7 - Diverting West during the Détente

Summary

As a result of the period of détente, East and West German scientists interacted more frequently. This chapter reconstructs the clash of cultures by focusing on East Germany’s role at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. IIASA was founded to bring together scientists from East and West to research shared problems and thus to build a “bridge” between the two opposing systems – with systems analysis referring to a set of technical theories of management, transport, and climate, as well as growth, innovation and education. The underlying image of knowledge was in stark contrast to the intellectual culture that developed in the preceding decades in East Germany. Even if participation was considered important for displaying East German science, its contribution was caught up in the precepts of the Western scholar as a class enemy. The chapter presents the best-documented case, the economist Harry Maier (1934–2010), who was one of the few social scientists who visited IIASA for two years between 1978 and 1980, and then, in 1986, used a conference visit to escape from East Germany.