The GDR in the Cold War and Post-Cold War Global International System: The Role of the East German Economy and Its Impact on Shifting East-West Relations.

Forschungsprojekt von Anna Maria Scognamiglio
Betreuerin: Prof. Dr. Susanne Schattenberg
 

This research project intends to develop an historical reconstruction of the role the GDR has played in the Cold War despite its status as Satellite State from détente period to the first years after November 1989. In particular, it focuses on the impact of GDR economic decisions, taken especially in the energy field, on shifting the relations between East and West. Studies on economic history of East Germany have usually payed attention on the development of its economic apparatus from the dismantling and the reparations plan of the Soviet Occupation Zone to the establishment of the planned economy, the NES and the further opening to the West. Moreover, many studies about the Cold War point out the increasing economic and political importance of the energy sector and diplomacy in the détente period between the USA, the Soviet Union and the FRG, especially as a result of the world energy crisis.

However, they have failed to account the role of the GDR in the Global International System as an energy transit country between East and West and as supplier, especially of electricity, for West Berlin.
The main goal of this project is to study what and in what ways the German socialist government, taking political and economic measures and getting involved in the negotiations, has influenced the balanced relations between East and West. The aim is to also understand how much such decisions and East German behaviour in the IS and in negotiations were autonomous from Moscow’s wills and ideologies, and were based, instead, on national needs.