Al di qua e al di là del Muro : l'Africa tra politiche di sviluppo e solidarietà internazionale nelle due Germanie (1958-1975)

What kind of reactions provoked African decolonization in European countries not directly involved in anticolonial conflicts? The article addresses this question by focusing on the two German states in the 1960s and 1970s. Both Germanies set goals, displayed actions and policies so as to play an active role in relation to the new emerging African states. While supporting development was the key concept for West Germany, the East German state advocated the principle of international socialist solidarity. In a second step, the article shifts the analysis from the institutional arena to the realm of civil society. Not surprisingly, social and political activism in support of issues related to peoples' and human rights in African decolonization's conflicts results livelier in the Federal than in the Democratic German Republic. Though, difficulties by establishing true interaction with the addressees of African policies do emerge in both German cases. [Publisher's text]