes were standardized.¹⁰³ The members of the “conventional” Friendship Brigades apparently received 250 West German marks in the form of forum cheques (Forumschecks)¹⁰⁴ on a foreign exchange account plus 100 East German marks as a tropical surcharge in the GDR as well as pocket money of about 1,000 kwanza on the ground. The members of the specialist brigade “Solidarity”, which was handled by the IFA combine for commercial vehicles in Ludwigsfelde, received pocket money of 10,000 kwanza per month but, apart from free lodging, had to pay for their own food. What remained of the 10,000 kwanza at the end of the month, but no more than 5,000 kwanza, could be transferred to a foreign exchange account in the GDR. The specialists who stayed in the country for several years were remunerated according to a salary scheme linked to their occupation. This was between 750 and 920 US dollars per month for workshop managers, brigade leaders, skilled workers, and other technicians. Specialists were allowed to reside with their families and received more suitable accommodation and a better supply of food. The comparatively high remuneration for specialists falling under the third group is due to the difficulties the SED government had in recruiting qualified personnel for these missions abroad.¹⁰⁵

In addition to these official income channels, brigade members and specialists came up with individual strategies to mitigate the moderate level of and access to supplies and to increase their available funds on the ground. While their government bartered for Angolan coffee with trucks, brigade members brought watches and other consumables from the GDR to barter them for foodstuffs or to sell them locally. All my interview partners informed me that East German watches in Angola were “absolute top sellers”. One received between 5,000 and 10,000 kwanza, a sum that partly corresponded to a monthly wage, for a Ruhla watch, which sold for around 10 East German marks in the GDR:

Every half year [when travelling from the GDR to Angola] […] I have always had about two or three watches with me. I also brought soap or toothbrushes and something like that with me, but as I said, I did not trade in them but used them to get some money because you could only buy them on the black market, except for at Versina, but they had no fresh goods; those were all only canned food […] [I]f you wanted to supply yourself there on the black market, you just needed a lot of money […] and a watch like that, I think it was traded for 10,000 kwanza, which was almost a month’s pay. But there were also [East German] idiots who exaggerated and then some have been arrested at the airport, because they had 50 watches in their luggage.¹⁰⁶

That the interviewee tries to distance himself with “I did not trade in them” is based on the fact that this kind of trading was not permitted by the GDR authorities and could mean the end of one’s deployment in Angola. In reality, though, as several interview partners mentioned, all brigade members, including the brigade leaders who reported “home” and were responsible for the disciplining of the brigade, engaged in trading and/or selling of East German goods on the black market (candonga).

6 Problems, Security Risks in the Context of Ongoing War, and Responses to the Contact Ban

Naturally, the mission did not run smoothly, given that there was tension due to disciplinary offences of various kinds punished by the party leadership as well as were some problems (mentioned above) affecting the brigades and specialists’ work. The following section examines the difficulties of the socialist development mission, in which GDR citizens engaged with their Angolan hosts, and the learning processes that resulted from these socialist entanglements. The context of the ongoing war is further highlighted as a crucial and an ever-present factor. According to testimonies from interview partners and final reports¹⁰⁷ written by East German workshop managers (in a number of locations) every six months, problematic issues included a lack of spare parts, a demand for more GDR specialists, complications with the “work organization” and “work discipline” of Angolan workers, and calls for better specialization and for adequate Portuguese language training of GDR personnel before their arrival in Angola.

The continuous criticism by both Angolan and East German actors of the GDR’s supply of spare parts reached the high-ranking Mittag-Kommission and the GDR’s central planning commission, which, in the late 1970s, addressed the problem of customer service and the shortage of spare parts and personnel for the W50 truck in Angola – the largest export market for W50 trucks on the African continent.¹⁰⁸ Angolan criticism was acknowledged: an agreement was made between the ZFDJ and the IFA combine for commercial vehicles in Ludwigsfelde to gather specialists and members of the specialist brigade, under the name “Solidarity”, and to send them to Luanda from 1979 to 1982 to improve customer services and revamp repair workshops. Under the guidance of experienced East German specialists in the workshops, together with Angolan workers, the 10 to 15 brigade members had the task of making as many W50 trucks as possible roadworthy again while training Angolan apprentices as truck drivers, mechanics, turners, and other professions in the workshop area.¹⁰⁹ The best Angolan apprentices were given the opportunity to complete training as master craftsmen in the GDR, highlighting the bidirectional flow of people. By 1989, over 300 Mozambicans and 85 Angolans worked as “contract workers” (Vertragsarbeiter) in the automobile factories of the VEB Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde, primarily in the area for the final assembly of the W50 trucks.¹¹⁰

The colonial legacy of a low education level – an illiteracy rate of 85–90 per cent for Angola was estimated at the time of independence in 1975¹¹¹ – was mentioned as an enormous challenge for the vocational training by all brigade members:

To offer insights into the black box of electrotechnics – impossible, since it is already for me, an electrician, a black box, so how can you help someone like him [the Angolan apprentice] […] what was just good, he was simply an intelligent guy who was also very skilled in craftsmanship and learned very quickly and wanted to learn […] but I wouldn’t say that it had anything to do with what we would have called training [Ausbildung], that’s nonsense, that’s over the top, because people sometimes had so few writing and numerical skills.¹¹²

