¹ Simmel, Georg, “Exkurs über den Fremden,” in Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, ed. Rammstedt, Otthein, vol. 11 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), 765Google Scholar.

² Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArchB), DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Zollverwaltung der DDR, “Information für Bürger der Volksrepublik Polen, die in die Deutsche Demokratische Republik reisen,” 1.

³ Similar treaties permitting travel without visas came into effect between the GDR and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic on January 15 and between the GDR and the People's Republic of Romania on April 2 to promote “better ties and further deepening of friendship between the peoples”; Neues Deutschland, January 14, 1972. For the purposes of clarity and brevity, this paper focuses on East German expressions of hostility toward Poles.

⁴ The newly installed leaders of the GDR and Poland, Erich Honecker and Edward Gierek, appear to have anticipated that the agreement would help consolidate their power at home and abroad. Both East Berlin and Warsaw hoped to use this example of bilateral cooperation to remind Bonn that détente had its limits while reassuring their Warsaw Pact allies of their loyalty. Domestically, both Honecker and Gierek sought to benefit personally from an upsurge of popular enthusiasm for the new travel freedoms. East Germans, who enjoyed such limited opportunities to play the tourist, initially welcomed their newfound travel freedom.

⁵ These are aggregate numbers of visitors, and thus may include multiple visits by the same individual. BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, “Protokoll der Beratungen der Gemischten Kommission zur Koordinierung der Entwicklung des paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehrs und des Touristenaustausches zwischen der VRP und DDR,” no date; Stiftung-Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der SED (SAPMO-BA), DY30, 2897, SPK, “Niederschrift über eine Beratung beim Vorsitzenden des Ministerrates, Genossen Willi Stoph, über Konsumptionserwartungen für die staatlichen Aufgaben 1973,” no date, 136.

⁶ Olschowsky, Burkhard, “Einvernehmen und Konflikt. DDR und Polen in den 70er und 80er Jahren,” Dialog 57 (2001): 56Google Scholar.

⁷ See, for example, BArchB, DL203, 20-00-05, Karton 358, Abteilung Zollfahndung, Hauptverwaltung, “Information über Feststellungen zum paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr zwischen der DDR und VRP,” November 21, 1972, and November 22, 1972.

⁸ Ibid., November 21, 1972, 6.

⁹ Polish tourists exchanged 4.25 times as much money as East Germans in the first eleven months of 1972, although only 1.38 times as many Poles as East Germans crossed the border. BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, “Protokoll der Beratungen der Gemischten Kommission,” no date, 2. These figures do not include black-market transactions, which are difficult to estimate. A Stasi report compiled in 1988 put the volume of East German currency illegally in circulation in eastern Europe at between 150 and 200 million marks. Much of this currency was in Polish hands. Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (BStU), Arbeitsbereich Mittig, Nr. 58, “Zu den ausgewählten Problemen bei der Durchführung der Beschlüsse des XI. Parteitages der SED zur ökonomischen Entwicklung der DDR,” no date, 24.

¹⁰ Polish purchasing preferences appear to have remained quite stable over time. In 1977, for example, the Department of Planning and Finance at the Central Committee reported that the commodities in greatest demand by Poles mostly consisted of clothing, just as it had in the early 1970s. It also added that Polish demand for teapots, beer, and various other beverages had risen, most likely reflecting recent shortages. SAPMO-BA, DY30, 2897, Wappler to Mittag, April 7, 1977, 20. Similar reports can be found throughout the 1980s, although purchases of meat figure more prominently.

¹¹ DiLorenzo, Thomas J., “The Political Economy of Protectionism,” in The Industrial Revolution and Free Trade, ed. Folsom, Burton W. Jr. (Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996), 130Google Scholar. Adam Smith's more cumbersome formulation is “that trade which, without force or constraint, is naturally and regularly carried on between any two places, is always advantageous, though not always equally so, to both,” Smith, , The Wealth of Nations (New York: Knopf, 1991), 377Google Scholar.

¹² BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Abteilung Information und Datenverarbeitung, “Zuarbeit zu einem zentralen Bericht über den paß- und visafreien Reisekverkehr-Staatsgrenze Ost Zeitraum 1.1.1972 bis 20.9.1972,” September 22, 1972, 20–21; BArchB, DL203, 20-00-05, Karton 358, Abteilung Zollfahndung, Hauptverwaltung, “Information über Feststellungen zum paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr,” November 22, 1972, 6.

¹³ Although both constitute acts of self-definition that function by denigrating others on the basis of socially constructed claims of inferiority, it is important to distinguish racist from xenophobic attacks precisely because of the SED's official descriptions of the GDR as anti-racist and internationalist. In this article, I use racism to denote the attribution of essential differences and immutable traits to biological variations among humans as a method of justifying political and economic domination. In contrast, xenophobia entails a rejection of outsiders based on nationalist criteria, which may also but need not rest on a conception of the national community as racially constructed. Neither category, however, is as clearly demarcated as these definitions suggest. Racism, as some scholars have pointed out, does not always depend on biology to legitimate discrimination, but may instead reify cultural differences to establish a hierarchy of unchanging identities. Balibar, Etienne, “Is there a Neo-Racism?” in Race, Nation, and Class: Ambiguous Identities, ed. Balibar, Etienne and Wallerstein, Immanuel (London: Verso, 1999), 17–28Google Scholar; Miles, Robert, “Bedeutungskonstitution und der Begriff des Rassismus,” in Theorien über den Rassismus, ed. Raethzel, Nora (Hamburg: Argument Verlag, 2000), 17–33Google Scholar. It is worth noting, moreover, that these arguments function as ideologies, inasmuch as they offer causal explanations for empirical events. See, for example, Hale, Grace Elizabeth, Making Whiteness. The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890–1940 (New York: Pantheon, 1998)Google Scholar; McClintock, Anne, Imperial Leather. Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Conquest (New York and London: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar; Young, Robert J. C., Colonial Desire. Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race (London and New York: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ East German officials were careful to substitute the more offensive slurs with euphemisms. BArchB, DL203, 20-00-05, Karton 358, Abteilung Zollfahndung, Hauptverwaltung, “Information über Feststellungen zum paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr,” November 20, 1972, 6, November 21, 1972, 6, November 22, 1972, 6–7, November 23, 1972, 8–9, and November 24, 1972, 10; BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Abteilung Information und Datenverarbeitung, “Zuarbeit zu einem zentralen Bericht,” September 22, 1972, 21.

