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J. A. Osei, with an annotation by Immanuel R. Harisch¹ 7MyImpression of the German Democratic Republic [LifeItself Exposes Lies]² Editor’snote J. A. Osei’sreport of his sojourninthe GDR,which is fullyreproducedbelow,isto be found in J. A. Osei to Heinz Deutschland,Accra, July 22, 1964,SAPMO-BArch, DY 79/615.The original title Osei had chosen for his report –“My impression of the German Democratic Republic”–was crossed out by one (anonymous) mem- ber of the editorial board of the journal Correspondence and changed to “Life it- self exposes lies”.Ultimately,Osei’scontribution was printed in Correspondence under the title “Reality exposes lies” without,tomyknowledge,any further queriesbythe editorial board.³ Correspondence was the quarterlybulletin of the Faculty for Foreign Students⁴ at the Bernaucollege. From 1964 to 1966 it was edited and published in both English and French by the staff of the faculty, with the editorial team usuallyconsistingofsix to eight members. It was sent to all alumni of the trade union collegeand was “meant to report on your and our Iwould like to thank the anonymous revieweraswellasmycolleagues and co-editors Eric Burton and Marcia C. Schenck for their encouragement and valuablecomments on this annota- tion. My gratitude also goes to Esther Asenso-Agyemangfromthe University of Legon for discus- sing Osei’sletters and for help in obtainingliterature on the Ghana TUC,and to Nana Osei-Opare for sharinghis manuscript on workers’ discontent in Ghana with me. The undertaking to have Africanand Asian alumni writeabout their experiences in East Ger- manywas linked to the fifteenth anniversary of the GDR.InJune 1964,the Institutefor Foreign Students (Ausländerinstitut)ofthe FDGB’strade union college Fritz Heckert in Bernau, close to Berlin (see Angermann, this volume), had actively contacted42alumni of the first three courses and askedthem to send back apaper on the topic “Ilived and studied 18 months in the GDR”. Twenty-four former students,among them Osei, responded to the call. In 1964,aselected num- ber of them werepublished in the thirdissue of Correspondence in both English and French. See Heinz DeutschlandtoKarl Kampfert,n.d.[1964], StiftungArchivder Parteien und Massenorga- nisationender DDR im Bundesarchiv, Berlin (henceforth: SAPMO-BArch),DY79/403. See J. A. Osei, “Reality exposes lies,” Correspondence. Informationsbulletin Nr.3der Fakultät fürAusländerstudium an der Hochschule der Deutschen Gewerkschaften “Fritz Heckert” Bernau (1964). Also commonlyreferred to as Institutefor Foreign Students. OpenAccess. ©2021J.A.Osei, with an annotation by Immanuel R. Harisch, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110623543-007 194 J. A. Osei, with an annotation by Immanuel R. Harisch activities. It is meant to conveyaid and instructions to assist youinyour further studies and to tighten the bondsoffriendship connectingusforever.”⁵ In order to give our readersanimpression of the original source, Osei’sre- port is reproduced here without corrections. Mistakes are not indicatedwith [sic!] so as to facilitate asmoother reading. Ibelievethatthe handwrittencom- ments by the East German members of the editorial board of Correspondence, which are marked in the letter by square brackets and strikethrough, offer inter- esting insights into what the editorial board in the GDR deemed unacceptable and wherethey polished phrases for the final version. *** In September,1961the TradeUnion Congress of Ghana⁶ sent anumber of stu- dents to be trained in the Collegeofthe Confederation of Free German Trade Un- See “Editorial,” Correspondence Informationsbulletin Nr.1der Fakultät fürAusländerstudium an der Hochschule der Deutschen Gewerkschaften “Fritz Heckert” Bernau (1964), 3. Digital copy in the possession of ImmanuelR.Harisch. Ithank the former director of the Institutefor Foreign Students,Heinz Deutschland, for allowingmetodigitize several issues of Correspondence. The predecessor of the Ghana TUC was founded in 1943under the name of the Gold Coast Trade Union Congress (GCTUC) and was modeled after British industrial relations.In1950,dur- ing the earlystruggle for self-government,the GCTUC organized ageneral strike which decisively shaped the outcome of the campaign for the benefit of the Convention People’sParty (CPP) led by Kwame Nkrumah. Duringthe 1950s,however,the CPP joined the British colonial office in the crusade against left-wing, Marxist trade unionists whosought to establish contacttothe World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). Internationally, the GCTUC remained in the Western, anti- communist camp of the rivalrous International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). Accra was host to one of the two ICFTU informational centers on the African continent as wellastotheICFTU’sfirst