Moreover, due to the spontaneity of the dispatching of East Germans as Friendship Brigades to Angola, many brigadists lacked language skills in Portuguese, which greatly impaired their capacity to conduct the vocational work in the coffee sector and in the workshops, as the following quote makes clear:

I am employed in Gabela as a brigade leader and in this function, I have to primarily organize and guide the work of the brigade, which comprises 31 people. Under the conditions in the People’s Republic of Angola, this means that I have to clarify difficult technical problems with the responsible Angolan comrades on a daily basis. Since I and no member of the brigade speak Portuguese, an interpreter is required. Without an interpreter, however, the organization and execution of our activities can only be carried out to an extent that calls into question our mission as a whole and certainly does not serve the reputation of our republic.¹¹³

In the years to come, workshop managers and brigade leaders continuously called for better language education for the incoming brigadists, and usually an interpreter was still needed to interact with the Angolan authorities. The insufficient language training was certainly a sore point regarding the effectiveness of the brigades, which was not affected by the war.

Regarding the Angolan workers and apprentices in the workshops, the archival documents and interview partners frequently called attention to a perceived lack of zeal or discipline, often explained by their lack of food, clothing, and regular pay. A high absence rate was one of the biggest challenges. The reasons given in the interviews for the high absence rate of Angolans were manifold: some of their wages, for example, were either not paid at all or paid late. Many had neither proper shoes nor proper clothes for their work in the workshop.¹¹⁴ According to one brigadist, “family obligations”,¹¹⁵ on the part of the apprentices, also often led to frequent non-appearance. Moreover, “marijuana was omnipresent”¹¹⁶ and would have had a correspondingly diminishing effect on the productivity and presence of the apprentices. Moreover, the fluctuation of Angolan staff was high, as many able-bodied men still in vocational training or working in the workshops were conscripted into Angola’s army, the People’s Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola, FAPLA), since Angola was in in a constant state of warfare.

Pretoria’s destabilization war¹¹⁷ – which had been undeclared since the unsuccessful invasion of Angola by South African troops in 1975 and which the apartheid regime waged together with UNITA rebels and with additional financial support from the USA – was a proxy war of the bloc powers, the USA and Soviet Union, during the “hot Cold War”.¹¹⁸ By 1988, more than 1 million Angolans had lost their lives due to the war, and 1.5 million had had to flee their homelands. The attacks by South African troops and UNITA rebels not only caused immense human suffering but also inflicted enormous damage on infrastructure, with schools, bridges, production plants, hospitals, and roads being damaged or destroyed.¹¹⁹ The war restricted to a great extent the freedom of movement, not only of Angola’s population but also of the members of the Friendship Brigades. In March 1984, UNITA rebels attacked the provincial capital of Sumbe, located halfway along the coast between Luanda and Benguela; a month later, a UNITA-administered terrorist attack in Huambo in the central Angolan highlands killed 15 Cubans and injured or killed at least 40 Angolans.¹²⁰

To what extent the East German personnel was affected by the war varied greatly according to the respective locations: Gabela, once regarded as a “paradise” of living and working conditions, had to be evacuated in 1983 due to security concerns brought on by advancing UNITA rebels. The East German brigadists and specialists cooperated with Angolan, Cuban, and often Soviet personnel in most of the larger Angolan towns where Friendship Brigades were deployed, such as Gabela, Lobito, and Uíge. In some of these towns, medical services would be handled by Cuban or Soviet doctors.¹²¹ Since the SED government did not allow its citizens to carry guns, Cuban internacionalistas¹²² – who were usually armed and had received military training before their dispatching to Angola – were also taking care of the safety of East German citizens, a situation that again highlights task sharing and cooperation amongst socialist staff from different countries.¹²³

The various factors and conditions outlined here – perceived colonial legacies of work organization and work discipline, lack of spare parts, insufficient language skills, and an ongoing destabilization war – all point to the difficulties in conducting development work within this socialist globalization project the Friendship Brigades symbolized. It also emphasizes significant learning processes on both sides; for example, the GDR’s capacity to provide Portuguese language training was only effectively developed in the mid-1970s, and companies, such as the IFA combine in Ludwigsfelde, were overstretched with the obligations that went hand in hand with the skyrocketing export of trucks.

Another bone of contention that conflicted with the mission’s solidarity imperative was the contact ban (Kontaktverbot), which was in force to discourage private personal contact between GDR citizens and the population of “non-socialist economic areas” (Nichtsozialistisches Wirtschaftsgebiet, NSW) after working hours. Since Angola was not a member of COMECON, it was classified as an NSW.