¹⁵ The history of the so-called Sachsengänger, or agricultural migrant workers in eastern Germany, has been neglected in comparison to the history of Polish miners in western Germany. See Herbert, Ulrich, Geschichte der Ausländerbeschäftigung in Deutschland 1880 bis 1980. Saisonarbeiter, Zwangsarbeiter, Gastarbeiter (Berlin and Bonn: Dietz, 1986)Google Scholar; Kleßmann, Christoph, Polnische Bergarbeiter im Ruhrgebiet. 1870–1945. Soziale Integration und nationale Subkultur einer Minderheit in der deutschen Industriegesellschaft (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kleßmann, , “Integration und Subkultur nationaler Minderheiten. Das Beispiel der ‘Ruhrpolen’ 1870–1939,” in Auswanderer—Wanderarbeiter—Gastarbeiter. Bevölkerung, Arbeitsmarkt und Wanderung in Deutschland seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. Bade, Klaus J. (Ostfildern: Scripta Mercaturae, 1984), vol. 2Google Scholar; Kulczycki, John, The Foreign Worker and the German Labor Movement: Xenophobia and Solidarity in the Coal Fields of the Ruhr, 1871–1914 (Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg, 1994)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Weber, Max, “Der Nationalstaat und die Volkswirtschaft,” in Weber, Max, Gesammelte Politische Schriften (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1971), 9Google Scholar. See also Weber, , “Die ländliche Arbeitsverfassung,” in Weber, Max, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1924), 444–469Google Scholar. Although Weber himself later renounced biological racism as a legitimate category of analysis, his anti-Polish views, especially with regard to the agrarian question, remained consistent. For more on the development of Weber's thinking, see Mommsen, Wolfgang J., Max Weber und die deutsche Politik (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1974), 40–60Google Scholar; Ringer, Fritz, Max Weber: An Intellectual Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 42–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tribe, Keith, “Prussian Agriculture—German Politics: Max Weber 1892–7,” in Economy and Society 11 (1983): 181–226CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zimmerman, Andrew, “Decolonizing Weber,” in Postcolonial Studies, 9 (2006): 53–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the plethora of German dissertations on migrant labor that echo Weber's arguments, including Gödel, Ferdinand, Der Arbeitsvertrag der Landarbeiter (Ph.D. diss., University of Leipzig, 1910)Google Scholar; and Knoke, Anton, Ausländische Wanderarbeiter in Deutschland (Ph.D. diss, University of Leipzig, 1911)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Hagen, William W., Germans, Poles, and Jews. The Nationality Conflict in the Prussian East, 1772–1914 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 29 and 52Google Scholar; Orłowski, Hubert, “Polnische Wirtschaft.” Zum deutschen Polendiskurs der Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), 7–46Google Scholar. For an example of contemporary German arrogance toward Poles, see Der Spiegel 25, June 18, 2007, “Die Schlacht der Zwillinge,” 24–38, which fails to mention several opinion polls carried out during 2007 suggesting that substantial numbers of Germans continue to view Poles as criminals, including one conducted by its competitor, Der Stern.

¹⁸ Hagen, Germans, Poles, and Jews, 52; Robertson, Ritchie, “Zum deutschen Slawenbild von Herder bis Musil,” in Das Eigene und das Fremde. Festschrift für Urs Bitterli, ed. Faes, Urs and Ziegler, Béatrice (Zurich: NZZ, 2000), 116–144Google Scholar; Orłowski, “Polnische Wirtschaft,” 47–80. Ironically, the East German institute for acculturating foreigners was named for Herder.

¹⁹ Anti-Polish sentiment was often combined with anti-Semitism. See, for example, the bitterly racialized categories in Schiff, Hermann, Schief-Levinche mit seiner Kalle oder Polnische Wirtschaft (1848; rpt. ed., Hamburg and Berlin: Hoffmann & Kampe, 1919)Google Scholar. See also Orłowski, “Polnische Wirtschaft,” 21–22.

²⁰ Zernack, Klaus, “Negative Polenpolitik als Grundlage deutsch-russischer Diplomatie in der Mächtepolitik des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Rußland und Deutschland. Georg von Rauch zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Liszkowski, Uwe (Stuttgart: E. Klett, 1974)Google Scholar. On the legal treatment of Poles in Imperial Germany, see Gosewinkel, Dieter, Einbürgern und Ausschliessen. Die Nationalisierung der Staatsangehörigkeit vom Deutschen Bund bis zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001)Google Scholar.

²¹ Von Seeckt to Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzow, September 11, 1922, in Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf, Mißtrauische Nachbarn. Deutsche Ostpolitik 1919/1970. Dokumente und Analyse (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1970), 33Google Scholar.

²² For more on Nazi policy toward Poland, see Broszat, Martin, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik 1939–1945 (Frankfurt-am-Main and Hamburg: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1965)Google Scholar; Burleigh, Michael, Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Connelly, John, “Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice,” in Central European History 32 (1999), 1–33CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

²³ Kredel, Otto, Deutsche Ordnung und Polnische Wirtschaft (Berlin: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Abt. Inland, 1940), 1 and 30Google Scholar.

²⁴ After the Polish communist party's imposition of martial law in 1981, for example, a popular joke represented East Germans as naïve victims of Polish indolence and communist pressure to help the Poles during the crisis. “A train full of donations made out of solidarity by the GDR was sent back by Poland,” the joke runs. “What was in the train? Work clothes.” See Wagner, Reinhard, DDR-Witze. Walter schützt vor Torheit nicht, Erich währt am längsten (Berlin: Dietz, 1995), 100Google Scholar. For an example of earlier—and failed—attempts by the SED to redefine “Polish economy” in positive terms, see “Die Polen und wir,” Deutschlands Stimme, Nov. 25, 1949, repinted in Der Funktionär 2: 12 (December 1949), 281.

²⁵ The total number of German refugees from Eastern Europe lay between eleven and twelve million. See Schwartz, Michael, “Vertrieben in die Arbeiterschaft. ‘Umsiedler’ als ‘Arbeiter’ in der SBZ/DDR 1945–1952,” in Arbeiter in der SBZ-DDR, ed. Peter Hübner und Klaus Tenfelde, (Essen: Klartext, 1999), 82Google Scholar; Ther, Philipp, Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene. Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in der SBZ/DDR und in Polen 1945–1956 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ Ruchniewicz, Krzysztof, “Sowjetblock. DDR und Polen 1949–1970,” Dialog 57 (2001): 48–51Google Scholar. For an older but insightful discussion of the post-1945 territorial settlement, see Seton-Watson, Hugh, The East European Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1956), 150–7, and 360–8Google Scholar.

