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East Germany The National People's Army and the Third World
In support of its external security function, the NVA has
pursued an increasingly assertive role since the 1950s, promoting
both East German and Soviet interests in the Third World. Having
gained the Soviets' trust and having assumed the role of the
Soviet Union's leading surrogate in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America, by 1986 the NVA had come to play a large part in
Moscow's Third World strategy.
In Africa, where East Germany has been active since the late
1950s, early efforts were modest, motivated partly by a desire
for international recognition and a quest for a stable supply of
raw materials. The diplomatic isolation imposed by West Germany's
Hallstein Doctrine--which precluded diplomatic relations between
West Germany and any state that had such relations with East
Germany--ended in 1972, and the coming of détente altered East
Germany's international standing. In 1973 the East German regime
renewed interest in military aid to Africa, and in the same year
East German military advisers were seen in Brazzaville, Congo,
for the first time. As involvement continued to diversify and
increase, other motivations became pre-eminent. New intentions
included a desire to demonstrate the permanence and prestige of
the East German republic; a determination to compete in the
international arena with West Germany, which the East Germans
depicted as the sole heir to German imperialism and colonialism;
and an eagerness to prove its value as the front runner for the
Soviet Union in endorsing liberation movements and acting on the
Leninist tenet that Moscow's road to Europe leads through Africa.
In providing assistance in military, security, scientific,
technical, and economic spheres, East Germany's goals, both
national and international, remained consonant with those of the
Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Estimates of the numbers of East German military advisers in
Africa varied widely, as did reports on their location. According
to the West German Foreign Office, in the mid-1980s East German
military advisers in Africa--members of the NVA as well as the
Ministry of State Security--numbered between 2,000 and 4,000, the
majority being in Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique. Their
influence reached far deeper than the numbers suggest, since the
East Germans concentrated on establishing internal security
organizations and intelligence services, training cadres and
guerrilla commanders, and organizing national military systems.
In 1982 East Germany acknowledged that it delivered arms and
military technology, educated cadres, established plants for
defense industries, granted patents for production of defense
matériel, and helped organize and train troops in East Germany as
well as in their home countries. According to some sources, East
Germany was training all categories of African officers except
staff officers, who received their training in the Soviet Union.
Angolan paratroopers, for example, reportedly participated with
an East German paratrooper battalion in joint exercises on Rügen
Island in the Baltic Sea.
In the 1980s, East Germany's primary clients in Africa were
Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique. Others receiving East German
military aid included Algeria, Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
Nigeria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zaďre, and Zambia, as well as the
South-West African People's Organization (SWAPO) and the African
National Congress (ANC). East German military exports to Africa
generally averaged about US$60 million in the 1980s. This
reflected the underdeveloped state of the republic's armaments
industry as well as competition within the Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance (Comecon), but the low figure may also have
resulted from diversion of arms shipments through a third
country, Czechoslovakia being the most likely conduit. Some
assistance not labeled as military, but as scientific-technical,
had clear potential for military application: port expansion and
modernization; construction of hospitals and training of
physicians; and development of transportation and
telecommunications systems.
Many of the client countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as well
as the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), had
East German-trained civil and secret police, border troops, or
prison guards. The elite Feliks Dzierzynski Guard Regiment of the
Ministry of State Security trained security personnel in Angola,
Mozambique, Ethiopia, and South Yemen, for example.
In addition to training, East Germany also provided
"solidarity aid" to a number of African states and Vietnam. In
the mid-1980s, disaster relief was provided to Ethiopia during a
severe famine. East German civil and military air assets
participated with the Soviets in delivering such items as
foodstuffs, blankets and clothing, tents, and vitamins and
medicines. Shipments of "solidarity goods" were coordinated with
other East European states because of Comecon's arrangements for
a division of labor
(see Appendix B).
In the 1980s, an aspect of East Germany's involvement in the
Third World--the republic's increasing identification with world
terrorism--posed a significant danger to the West and to United
States allies in the Middle East. East Germans allegedly trained
terrorists in camps in Libya and South Yemen, and the NVA
operated a school for terrorists in Pankow, a northern part of
East Berlin. The school had ties with a Palestinian terrorist
organization and perhaps with the Soviet Committee of State
Security as well.
In response to changes in the political scene, East Germany
became more active outside Africa as well. In the 1980s, East
Germany gave support to the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO), South Yemen, Iraq, Vietnam, India, Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Afghanistan, and other countries or movements in less-developed
countries. For example, it flew wounded Afghan soldiers to East
Berlin and supplied medical and other equipment to the Afghan
army, while El Salvador and Nicaragua received various forms of
military assistance.
Since the mid-1970s, East Germany has been involved
indirectly in virtually every large-scale conflict in Africa. In
many cases--Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, for instance--East
German support was crucial. Despite the financial expense of
support for Africa and other Third World countries, East Germany
in the mid-1980s was strengthening its existing ties and seeking
new ones as part of a policy expressly based on Marxist-Leninist
doctrine and proletarian internationalism.
Data as of July 1987
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