Masculinity and socialist modernity in East German cultural diplomacy after 1972

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This work will explore how the GDR sought to advance foreign knowledge of the superiority of socialist masculinity inworks designed for foreign consumption, such as the magazine DDR-Revue, considering how discourses on masculinityand the ideologies underpinning them impacted practical expressions of cultural diplomacy. I will rectify a tendency tofocus on the rhetorical power of female emancipation in the GDR's cultural diplomacy by offering an analysis of howmasculinity was deployed to evidence East German modernity, and how these discourses and the power dynamicstherein 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 thereinimpacted real-world interactions with foreign trade union delegations and workers, I will consider the extent to which theracist stereotypes that existed alongside expressions of international solidarity (particularly towards workers from theGlobal 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 internationalistrhetoric fostered a self-perception of superiority in juxtaposition to foreign backwardness, I will illuminate one unexpectedsource of the contemporary far-right's own construction of an alternative masculinity.