²⁷ Neues Deutschland, September 20, 1957. The onset of détente, however, fundamentally altered this alliance of strategic necessity by significantly reducing the West German threat to the postwar territorial settlement. For more on the foreign policies of the U.S.S.R., Poland, and the GDR, see Anderson, Sheldon, A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc: Polish-East German Relations, 1945–1962 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Ash, Timothy Garton, In Europe's Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (New York: Random House, 1993)Google Scholar; Küchenmeister, Daniel, Nakath, Detlev, and Stephan, Gerd-Rüdiger, eds., Abgegrenzte Weltoffenheit. Zur Außen- und Deutschlandpolitik der DDR (Potsdam: Brandenburger Verein für Politische Bildung “Rosa Luxemburg,” 1999)Google Scholar.

²⁸ Protokoll der Verhandlungen des VIII. Parteitages der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands, 2 vols. (Berlin: Dietz, 1971), vol. 1, 202. All too often, East German diplomatic ineptitude needlessly raised the hackles of Polish representatives, as it did during the negotiations over Polish use of the Pommersche Bucht in the 1980s. At other times, East German arrogance and insensitivity caused offense, as it did during SED leader Walter Ulbricht's efforts in 1969/1970 to negotiate a treaty with Poland over other issues. See Ruchniewicz, “Sowjetblock,” 48–51; Olschowsky, “Einvernehmen und Konflikt,” 56–8, Anderson, A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc; Flam, Helena, Mosaic of Fear: Poland and East Germany before 1989 (New York: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

²⁹ Protokoll der Verhandlungen des VIII. Parteitages, vol. 1, 201. A minute later Gierek would mention the Görlitzer Treaty, which had formally established the Oder-Neiße line as the new border.

³⁰ BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Abteilung Information und Datenverarbeitung, “Zuarbeit zu einem zentralen Bericht,” September 22, 1972, 8–10; Stellvertreter des Leiters, Zollverwaltung der DDR, “Einschätzung zu den Maßnahmen der Erleichterung des Ein- und Ausreiseverkehrs zwischen der DDR und der VR Polen,” November 6, 1972, 2–3, and June 12, 1972, 2.

³¹ The black market rate was buoyed by a thirty-percent tax levied by the Polish government on Polish purchases of East German marks—introduced, ironically, to allay the concerns of the SED. The exchange rate on the black market fluctuated between 5.5 and 6 zloty for 1 mark during the early 1970s before plunging to nearly 40–45:1 by the late 1980s. BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Abteilung Information und Datenverarbeitung, “Argumentationen zur Ein- und Ausfuhr von Waren sowie deren Preisgefüge im erleichterten Reiseverkehr zwischen der DDR und der VRP,” March 2, 1972, 1–2, and “Protokoll der Beratungen der Gemischten Kommission zur Koordinierung der Entwicklung des paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehrs und des Touristenaustausches zwischen der VRP und DDR,” no date, 2. This illegal currency market remained a source of concern to East German officials until the collapse of the GDR, not the least because the black market rates, which were nearly double the official rate, invited speculation. SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 41757, Kaminsky to Mittag, October 11, 1989; BStU, Sekretariat Mittig, 166, “Zusammengefasste Darstellung über Faktoren, die die Entwicklung der Kaufkraft und der Stabilität der Währung der DDR positiv und negativ beeinflussen,” June 23, 1988, 28.

³² SAPMO-BA, DY30, 2897, Heinz Klempke, Abteilung Sozialistische Wirtschaftsführung, Vermerk, November 2, 1972, 119.

³³ Or at any rate, the East German border guards failed to catch many of the East Germans involved in larger-scale smuggling operations. BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Stellvertreter des Leiters, Zollverwaltung der DDR, “Einschätzung zu den Maßnahmen der Erleichterung des Ein- und Ausreiseverkehrs zwischen der DDR und der VR Polen,” November 6, 1972, 3–4. There is some evidence that East German smuggling activities picked up in the late 1970s. SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 31970, “Einschätzung über Kauftendenzen im Zusammenhang mit dem Tourismus insbesondere aus der VR Polen und der CSSR,” November 16, 1977, 4.

³⁴ SAPMO-BA, DY6, Vorläufige 3972/1, Sewald, Kreissekretär des Kreisauschusses Calau, “Informationsbericht Fragen, Meinungen und die in der Bevölkerung diskutierten Probleme,” November 3, 1977, 2; SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/204, Abteilung für Sicherheitsfragen, “Information zu ausgewählten Problemen der Zollkriminalität,” September 29, 1988, 142. A large number of East Germans also smuggled goods between the GDR and CSSR. SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/204, Abteilung für Sicherheitsfragen, “Information über Ergebnisse der Zollkontrolle und Feststellungsbearbeitung im paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr an der Staatsgrenze zur CSSR im Jahre 1983,” February 3, 1984, 5 and 7; SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/83, Sekretariat, “Festlegung der Preise für den Aufkauf von Gold und Silber,” January 27, 1987, 10–11.

³⁵ That is, broad structural similarities among planned economies were mediated by the “embeddedness” of markets in local culture, leading to “varieties of socialism.” See Granovetter, Mark, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,” The American Journal of Sociology 91, no. 3 (November, 1985): 481–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Daniel Ziblatt for bringing this literature to my attention.

³⁶ BArchB, DL203, 20-00-05, Karton 358, Abteilung Zollfahndung, Hauptverwaltung, “Information über Feststellungen zum paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr zwischen der DDR und VRP,” November 21, 1972, 7.

³⁷ To give but one example, Marx describes the difference between productive and non-productive labor in Capital by arguing that “next to independent producers … there stands the merchant … feeding on them like a parasite.” Marx, Karl, Kapital in Marx-Engels Werke, vol. 23 (East Berlin: Dietz, 1970), 533Google Scholar.

³⁸ Böhme, Waltraud, et al. , eds., Kleines Politisches Wörterbuch (East Berlin: Dietz, 1988), 802Google Scholar.