Some interviewees heavily criticized the imposed contact ban:

What you promised was worth nothing more than the paper, because it’s absurd, so you come to a country for a year, well, after half a year you should have a holiday and someone demands that you should avoid all contact with the local population outside working hours […] someone should tell me if there is something more absurd to demand from someone?¹²⁴

Disobedience in these matters could lead, theoretically, to one’s repatriation but instead was usually met with a reprimand (Rüge) when handled in disciplinary procedures. Overall, the spectrum of “Angolan incidents” reported in the archival documents ranges from “careless handling of food” to “politically inactive behaviour, disciplinary difficulties” to “selling personal belongings” to “insult and gross violations of safety regulations” to “gross violations of contact rules”.¹²⁵

Owing to the obstacles imposed by the SED government in the form of the contact ban, it is not surprising that depictions of sexual encounters between East German men and Angolan women are completely absent in the archival records.¹²⁶ Interview partners emphasized that brigadists usually entertained their local contacts – mainly friendships – but a few also had Angolan girlfriends.¹²⁷ It was reported that male East German brigadists and specialists in Uíge engaged in sexual intercourse with Angolan women and frequently “paid” with chocolate as a kind of parallel currency.¹²⁸ Another brigadist, and later specialist, mentioned that it was common for male brigadists to have affairs with Angolan women, especially in the provincial towns; however, it was too dangerous in Luanda, since it was too easy to notice.¹²⁹

To sum up, the GDR’s state-imposed double standards became visible when handling contacts of its citizens with citizens of “non-socialist economic areas” such as Angola.¹³⁰ On the one hand, the East German government wanted the brigade members to act as “friends” and energetic internationalists during working hours (with often limited language skills). On the other hand, the contact ban after the end of work led to serious legitimization crises for at least some brigadists whose self-perception was to be on an internationalist mission in order to maintain vital economic fields, such as transport and precious coffee exports, for a fellow socialist country.

7 Concluding Remarks

Thomas Lindenberger recently made a general remark concerning the global entanglements of countries with state socialism: “state-socialist economies and societies seem to have been least or if at all negatively affected by globalization, and therefore one is tempted to assume that their experience has not much to offer for the history of globalization and global labour”.¹³¹ More specifically, for Lindenberger, “the thin stream of migrant or contract workers from the Global South (Mozambique, Vietnam, Cuba) working in the GDR and the GDR’s engagements in international trade, economic aid and humanitarianism” does not alter the picture drawn above, since “such relations have contributed very little to the actual globalization at large” and “have been firmly subordinated to the strategic requirements of the Soviet Union”.¹³²

Contrary to that, I suggest that it is worthwhile including the experiences of the Friendship Brigades and East German specialists into the history of globalization. Rendering East German entanglements with the socialist countries of the Global South as mere footnotes of history, considering their supposedly tiny impact¹³³ and a supposedly Soviet superintendence,¹³⁴ astonishingly resembles older debates during the Cold War that either exorbitantly overestimated the real socialist possibilities or totally neglected the Eastern radius of action.

I hope I could demonstrate how the mission of the Friendship Brigades of the FDJ and East German specialists was part of a socialist globalization project between the governments in Luanda and East Berlin that was entangled with the Cuban and Soviet missions in Angola but also reached beyond that.¹³⁵ Initiated at crucial economic and political junctures for both governments, Angola provided the GDR with up to one-fifth of its coffee imports, with Angola’s coffee and transport sector being maintained, to a considerable extent, by East German personnel.

It was shown how the Friendship Brigades, which were founded in the developmental decade of the 1960s amidst decolonization and Cold War rivalries, acted at a nexus of foreign policy, trade, and solidarity amidst an internationalized destabilization war. The structure of the Friendship Brigades – collectives instead of individuals, a variety of occupations, and a certain autarchy – emerged from the socialist production brigades in the GDR. The “ordinary” brigade members worked alongside better remunerated specialists, who were generally more experienced in their respective domains. However, because of the difficult supply situation, many East Germans found individual strategies to barter GDR consumables for money or goods on the Angolan black market.

The training programmes in the workshops for the Angolans were judged ambivalently by the dispatched brigadists and specialists. Although there were some Angolans who even completed their skilled worker training in the GDR in order to afterwards train apprentices themselves in Angola, a number of factors limited the effectiveness of the training. Many explanations were given for the perceived lack of work discipline of Angolan apprentices and workers, such as no payment of wages, lack of proper work clothes, “family obligations”, hunger, and “omnipresent marijuana consumption”.

On the East German side, however, the brigadists’ lack of language skills on arrival adversely affected the efficiency of their educational tasks in Angola, and it generally restricted their capacity to interact with their environment on their mission abroad. The lack of spare parts was continuously lamented by both the East German personnel on the ground and Angolan authorities; this ultimately led to attempts by the high-ranking party members of the SED to mitigate the supply situation and send a special customer service brigade, the specialist brigade “Solidarity”. Another factor that limited the integration of the East German personnel into the host society, as was criticized by both Angolans and brigadists, was the contact ban with which the SED government aimed to discipline its dispatched citizens. Amid the increasingly intensive war throughout the 1980s, restrictions were stepped up and some brigades even had to be evacuated due to safety reasons and were ultimately disbanded. The wide-ranging impact of the permanent war in Angola was a recurring theme during the time examined, destroying infrastructure, crippling agricultural production, and leading to the death of hundreds of thousands. The fact that the brigades’ mission in Angola’s coffee and transport sector was carried out until the end of the GDR on a larger scope than in any other country, despite these extreme difficulties, reveals the importance of Angola for the East German government while demonstrating the GDR’s own strategy of positioning itself in the field of global development politics.

