www.katjahoyer.uk/p/the-gdr-and-vietnam-from-fake-coffee
1 correction found
Countries trading with East Germany risked the ire of the much more powerful West Germany, which saw this as an “unfriendly act”.
This mixes up trade with diplomatic recognition. The Hallstein Doctrine treated recognition of the GDR by third states as the “unfriendly act,” not ordinary trade with East Germany.
Full reasoning
The historical record describes the Hallstein Doctrine as a policy about diplomatic recognition, not a blanket punishment of countries merely for trading with the GDR.
The German Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) defines it as a West German foreign-policy principle under which the FRG would not establish or maintain diplomatic relations with states that recognized the GDR under international law. It does not define the doctrine as targeting simple commercial exchange.
A second source from the German Historical Institute is even more explicit. Its overview of the Hallstein Doctrine says East Germany sought legitimacy by opening "diplomatic missions and trade delegations" abroad, and that the West German doctrine held that governments trying to establish diplomatic relations with East Berlin would face consequences. The primary-source text reproduced there states that the Federal Government would regard the "establishing of diplomatic relations" with the GDR as an "unfriendly act".
So the article’s wording is inaccurate in a specific way: it shifts the trigger from recognizing / establishing diplomatic relations with East Germany to trading with East Germany. Those are not the same thing, and the quoted phrase "unfriendly act" referred to diplomatic recognition, not ordinary trade.
2 sources
- Hallstein-Doktrin | bpb.de
„Außenpolitischer Grundsatz ... nach dem die BRD ... keine diplomatischen Beziehungen zu Staaten aufnahm oder aufrechterhielt, die die DDR völkerrechtlich anerkannten.“
- The Hallstein Doctrine (June 28, 1956) | German History in Documents and Images
The East German government was encouraged "to open diplomatic missions and trade delegations"; the doctrine held that states trying to establish "diplomatic relations" with East Berlin would face consequences, and the source text calls such establishing of diplomatic relations an "unfriendly act."