The "Jacob Morenga" Solidarity Station

At the beginning of July 1978, 20 seriously injured Namibians arrived in East Berlin from Angola on an Interflug plane and were immediately taken to the Berlin-Buch Municipal Hospital. [i] Almost all of them had been wounded a few weeks earlier, on May 4, 1978, in the attack by South African soldiers on a refugee camp near Cassinga in Angola. [ii]

The "legacy" of German colonialism in Namibia

At the end of the 1970s, there was no independent state of Namibia. The reasons for this lay in the history of the country and in the colonial policy of the German Empire. Today's Namibia was declared a German colony in 1884 as "German South West Africa". Land conflicts and discriminatory policies of the colonial administration led to a devastating war between the Namibian population groups of the Herero and Nama on the one hand and the German colonial troops on the other. The warfare of the Germans was brutal. In the suppression of the uprisings, they committed genocide against the Herero and Nama between 1904 and 1908.

As a result of the lost First World War, Germany had to give up all its colonies. The administration of Namibia was transferred to South Africa. From then on, the racist laws of the South African apartheid regime also applied there. In the course of the 1960s, the United Nations (UN) campaigned for Namibia's independence from South Africa. Independence and anti-apartheid movements were founded in the country itself, including the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) under the leadership of Sam Nujoma. Since 1966, SWAPO has also acted militarily against the mandated power of South Africa. [iii]

The foreign policy of the early GDR aimed at lifting its international isolation and recognizing its state under international law. To this end, the GDR also sought contacts with many African states striving for independence. It developed an Africa policy under the premise of "Africa for the Africans" and aimed for economic, technical and scientific cooperation. Its policy was to differ fundamentally from the "civil development aid" of the West. [iv]

Since the 1960s, the GDR maintained an increasingly close exchange with the Marxist-oriented SWAPO. For example, relief supplies and military material were sent to Namibia, and there were medical aids and training programmes for people from Namibia in the GDR. After the GDR and the Federal Republic were both admitted to the UN in 1973, the GDR acted as a consistent supporter of all SWAPO's concerns at the United Nations. [v]

The Solidarity Station

With the arrival of the 20 people who had been wounded in the refugee camp near Cassinga, the approximately 13-year history of the solidarity station began in Berlin Buch. The first patients were nine women, one of whom was pregnant, an eleven-year-old girl and ten young men. Most patients had complicated gunshot wounds. Some patients had to have their arms or legs amputated; some required follow-up surgery. In addition, there was the treatment of various infectious diseases. [vi] "The sight of this group of patients was shocking," recalled the ward's senior physician at the time, Dr. Christian Zippel. [vii]

The injuries of the pregnant patient Clementine Aukongo were particularly medically critical. She was only 16 years old and had started training as a nurse. While fleeing from the South African soldiers, she was shot. Thirty years later, her daughter Stefanie-Lahya Aukongo describes the attack, her wounding and her rescue in her book "Kalunga's Child". [viii]

Hellao Jambeulu Hellao was 30 years old when he came to the solidarity ward after the attack on Cassinga. He had lost family members and suffered from a gunshot fracture of his left upper arm. He had been a Protestant pastor in Namibia, spoke English and German and helped to communicate with the other patients. He also taught other patients in the hospital, because some of them were still very young and had not received a regular school education due to flight and war. After his recovery, Hellao studied international law at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. After his return to Angola in the mid-1980s, he was arrested by SWAPO because he had been denounced as a South African spy by another student. He spent several years in prison, was tortured and had to fight for a long time for his rehabilitation. He then worked at the National Bank of Namibia. He died in the early 2000s. [ix]

After the first 20 patients from Namibia, between 800 and 1,000 people from 33 to 40 countries received medical treatment in Berlin-Buch in the following years: Namibians, members of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), as well as people from Angola, Ethiopia, Cyprus, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Vietnam, Venezuela and Nicaragua, among others. [x]

The chief physician of the 2nd Geriatric Clinic was Dr. Simon Spyra until 1981. Dr. Christian Zippel, who was initially a senior physician and then chief physician and Spyra's successor from 1981, was particularly committed to the treatment of foreign patients. Particularly important was the ward physician Dr. Erich Kwiatkowski, an experienced specialist in surgery who was also familiar with orthopedics. In addition, there were nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, who were called occupational therapists at the time. [xi]

The treatment of the complicated combat injuries was a challenge. Prostheses had to be made individually that could also withstand the climatic conditions of their home countries. Medical solutions had to be found for complex wounds and injuries that patients could live with who later returned to civil war zones without a functioning medical infrastructure. The coexistence of the sick, injured and sometimes traumatized patients was also challenging. They came from different cultures, spoke different languages and were shaped by different social, religious and political influences. The medical staff of the solidarity ward tried to meet these circumstances with pragmatism and tolerance. Despite the challenges, the staff described everyday life on the ward as warm and friendly. They found their own work fulfilling, because they felt they were really needed. Erich Kwiatkowski was referred to as "Dr. Jesus" by patients out of gratitude and because of his beard. [xii]

"International Solidarity" in the GDR

The Solidarity Committee of the GDR took over the financing of the treatment of most of the patients of the Solidarity Station. The Solidarity Committee was subordinate to the International Relations Department of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the SED. Its task was to organize various international solidarity projects in the GDR. To this end, the committee collected donations and coordinated their use. The most important donor was the Free German Trade Union Confederation (FDGB), the largest mass organization in the GDR. The tasks of the Solidarity Committee also included maintaining contacts with political movements such as the ANC, PLO or SWAPO and financing their representations in East Berlin. [xiii]

The solidarity ward was monitored by the State Security. However, only a few files have survived that prove the exact activities of the Stasi in the Berlin-Buch hospital. They make it clear that the Stasi feared that the international patients could attract the attention of Western intelligence services. In addition, the Stasi was interested in contacts between church groups and patients. [xiv]

As long as the patients were in need of help, they were assured of state-organized solidarity support. However, they remained "foreigners". Their stay was seen as temporary and integration into GDR society was not sought. Especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many patients who still lived in East Berlin were met with racist resentment or open hatred. [xv]