To conclude, it can be stated that although the East German brigadists and specialists were faced with a persistent shortage of spare parts, a poor supply of food, and comparatively low pay, they made an important contribution to the Angolan coffee and transport sector with their varied activities. The establishment of the brigadists and specialists’ repair workshops and customer services in the provincial capitals and rural regions formed an important backbone of the Angolan truck fleet, in which the W50 truck produced by East Germany was an integral part. Overall, the mission in Angola was characterized by a dense entanglement between the work by the Friendship Brigades and East German foreign trade interests, with Angola acting as a nodal point for socialist globalization in a number of fields, such as coffee, transportation, shipping, and vocational training, during critical junctures of globalization in the mid-1970s.

Notes

The explosion of coffee and (as a complementary good) cocoa prices was due to frosts in Brazil, which devastated coffee trees in the then biggest coffee-producing country.

G. Winrow, The Foreign Policy of the GDR in Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 160.

S. Lorenzini, “Comecon and the South in the Years of Détente: A Study on East-South Economic Relations”, European Review of History 21 (2014), pp. 183–199.

H.-J. Döring, “Es geht um unsere Existenz”: Die Politik der DDR gegenüber der dritten Welt am Beispiel von Mosambik und Äthiopien, Berlin: Ch. Links, 2001. See also A. Dietrich, “Zwischen solidarischem Handel und ungleichem Tausch: Zum Südhandel der DDR am Beispiel des Imports kubanischen Zuckers und äthiopischen Kaffees”, Journal für Entwicklungspolitik 30 (2014), pp. 48–67.

For a close examination and assessment of these barter agreements in the Angolan and São Toméan case, see my master thesis and I. R. Harisch, “Bartering Coffee, Cocoa and W50 Trucks: The Trade Relationships of the GDR, Angola and São Tomé in a Comparative Perspective”, Global Histories 3 (2017), pp. 43–60. For an early assessment of credit and barter arrangements between East and South, see M. Lavigne, The Socialist Economies of the Soviet Union and Europe, Bath: Pitman Press, 1974 [French edition 1970], pp. 348–360.

For a detailed account on the “coffee crisis” and how it threatened the legitimacy of the East German SED, see V. Wünderich, “Die ‘Kaffeekrise’ von 1977”, Historische Anthropologie 11 (2003), pp. 240–261 and A. Dietrich, “Kaffee in Der DDR – ‘Ein Politikum Ersten Ranges’”, in: Ch. Berth, D. Wierling, and V. Wünderich (eds.), Kaffeewelten: Historische Perspektiven auf eine globale Ware im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015, pp. 225–248.

The MPLA, Angola’s ruling party, led by Agostinho Neto, had followers mainly among the Mbundu people of Luanda’s hinterland as well as coastal cities. The MPLA’s Marxist ideology, represented by its mostly mestiço (mixed) intellectual leadership, was consolidated in 1977, when the MPLA transformed itself into a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party that aimed to crush political dissent among Angola’s population following an attempted coup d’état in the same year.

UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, had followers mainly among the Ovimbundu population of the Central Angolan highlands. It received military, financial, and logistical support from the USA and South Africa because it joined the South African army in attempting to invade Angola and capture the capital, Luanda.

The FLNA, led by Holden Roberto, had followers mainly among the Kikongo-speaking people in Angola’s northern provinces and Zaire. It received military, financial, and logistical support mainly from Zaire, the USA, and China.

For an excellent account on the critical moments of 1975/76 and beyond, see P. Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013; furthermore O. A. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 207–239.

J. Pearce, Political Identity and Conflict in Central Angola, 1975–2002, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 36, 39, 43.

D. Birmingham, “Angola”, in: P. Chabal (ed.), A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002, pp. 137–184, at 150; Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, p. 79.

Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen (SAPMO), Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde (BArch), DE 1/57596, “Bericht über den Arbeitsbesuch des Premierministers der Volksrepublik Angola, Lopo do Nascimento, Mitglied des Politbüros und Sekretär des Zentralkomitees der MPLA-Partei der Arbeit, vom 6. bis 8. Februar 1978 in der DDR”, 10 February 1978, p. 6.

J. Becker, Angola, Mosambik und Zimbabwe: Im Visier Südafrikas, Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1988, pp. 88–139.

Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, p. 80.

For reports of the specialists of the Ministry of Transport in Angola, see SAPMO BArch DM1/12157.

SAPMO-BArch, VD MR–845/77, “Beschluß über den Einsatz von FDJ-Brigaden in der VR Angola”, 27 July 1977, not paginated.

SAPMO-BArch, DY30 JIV 2/201/1292, “Fidel Castro’s 1977 Southern Africa Tour: A Report to Honecker (excerpt),” 3 April 1977, History and Public Policy Programme Digital Archive; document obtained by Christian F. Ostermann; translated by David Welch with revisions by Ostermann https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112142 (accessed 4 August 2019).

Altogether, the GDR exported 13,189 W50 trucks to Angola from 1977 to the late 1980s. Hungary imported with 98,000 the most W50 trucks, followed by Iraq (72,209), China (69,337), Soviet Union (49,311), CSSR (27,501), Vietnam (19,202) and Bulgaria (16,660). See F. Rönicke, IFA W50/L50. 1965–1990: Eine Dokumentation, Stuttgart: Motorbuch, 2013, p. 93.

