The GDR, Honecker and the South Yemen Crisis of 1986 [in German]

by Miriam Müller

In January 1986, a internal conflict in the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) escalates into a bloody civil war. After a few days, Aden lies in ruins and with it the international credibility of a significantly decimated YSP – a fact that soon took a heavy toll on the erstwhile close relations with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and its governing party, the Marxist-Leninist Socialist Unity Party. This CARPO Study provides an overview of this special friendship between the GDR and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) and analyses the consequences of the 1986 conflict in the context of the last phase of the Cold War. It concluded with a view towards a possible trajectory the GDR-PDRY relationship could have taken had not both states dissolved. Only available in German.

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