The Foreign Policy of the GDR in Africa (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Series Number 78)

This book presents the first comprehensive account of the foreign policy of East Germany in Africa from the early 1950s to the present day. The author challenges the conventional notion that the GDR's role in Africa is solely that of a proxy for the USSR. Instead, as he convincingly argues, East German foreign policy in general and in Africa in particular, should be understood as a strategy both in pursuit of affiliation with the USSR and in search of international recognition and legitimacy.