³⁹ In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the SED's identification of West Germany with the “Third Reich” was facilitated by a variety of factors, including the prominence of former Nazis in West German public life and the popular perception that the fascist takeover was the logical outcome of capitalist excess. Given the murderous brutality unleashed upon Europe by German fascism, the SED's skilled representation of the GDR as a bulwark against the potential resurgence of Nazism in West Germany ensured it a measure of loyalty, especially among intellectuals. The East German press zealously drove home the party's equation of West Germany with Nazi Germany. In a single week during the summer of 1976, for example, Neues Deutschland carried at least one story a day deploring the toleration of former fascists or neo-Nazis in the Federal Republic; Neues Deutschland, August 9–16, 1976. In addition, the press sought to link West Germany to Nazism by representing it as supportive of racist regimes such as apartheid-era South Africa; see, for example, Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv (DRA), E028-00-06/0004012, Schnitzler, “Das Schwarze Kanal,” March 19, 1984, 4.

⁴⁰ The GDR's constitution enshrined the goal of promoting understanding between peoples in two separate provisions. See Article 6, paragraph 1, and Article 17, paragraph 4, of the constitutions of April 6, 1968, and October 7, 1974; Gesetzesblatt der DDR, Teil I, Nr. 47, 425.

⁴¹ SAPMO-BA, DY24, 14301, Wolfgang Kirkamm, “Die Jugend der DDR, der 50. Jahrestag des Ausbruchs des zweiten Weltkrieges und die nicht endende Verpflichtung des Antifaschismus,” September 1989, 5, cited in Saunders, Anna, “Ostdeutschland. Heimat einer xenophoben Tradition?” Berliner Debatte Initiale 14, no. 2 (2003): 57, endnote 5Google Scholar. See also Erich Honecker's speech at the fortieth anniversary celebrations of the GDR on October 7, 1989, in which he characterized the GDR as “the breakwater against neo-Nazism and chauvinism”; Neues Deutschland, October 9, 1989.

⁴² Danyel, Jürgen, “Spätfolgen? Der ostdeutsche Rechtsextremismus als Hypothek der DDR-Vergangenheitspolitik und Erinnerungskultur,” in Fremde und Fremd-Sein in der DDR. Zu historischen Ursachen der Fremdenfeindlichkeit in Ostdeutschland, ed. Behrends, Jan C., Kuck, Dennis, and Poutrus, Patrice G. (Berlin: Metropol, 2003), 37–40Google Scholar; Saunders, “Ostdeutschland.” On the role of anti-fascism in consolidating communist rule, see Herf, Jeffrey, Divided Memory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Meuschel, Sigrid, Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft in der DDR (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), 29–40Google Scholar; Torpey, John C., Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Wilke, Manfred, “Der instrumentelle Antifaschismus der SED und die Legitimation der DDR,” in Enquete-Kommission, “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland,”Öffentliche Anhörung zum Thema “Antifaschismus und Rechtsradikalismus in der SBZ/DDR,” (Bonn: Deutscher Bundestag, 1993)Google Scholar. For an evaluation of the SED's construction of the GDR as the embodiment of antifascism in relation to other communist parties, see Tismaneanu, Vladimir, Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel (New York: Free Press, 1992), 210Google Scholar.

⁴³ See, for example, Jan C. Behrends, Dennis Kuck, and Patrice G. Poutrus, “Historische Ursachen der Fremdenfeindlichkeit in den Neuen Bundesländern,” http://www.zzf-pdm.de/papers/fremde/thesp.html; Krüger-Potratz, Marianne, Kaminsky, Annette, and Winter, Werner, “Völkerfreundschaft und internationale Solidarität,” in Freundschaft! Die Volksbildung der DDR in ausgewählten Kapiteln, ed. Grammes, Tilman (Berlin: Basisdruck, 1996)Google Scholar; Krüger-Potratz, Marianne, Anderssein gab es nicht. Ausländer und Minderheiten in der DDR (Münster and New York: Waxmann, 1991)Google Scholar; Sandra Gruner-Domić, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR. Die bilateralen Verträge zur Beschäftigung ausländischer Arbeiter (1961–1989),” Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 32, no. 2 (1996).

⁴⁴ Behrends, et al., “Historische Ursachen;” Saunders, “Ostdeutschland.” Heinz Lynen von Berg argues that youth culture in the GDR moved to the right beginning in the early 1980s as a reaction against the authoritarianism of the SED; von Berg, Heinz Lynen, “Die ‘streitbare Demokratie’ und ihr Rechtsextremismus. Die Entwicklung des Rechtsextremismus seit 1949 und politische Reaktionen,” in Demokratie in Gefahr? Zum Zustand der deutschen Republik, ed. Schneider-Wilkes, Rainer (Münster: Westfälishes Dampfboot, 1997), 435Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Oliver von Wrochem, “Die sowjetischen ‘Besatzer.’ Konstruktionen des Fremden in der lebensgeschichtlichen Erinnerung,” and Jan C. Behrends, “Sowjetische ‘Freunde’ und fremde ‘Russen.’ Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft zwischen Ideologie und Alltag (1949–1990), in Fremde und Fremd-Sein, Behrends, et al.

⁴⁶ As the Protestant pastor Dagmar Henke has written about foreigners in the GDR, it was clear to East Germans “who did the inviting, who paid for everything, what the purpose of the stay was”; Henke, Dagmar, “Fremde Nähe—Nahe Fremde. Ein Beitrag zur Ausländerarbeit der Kirchen in der ehemaligen DDR,” Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 9 (1992): 121Google Scholar, cited in Patrice G. Poutrus, “Mit strengem Blick. Die sogenannten Polit. Emigranten in den Berichten des MfS,” in Fremde und Fremd-Sein, Behrends, et al., 218.

⁴⁷ The notion that racism among East Germans is somehow more virulent than among West Germans conveniently understates the daily instances of aggression and violence toward foreigners tolerated in the urban centers of West Germany; McGowan, Lee, The Radical Right in Germany, 1870 to the Present (London: Longman, 2002), 173–206Google Scholar. Moreover, West German civil servants and politicians continue to confuse citizenship and race. As late as 1992, for example, refugees applying for German passports were required to provide information about the form of their nose; tageszeitung (taz), December 31, 1992.

