Export und Entwicklung: Westliche Wirtschaftsinteressen in Indien im Kontext der Dekolonisation und des Kalten Krieges

In the eyes of many Western entrepreneurs, the newly independent nations in Asia and Africa presented promising export markets for industrial and consumer goods, and they demonstrated an active interest in ‘developing’ those largely ‘untapped’ markets. Their entrepreneurial goals overlapped with the new nations’ effort to industrialize as quickly as possible. To achieve industrialization, many of them relied on the transfer of technologies and know-how as well as on credits from the industrial nations. Development aid provided such technical and financial help. It also allowed economically strong, exportoriented nations like the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States to promote their own economic interests abroad. Further, in the context of the Cold War, international trade and aid were used by the industrialized countries to influence the development paths of the former colonies, many of which were trying to follow a policy of non-alignment to stay free from political and economic dependencies. This article looks at the interconnection between development, trade, and aid by studying trade and aid relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States with India in the 1950s and 1960s. The overarching interest lies in the question of how trade between the ‘First’ and the ‘Third’ World was influenced by and helped to shape the relations between North and South in the context of decolonization and the Cold War.