Madgermanes

From 1979 to 1991, around 20,000 contract workers from Mozambique were employed in the GDR. Their four-year stay was intended to provide them with training and work experience to contribute to the construction of an independent socialist Mozambique upon their return. However, the reality was different. The "Madgermanes," as they are called in Mozambique—a term derived from "crazy Germans" and "made in Germany"—returned to a country completely devastated by civil war. Their vocational training had no application, and the wages withheld by the government were never paid out. Birgit Weyhe researches this little-known footnote in German-Mozambican history by giving a voice to those affected. She turns the usual perspective of a German view of the world upside down and portrays their experiences.