Political Solidarity

The Cold War and East Germany’s Jewish Diplomacy

Jonathan Kaplan

The project examines the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) engagement with Jewish communities and organizations in the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. In a challenge to historical scholarship on antisemitism in the GDR, this project argues that these GDR-Jewish encounters point to a combination of contradictory elements in the GDR’s official stance: elements of anti-fascism, philosemitism, and antisemitism. Drawing on under researched archival materials, the study explores how the GDR sought contact with Jewish individuals, official community organizations, and NGOs in the context of a state legitimization project through its anti-fascist self-image. The GDR’s increasingly critical stance toward Zionism and Israel, shaped by Cold War geopolitics and Soviet influence, complicated this task and led to surprising results. The project reassesses East German-Jewish relations within the history of post-Holocaust Europe and post-WWII memory culture.