E. Burton, “Solidarität und ihre Grenzen bei den Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ”, in: F. Bösch, C. Moine, and St. Senger (eds.), Globales Engagement im Kalten Krieg, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2018, pp. 152–185.

Harisch, “Bartering Coffee, Cocoa and W50 Trucks”.

The 15 Friendship Brigades comprised 301 people deployed in the following countries (number of brigades): Angola (5), Algeria (2), Guinea (2), Mozambique, Yemen, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Cuba, and Somalia (1 each). See SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22233, “Hinweise zur Vorlage über die Arbeit der Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ 1982”, n.d. See also I. Schleicher, “Elemente entwicklungspolitischer Zusammenarbeit in der Tätigkeit von FDGB und FDJ”, in: H.-J. Bücking (ed.), Entwicklungspolitische Zusammenarbeit in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1998, pp. 111–138, at 137.

B. Unfried, “Instrumente und Praktiken von ‘Solidarität’ Ost und ‘Entwicklungshilfe’ West: Blickpunkt auf das entsandte Personal”, in: B. Unfried and E. Himmelstoß (eds.), Die eine Welt schaffen: Praktiken von “Internationaler Solidarität” und “Internationaler Entwicklung”, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2012, pp. 73–98.

See, e.g., J. Mark and P. Apor, “Socialism Goes Global. Decolonization and the Making of a New Culture of Internationalism in Socialist Hungary, 1956–1989”, The Journal of Modern History 87 (2015), pp. 852–891; J. Bockman, “Socialist Globalization against Capitalist Neocolonialism: The Economic Ideas behind the New International Economic Order”, Humanity 1 (2015), pp. 109–128. This argument is also put forward in I. R. Harisch and E. Burton, “Sozialistische Globalisierung: Tagebücher der DDR-Freundschaftsbrigaden in Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika”, Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 17 (2020) 3, pp. 578–591.

On the diaries of the Friendship Brigades in Angola, see P. Sprute, “Exercising ‘International Solidarity’: The Brigadetagebücher of the FDJ-Freundschaftsbrigaden in Angola and the Experience of Young East Germans in the Global Cold War”, Unpublished seminar paper, Humboldt-University, Berlin, 2018. See also Harisch and Burton, “Sozialistische Globalisierung”.

I conducted seven interviews. The interview partners – a car electrician, electrical engineer, motor mechanic, locksmith for agricultural machines, toolmaker, and industrial blacksmith – were deployed at different times from 1977 to the late 1980s. Four of the male brigadists later worked as specialists in Angola after their two years in the Friendship Brigade.

See Becker, Angola, Mosambik und Zimbabwe and Westad, The Global Cold War, pp. 207–239.

Burton, “Solidarität und ihre Grenzen”, p. 154.

Y.-S. Hong, Cold War Germany, the Third World, and the Global Humanitarian Regime, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 291.

U. van der Heyden, “FDJ-Brigaden der Freundschaft aus der DDR – die Peace Corps des Ostens?” in: Unfried and Himmelstoß (eds.), Die eine Welt schaffen, pp. 99–122, at 101.

SAPMO-BArch, DE 1/57596, Bericht über die Arbeit der FDJ-Brigaden in Entwicklungsländern: Konzeption für die Gestaltung der Arbeit der FDJ-Brigaden in den Jahren 1978/79, 28 February 1978, p. 3.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/19631, “25 Jahre Brigaden der Freundschaft”, 28 July 1989, not paginated.

van der Heyden, “FDJ-Brigaden”, pp. 104, 106, 114.

T. Reichel, “Sozialistisch arbeiten, lernen und leben”: Die Brigadebewegung in der DDR (1959–1989), Köln: Böhlau, 2011, p. 59.

Burton, “Solidarität und ihre Grenzen”, p. 153.

See ibid., p. 152; Harisch and Burton, “Sozialistische Globalisierung”.

Unfried, “Instrumente”, p. 82.

“Die Blauhemden helfen in Angola. Beitrag der Solidarität von FDJ-Brigaden im tropischen Afrika”, Neues Deutschland, 15 August 1979.

U. van der Heyden, GDR International Development Policy Involvement: Doctrine and Strategies between Illusions and Reality 1960–1990. The Example (South) Africa, Münster: Lit, 2013, p. 88.

The first W50 truck came off the production line on 17 July 1965 in the automobile factories of the VEB Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde, part of the IFA conglomerate. The countless vehicle superstructures for the universally applicable W50 included tipper vehicles, box trucks, semitrailer tractors, tankers, fire brigade vehicles, and refuse collection vehicles. The VEB Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde exported the W50 to more than 53 countries on 4 continents (see Ch. Suhr, Laster aus Ludwigsfelde, Reichenbach: Kraftakt, 2015, pp. 71, 204).

The IFA was a conglomerate of combines that was administered by the MALF. The W50 truck was produced in the VEB Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde, south of Berlin.

Information on this can be found, e.g., in SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, “Zwischenbericht über den bisherigen Einsatz der FDJ-Brigaden des Ministeriums für Allgemeinen Maschinen-, Landmaschinen- und Fahrzeugbau in der VR Angola”, 1 February 1978, respectively SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/997, “Bericht über die Ergebnisse des Einsatzes der Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ im Jahr 1982 und Maßnahmen für ihre weitere Arbeit”, 2 December 1982.

