The ‘radical humanism’ of ‘Cap Anamur’ / ‘German Emergency Doctors’ in the 1980s: a turning point for the idea, practice and policy of humanitarian aid

Abstract Historiographies of humanitarian aid and aid agencies alike had suggested an ever-growing politicization and militarization following the end of the ‘cold war’. But already in the 1980s, the field of humanitarian aid underwent extensive changes; new aid agencies no longer relied on Christian ideas of charity or leftist internationalism, short-term aid gained new importance and an ever-growing disaster awareness can be observed. The relief organization ‘Cap Anamur ’/’ German Emergency Doctors’ (GED) was founded in 1979 with the purpose of saving the so-called ‘boat people’. Typical for its time, it ascribed to a pure and innate humanitarian impulse summarized under the term ‘radical humanism’. Using the example of GED the article sets out to scrutinise the policies of this new humanitarianism that can be summarized as ‘controlled demerging’. The article brings into focus humanitarian aid as such, its own logic deriving from a particular idea of humanitarianism, considering both site-specific practices and also specific policies that are not necessarily congruent with political or economic interests. It becomes clear that the basis for the new political meaning humanitarian aid gained from the 1990s onwards was already laid by the humanitarian-aid agencies themselves.


Introduction
Beyond doubt, the end of the 'Cold War' brought important changes to international relations. To a large extent, the historiography of humanitarianism has adopted the narrative of a major turn in 1991 and first attempts at writing a history of humanitarianism have followed suit. 1 Statements from aid workers and journalists underlined the importance of the year 1991; they suggest that with the end of the `Cold War' a 'dark age of humanitarianism' drew nigh that continues to this day and is characterized by politicization and militarization of aid. 2 Although internationally oriented histories of humanitarian aid have analysed the implicit or explicit assumption of a 'golden age' in the 1980s as a self-mystification, they still acknowledge the year 1991 as a 'turning point' . 3 I will not dispute that the years following 1991 entailed important changes for the field of humanitarian aid. But by stressing 'turning points' based on political history, historiography of humanitarianism is reduced to the framework in which humanitarian aid operates instead of writing its proper history. All too quickly one arrives at problematic conceptualizations of humanitarian aid. In 2009 Peter Walker and Daniel Maxwell suggested that the 'international humanitarian system' is not a 'logical construct' . Instead 'it is the result of many, often competing, processes. Some driven by self-interest or national interest, some by ideology, some by altruism, but all about adaptation; adaptation to changing needs. ' 4 Recently Michael Barnett supported their point of view in his stimulating history of humanitarian aid: 'Major powers treated humanitarianism as an instrument of their foreign and economic policies […]. Aid agencies had to figure out how to navigate these crosscurrents. ' 5 They assume that humanitarian aid is only a reaction to external forces or was simply abused as a means of pursuing political or economic interests. 6 The result is a contradiction in terms: These authors are urgently occupied with demystifying the myth of a pure and good humanitarian impulse before 1991 by underlining its contemporaneous political meaning in those decades. But at the same time they support non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in upholding their self-mystification since all detrimental effects are thought to result from external factors such as the growing influence of politics or the involvement of the military. Meanwhile, NGO activity at its core remains excluded from analysis and discussion. It appears again to be nothing more than the expression of an apolitical, timeless and uplifting impulse.
Therefore this article sets out to scrutinise the concept that changes in humanitarian aid have been solely the result of competing exogenous processes. The article aims to bring into focus humanitarian aid as such, its own logic deriving from a particular idea of humanitarianism, considering both site-specific practices and also specific policies that are not necessarily congruent with political or economic interests. 7 By applying this perspective it should become clear that the basis for the new political meaning humanitarian aid gained from the 1990s onwards was already laid by the humanitarian-aid agencies themselves. In the 1980s, the field of humanitarian aid underwent extensive changes; new aid agencies no longer relied on Christian ideas of charity or leftist internationalism, short-term aid gained new importance, and an ever-growing disaster awareness can be observed. This depoliticization or 'purification' of humanitarian aid was not a 'countermovement' 8 to the politicization of the sector but a prerequisite.
This article focuses on the relief organization 'Cap Anamur. Komitee Deutsche Notärzte e.V. ' as the most important example for the paradigm shift in Germany. The organization was and is internationally known by the abbreviation GED for 'German Emergency Doctors' , which is also used in this article. GED was founded in 1979 and emerged from an initiative that the journalist Rupert Neudeck sparked and which was inspired by the similar French undertaking 'Un bateau pour le Vietnam' . GED's purpose was to save the so-called 'boat people' , who fled Communist Vietnam across the South China Sea, from drowning. In 1980, the association extended its activities to other countries, starting in Somalia. The GED ascribed to a pure humanitarianism, summarized under the term 'radical humanism' by Rupert Neudeck and his fellow volunteers. 9 In general, few academic studies addressing innovative and rather unorganized aid organizations can be found. In their daily routine journalists tend to praise the beneficial ministry of the aid agencies whereas they usually condemn their work equally undifferentiated in books reflecting on humanitarian aid in general. 10 Coverage of GED and its 'radical humanism' is no exception. 11 The main reason for this absence of thorough analysis lies in scarce sources, as aid organizations usually do not maintain archives. However, Rupert Neudeck and his wife Christel Neudeck collected a rich trove of material, particularly from GED's first decade, ranging from project proposals and summaries to private letters to newspaper articles. 12 The article begins by analysing GED's 'radical humanism' . I scrutinise this approach in light of GED's first relief action for the 'boat people'  that was broadly discussed at the time. On this basis, the second part of the paper analyses how 'radical humanism' affected the work of the organization, how it was reflected in its activities and daily routines, and which specific problems arose. The first deployment to Somalia (1980-88) is taken as an example in which GED came to the aid of refugees who fled in the aftermath of the war with Ethiopia to north-western Somalia. In the third and last part of the paper I discuss the specific policies of 'radical humanism' . At first sight, concept and practice of humanitarian NGOs may appear essentially apolitical, but they can be understood as part of post-imperialist policies turning to the 'Global South' . Eventually, the 1980s will appear as a period in which a new idea, practice and politics of humanitarian aid were established, remaining in effect well beyond the year 1991, at least in the German context.

