East German Socialism and the Khmer Rouge Revolution: Insights from the GDR’s Diplomatic Archives

This paper analyzes East German perceptions of the Khmer Rouge revolution, particularly its ideological tenants vis-à-vis other communist and socialist currents, as well as developments of the movement’s diplomat relations before and during its exercise of power. The German Democratic Republic’s diplomatic archives for the period of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), the Khmer Rouge’s extremist utopia, have recently become publicly accessible. The archival holdings provide a wide-ranging collection of internal assessments, official propaganda materials, diplomatic cables and minutes of ambassadorial meetings, as well as communication between the GDR’s diplomatic corps and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My analysis of these thus far unknown materials suggests that, initially, East Germany ? exemplary also for other regimes of the Soviet block ? pursued a delusive hope of integrating the Khmer Rouge into a worldwide socialist brotherhood, with some, if skeptical, praise for the daring policies of Democratic Kampuchea’s early phase. Two years into the regime, however, a sharp decline in the European socialist euphoria towards Khmer Rouge style communism can be noted, accelerated by growing tensions between Democratic Kampuchea and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam which ultimately led to the Third Indochina War. At the same time, the GDR’s diplomatic archives provide irritated accounts for the Khmer Rouge’s heightened interest in developing diplomatic relations with the Third World and western nations. The wide range of archival documents analyzed here helps to foster a more differentiated understanding of intra-ideological debates in socialist and communist countries during a critical phase of the Cold War and contributes further to the hitherto fragmentary assessment of the Khmer Rouge’s ideology.