African Regional Conference. With the passingofthe Industrial Re- lations Act(IRA)inparliament in 1958, however,the Ghana TUC preparedthe ground for its dis- affiliation from the ICFTU in 1959and was reorganized, now to consist of 16 industrial unions – the Timber &Woodworkers’ Union, of which J. A. Osei was deputy general secretary after his return from the GDR,beingone of them. The changesdue to the IRA, criticized by the ICFTU and International Labour Organization (ILO),were far-reaching: tobeamember of the Ghana TUC became obligatory for workers; Ghana’sindustrial unions had to affiliatewith the TUC cen- tral in Accra, where the TUC had builtanew headquarters with money lent fromthe CPP gov- ernment; the “check-off” system was introduced, which allowed the companies to deduct mem- bership fees from the workers’ salary;and the right to strikewas severelycurtailed. The Ghana TUC general secretary was aminister of the CPP governmentatthe same time. As aresult, the Ghana TUC became severelyrestricted in its agency, although it profitedfromastrong financial and organizational base after the integration intothe CPP’spolitical machine. See DouglasG. Anglin, “Ghana, the West,and the Soviet Union,” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Polit- ical Science /RevueCanadienne d’Economique et de Science Politique 24 (1958): 161, 164;Imanuel Geiss, Gewerkschaften in Afrika (Hannover: Verlagfür Literatur und Zeitgeschehen,1965), 197– 7MyImpression of the German Democratic Republic [LifeItself Exposes Lies] 195 ions in Bernau/Berlin. Ihappened to be one of the luckiest chaps selectedfor this course.⁷ The time of our journey coincided with the closing down of the bor- der between the East and West Berlin which happened on 13th August,1961. [i. e. the erection of the antifascist protection wall]. It is an admittedfact that anyattempt by anystate to obstruct capitalistin- trigues and wicked machinations, designed to undermine the progress and de- velopment of thatstate, is always repulsed by the capitalist press with vile and slanderous propaganda. Immediatelyafter the closing down of this border, an attempt to safeguard the G.D.R.’seconomy, the newspapers of the Western Al- 198;IoanDavies, African Trade Unions (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1966), 174– 180;John Kraus, “The Political EconomyofIndustrial Relations in Ghana,” in Industrial Relations in Af- rica, ed. Ukandi G. Damachi,Dieter H. Seibel, and Lester Trachtman (London: Macmillan, 1979), 132; Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, “Pan-African Trade Unionism: Unity and Discord,” Transafrican Journal of History 15 (1986): 182; Peter BlayArthiabah and Harry Tham Mbiah, Half aCenturyof Toil, Trouble and Progress: TheHistoryofthe Trades Union Congress of Ghana 1939–1995 (Accra: Gold-Type Publications,1995), 55–98;Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society.The Labor Question in French and BritishAfrica (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1996), 432– 438; NaaborkoSackeyfio-Lenoch, “The Ghana Trades Union Congress and the Politics of Inter- national Labor Alliances, 1957–1971,” International Review of Social History 62 (2017): 194,203, 213. Duringhis stayinthe GDR,Osei actedasleader of the 13-person Ghanaian delegation, which was delegated by the Ghana TUC.Followingacooperation agreement with the East German na- tional trade union federation Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (FDGB), the Ghana TUC dis- patched between 10 and 15 students to studyoneach course at the trade union collegeinBer- nau. Prior to his stayabroad,Osei had completed 10 years of primary and secondary schooling. At collegeinthe GDR,the Ghanaian unionistgraduatedfrom an 18-months long-term course, takingpolitical-ideological subjects such as “The socialist world system,”“The revolutionary in- ternational workers’ movement,”“The national liberation movement” and “Inquiries intoprob- lems of socialist economics.” The program was complemented by morepractical lessons on “Problems of trade union organization” as wellasbyapolytechnic education and internships in GDR companies,anaccordance with the students’ interests.See “Jahresarbeitsbericht für die Zeit vom1.9.Bis 31.12.1961,” n. d. [January 1962],SAPMO-BArch, DY 79/83; “Lehrplan des 3. afro-asiatischenLehrgangs1962/63, “ n. d. [1962],SAPMO-BArch, DY 79/271.For the trainee- ships see e.g. “ZurAuswertungdes praktischen Einsatzes vom12. –26.Januar 1963,” February 7, 1963, SAPMO-BArch,DY79/2500,amongothers; for an analysis of the thirdcourse (1961–63)at the college,consultEric Angermann, “‘Ihr Gehört Auch ZurAvantgarde’:Afrikanische Ge- werkschafter an der FDGB-Hochschule Fritz Heckert (1961–1963)” (Master’sthesis,Georg-Au- gust-Universität Göttingen, 2018) and ChapterTwo “WheredoCorrect

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