B.-E. Siebs, Die Außenpolitik der DDR 1976–1989: Strategien und Grenzen, Paderborn: Schöningh, 1999, p. 54.

Unfried, “Instrumente”, p. 77.

H.-G. Schleicher, “Entwicklungszusammenarbeit und Außenpolitik in der DDR: das Beispiel Afrika”, in: H.-J. Bücking (ed.), Entwicklungspolitische Zusammenarbeit in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1998, pp. 95–110, here pp. 101f.

Schleicher, “Entwicklungszusammenarbeit”, pp. 101f.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/1464, “Information über die Reise einer Delegation des MfAA in die Volksrepublik Angola”, 1 September 1977.

M. R. Bhagavan, Angola’s Political Economy, 1975–1985, Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1986, p. 67, quoted in Harisch, “Bartering Coffee, Cocoa and W50 Trucks”, p. 51.

Importantly, there existed a good basis for trust, given that the SED and its mass organizations had supported the MPLA since the early 1960s with solidarity shipments, scholarships, weapons, and military training. See H.-G. Schleicher, “The German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the Liberation Struggle of Southern Africa”, in: A. Temu and J. Das Neves Tembe (eds.), Southern African Liberation Struggles 1960–1994: Contemporaneous Documents, 9 vols, Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota, 2014, pp. 449–561, here pp. 501–507.

An overview of the agreements between 1977 and 1987 can be found in SAPMO-BArch, DL 226/38.

For a more detailed assessment of and the driving factors for these barter agreements, see the upcoming chapter on Angola in Anne Dietrich’s dissertation project, “Südfrüchte, Rohrzucker und Kaffee aus Übersee – Der Importhandel der DDR mit den Entwicklungsländern Kuba und Äthiopien zwischen Konsumversprechen und ideologischem Anspruch” as well as Harisch, “Bartering Coffee, Cocoa and W50 Trucks”.

Schleicher, “Elemente entwicklungspolitischer Zusammenarbeit”, pp. 121f.

Quoted from H. Butters, “Zur wirtschaftlichen Zusammenarbeit der DDR mit Mosambik”, in: U. van der Heyden, I. Schleicher, and H.-G. Schleicher (eds.), Die DDR und Afrika: Zwischen Klassenkampf und neuem Denken, Münster: Lit, 1993, pp. 165–173; Döring, “Es geht um unsere Existenz”.

SAPMO-BArch, DY24/22233, “Hinweise zur Vorlage über die Arbeit der Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ 1982”, n. d., p. 1 (own translation).

Dietrich, “Zwischen solidarischem Handel”.

Ch. Hatzky, Cubans in Angola: South-South Cooperation and Transfer of Knowledge, 1976–1991, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/1463, “Information über die Reise einer Delegation des MfAA in die Volksrepublik Angola”, 1 September 1977, p. 36.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, “Information über den Stand der Verhandlungen zum Regierungsabkommen mit der Volksrepublik Angola über den Einsatz der FDJ-Brigaden”, 12 August 1977, annex 1.

Interview nos. 1, 2, 3 respectively; SAPMO-BArch, DL 226/38, “Abkommen zwischen der Regierung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik und der Regierung der Volksrepublik Angola über die Entsendung von Spezialisten der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik in die Volksrepublik Angola”, n. d., p. 50.

See the handwritten correction in SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, “Problemkatalog für den Genossen Hartmut König”, n. d. [1978].

Daily drive to a thermal spring for fresh drinking water for the brigade and the local hospital.

This person fetched groceries and did all kinds of driving and errands.

Interview no. 2.

Ibid.

A Namibian Liberation Party.

Interview no. 3.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, “Zwischenbericht über den bisherigen Einsatz der FDJ-Brigaden des Ministeriums für Allgemeinen Maschinen-, Landmaschinen- und Fahrzeugbau in der VR Angola (Stand per 1.2.1978)”, 10 February 1978.

Burton, “Solidarität und ihre Grenzen”, p. 162.

Ibid.

See, e.g., the “fighting programme” in SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/20213, “Wettbewerbsprogramm der Freundschaftsbrigade Uíge zur Erringung des Titels ‘Kollektiv der sozialistischen Arbeit’ sowie des Kampfes um ein ‘Rotes Ehrenbanner des ZK der SED’”, 29 October 1982.

“Die Blauhemden helfen in Angola”, Neues Deutschland, 15 August 1979.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/997, “Bericht über die Ergebnisse des Einsatzes der Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ im Jahr 1982 und Maßnahmen für ihre weitere Arbeit, 2 December 1982”, p. 17.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/998, “Bericht über die Ergebnisse des Einsatzes der Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ im Jahr 1983 und Maßnahmen für ihre weitere Arbeit im Jahr 1984, 1 December 1983”, p. 259.

K. Somerville, Angola: Politics, Economy, Society, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1986, p. 141.

Ibid., p. 130.

Birmingham, “Angola”, p. 139. See also Becker, Angola, Mosambik und Zimbabwe, pp. 119f.

