Using new archival sources--including previously secret documents
of the East German secret police and Communist Party--M. E. Sarotte
goes behind the scenes of Cold War Germany during the era of
detente, as East and West tried negotiation instead of
confrontation to settle their differences. In
Dealing with the
Devil, she explores the motives of the German Democratic
Republic and its Soviet backers in responding to both the detente
initiatives, or Ostpolitik, of West Germany and the foreign policy
of the United States under President Nixon.
Sarotte focuses on both public and secret contacts between the two
halves of the German nation during Brandt's chancellorship,
exposing the cynical artifices constructed by negotiators on both
sides. Her analysis also details much of the superpower maneuvering
in the era of detente, since German concerns were ever present in
the minds of leaders in Washington and Moscow, and reveals the
startling degree to which concern over China shaped European
politics during this time. More generally,
Dealing with the
Devil presents an illuminating case study of how the
relationship between center and periphery functioned in the Cold
War Soviet empire.