Friendship and Education, Coffee and Weapons

Abstract

This article aims to present a chapter of a global history of cooperation between the European center of the Soviet World System and African “countries on a socialist path to development.” This contribution is focused on exchanges and interactions between the German Democratic Republic and revolutionary Ethiopia on various levels: Trade, examining the practice of the instrument barter trade “to the mutual advantage” genuinely used in the commercial side of these relations; and Aid, examining practices of the transfer of (material and personal) resources essentially free of charge, often called “solidarity.” After distinguishing layers of cooperation from determinedly negotiated foreign trade agreements in the mutual interest to unilateral “solidarity” transfers in a spirit of “friendship” and carving out main actors in these fields, this contribution identifies spheres of contact, interaction, and cooperation between GDR advisors, experts, and solidarity workers and their Ethiopian...