The presence of Africans in the German Democratic Republic is very rarely thought of in
connection with the experience of exile. Instead Africans in the GDR are predominantly viewed
through the prism of educational and labor migration. While such research has undoubtedly
produced valuable insights it often fails to adequately account for the implicit Eurocentrism
methodological nationalism and anti-communist bias inherent in Western knowledge production.
This study offers a different approach. Through biographical portrayal it unfolds the life
stories of African freedom fighters who lived in exile in the GDR and ultimately remained in
reunified Germany with the main case study being a Malawian activist who was expelled from
East to West Berlin. Recounting his experiences along with those of some South African exiles
chief among them a former medical worker for the ANC's armed wing the study ethnographically
reconstructs the multiple entanglements between the Second and Third worlds from the vantage
point of the politically displaced within the concrete historical contexts of African
decolonization the struggle against the Malawian Banda dictatorship and the struggle against
South African apartheid.
