Tracing East German Solidarity in Vietnam

In April 1976, Vietnam held its first nationwide elections after the war. Journalists from all over the world were invited to cover the event and to travel the war torn country. Among them was young East German correspondent Detlef-Diethard Pries, correspondent for the East German newspaper "Neues Deutschland". His journey was meant to document the difficulty of rebuilding Vietnam after 30 years of war and the progress already achieved.

Traveling to Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam that was to become Ho Chi Minh City today, Pries visited the city's first kindergarten, its first orphanage and a newly opened sewing workshop. In the neighboring Mekong Delta, he spoke to people in a former partisan village. On the way back north, he stopped in Vinh, a city heavily bombed during the war and that East German construction specialists were helping to rebuild.

However, the solidarity of the then German Democratic Republic and its people with Vietnam had started long before. Schoolchildren donated supplies, the Writers' Association collected money for bicycles, and craft workshops set up facilities on the ground. Over time, this grew into larger projects and the training and exchange of Vietnamese students and skilled workers in the GDR. Pries believes this solidarity was rooted in a genuine sense of responsibility, a conviction that those who had been helped themselves should help others in return. And in Vietnam, these memories endured. We have spoken to him.