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Description

The Air Force in Tanganyika, the Police Headquarters in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, and the “Emergency Police” in Ethiopia: These are examples of military and police forces in the “Third World” that were supported by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the 1960s. The various recipients of West German “Ausrüstungs- und Ausbildungshilfe” (“equipment aid”) benefited from a wide scope of measures, ranging from the delivery of steel helmets, vehicles and firearms to airplanes. Experts of the German Armed Forces “Bundeswehr” and of the Federal Criminal Police Office regularly trained and consulted African policemen and soldiers.

How could it be that only two decades after the end of the Second World War the FRG provided military equipment to newly independent states, and even sent German soldiers and policemen on the ground to Africa? The ministerial bureaucracy in Bonn deliberately and even arbitrarily initiated these controversial projects that were officially referred to as “Ausrüstungs- und Ausbildungshilfe”. The aid programs revealed the FRG’s claim to be part again of the state group of geo-strategically players with global influence. For the first time in the academic debate this doctoral thesis studies civil as well as military projects of the bilateral development aid programs of the Federal Republic of Germany within one comprehensive analysis and on the basis of unpublished primary sources. While the first part of the study focuses on the institutional regulations and standardization efforts of the FRG’s official development policy, the second part analyses negotiations and decision-making processes between the Federal Government in Bonn and the governments of Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Guinea as the first main recipients of Bonn’s technical, financial and military aid in Africa. This study will explain the intent and the approach of the FRG to consider development aid as a new forum (“Medium”) to internationally facilitate communication.