⁴⁸ For a highly original analysis of the competition between universalist and particularist values on the German left, see Markovits, Andrei S., “The European, German, and American Left: Evolution and Transformation,” in Germany and America: Essays in Honor of Gerald R. Kleinfeld, ed. Friedrich, Wolfgang-Uwe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001)Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Cited in Herbert, Geschichte der Ausländerbeschäftigung, 69. In addition, many German workers and their leaders approved of the rhetorical and administrative harassment meted out against Poles by the Prussian government, which culminated in the expulsions of Polish workers in 1907 and the ban on the use of Polish in public in 1908; Kleßmann, Polnische Bergarbeiter im Ruhrgebiet, 62–70, 110–125, and 145–156; Kleßmann, “Integration und Subkultur nationaler Minderheiten,” 68–71, and 74–6.

⁵⁰ See, for example, Sandmeyer, Elmer Clarence, The Anti-Chinese Movement in California (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Saxton, Alexander, The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1975)Google Scholar. My thanks to Scott Tang for acquainting me with this body of literature.

⁵¹ See, for example, Habbe, Christian, “Sie sind wie Ratten und Wanzen. Aus Bürgerschmähschriften an deutsche Politiker,” in Ausländer. Die verfemten Gäste, ed. Habbe, Christian (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1983)Google Scholar. Wesley D. Chapin emphasizes German complaints that “foreigners took jobs from Germans”; Chapin, Wesley D., Germany for the Germans? The Political Effects of International Migration (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), 57Google Scholar. Aside from attacks on Jews, Bolsheviks, and Americans, the authors singled Poles out for abuse. The attacks on Poles were doubly charged, since they expressed resentment against Poles for “stealing” German territory after 1945 and for “stealing” German citizenship by “abusing” the principle of ius sanguinis, or membership in the German polity based on bloodlines. West Germans on both sides of the political spectrum perceived Polish Germans as non-German because they often spoke little if any German and because their dress, eating habits, and customs seemed more Polish than German. For more on racist mentalities in the Federal Republic during the 1970s and 1980s, see Lynen von Berg, “Die ‘streitbare Demokratie’ und ihr Rechtsextremismus”; Hasselbach, Ingo, Führer-Ex (New York: Random House, 1996)Google Scholar; and McGowan, The Radical Right in Germany.

⁵² Herbert Spaich, “Yussuf, Ali und ‘die deutsche Kultur.’ Der neue Fremdenhaß—seine Urheber, seine Vorgeschichte,” in Habbe, Ausländer.

⁵³ Although an examination of fascist regimes lies beyond the scope of this article, I am tempted to extend my claim to include all illiberal regimes, but most particularly autarky-seeking dictatorships of the left and right.

⁵⁴ Most of the English-language literature on ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. concentrates on the periods before 1945 and after 1990. A recent example is Petersen, Roger D., Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which leaps over post-war communist rule without comment. An important exception to this model is Panikos Panayi's valuable overview, An Ethnic History of Europe since 1945: Nations, States, and Minorities (Harlow, UK: Longman, 2000).

⁵⁵ An exception is Annette Kaminsky, who rightly criticizes the SED for using the shortages of consumer goods during the 1980s to stoke xenophobic feelings against Poles in particular; Kaminsky, Annette, Wohlstand, Schönheit, Glück. Kleine Konsumgeschichte der DDR (Munich: Beck, 2001), 153–4Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ These and the following comments are taken from SAPMO-BA, DY30, 2897, “Auszug aus den Ausführungen des Genossen Sindermann in der Beratung mit den Ministern, die Mitglieder und Kandidaten des Zentralkomitees sind, am 13.10.1972,” October 18, 1972, 126.

⁵⁷ SAPMO-BA, DY30, 2897, Heinz Klempke, Abteilung Sozialistische Wirtschaftsführung, Vermerk, November 2, 1972, 119.

⁵⁸ Ibid., 118.

⁵⁹ Zatlin, Jonathan R., The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ SAPMO-BA, DY30, 2897, Heinz Klempke, Abteilung Sozialistische Wirtschaftsführung, Vermerk, November 2, 1972, 118.

⁶¹ Some East Germans believed that Poles were not purchasing East German goods to supply the Polish market, but for resale in West Berlin; Krüger-Potratz, Anderssein gab es nicht, 55.

⁶² SAPMO-BA, DY30, 2897, Heinz Klempke, Abteilung Sozialistische Wirtschaftsführung, Vermerk, November 2, 1972, 118–9.

⁶³ Of course, calls for an equal and therefore just distribution of rationed goods precede the SED's official defense of social equity through the public ownership of the means of production historically and ideologically; its German antecedents stretch back through the GDR and World War II to the Great Depression, the hyperinflation, and into World War I.

⁶⁴ SAPMO-BA, DY30, 2897, “Betriebsverkäufe in der Stadt Görlitz,” 300. Had it been successful, the program would have been introduced throughout the district of Dresden.

⁶⁵ BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Zollverwaltung der DDR, “Zusammenarbeit zu Fragen des paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr zwischen der DDR und der VRP auf dem Gebiet des Zollwesens,” December 3, 1973, 2.

⁶⁶ BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Fichter to Stoph, December 15, 1972, 2–3.

⁶⁷ BArchB, DE1, 56318, “Ideen und Vorschläge, um im Jahre 1990 einen NSW-Exportüberschuß von mindestens 3 Mrd. VM zu erreichen,” September 5, 1988, 8–9.

⁶⁸ Despite the party's intentions, the policy of subsidizing goods rather than people benefited those with higher incomes, who paid the same low prices for “necessary” goods as those who had less income at their disposal.

⁶⁹ The SED's criticism of Poles also had antecedents in the party's earlier attacks on West Germans and Allied soldiers for taking advantage of the low cost of East German goods; Hoernung, Erika M., Zwischen den Fronten. Berliner Grenzgänger und Grenzhändler 1948–1961 (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 1992)Google Scholar; Pence, Katherine Helena, From Rations to Fashions: The Gendered Politics of East and West German Consumption, 1945–1961 (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan)Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ BArchB, DE1, 56317, Mittag to Honecker, no date, Anlage, “Übersicht über das Wirken ökonomischer Faktoren in der Volkswirtschaft der DDR seit Mitte der siebziger Jahre,” 2.

⁷¹ BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, “Vorläufige Weisung zur Gestaltung der Zollkontrolle und zur Anwendung des Ausfuhrverbotes für Zucker im paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr zwischen der DDR und der VRP,” August 13, 1976; BArchB, DL203, 20-00-04, Karton 357, Zollverwaltung der DDR, “Information über eingeleitete Maßnahmen zur Durchsetzung des Ausfuhrverbotes für Zucker,” August 16, 1976.

