The GDR's cultural activities in Britain

The GDRs cultural activities in Britain were regarded by the SED as an impo rtant aspect of foreign policy, their essential purpose being to promote th e image of socialism in general and of the GDR in particular. Their impact was never more than marginal. however, even after the GDR had gained intern ational recognition in the early seventies. Unlike other western countries such as France, Britain never signed a Cultural Treaty with the GDR, nor wa s a GDR Cultural Centre ever opened in Britain or a British Cultural Centre in East Berlin. The seventies did see a clear rise in interest in the GDR among British academics, and there were also governmental agreements on coo peration in trade, education, culture and science as well as an increase in the number of youth exchanges and civic links between towns and regions in the two countries. Nevertheless, it is as irony of history that the GDRs p romotion of cultural activities did much less to make the British aware of the GDR than did the collapse of the Berlin Wall which led to its demise.