'Either knowing or curing': the concept of 'radical humanism'
The 'radical humanism' of GED was based on the simple idea that people in need should get aid by all means. There are not many reflections about the idea behind it, as 'radical humanism' was meant to be spread through actions rather than through words. As people all over the world were in imminent danger, setting out to save lives should be enough of a motive, justification and objective. Neudeck and his organization trusted in the 'innate impulse of saving lives' 13 that only had to be activated. They turned decisively against the view that relief action was only a 'drop in the bucket' and that money was thrown into a 'bottomless pit' . These arguments would too often serve 'as an excuse' to do nothing in cases 'where action was desperately needed' . Each individual existence counted and made a difference to GED. Therefore each aid mission necessarily proved to be effective. 'Help can help' and 'Help has helped and will continue to help. ' 14 This focus on the individual human being as such was not only necessary to suppress the impression of overwhelming grievances that would have let any action appear futile; it was also about blocking out political contexts, both in the country that sent the aid as well as in the country that received it. Neudeck noted that he had chosen as his motto a quote from Albert Camus' The Plague that had seemed cryptic before he got involved with relief actions: 'Il faut choisir: savoir ou guérir' ('You must choose: either knowing or curing'). Neudeck drew the insight from the quote that 'too much knowledge endangers aid' . 15 By suppression of context Neudeck and his fellow campaigners could override any concern that would be raised inevitably by the always-complex political situation at the site and in the donor country. Self-induced ignorance had been turned into a virtue.
With this concept of 'radical humanism' GED rejected explicitly more complex aid approaches: 'If you would insist on capacity building [Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe] it could distract you from passing the undernourished the cup of milk, the protein-rich millet, or the soybean porridge that he really needs. If there is immediate danger to life we are obliged to act without having the guarantee that they will subsist later on. ' 16 In other words, you should not worry about building structures, about teaching or about instructing. Any idea of development should be banished, because otherwise the organization would have run the risk of being caught in complex, political and bureaucratic tasks and of overlooking the truly needy.
In the German context, this particular view, the concentration on the suffering individual, the suppression of any political context and the rejection of capacity-building, was new in its 'radicalism' . Hitherto, the five major welfare organizations, including the German Red Cross (GRC), had managed distant emergencies alongside their main assignments. They intervened wherever the Foreign Office would send them, thereby acting as agents of German political interests. 17 GED rejected this kind of submission and berated competing welfare organizations such as the GRC as 'voracious, inert and red tape' . 18 It accepted exclusively humanitarian considerations as guidelines determining where, when and whom to help. From the beginning, GED presented itself as a completely independent organization that did not rely on state funding. GED pointed out that its own actions were backed and thereby justified by a 'plebiscite' as it was founded exclusively by a plethora of private donations mostly not exceeding a few German Marks. 'Hundreds of thousands of citizens of our country [...] donated and told us again and again like in a steady plebiscite: Go ahead!' 19 At the same time, GED opposed a second approach, which resembled its own approach of independence but was justified by other arguments. In the 1970s, in all German university towns, the so-called 'Solidaritätskomitees' (Solidarity Committees) emerged stemming from the student movement of 1968 and the political internationalism of the 'New Left' . These committees developed their own logic of assistance opposed to state interests. It built on political solidarity with the oppressed of the world. Its main purpose consisted in supporting people's liberation movements against their respective regimes and ultimately against Western imperialism. Emergency relief was part of their work, but always embedded in the political struggle. 20 Factionists of this movement attacked GED because it suggested relying only on humanitarian arguments. The leftist magazine konkret accused its initiative of 'a ship for Vietnam' to be a 'ship against Vietnam' as it would support Western imperialism by rescuing 'bootleggers, pimps and former collaborators with the U.S. occupiers' . 21 GED was not eager to get involved with refuting their attacks almost certainly because many of its supporters and volunteers belonged to the 'New Left' . More importantly, a confrontation simply was not necessary. In the late 1970s, the original motivation of the solidarity committees drew to an end. In Sponti, an anarcho-leftist magazine, Josef Fischer (who became Foreign Minister 20 years later) summed up that the student movement had reached the end of a journey that started in Vietnam in 1968. Since then, popular movements in the 'Third World' had frustrated their hopes again and again. As soon as they came to power, they turned out to be as corrupt, authoritarian and violent as the regime against which they had rebelled. 22 At the conference 'Iran, Vietnam, Cambodia -Solidarity for Ever' , held on 15 February 1979, it became clear that 'humanitarianism is now the common ground of the united undogmatic left' . 23 The 'common ground of the united undogmatic left' had the undeniable advantage that it was not limited to the milieu of the 'New Left' , but enjoyed popularity across wide segments of German society. The GED supporter committee included intellectuals disregarding their political affiliations, for example the Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll and the conservative journalist Matthias Walden, who had taken a leading part in a campaign against Böll and his alleged support of leftist terrorists. 