⁷² BArchB, DL103, 1487, Institut für Marktforschung, “Zu den Auswirkungen der zeitweiligen Veränderungen im privaten Reiseverkehr zwischen der DDR und der VR Polen auf dem Konsumgüterbinnenmarkt der DDR im Jahre 1981,” November 30, 1981, 7. Worried that the Poles might export political unrest, the SED responded to Polish strikes in October 1980 by restricting private travel, which reduced Polish tourism by a third. After the declaration of martial law in December 1981, the SED suspended all travel between the two allies. Starting in 1982, Poles could only visit the GDR if they produced an invitation from an East German citizen, which had to pass muster with the local police. For more on the Solidarity movement, see Ash, Timothy Garton, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (New York: Scribner, 1984)Google Scholar; Buhler, Pierre, Histoire de la Pologne Communiste. Autopsie d'une imposture (Paris: Karthala, 1997), 542–655Google Scholar; Kubik, Jan, The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

⁷³ BArchB, DE1, 56285, “Arbeitsniederschrift über eine Beratung beim Generalsekretär des ZK der SED, Genossen Erich Honecker, zu den Materialien des Entwurfs der staatlichen Aufgaben 1989,” September 6, 1988, 21–6. Predictably, State Planning Commissioner Gerhard Schürer insisted that there was a correlation between shortages and the purchases by foreigners in the GDR.

⁷⁴ BStU, HA XVIII, 6166, “Hinweise zu einigen bedeutsamen Problemen des Schmuggels und der Spekulation mit Waren, Gegenständen und Zahlungsmitteln,” January 1987, 3 and 6–9.

⁷⁵ SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/204, Abteilung für Sicherheitsfragen, “Information über Ergebnisse der Zollkontrolle und Feststellungsbearbeitung im paß- und visafreien Reiseverkehr an der Staatsgrenze zur VR Polen im Jahre 1983,” February 3, 1984, 15.

⁷⁶ SAPMO-BA, DY 6, Vorläufige 2910, National Front report, October 31, 1988, 4. See also BStU, MfS ZAIG 21312, “Hinweise über einige beachtenswerte Aspekte der Reaktion der Bevölkerung zu Problemen des Handels und der Versorgung,” December 1987, 5.

⁷⁷ SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 41792, Abteilung Parteiorgane des ZK, “Information zu einigen Fragen der Versorgung der Bevölkerung,” November 14, 1988, 3–4.

⁷⁸ See, for example, SAPMO-BA, DY30, J IV 2/2A/3252, Arbeitsprotokolle, Politbüro meeting on October 31, 1989, “Information zum Abkauf von Waren durch ausländische Bürger,” which accused Poles of smuggling three times the legal amount of East German currency into the GDR for shopping purposes. This report also complained that 12,000 Poles visited the Centrum Warenhaus at the Alexanderplatz on Friday, October 13, 1989, compared to about 8,000 East Germans. SED officials claimed that the collapse of the Wall created opportunities for many foreigners, such as Russians, to smuggle consumer goods out of the GDR; SAPMO-BA, DY IV, 2/2.039/266, Zusammengefaßte Information über die Lage in der Volkswirtschaft,” no date, 218; SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/204, Hauptverwaltung Abteilung Rechenzentrum, “Information zur Ausfuhr von Schuhwaren durch Bürger der UdSSR,” November 18, 1989, 200.

⁷⁹ Neues Deutschland, November 10, 1989, and November 16, 1989. These articles had such an effect that some East Germans wrote petitions to the government expressing anxiety over allegations that Poles were coming to settle in the GDR; BArchB, DQ1804.

⁸⁰ Campt, Tina, Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friedrichsmeyer, Sara, Lennox, Sara, and Zantop, Susanne, The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Grosse, Pascal, Kolonialismus, Eugenik und bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland 1850–1918 (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2000)Google Scholar; Poiger, Uta, “Imperialism and Empire in Twentieth Century Germany,” History and Memory 17, vol. 1–2, (2005), 117–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸¹ Saunders, “Ostdeutschland,” 53. The same sense of superiority permeated the classroom, where the SED made use of internationalism during the 1980s to praise itself for contributing to a reduction in East-West tensions through détente; Krüger-Potratz, Kaminsky, and Winter, “Völkerfreundschaft und internationale Solidarität,” 190.

⁸² BArchB, DQ3, 2143, “Abkommen zwischen der Regierung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik und der Regierung der Sozialistischen Republik Vietnam über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung und Qualifizierung vietnamesischen Werktätiger in Betrieben der DDR,” 1–2. The first agreements were signed on October 10, 1966; Feige, Michael, Vietnamesische Studenten und Arbeiter in der DDR und ihre Beobachtung durch das MfS (Magdeburg: n.p., 1999), 11 and 21Google Scholar.

⁸³ Böhme, Kleines Politisches Wörterbuch, 802.

⁸⁴ Ehlert, Willi, et al. , eds., Wörterbuch der Ökonomie Sozialismus (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), 430Google Scholar. For an earlier formulation of the GDR's anti-colonial stance and its link to labor costs, see Neues Deutschland, October, 17, 1957. To showcase the GDR's solidarity with the world's oppressed peoples, moreover, the SED authorized the publication of a series of documents “against racism, apartheid, and colonialism”; Babing, Alfred, ed., Gegen Rassismus, Apartheid und Kolonialismus. Dokumente der DDR 1949–1977 (Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1978)Google Scholar; Babing, Alfred, ed., Gegen Rassismus, Apartheid und Kolonialismus. Dokumente der DDR 1977–1982 (Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1983)Google Scholar. The party also regularly aired programs devoted to revealing the link between ethnicity and class used by western corporations to depress wages; see, for example, DRA, E084-05-02-0003067, Heinz Grote, “Der Schwarze Kanal,” April 15, 1974.

⁸⁵ The GDR made between 400 million and 1 billion East German marks, or between 0.15 and 0.4 percent of its national income, available to Third World countries in the form of direct aid. In addition, the East German state provided pricing discounts to socialist countries such as Vietnam, Mozambique, and Cuba worth between 700 million and 1 billion marks, or between 0.25 and 0.4 percent of national income; BArchB, DE1, VA 56323, “Zur Lage in der Zahlungsbilanz der DDR gegenüber dem NSW,” no date, 527, and “Zu den Ursachen der Verpflichtungen der DDR gegenüber dem NSW,” no date, 6.

