“Socialist Development” and East Germany in the Arab Middle East

Most of the scholarly literature on the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has focused on the domestic workings of the regime; study of the GDR’s inter- national relations has been limited to its role as a subordinate partner of the USSR or, at best, to the part it played in the struggle against the containment doc- trine of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Recent research, however, has analyzed how the GDR engaged with postcolonial countries and highlighted the relevance of the connections between its stance on the Cold War and the topic of development. According to this line of argument, Berlin delivered its own variant of socialist development as a model for rapid state-led industrialization under the aegis of a hegemonic party, support for mobilization, and the control of society through mass organizations.