24 In addition, tens of thousands were ready to fund this 'dubious association' (by the estimation of the Foreign Office 25 ) who had no experience in conducting relief operations, whose internal organizational structure was unknown and who could not disclose where the money would go. In the first year GED collected nearly 6 million DM; in the second year, 1980, 20 million DM. 26 GED's wide-reaching appeal originated from the suppression of context Already contemporary critics traced this enthusiasm back to an important side effect: such 'radical humanitarianism' was lowering 'the psychological pressure to get to the root of the problem and to reflect about effective methods to stop mass extinction' . 27 The funding campaign's breakthrough took place only when Neudeck presented a simple solution: the ship 'Cap Anamur' . In the beginning, he and his fellow campaigners sought donations for the French ship 'Île de la Lumière' but with only modest success. When they brought forward the idea of a German ship the donations started pouring in. The ship proved to be fascinating. Reports showed photos of the ship again and again. 28 It embodied the promise finally to act in a visible way, and it suggested a convincing solution to the problems on the coast of Vietnam: People are drowning? We will send a boat to save them! The solution seemed so simple and convincing that at the beginning no one was thinking about the consequences. Not only was the political meaning suppressed but also the plain fact that the rescued refugees would need a place to live and that this place mandatorily had to be Germany. In 1979, the media coverage was exuberant and unanimously positive, even though -or taking the later developments into account, because -the first trip failed; not a single boat was rescued. 29 As soon as the Cap Anamur actually started to rescue refugees in the spring of 1980 the German media started criticising it 30 and a 'wave of GED refusal' 31 followed. The unlimited duties of the 'innate impulse of life saving' was short-lived -a recurring problem for relief actions relying on humanity as sole motive.
The wave reached its climax in the summer of 1981 when the question of the refugees' relocation was posed with a new urgency. On 5 June 1981, the Prime Ministers of the states of Germany discussed whether they would be willing to take in more 'boat people' . They adjourned deliberations over the question, but after the meeting the Conservative MP Willy Wimmer and the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), travelled to South-East Asia to gather information on the site. Both spread the impression that neighbouring countries such as Thailand and Malaysia disapproved of the relief action as it was allegedly encouraging the Vietnamese to flee. 32 The Foreign Office had internally rejected this accusation months before 33 , but the FDP and the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), once the 'main supporters' 34 , had now apparently an interest to bring forward counter-arguments.
Jürgen Schilling, the Secretary General of the GRC, saw the opportunity to gain back lost ground and to take action against 'the dangerous tendencies of merging Germans with extremely foreign minorities' . 35 Schilling even resorted to deliberate lies: he claimed the ship would take on Vietnamese who already were safe in order to foist them on the German state. 36 The media felt encouraged to scold critics harshly. Rudi Kilgus denounced the rescue trips as 'cruises' in the 'Trierer Volksfreund' . 37 The dpa (German Press Agency) correspondent Wilderich Lochow spread another lie: the BBC and Voice of America were announcing Cap Anamur's positions to the Vietnamese. 38 The supporters were impressed by the 'wave of GED refusal' . One donor demanded in a letter to know 'how things really are for now' . 39 The Bishop of Trier, Hermann Josef Spital, lamented that his secret channels of influence on high-ranking politicians would fail in this case. 40 GED's 'radical humanism' did not provide any response to the attacks, because they had no arguments at hand besides their appeal to humanity. The association could neither resort to the 'New Left's' internationalism nor refer to German state interests abroad. At least as important, they simply did not know why the people fled and could not counter the assumption to attract economic migrants. 'We do not know what the motives to leave Vietnam are. We only know that the people are in immediate mortal danger. ' 41 They were not willing to indulge in 'casuistry while in the South China Sea, the people would drown.
[...] First of all, we have to save lives ... and thereby we must not be picky. ' 42 Neudeck and his colleagues did not perceive their ignorance as a shortcoming, but instead it was the basis for their work: 'Either knowing or curing' .
They countered rumours, allegations and concerns by suggesting that only office sitters could make them up 43 and delivered more dramatic descriptions of the suffering at the site. 44 They challenged critical journalists to accompany a rescue trip because any criticism would crumble away instantly. 45 But in the now-hostile atmosphere, GED's appeals were perceived as 'moral blackmail' . 46 The association had to stop its rescue trips in 1982 because the federal government refused to take on more refugees. When the new Minister of State in the Foreign Office, Jürgen Möllemann (FDP), was asked if one could deduce from this sudden halt 'that a high number of refugees from Vietnam were fated [...] to drown' , he now could answer without causing protest: 'I cannot rule this out. ' 47 In between 'leaving and staying': humanitarian aid in action 'Radical Humanism' proved to be an approach that could not be sustained in the long term. But the short-span mobilization was not confined to the supporters. GED's commitment to concentrate exclusively on 'bare survival' influenced the organizational structure and subsequently its work in the field. In 1980, GED formulated a manifesto giving guidelines that should have set the direction for the following decade. They intended to establish 'a committee without apparatus' by observing two pivotal rules. First, 'we avoid professionalization. Meaning, we do not rent or buy any office space and we do not hire any permanent employee. ' Second, 'all work is done on a voluntary basis. Meaning, we will fulfil all our commitments by sending volunteers. ' 48 The association aimed at a paradoxical organizational structure without any fixed structures, and thus it could respond flexibly, forward all donations directly to the needy and thereby fulfil the requirements of its 'radical humanism' .