⁸⁶ Thus, the GDR was able to maintain a positive balance of payments with Cuba, Vietnam, and Mozambique in the 1980s; BArchB, DE1, 56317, “Zur Entwicklung der Salden in den anderen sozialistischen Ländern,” no date. For more on loans to socialist allies, see SAPMO-BA, DY30, JIV/2/2A/2742; Rüchel, Uta, “… auf deutsch sozialistisch zu denken …” Mosambikaner in der Schule der Freundschaft (Magdeburg: Der Landesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR, 2001), 8–10Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ See, for example, SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 41852, “Information zur Versorgung der Bevölkerung mit Apfelsinen im Jahre 1984.”

⁸⁸ Through this method, the GDR arranged to receive 3 kilotons of nickel and 130 kilotons of citrus fruit from Cuba annually in the late 1980s; BArchB, DE1, VA 56323, “Zu den Ursachen der Verpflichtungen der DDR gegenüber dem NSW,” no date, 6.

⁸⁹ Böhme, Kleines Politisches Wörterbuch, 792. Whereas the Polish and Hungarian governments demanded that the GDR transfer all or at least large portions of the taxes it levied on income and social welfare, the governments of Vietnam, Mozambique, Cuba, and Algeria agreed to forego all or most of these revenues, even though the short-term character of the labor contracts meant that these workers would spend the larger portion of their productive lives and all of their retirement back home; Gruner-Domić, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR,” 212 and 225.

⁹⁰ SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/86, Protokolle Sekretariat, February 22, 1989, 48a; BArchB, DQ3, 2143, “Ergänzung zum Jahresprotokoll 1988,” December 20, 1987, 1.

⁹¹ BArchB, DQ3, 2143, Staatssekretär für Arbeit und Löhne, “Grundsätze über den Transport der persönlichen Effekten vietnamesischer Werktätige in die SR Vietnam,” August, 1989.

⁹² Living conditions for migrant workers in western Europe—and West Germany in particular—were hardly better and sometimes worse. Panayi, An Ethnic History of Europe, 55–8; Ute Osterkamp, “Gesellschaftliche Widersprüche und Rassismus,” in Raethzel, Theorien über den Rassismus, ed. Raethzel, 65–73.

⁹³ BArchB, DQ3, 2143, “Vereinbarung zwischen dem Staatssekretär für Arbeit und Löhne der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik und dem Minister für Arbeit der Sozialistischen Republik Vietnam,” no date, 9; Rüchel, auf deutsch sozialistisch zu denken, 58–9. The specific living and working conditions varied for each national group, most likely according to its ability to wield influence over the GDR. In contrast, the diplomatic delegations of every nation, European as well as Third World, expressed anger over the treatment of their citizens by East German authorities; Gruner-Domić, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR,” 216.

⁹⁴ Krüger-Potratz, Anderssein gab es nicht, 178.

⁹⁵ BArchB, DQ3, 1634, Kaminski to Schulz, October 31, 1989.

⁹⁶ For a theoretical approach, see Kornai, János, The Economics of Shortage (Amsterdam and New York: North-Holland Publishing, 1980)Google Scholar. For the Soviet case, see Nove, Alec, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. (London: Penguin, 1989)Google Scholar; Kotkin, Stephen, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar. For the GDR, see Bryson, Phillip J. and Melzer, Manfred, The End of the East German Economy: From Honecker to Reunification (New York: St. Martin's, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grunert, Holle, Beschäftigungssystem und Arbeitsmarkt in der DDR (Opladen: Leske & Budrick, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kopstein, Jeffrey, The Politics of Economic Decline in East Germany, 1945–1989 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism.

⁹⁷ Countries importing the largest number of migrant workers were Czechoslovakia, the GDR, and the U.S.S.R. BArchB, DQ3, 1633, “Bericht über die Teilnahme an der Konsultation der RGW-Einsatzländer ausländischen Werktätiger in Prag vom 9. bis 12.6.1987,” no date, 1.

⁹⁸ BStU, Arbeitsbereich Mittig, Nr. 58, “Zu den ausgewählten Problemen bei der Durchführung der Beschlüsse des XI. Parteitages der SED,” no date 16–7, and Anlage 6, 42; Neues Deutschland, January 11, 1990; Bryson and Melzer, The End of the East German Economy, 87; Günter Kusch, Rolf Montag, Günter Specht, and Konrad Wetzker, Schlußbilanz—DDR. Fazit einer verfehlten Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991), 56.

⁹⁹ BArchB, DE1, 56285, Heinz Klopfer, “Persönliche Niederschrift über die Beratung der Wirtschaftskommission beim Politbüro des ZK der SED,” August 3, 1987, 3.

¹⁰⁰ The real peak came between 1987 and 1988, when the number doubled from 43,800 to 85,263; Gruner-Domić, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR,” 227. Official East German figures place the number of foreigners residing in the GDR at 190,000 people in 1989, although this appears to include non-workers; Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1990 (Berlin: Deutscher Zentralverlag, 1990), 402.

¹⁰¹ The first bilateral treaty providing for the transfer of labor to the GDR was concluded with Poland in 1966, mainly to replace workers who had fled to the West. By the mid-1970s, nearly 10,000 Poles were working in the GDR, not least because they could purchase East German consumer goods with ease. The number declined when the Polish government cracked down on Solidarity, but rose briefly to 11,530 in 1984. During the 1980s, working in the GDR was attractive to Poles mainly because of exchange rate differentials. Polish construction workers, for example, could earn 2,992 zloty at home, but 1,000 marks in the GDR, which was equivalent to about 5,000 zloty, as well as a bonus for working abroad of between 1,500 and 2,000 zloty. In contrast, Hungary refused to renew the agreement in 1980, in part because the Hungarian government was jealous of its own labor supply and in part because living conditions were so bad that Hungarian workers refused to sign up. Gruner-Domić, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR,” 207–210; Krüger-Potratz, Anderssein gab es nicht, 177.

¹⁰² In 1987, the GDR requested that Vietnam send a total of 31,500 extra workers, bringing the total number of Vietnamese working in the GDR to around 60,000, or two-thirds of all migrant workers. BArchB, DQ3, 2143, “Ergänzung zum Jahresprotokoll 1988,” December 20, 1987; Krüger-Potratz, Anderssein gab es nicht, 171.

