‘To Live a Peaceful Life’: African American Defectors in the German Democratic Republic
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: In this article I follow the paths of six African Americans who defected from the US Army stationed in West Germany in the early 1950s and applied for political asylum in the German Democratic Republic. Their reasons for moving to and staying in East Germany are my point of departure, in order to gain an understanding of how they made sense of the Cold War divide based on their experiences of racism. The perceptions of the six African Americans are contrasted with the reactions of the Stasi, illustrating how those working to defend the policies and politics of the governing Socialist Unity Party of Germany located race and racism in their conceptualization of political asylum. The article then focuses on the lives of the six defectors in East Germany over a period of roughly four decades. I argue that questions of race/racism were closely linked to questions of (violated) intimacy and settledness, both for the African American defectors and for the Stasi. Zooming in on the intimate allows me to reconfigure the broader context, providing a glimpse into how race and racism shaped the Cold War geography as well as how this geography changed in light of decolonization.
Source: German History
Author: Nadja Klopprogge
Institution: University of Tübingen
Language: English
Topic: German History and Society
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4390172479