In fact, only 2% of donations were spent on administration in the first decade. 49 This extremely low number is fully credible, since GED had no office in Germany up to the early 1990s. The organization was supervized from the living room of the Neudecks in Troisdorf near Cologne. Besides her family life with three children, Christel Neudeck co-ordinated communication with the volunteers and 'public relations' activities in Germany. The tax attorney Franz-Josef Rüber and his secretary Lieselotte Fuchs managed the budget between their work duties. The chairman Rupert Neudeck, the deputy chairman Arlind Schmidt, the co-founders Monika Gilsing and Klaus Meinert, as well as physicians such as Paul Lunkenheimer and Gisela Sperling, who choose the volunteers, received no compensation. 50 Also on site, GED kept staff and administration costs to a minimum. Various aidreceiving countries demanded repeatedly and distinctly to establish lasting bureaucratic structures. But GED always resisted those demands, referencing the high costs at the expense of people in need. 51 It insisted that local governments pay their local partners. 52 Their German volunteers actually had to work on voluntary terms; the association only provided meals and accommodation in the 1980s. Therefore the volunteers could only afford to stay a short time at the site, usually for half a year. 53 Short-term assistance became a generally accepted pattern not only at the conceptual level and in organizational guidelines but also within the day-to-day praxis of the volunteers. The first project in Somalia enjoyed great popularity among the donors as Somalia had become the 'favourite Third World country' of many Germans after the successful operation to free the hostages of an abducted German plane in 1977. But the project manager P. reported back that 'abundant money or a great many applications of voluntaries' should not be taken as an opportunity 'to extend unnecessarily the work in the hospital. The question should not be what we could achieve on top but where the money is really needed. ' 54 Looking at the day-to-day praxis it becomes obvious why the staff at the site also preferred short-term aid. In an emergency, relief action showed quick results above all. Every last volunteer actually made a difference with his commitment, because securing 'bare survival' in most cases was an easy task. In Somalia, soon after its arrival in May 1980, GED improved the situation visibly and dramatically in the refugee camps Dam Cam, Tog Wajaale and Adi Addeys. The association provided additional nutrition for vulnerable groups and established medical units that provided basic care and reconstructed a hospital in the province's capital of Hargeisa. Project Manager S. reported that 'work advanced very well' and at the same time that 'the mood and atmosphere is very good' . 55 In the following months routine set in, but on 30 January 1984 Ethiopian planes bombed Borama near Hargeisa. A part of the team set out immediately to the disaster area, and many patients were transferred to the hospital in Hargeisa. All German volunteers welcomed the emergency situation as beneficial: 'Seeing everybody working together in this emergency was a wonderful experience. Because most of the time we worked on our own and it seemed as if nobody had much interest in the patients. ' 56 Another volunteer added: 'Just a pity that very quickly after, the vigour and enthusiasm wanes rapidly. ' 57 Besides the opportunity to display their helpfulness, emergencies provided a feeling of community, especially with the locals, because they had a common project to work on.
But emergencies did not occur every day, and after the initial drastic advances the situation improved only in small steps, if at all. Thereby the question arose quickly if the volunteers should 'leave or … stay' after 'bare survival' was secured. 58 In the 1980s GED projected a withdrawal date already at the beginning of their deployments as the idea of 'radical humanism' entailed short-term aid. But at the site, the volunteers perceived that their relief action did not change anything since the structural problems remained. At the same time they could not withdraw, as then the situation would have fallen back to the status quo ante. From there, a specific praxis of short-term aid in long-term deployments developed which fluctuated between leaving and staying and spawned its own problems.
