Driving the West Germans Up the Wall: The Transformation of Cambodian-East German (GDR) Relations into an International Crisis, 1955-1970

• In Event: “Onward! No Retreat!”: The Matters & Memory of Asia’s Conversations with Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War II

Abstract

Two years after Cambodia’s independence from France in 1953, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated from the throne and formed his own political party, the Sangkum Reastr Niyum (People’s Socialist Community). The Sangkum Party won the controversial national elections in 1955 and began to reshape postcolonial Cambodia through Buddhist-Socialism. As part of its Buddhist-Socialist (Khmer Socialism) political program, the Sangkum Party declared itself to be anti-imperialist, non-aligned, and diplomatically open-minded. West Germany (FRG) and Cambodia traded extensively during the early Sangkum years, but by 1959, Cambodia and East Germany had opened discussions. The West recognized Cambodia as an important diplomatic keystone in the 1960s and was left shocked when Cambodia finally weighed in on the “Two Germanys Question.” Dissecting the East-West divide along moral lines, Cambodia also mobilized the memory of the Second World War and Nazi Germany to undermine West Germany and the Hallstein Doctrine. In looking at these disparaging characterizations and political cartoons, this paper will also explore how the Second World War and Nazi Germany were remembered during the Cold War, especially by non-European actors.

Author

• Ron Leonhardt, Missouri State U