The friendship society Sweden-GDR ( Swedish Föreningen för förbindelser med Tyska Demokratieiska Republiken , from 1977 Förbundet Sverige-GDR ) was a pro- communist association founded on October 23, 1956 . The society represented the most important cultural partner of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in Sweden . It saw itself as part of the Swedish peace movement , was supposed to promote cooperation between Sweden and the GDR and to provide information about the East German state. It served the GDR for public diplomacy , and until 1972 it worked primarily for the political and diplomatic recognition of the GDR by the western states. In addition, she campaigned for the strengthening of bilateral relations, peaceful coexistence and support for the socialist country. Its counterpart was the GDR North Society or the GDR-Sweden Friendship Society founded in 1981.
The task of the society was to inform the Swedish population about the GDR and to support the GDR's efforts to develop relations with Sweden. Before the diplomatic recognition of the GDR, she worked primarily for this goal. Their contribution was seen as complementary to the state's efforts. She worked closely with the Swedish Recognition Committee founded in 1968. In order to increase the reputation of the country in Swedish society, the friendship society had the following tasks:
Implementation of political and cultural events
Distribution of written propaganda material ( e.g. distribution of the DDR-Revy magazine )
Mediation of political, cultural and personal exchange (visits by local politicians and members of the Reichstag ) as well as political tourism (study holidays, courses for Swedish German teachers, publishers' editors, translators), which made a significant contribution to the financing of society
organization
The company's board of directors consisted of social democrats and communists . Both groups were represented equally, with the full-time secretaries being communists.
Local departments
The first local departments were founded in Malmö and Gothenburg in the early 1960s . A local department in Stockholm followed in 1971 . The company had additional local departments in the following cities:
In the early years after it was founded, there were only about 30 to 60 members. After the diplomatic recognition of the GDR in 1973, 300 members of the Swedish Recognition Committee joined the society. The number of members developed as follows:
1961
1966
1972
1973
1974
1979
1982
1984
1986
300
700
approx. 1100
about 1500
circa 1600
1230
1225
1069
1069
Large local departments in Gothenburg or Stockholm had several hundred members, while smaller ones, as in Södertälje or Västernorrland, had forty and sixty members respectively. The decline in total membership was due to the aging of society and the lack of interest in young, politically interested Swedes.
financing
The society was financially dependent on the GDR. Since membership fees only contributed about 5 to 12 percent to raising capital, the financing was mainly secured through travel activities, which made up the largest share, as well as the distribution of magazines and publications via the GDR.
Board
The central management of the company was in the hands of the up to 28-member management board. The company's first board of directors was made up of well-known Swedish personalities. It consisted of its first chairman, the writer Arnold Ljungdal , the communist member of the Reichstag Fritjof Lager, the deputy chairman of the Stockholm construction union Sture Andersson and the journalist Rosalind von Ossietzki Palm. The board of directors elected the vice-presidents, the treasurer and a working committee from among its members and appointed the general secretary. The Board of Management met twice a year, while the seven-member working committee that manages business met ten times a year. The company chancellery was headed full-time by the general secretary. He headed the local departments and worked closely with the GDR institutions, such as the GDR cultural center and the GDR embassy in Stockholm, the League for Friendship between Nations and the GDR North Society. The chairmen of the society were:
Annual general meetings were held until 1976, then every two years. They were the highest decision-making body, elected the board of directors and the chairman, passed amendments to the statutes and passed political resolutions . At board level there were working groups for
Recruiting (recruiting new members)
Textbooks (representation of the GDR in Swedish teaching materials)
Economy
GDR travel
After the end of the GDR, the society lost its right to exist and dissolved in autumn 1990.
Nils Abraham: The GDR's political work abroad in Sweden . LIT, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0268-4 , pp.554 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
Birgitta Almgren: Inte bara Stasi .... Relationer Sverige-GDR 1949–1990 . Carlsson Bokförlag, Stockholm 2009, ISBN 978-91-7331-253-0 .
Alexander Muschik: The two German states and the neutral Sweden. A triangular relationship in the shadow of the open question in Germany 1949–1972 . Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-9044-9 .
Mai-Brith Schartau, Helmut Müssener: Den okände (?) Awn: Tysklandsrelaterad forskning i Sverige . Center for German Studies ( Södertörn University ), Södertörn 2005, ISBN 91-974662-3-9 .