Aid is often criticized for having unintended effects. In the case of Somalia, contemporaries had already pointed out in the early 1980s that development aid accounted for up to half of the state budget and thereby stalled economic life. 59 GED added its voice to this chorus. It criticized the 'Western World' for transferring large sums of money to the 'developing countries' only to build prestigious but pointless projects, such as the then-projected Bardeera Dam at the Juba River. To develop their projects, development-aid agencies would hire locals at salaries that were far above the average income. This would result in an artificial economic boom, delaying political solutions to the structural problems. As GED explicitly defected from the earlier approaches it did not see itself as a part of the problem: its relief aid did not cause any negative effects as it was not geared at promoting consumption but solely at the 'satisfaction of a population's basic needs' . 60 However, this limitation on meeting only the basic needs produced its own problems. The concentration of many people in one spot removed them from their familiar social structures and their sources of income. The refuges could not earn a living in the camps whether they had been farmers, merchants, nomads, teachers or engineers beforehand. The longer the camp existed, the more difficult it became to obtain even basic supplies. Already after the first weeks of the camps' establishment one had to drive up to 50km to find wood for the stoves. By cutting down everything in the vicinity, the resulting wasteland made it impossible to keep animals let alone to grow any kind of crops or fruit. 61 The usual way to dig in dry riverbeds soon failed because too many people searched for water in one spot. GED was convinced that drilling with German technology would offer a simple solution. But the wells silted up in no time and the water situation remained precarious throughout the following years. 62 The hygiene situation worsened rapidly, since the usual routines of everyday hygiene proved to be insufficient in the densely populated camps. Even after the construction of basic facilities, the situation remained unsatisfying and reports regularly described a ring of 'human excrement covered with myriads of flies' around the camps. 63 The difficulties of supply, the shortage of water and the poor hygiene situation increased the risk of disease outbreaks or epidemics. In the beginning, GED pointed out the conjunction of the concentration of people and the spread of disease. The camps were 'a ticking time bomb. Diseases such as typhoid, dysentery, cholera could outbreak easily at any time. ' 64 Besides these future threats, tuberculosis already had become a widespread medical condition. One of the first doctors to arrive at the camps estimated that no fewer than 80% of the refugees were suffering from 'open tuberculosis' . He did not have to apply any diagnostics, as patients were 'coughing bloody sputum for months' . 65 Therefore GED focused on a tuberculosis programme. They had quickly elaborated a therapy framework and started with the treatment of children using the method of Udani and Maddocks. The first physicians at the site reported enthusiastically that they 'introduced a documentation scheme' and soon, 'all infected persons and the persons who they had contact with would be registered' . 66 In June 1981, GED reconstructed the tuberculosis department at Hargeisa Hospital where all patients should be treated from then on. However, in 1982, the physician A. arrived at the hospital and still referred to the disease as 'probably the most important public-health problem in northern Somalia' . But as the 'local organizational and medical standards of the public health services were inadequate' , he was convinced that GED could significantly improve the situation by simple means. 67 The two doctors, who continued their work in the tuberculosis hospital in Hargeisa in late 1982 and 1983, evaluated the situation much more pessimistically. They stressed especially the necessity of continuous work as the results of their half-year stays were unsatisfying. Physician B. was committed to patient education. B. produced information programmes for the local radio station, hung large posters in the parlour to inform visitors and patients about the disease and distributed checklists to the patients -to no avail. Before leaving, he proposed obliging literate patients to read the information out loud in the waiting rooms. 68 Instead, the next physician, C., focused on a vain attempt to improve the diagnostic process that his predecessor had evaluated as absolutely sufficient. He became involved with convincing local physicians that x-rays did not suffice to rule out a tuberculosis infection. Like every new physician C. declared his conception of good medical practice the (Western) standard and concentrated on his favourite field of work. 69 At the end of his stay C. gave a shattering summary. The brief deployments made no sense as 'the treatment of a patient should last for one year at least' and the physicians needed time to get used to 'the foreign way of thinking and behaviour of the Somalis' . C. pointed out a second problem: 'The hospital-based tuberculosis treatment went past the needs and the possibilities of the population. ' Patients would only visit the hospital in case of debilitating medical conditions but not for therapy. Therefore the aim should be to erect 'decentralized diagnostic facilities' in the camps. 70 The project manager P. agreed in principle but pointed out that none of the volunteers had felt ready to practice medicine alone in the back country as they were already struggling with getting used to Hargeisa due to the brevity of their short-term stays. 71 As time went by, not only the futility of their specific approach but also the dangers came to be the centre of attention. Already physician C. saw clear signs of their work being harmful 'because resistance to the drugs was looming to emerge due to the many interrupted therapies and the lack of comprehensive treatment' . 72 In 1984 the first physician of the tuberculosis department, A., had to admit that B. and C. were right and he had been much too optimistic in the beginning. 'It had been taught poor medical practice and thereby harm outweighs the benefits. ' 73 Poor was not the practice itself but the lack of continuity in imparting knowledge and the attempt to implement Western models of therapy without adaptation.