D. Coburger, “Boten der Freundschaft in Angola”, Neues Deutschland, 20 February 1980, p. 6; H. Quaas, “Robur-Transporter auf angolanischen Straßen”, Neues Deutschland, 11 December 1984, p. 6. By comparison, the MPLA’s truck fleet at independence numbered around 400 to 500 trucks. See the report in SAPMO-BArch, DM1/8287, “Bericht zur Dienstreise des Vertreters des Ministeriums für Verkehrswesen im Rahmen der Delegation der DDR nach der VR Angola”, 18 May 1976.

See the different reports in SAPMO-BArch, DM1/12157; Interview nos. 1, 2, 3.

SAPMO-BArch, DM1/12157, “2. Halbjahresbericht 1980 Uige Manauto 50”, 25 March 1981.

SAPMO-BArch, DM1/12157, “Tätigkeitsbericht für das 1. Halbjahr 1981”, 24 April 1981.

Interview nos. 3, 5. For an approximate ratio of “foreign” trucks to W50 trucks see the table above.

SAPMO-BArch, DM1/12157, “2. Halbjahresbericht 1980 Uige Manauto 50”, 25 March 1981.

Interview no. 3. Of the first truck shipments, 500 out of 2,700 W50 trucks were delivered to the MPLA’s army. See SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/1464, “Aufbau von Reparaturwerkstätten für den Einsatz von LKW W50 in der VR Angola”, 15 February 1978.

Interview nos. 1, 3. See also SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, “Information über den Stand der Verhandlungen zum Regierungsabkommen mit der Volksrepublik Angola über den Einsatz der FDJ-Brigaden”, 12 August 1977, annex 1.

Hatzky, “Cubans in Angola”.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/1002, “Bericht über die Ergebnisse des Einsatzes der Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ im Jahr 1984 und Maßnahmen für die weitere Arbeit der Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ im Jahre 1985”, 5 December 1984, pp. 437f.

van der Heyden, “FDJ-Brigaden”, p. 114.

SAPMO-BArch, DE 1/57596, “Bericht über den Arbeitsbesuch des Premierministers der Volksrepublik Angola, Lopo do Nascimento, Mitglied des Politbüros und Sekretär des Zentralkomitees der MPLA-Partei der Arbeit, vom 6. bis 8. Februar 1978 in der DDR”, 10 February 1978, p. 6.

Interview no. 1.

The concrete role and initiatives of COMECON in Angola and the “socialist-oriented” states of Africa generally are unexplored topics that deserve more attention.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 2023/1463, “Forderung der VR Angola zum Einsatz der 200 DDR-Spezialisten im Rahmen der RGW-Initiative”, 2 May 1978, pp. 202–205.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/1464, “Information über Vorstellungen der VR Angola für die weitere Zusammenarbeit mit dem RGW”, 20 June 1985.

van der Heyden, “FDJ-Brigaden”, p. 121.

See, e.g., the various reports in SAPMO-BArch, DE 1/57609; DY 3023/1463, p. 233; DY 3023/1464, p. 103; DY 24/20213.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 3023/1464, “Bericht und Maßnahmen in Auswertung der 4. Tagung des Gemeinsamen Wirtschaftsausschusses DDR/VR Angola, 26 March 1983”, p. 99. See also Harisch, “Bartering Coffee, Cocoa and W50 trucks”.

See, e.g., P. Szobi, “Czechoslovak Economic Interests in Angola in the 1970s and 1980s”, in: A. Calori et al. (eds.), Between East and South: Spaces of Interaction in the Globalizing Economy of the Cold War, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 165–196, at 189.

SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, “Information zum Stand der Entsendung von FDJ-Brigaden in die VR Angola”, 19 September 1977.

The kwanza was and is the Angolan currency. In 1978, 1,000 kwanza amounted to around 33 US dollars. The value of the Angolan kwanza is put into perspective by the scarcity of goods on offer; on the black market, the exchange rate against the US dollar was significantly lower. Due to the difficult supply situation, wages were “practically worthless”, and since there was hardly anything to buy with kwanzas in practice, the Indian economist Bhagavan described it as a “worthless” and “mythical” currency (see M. R. Bhagavan, “Angola: Survival Strategies for a Socialist State”, Economic and Political Weekly, 6 August 1988, p. 1631).

100

On the role of alcohol in the lives of the brigade members in Angola and beyond, consult Harisch and Burton, “Sozialistische Globalisierung”.

101

Interview nos. 1, 2, 3.

102

See the reports in SAPMO-BArch, DM1/12163.

103

See, e.g., SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, “Angaben zu den materiellen und finanziellen Bedingungen der Brigaden der Freundschaft”, 30 August 1979; SAPMO-BArch, DL 226/38, annex, and information from the interviews.

104

East German citizens could use forum cheques to shop (mostly for Western goods) at Intershops in the GDR. One forum cheque mark corresponded to one West German mark. In the context of the East German personnel abroad, these cheques guaranteed that hard currency was transferred back to the GDR.

105

These difficulties were visible, for example as evidenced by the MPLA’s immediate request of 380 East German citizens, which could not be fulfilled by the SED government.

106

Interview no. 3 (own translation and emphasis added).

107

Interview no. 3 (own translation and emphasis added).

108

Rönicke, IFA W 50/L 60, p. 93.

