Study and Political Exile

Cold War Origins

The first foreign students in East Germany were eleven Nigerian youths who were participants in the World Youth Festival in East Berlin in 1951. The Cold War left them stuck in the GDR: the British colonial administration in Nigeria banned them from re-entering their home country after their stay in the GDR. The youths were admitted to Leipzig University. A preparatory class was set up to equip them for studying at university. It later developed into the Herder Institute,  the main educational institution for foreign students, at Karl Marx University, Leipzig (Basse, no date.).

A Means to Achieving International Recognition

From these beginnings, studying abroad in the GDR developed into an international programme that was intended to further political recognition for the GDR. The idea was that students who had studied in East Germany could be assured of long-standing connections around the globe. Higher education in the GDR had a high reputation and was unique in another way: in most cases, it was free. And like their fellow East German students, many foreign students also received a grant financed by the national budget of the GDR.

Selected tutors taught prospective students; generally, one year of intensive German language courses and subject-specific teaching prepared them for their area of study. The specific qualifications that had also been promised to working migrants remained mostly the privilege of foreign students (Mac Con Uladh 2005).

Growing Student Numbers

Even if public statements on higher education for foreign students repeatedly placed emphasis on the concept of solidarity, the allocation of study places was by and large informed by foreign policy and trade policy considerations. The first graphic below shows how the number of foreigners enrolled to study rose continually from the 1970s. The second graphic illustrates the GDR’s particular focus on African nations and anti-colonial movements, which translated into higher numbers of students during the 1960s. At the beginning of the 1980s, the GDR government abandoned existing allocation practices and discovered that higher education could serve as a source of foreign currency. As part of its commercialization of higher education, the GDR would offer places to students from countries that were not socialist, provided they paid for them. By 1989, around 10 percent of international students were studying on a commercial basis (Elsner and Elsner 1994, p. 19).

The East German government provided students and political emigrants with living quarters. Accommodation in student lodgings or workers’ housing was standard for young people in the GDR, even if the quality of the accommodation varied in terms of facilities, and the level of supervision was not always equally strict (Mac Con Uladh 2005 b, pp. 51–54). But political emigrants did receive preferential treatment.

It was not just the shame at their preferential treatment as political émigrés that cast a cloud over daily life for Carlos Medina and Kadriye Karcı. The Communist Party of Turkey intended Karcı and her party cell to live together as a commune under the control of the party secretary. Like other political emigrants and students, she was not only subject to the rules of her host country, but to those of her home country too. Life in the GDR was shaped but also burdened by her own ideological beliefs, the demands of the party, and of diplomatic representatives.

Pham Thi Hoai, too, was under the watchful eye of fellow Vietnamese students in her lodgings––until she moved away from the path that had been mapped out for her.

After moving out of student accommodation, Pham Thi Hoai led a double life. At university, she continued to achieve top grades. But elsewhere, she made the most of her freedom. She had German friends, moved in intellectual circles, and was in contact with the peace movement. She did not want to miss a single opportunity to learn something new.

Thanks to her good grades and the support shown to her by her professors, Pham Thi Hoai enjoyed an especially high level of liberty. However, things turned out differently for her boyfriend, a fellow student who was to be sent back to Vietnam due to unsatisfactory academic results.

…X’s threat to commit suicide if deported must be considered a real possibility.

Even with top grades and a political assessment that was deemed impeccable, students could still come up against the limitations of the system. X, a Vietnamese student with a faultless record, was described in the following way by the Stasi:

“x’s parents are workers and live in hanoi. from 1965–1973, x was in the vietnam liberation army. he was sent to university in the gdr in 1974. after completing education in the herder institute, he studied at the academy of fine arts leipzig, graduating with a degree in graphics. through the academy, he was transferred to the municipal museums in karl-marx-stadt [Chemnitz]. his work performance was evaluated as excellent. his political motivations are positive. his social activities should also be noted. according to his own account, he is a member of the executive committee of the youth wing of the srv [Socialist Republic of Vietnam] in the gdr.” (BSTU2)

 

But X had fallen in love. He and his wife had succeeded in overcoming the hurdles to marriage between a GDR citizen and a foreigner. They gained the approval of the Leipzig city council, were married in December 1980, and had a daughter together. However, the Vietnamese embassy insisted on his repatriation and asked the relevant GDR authorities to initiate his return to Vietnam. X informed the police that he had applied for permanent residency in the GDR but had not received it. The police twice granted him a delay, explaining that if he did not present them with approval by 21 April, he would be sent back to Vietnam. Former student X wrote a letter to Erich Honecker, then head of state, describing his situation. He enclosed documents supporting his case and threatened suicide if he could not remain in the GDR. The Stasi requested further instruction from above and ordered the delay of additional police measures, so as to not provoke the suicide. At this point, X’s file breaks off.

Chilean emigrants were very much in the public spotlight in East Germany. The military coup against the democratically elected socialist government under president Salvador Allende in September 1973 outraged people worldwide. Two weeks after the coup, the GDR government resolved to grant asylum to persecuted Chileans, albeit only for members and supporters of Unidad Popular (Maurin 2005, p. 347), the overthrown government coalition. While taking in Chilean political exiles was part of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany’s internationalist credo, it was also in their own interests, as it served as a real-life embodiment of the party motto of “the struggle against imperialism and capitalism as well as for socialism, peace, national liberation and democracy” (Emmerling 2013, p. 396). The government’s granting of asylum was also intended to “help promote communism in Chile and safeguard Socialist Unity Party rule in the GDR” (Maurin 2005, p. 346). In accordance with the Communist Party of Chile, the GDR implemented a policy of proletarianizing emigrants, most of whom had an academic background: the majority of them were given work in manufacturing. However, Carlos Medina was able to secure work as a theatre director in the GDR and was one of a privileged group of around 50 artists who were employed at the Rostock People’s Theatre.

The GDR’s policy of proletarianization and their severe restrictions on the Chilean exiles did not go unchallenged. Protests by sidelined Chilean revolutionaries in the GDR were recorded by the Stasi and ultimately their demands were partially taken into consideration. The Stasi reported (the monitoring of Chilean emigrants):

The Chilean band Aparcoa, who had taken refuge in the GDR, were also employed by the Rostock People’s Theatre. They performed at many solidarity rallies and can be seen in the image below playing in the Palace of the Republic, Berlin.

Chilean exiles did not always leave the GDR of their own volition. One year after the military coup in Chile, 21 refugees were deported from the GDR, and were vilified as “criminal and work-shy elements” in the corresponding Stasi report.

Most Chilean political exiles did not remain permanently in the GDR. Carlos Medina also returned to Chile for a period of time in the 1980s, but was drawn back to the GDR by the opportunity to work in European theatres. Medina was one of the 300-odd Chilean migrants who stayed in the GDR until 1989.