The treatment of tuberculosis requires a high level of discipline and co-operation between physician and patient. Therefore problems showed very early. But when GED had to withdraw in 1988 because of the civil war, the team evaluated its work as a complete failure because no progress was achieved. The typical problems caused by the living conditions in the camps resulted in several epidemics, and illnesses including tuberculosis became endemic. In some hospital departments, the situation had even worsened; physicians in the psychiatric department were now putting patients in irons. After the euphoric start, volunteers were deeply frustrated and sought to blame the Somalis. They complained of the Ministry of Health showing no interest in the project. The Somali people had proven to be unresponsive to foreign relief initiatives as 'tribalism, lack of training, underpayment and corruption' were prevailing. Not least, they ascribed the failure to 'an unreliable local staff, corruption, lack of patient care and empathy' . 74 But the volunteers also rose to question GED's approach. The team referred to several earlier reports that warned against applying standard procedures for short-term relief actions. Already in January 1983, volunteers at the site had demanded that they be allowed to pass the project over to 'an aid organization operating long-term' . Because nobody reacted to these demands, later, in 1988, one could only assess their aid initiative as a failure. 'It can be summarized that the problems have constantly recurred in the last eight years and are still persisting. ' The volunteers felt gloomy for the future: 'Within months, the hospital will regress to the level of 1980 but there is also the looming danger of a total breakdown. ' 75

'Blue helmets of the seas': the policies of 'radical humanism'
The outcome of most GED relief actions could be described as a partial failure or at least as the infamous drop on the hot plate. Nevertheless its popularity rose throughout the 1980s. As seen earlier, one of the main reasons for turning to short-term relief was the avoidance of any political entanglement. GED was firmly committed to acting outside any political context. By securing only bare life in short-term operations it intended to refrain from joining any political discussion in which development aid had automatically been caught up. Neudeck hoped that GED could finally overcome the 'primitive confrontation in our country' . 76 But it soon became apparent that it was certainly perceived as a political actor. Neudeck was surprized that the Social Democrats (SPD) hardly supported its case, whereas he ranked the CDU and the FDP among his key allies. However, the CDU and the FDP simply took the chance to counter previous popular initiatives of the SPD, which had been 'supporting Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese or Allende's Chile for years' . 77 The Vietnamese refugees served as an illustration of the failing socialist utopias and the cruelty of popular-liberation fronts. But also at the site, the neighbouring states and the representative of the UHCR in South-East Asia perceived the relief efforts as a political undertaking and therefore rejected it vehemently. They perceived the refugees as potentially destabilising agents that Vietnam could rid itself of easily. And the refugees had to be supplied; the neighbouring countries feared the burden would lead to political and economic destabilization, which could benefit their hostile neighbour Vietnam. 78 But aside from the obvious political implications of humanitarian aid, there can be observed a partially robust, partially subtle policy of 'radical humanism' . Again and again GED argued that it only set out to save bare life in the spirit of a simple and therefore universal humanism. It drew the conclusion that there could be no conceivable arguments against its case. The association felt authorized to use all possible means at every possible place at any given time as the plethora of donations from the German people empowered them.
Already on its rescue trip to the South China Sea, GED had made it clear that it was not willing to abide by the law of the sea; the sovereignty of the neighbouring countries had to take a back seat to GED's goal of saving lives. In Somalia Rupert Neudeck and his colleagues vehemently disapproved of any governmental 'interference'; they presented their disapproval as a feature that distinguished their work from that of other organizations. In Somalia, the Somali National Commissioner for Refugees (NCR) was meant to organize the supply chain to the refugee camps. The GRC and other aid organizations committed their cargoes to its 'general store' at Mogadishu although expecting 'losses of freight' . 79 GED proudly declared itself to be the only aid organization that did not bend to strong Somali pressure to co-operate: 'We threatened them with leaving immediately together with our supplies if they would insist upon their modus operandi. ' 80 GED also avoided entering into any contract with the aid-receiving country that would have diminished its control over the relief operation. 81 At the end of 1986, GED decided to prolong its deployment for another two years. But now, the Somali health minister demanded the signing of a standardized country agreement as an essential condition. GED went public and expressed its indignation: the minister was daring to ask for records and documents that could deliver insight into the type of the organization it was and its work procedures. In particular, GED felt provoked by the request to establish a representation for the improvement of government contacts in Mogadishu. The association summoned 'in short: totally unacceptable conditions' . 82 Neudeck reported to the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Somalia: 'We will not change the character of an NGO because of the demands of a government […] -then we would operate like everyone else and the salt of the earth that we aspire to be would become stale. ' 83 The anger was not directed against this particular general agreement but against any administration routines setting out to control their work and the movements of the relief organization. As in Germany, GED produced emergency relief as an argument with which to legitimatize its actions. The organization saw itself crushed 'between the millstones of saving lives in the camps, the deaths of thousands on the one hand and the requirements of a bureaucracy on the other hand' . 84 Any bureaucracy or administrative procedure should be suspended and immediate access should be granted in the case of 'relief for those in their last agony' .
This offensive attitude can also be found in GED's everyday work. As we have seen, GED actively strived for fading out the local political context in the spirit of 'radical humanism' . Staff were sent to the respective aid-receiving countries with hardly any specific preparation. 85 Combined with the short-term deployments volunteers had a hard time adapting to customs and societies. This omission led all too often to the impression that the aid-receiving countries generally lacked any political or social structures.
As a result, far-reaching wishes to control the 'chaos' arose among the volunteers and inside the organization. At the beginning, the German volunteers in Somalia were optimistic that the disparate cultures could enrich each other. They sympathized with the Somalis and tried to understand where they were coming from. A physician warned: It would mean to take the easy way out if we would rate their public health routines as hokum. The Somalis perceive their measures as evident as our pills, injections, and infusions. We need to ascertain why they do it the way they do it; then we can exploit their ideas and employ their measures. 86 In another report at the time, the long-time co-ordinator of the GED compound P. highlighted the economic reasons behind seemingly erratic behaviour, such as doctors and nurses neglecting their medical duties or not showing any empathy with the poor and suffering. Given the low governmental wages, 'to earn an extra income was admittedly necessary' . They therefore had to hold private office hours at pharmacies and they preferred wealthy patients who were willing to buy drugs under the table. 87 The frustration grew when the attitude did not change. In general, the trend can be observed that the longer they stayed, the more the volunteers retreated from working at eye level in favour of taking over more controlling functions. This applied to both the organizational and the individual approaches. Q. worked a total of two years for GED; she started with much enthusiasm and was dedicated to the fieldwork as a physician. In late 1982 she had retreated to the control of the pharmacy and 'other tasks in terms of supervision' . 88 In April 1984, she had sealed herself off from the Somali people. An internal report stated that it was now more difficult 'to enter the GED compound than to visit the NSS [National Security Service of Somalia]' . 89 Whereas physician A. had pointed out that 'we have to explain our medical techniques in words adapted to their world view' 90 , his predecessor B. already perceived control of the Somalis as the main task and central justification for his work as a physician: 'The lack of punctuality, the lack of concentration at work, these are the reasons that make admonitory our involvement at the Hargeisa Hospital. ' 91 Soon, across all departments, monitoring the drugs turned out to be the most vexing problem. The volunteers hoped the Somalis would gain insight into their rationality and stop 'wasting' drugs on seemingly unnecessary treatments or selling them under the table.
