Modernization through Rural Development: German Development Aid in Southeast Asia in a European Setting, 1930s–1970s

After the loss of its colonies, Germany had to find new strategies to connect with the world. This article examines the continuities and differences after the two world wars when the Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany tried to re-establish their contacts with the non-European world through development aid for the agricultural sector. Following German agricultural ‘experts’ from the (semi-)colonial period to the independence of Siam/Thailand and the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia, this paper asks how these different German states combined agricultural modernisation and development aid over time. It argues that personal connections originating from the interwar period are more important to understand the steering of German development aid in the 1950s than the Cold War, which has dominated much of the historical literature to date. A closer look also reveals that West German development aid was surprisingly flexible and non-ideological. This is all the more surprising against the background of the European and international context that influenced West Germany’s relations with Southeast Asia, as West Germany was caught up in the systemic competition of the Cold War confrontation, especially through the existence of the second German state, the German Democratic Republic.