Masculinity and socialist modernity in East German cultural diplomacy after 1972

This work will explore how the GDR sought to advance foreign knowledge of the superiority of socialist masculinity in
works designed for foreign consumption, such as the magazine DDR-Revue, considering how discourses on masculinity
and the ideologies underpinning them impacted practical expressions of cultural diplomacy. I will rectify a tendency to
focus on the rhetorical power of female emancipation in the GDR's cultural diplomacy by offering an analysis of how
masculinity was deployed to evidence East German modernity, and how these discourses and the power dynamics
therein impacted encounters between East Germans and foreign visitors and workers, including trade union delegations.
In considering how discourses of the superiority of East German masculinity and the power dynamics inherent therein
impacted real-world interactions with foreign trade union delegations and workers, I will consider the extent to which the
racist stereotypes that existed alongside expressions of international solidarity (particularly towards workers from the
Global South stationed in the GDR) intersected with perceptions of foreigners as backwards in gendered terms.
Furthermore, in considering the means by which East German masculinity and its deployment as a tool of internationalist
rhetoric fostered a self-perception of superiority in juxtaposition to foreign backwardness, I will illuminate one unexpected
source of the contemporary far-right's own construction of an alternative masculinity.