As their example obviously did not suffice, they took measures to educate the Somali staff. Physician B. had put up a sophisticated blackboard with instructions; when he installed it 'it was admired, indeed' -'but immediately put into the corner' . 92 In a next step the volunteers promoted the idea of a 'central pharmacy in the hospital' that would distribute drugs directly to patients. A German professional should be appointed to 'control the distribution, train the pharmacists in statistics and accounting and instruct them in proper planning' . 93 The plan failed, and further attempts to control the distribution 'up to the beds' were met with open resistance. The Somali staff even avoided working together with German physicians who were known to be controlling. 94 The final report in 1988 noted laconically: ' About the disappearance, sale and abuse of drugs no further comment. It is all only too well-known. It raises one's hackles but it is probably too late to change. ' 95 This desire to control the field, which was experienced as chaotic and without rules, became apparent also on a level that could be easily seen as politically significant. In the area of the South China Sea the problem of piracy came to the fore as time went by. In the early 1980s, the attacks on fleeing Vietnamese vessels, which were an easy and worthwhile goal, became more frequent. The news of plunder, murders and rapes alarmed the German public. But the welfare organizations fell back on the traditional position that problems of this scale must be solved by political pressure. 'The respective coastal navies should prevent bloody murder and uproar in their territorial waters. ' It would be misleading to deduce the moral obligation to help people in need of 'policing duties' . 96 In contrast, GED felt entitled to undertake exactly these 'policing duties' by its 'radical humanism' . They committed themselves to preventing pirate raids or even taking up the chase. For example, on 17 May 1981, they came across a refugee vessel which had been attacked by Thai pirates: 'robbed up to the last farthing, women gang-raped, two women abducted' . The crew of the 'Cap Anamur' succeeded in identifying four trawlers involved in the attack by radar information. They chased down one of the vessels and coerced it to halt. The trapped pirates were sent out to retrieve the kidnapped women from a second vessel that had escaped. But since they apparently decided to abandon the small ship they had handed over as deposit securing their return, the 'Cap Anamur' waited in vain. 97 The brave commitment of GED encouraged further initiatives. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which had greater leeway than national societies of the Red Cross, proposed a co-ordination of aid agencies that had vessels on site. The 'Cap Anamur' , the 'Seasweep' of 'World Vision' and the ' Akuna II' of 'Food for the Hungry' should co-ordinate their deployment to the most frequented zone so that 'there would be a permanent presence of at least one rescue vessel in order to protect the refugees' . 98 The founder of 'terre des hommes' , Edmond Kaiser, launched an initiative committed to the control of the seas on 30 April 1981. He suggested deploying proper 'blue helmets of the seas' . 99 But in the meantime, he intended to charter a 'police boat' that would establish constant control over the Gulf. 100 Rupert Neudeck took a critical view of these projects 101 but more because he obviously feared a rival to his undertaking than because of broader considerations. 102 He himself became involved in a similar project after the rescue missions of the 'Cap Anamur' had to be abandoned in May 1982. In September 1983, GED presented a plane to the public. It was equipped with advanced navigation and surveillance tools ready to monitor any vessel activity in the South China Sea. 103 All these initiatives failed in the end. The aid agencies could not agree among themselves as they pursued several conflicting approaches. The far-reaching plans to send a ship or an aircraft were blocked by local authorities. They were not willing to cede their sovereignty over territorial waters or airspace. Nevertheless, they succeeded in drawing attention to the subject of piracy, which had not played any role in media or broadcast journalism after the Second World War. 104 Subsequently, the UN and the UNHCR issued the first multinational anti-piracy programme ever in June 1982, 'responding to international outrage and a demand for action' . Twelve countries initially founded the programme with US$3.6 million. The programme expired only in December 1991 and is perceived as the direct precursor to later anti-piracy operations, for example, off the coast of Somalia. 105

Conclusion
Historiography of humanitarianism remains necessarily deeply ambivalent, given its subject's 'contradictions and paradoxes, strengths and weaknesses' . 106 Didier Fassin suggested that particularly a discussion of 'humanitarian reason' should alternate between the attempt to empathize and a critical stance, thereby remaining 'attentive both to the discourses and practices of their members and to the facts and stakes of which they seemed unaware' and 'closely marking their limits but also their spaces of freedom' . 107 This ambivalence also characterizes the present approach to the history of GED. Without the astonishing and brave commitment of many volunteers nothing would have happened. Thousands would have drowned in the South China Sea, the Western World would have abandoned the refugees to their fate in the dreadful camps of Pulau Bidong and Pulau Galang, and thousands would have died of hunger or easily curable illnesses in Somalia, Chad or Ethiopia. But at the same time, GED's concentration on the human being as such and their insistence on short-term help produced undesired effects and entailed an underlying policy that did not necessarily align with the intentions of volunteers.