¹⁰³ SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 41853, Inspektion Leichtindustrie, Komitee der ABI, “Bericht über die Kontrolle zur vertragsgerechten Bereitstellung und Qualität von Straßenschuhen,” June 14, 1988, 4; SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/268, “Bericht zu den Ergebnissen der Tätigkeit der in den Bezirken und Kreisen eingesetzten Arbeitsgruppen zur Verbesserung der Versorgung der Bevölkerung,” no date, 141.

¹⁰⁴ BArchB, DE1, 55382, Vorlage für das Sekretariat des ZK, “Zur grundsätzlichen Veränderung der Situation bei der Versorgung der Bevölkerung mit Service- und Instandhaltungsleistungen für Personenkraftwagen,” 1987, 5 and 26.

¹⁰⁵ In contrast, Gera opted to raise wages to lure East German workers; SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/268, “Bericht zu den Ergebnissen der Tätigkeit der in den Bezirken und Kreisen eingesetzten Arbeitsgruppen zur Verbesserung der Versorgung der Bevölkerung,” no date, 141–2.

¹⁰⁶ Krüger-Potratz, Anderssein gab es nicht, 44 and 56.

¹⁰⁷ SAPMO-BA, DR2A, 3992, “Bericht über die Verhandlungen zum Objekt ‘Mosambik-Staßfurt,’” 6, cited in Rüchel, auf deutsch sozialistisch zu denken, 44.

¹⁰⁸ Rüchel, auf deutsch sozialistisch zu denken, 48–50.

¹⁰⁹ BStU, MfS, Abteilung X, SA 339, cited in Feige, Vietnamesische Studenten und Arbeiter in der DDR, 75–6.

¹¹⁰ The labor agreements between the GDR and its non-European allies provided for the close cooperation between spy agencies. Feige, Vietnamesische Studenten und Arbeiter in der DDR, 14–15 and 48–50.

¹¹¹ Krüger-Potratz, Anderssein gab es nicht, 110; Landesarchiv Merseburg, Bestand Rat des Bezirkes Halle, 4. Ablieferung, Nr. 6393, VEB Wäscheunion Zeitz, “Protokoll über die Beratung am 18.11.1988. Probleme beim Einsatz der vietnamesischen Werktätigen,” November 21, 1988, 743–4, cited in Feige, Vietnamesische Studenten und Arbeiter in der DDR, 46–7; Rüchel, auf deutsch sozialistisch zu denken, 58–63. On smuggling and drug-running, see SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/204 Abteilung für Sicherheitsfragen, “Information zu ausgewählten Problemen der Zollkriminalität,” September 29, 1988, 140; “Information zur Änderung von Zollbestimmungen der Volksrepublik Polen,” June 1, 1988, 84; “Information zur weiteren Durchführung des Abkommens über den Postverkehr zwischen der DDR und der BRD,” February 22, 1984, 21–2; “Information über Ergebnisse bei der zollrechtlichen Bestimmung im Reiseverkehr an den Staatsgrenzen zur BRD und zu Berlin (West) im Jahre 1983,” February 22, 1984, 7.

¹¹² Feige, Vietnamesische Studenten und Arbeiter in der DDR, 44.

¹¹³ Ibid., 60–63, 108, and 117.

¹¹⁴ See, for example, the horrifying case in BArchB, DQ3, 855, Abteilung Ausländische Arbeitskräfte, “Stand der Eingabenarbeit im Oktober 1983,” November 7, 1983, as well as the overt racism in BArchB, DQ3, 855, Döhler to Schmidt, May 5, 1983.

¹¹⁵ See, for example, the petitions in BArchB, DQ3, 1801.

¹¹⁶ Party and state officials received numerous complaints about foreigners in the workplace that tended to criticize the lax work habits of the migrant workers, who were accused of displaying a leisurely attitude to their jobs (Feige, Vietnamesische Studenten und Arbeiter in der DDR, 44–70) or of trying to secure more days off for national holidays (see, for example, the petitions in BArchB, DQ3, 1801).

¹¹⁷ BArchB, DQ3, 1801, petition from December 5, 1989.

¹¹⁸ BArchB, DQ3, 1801, petition from November 13, 1989.

¹¹⁹ Junge Welt, December 2–3, 1989.

¹²⁰ In Cuba's case, workers received delayed compensation for their work, while the Cuban government was remunerated with East German industrial goods. Gruner-Domić, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR,” 213–5.

¹²¹ BArchB, DE1, 55382, Klopfer to Beyreuther, Höfner, Schalck, and Schulze, October 21, 1988, 1–4.

¹²² See, for example, the documents in BArchB, DQ3, 2143, especially Staatssekretär für Arbeit und Löhne, “Ordnung zur Ausfuhr von Waren durch Werktätige der SR Vietnam,” March 1, 1989; SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/86, Protokolle Sekretariat, February 22, 1989, 48a.

¹²³ SAPMO-BA, DY6, Vorläufige 2910, Bernwald, Bezirksausschuß Berlin, Nationale Front der DDR, “Informationsbericht,” August 15, 1988, 9.

¹²⁴ SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/86, Protokolle Sekretariat, February 22, 1989, 49.

¹²⁵ The following draws on the documents and commentary in Krüger-Potratz, Kaminsky, and Winter, “Völkerfreundschaft und internationale Solidarität,” 253–4.

¹²⁶ It is worth mentioning that East Germans call Mozambicans “stove pipes” (Ofenrohre) or “pressed coal” (Presskohle) in derogatory reference to their skin color, and referred to Vietnamese as “Fidschis,” a pejorative term all the more absurd for its apparent reference to the tropical island of Fiji. See, for example, the disturbingly nostalgic use of “Fidschi” in Jana Hensel, Zonenkinder (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2002), 22.

¹²⁷ BArchB, DR2, D617, “Information zum Vorfall, der in der Nacht vom 19.9. zum 20.9.1987 in Staßfurt zum Tode des Mozambikanischen Lehrlings Carlos Conceica führte,” in Krüger-Potratz, Kaminsky, and Winter, “Völkerfreundschaft und internationale Solidarität,” 252–3. Violence seems to have become common by the late 1980s; Rüchel, auf deutsch sozialistisch zu denken, chapters 3 and 4; the petitions in BArchB, DQ3, 1801 and 1804.

¹²⁸ BArchB, DQ3, 1801, petitions from November 27, 1989, January 25, 1990, December 29, 1989, and March 13, 1990; BArchB, DQ3, 1804, petition from November 10, 1989.

¹²⁹ DRA, E084, 05-02/0003463, Schnitzler, “Das Schwarze Kanal,” March 1, 1982, 1.