109

110

“Solidarische Verbundenheit mit Angola und Moçambique”, Neues Deutschland, 22 February 1989, p. 2. For a sophisticated portrayal of Angolan and Mozambican contract workers in the GDR, see the works of M. C. Schenck, “From Luanda and Maputo to Berlin: Uncovering Angolan and Mozambican Migrants’ Motives to Move to the German Democratic Republic (1979–1990)”, African Economic History 44 (2016), pp. 202–234; M. C. Schenck, “A Chronology of Nostalgia: Memories of Former Angolan and Mozambican Worker Trainees to East Germany”, Labor History 59 (2018), pp. 352–74. See also U. van der Heyden, Das gescheiterte Experiment. Vertragsarbeiter aus Mosambik in der DDR-Wirtschaft (1979–1990), Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2019.

111

R. Soares de Oliveira, Magnífica e Miserável. Angola desde a guerra civil [Magnificent and Miserable. Angola since the Civil War], Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2015, p. 54.

112

Interview no. 2.

113

SAPMO-BArch, DM1/12156, “Schreiben des Basisleiters aus Gabela”, 30 September 1977, not paginated (emphasis added).

114

Various interviews.

115

Interview no. 3 (own translation)

116

Interview no. 3 (own translation).

117

J. Becker, “Metamorphosen des Krieges. Befreiungs- und Destabilisierungskriege in Angola und Mosambik”, in: J. Becker, G. Hödl, and P. Steyrer (eds.), Krieg an den Rändern: Von Sarajevo bis Kuito, Wien: Promedia, 2005, pp. 258–277, at 258; see, e.g., Birmingham, “Angola”, p. 168.

118

V. Shubin, The Hot “Cold War”: The USSR in Southern Africa, London: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008.

119

I. Tvedten, Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction, Boulder: Westview, 1997, p. 70.

120

Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, pp. 327f.

121

Ibid.

122

The concept “Cuban internationalism” (internacionalismo cubano) is used to refer to the service of Cubans in countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia in both the military and civil sector. An essential principle of the Cuban revolution, the concept is linked to sacrifice and solidarity (see B. Unfried and C. Martínez, “El Internacionalismo, la Solidaridad y el Interés Mutuo: Encuentros entre Cubanos, Africanos, y Alemanes de la RDA”, Estudos Históricos 30 [2017], pp. 425–448, at 427f.). From 1975/76 until 1991, tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers were stationed in Angola. By 1977, there were also more than 3,000 Cuban aid workers in Angola, termed cooperantes, who worked as teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, truck drivers, and other skilled workers (Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, pp. 9, 82–85).

123

Interview no. 3; Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom.

124

Interview no. 2.

125

SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/222333, “Zusammenstellung von Problemen, die es mit Kadern im Ausland gab (1982 und 1983)”, 6 June 1983, p. 3.

126

On these matters, it would be fruitful to consult the archival documents of the East German security service. See also I. Ch. Obernhummer, “Experten der ‘Wissenschaftlich-Technischen Zusammenarbeit’ der DDR in Afrika. Alltag und Lebensweisen zwischen DDR-Richtlinien und angespannter Sicherheitslage in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren”, Master Thesis, University of Vienna, 2010.

127

Interview nos. 2, 3, 6.

128

Interview no. 2.

129

Interview no. 1.

130

Although the GDR believed Angola to be on a “socialist path to development”, Angola was still considered a “non-socialist economic area”.

131

Th. Lindenberger, “From Cold War Battleground to a Footnote to History? Labour History in Divided and Unified Germany”, European Review of History/Revue européenne d’histoire 25 (2018), pp. 61–78, at 69.

132

Lindenberger, “From Cold War Battleground”, p. 69. Contra E. Burton, A. Dietrich, I. Harisch, and M. C. Schenck (eds.), Navigating Socialist Encounters: Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War, Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021 – a book project that considers it fruitful to ask about the repercussions and legacies of South-East encounters and examine the nature of global socialism.

133

M. Schenck, for example, has recently argued that many middle- to high-level MPLA party members had studied at East German universities or party schools, such as Potsdam-Babelsberg. See M. C. Schenck, “Negotiating the German Democratic Republic: Angolan Student Migration during the Cold War, 1976–90”, Africa 89 (2019), pp. 144–166; Hendrik Dane emphasizes the important legacy of East German engagement in Angola: H. Dane, “Gründung einer Erinnerungsgemeinschaft. Das Nachleben der DDR in Angola”, in: Th. Kunze and Th. Vogel (eds.), Ostalgie International. Erinnerungen an die DDR von Nicaragua bis Vietnam, Berlin: Ch. Links, 2010, pp. 69–78.

134

This is not to deny that the overall geostrategic direction of East Berlin or Havana was laid down by Moscow and that the agency of the East German ruling class was severely curtailed by the communist party of the Soviet Union. It was important in Angola’s case, however, that Soviet superintendence was convincingly refuted by Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom and Shubin, The Hot “Cold War”.

135

In 1981, an East German workshop leader reported that in the Angolan town of Uíge, where he worked, there were also 40 Soviet military and 2 civil advisers, 7 Yugoslav doctors, 6 Bulgarian teachers, 4 Swedish technicians, 3 Polish technicians, and 2 Congolese teachers present – apart from around 300 Cubans employed in various occupations both civil and military (see SAPMO-BArch, DM 1/12157, 1. “Halbjahresbericht 1981”, 9 September 1981).

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