The 'radical humanism' of the GED relied on the suppression of context. Only humanitarian considerations should decide where, when and whom to help. This approach won approval in the 1980s as the public was apparently now relieved of the 'psychological pressure' involved in long-term commitments under the development approach. The focus on humanity and the presentation of simple, rapid and obvious solutions led to an enormous mobilization running far beyond the traditional circles of donors and volunteers. GED also has to be credited with wrenching relief action from explicit political considerations. It created a new type of non-bureaucratic organization that relied mainly on donations. By following the plebiscite of the people, it took the lead in the identification of disasters, replacing the leftist 'Solidaritätkomitees' and traditional charities that acted as extension of German politics. Thereby, international solidarity with liberation movements and the geostrategic and economic interests of German foreign policy lost their leading role in motivating aid. GED's approach experienced validation at the site it stabilized as an alternative worth considering. Volunteers experienced the short-term approach as plausible and catchy because it presented a simple means to an end. The exceptional situation of the emergency proved to be a good point of intervention as existing constraints at the site could be easily relaxed. Simple measures had astonishing effects in emergencies, bettering the situation visibly and granting instant gratification to the volunteers.
At the same time however such 'radical humanism' left relief action on shaky ground. Arguing on the basis of humanity appears to serve only briefly as motivation because it inevitably collides with context, political interests and difficulties that it suppressed. In Germany, many understood the relief action for Vietnam as evidence of the failure of an alternative path to socialism. At the site, the neighbouring states perceived it as interference in the regional balance of power. Particularly the Thai and Malaysian objections led many to questioning the 'pure humanitarian impulse' of the relief for the 'boat people' .
Emergency relief proved to be efficient in the first place. But over the long run problems arose based on the high level of centralization and the lack of continuity. GED found itself in a quandary. It could not withdraw as projected because its volunteers at the site quickly became aware that much remained to do. At the same time its concept of aid could not contribute to the solution to structural deficiencies. On the contrary, many of the problems which would determine the course of the following year were self-inflicted. From the perspective of the volunteers, long-term approaches and the decentralization of aid would have led to better results, but could not be implemented due to the structure of the association, the attractiveness of emergency aid and the commitment to the mission statement of 'radical humanism' .
GED's 'radical humanism' approach was perceived as neutral in political terms. It thereby gained the support of politically disparate factions. It quickly became obvious that the explicitly apolitical NGO was also certainly perceived as a political actor. But more importantly, the aid per se was functional in political terms. It was no longer working according to the traditional logic of imperialism, in which the negotiation of hierarchies had priority. Instead it followed a policy of questioning political sovereignty and widening coverage and control, but without committing to development or getting involved in the political struggles at the site.
From my point of view, 'controlled demerging' would be an apt term to put in a nutshell the undisclosed and mostly subconscious political aim of 'radical humanism' . Regarding the irritating wish to eschew commitment, it would be misleading to conclude that the policies of this special kind of humanitarian aid are about letting human rights come into their own or -in a negative interpretation -dominating the world by a 'universal' concept of Western provenance. 108 Just as little could one apply the approach of Naomi Klein, who suggested that disaster relief is part of a 'shock doctrine' that destabilizes countries to prepare the ground for capitalistic ventures and integrate them into exploitation circuits without resistance. 109 Even the term 'benevolent dictatorship' that was used to describe the close bond between short-term humanitarian aid and control would imply a great deal insofar as a dictator is probably the politician with the strongest link to his people. 110 The founding of GED and the introduction of 'radical humanism' was the start of a movement towards a new concept of aid in Germany. Longstanding charity organizations lost their monopoly to the 'pure humanitarian impulse'; the brief interim high of humanitarian aid as an annex to the international solidarity of the 'new left' came to an end. The 1980s experienced a founding period of new humanitarian organizations that were no longer motivated by Christian concepts of charity. Like GED, most focused on shortterm aid, making sure to get donors involved and to appeal to the media. They aspired to identify humanitarian causes on their own terms and without the necessity of political confirmation. Some agencies were short lived, but others are still an important part of German relief aid such as, for example, Humedica (1979), Menschen helfen Menschen (1980), HELP -Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe e.V. (1981), Aktionsgruppe Kinder in Not (1983), Ärzte für die Dritte Welt (1983, since 2011 German Doctors), and ghana action (1983, since 2003 africa action). 111 Also on the international level, a turn to a radicalized concept of relief aid can be observed that differentiated itself from earlier approaches that contented oneself with providing services. 112 In the case of France, the swift ascent and international success of Médecins Sans Frontières is well known and can be traced back to their concentration on short-term aid, convincing applications of technical measures and its emphasis on pure humanitarianism. 113 In Great Britain, contemporaries perceived the relief effort for Ethiopia in 1984 as a breakthrough of humanitarian politics 114 , but it was also described as a shift away from the development approach towards short-term technical aid. 115 At the same time we can observe a radicalization of the humanitarian impulse. In 1980, the same year as the Swiss Edmond Kaiser turned to a 'radical humanism' as described above, Bernard Kouchner, the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, left his original agency and founded Médecins du Monde. His new aid agency reclaimed the right of humanitarian intervention and promoted the responsibility to help. 116 Since then, the number of disasters has been rising steadily and this development can be comprehensively explained only by the assumption of growing attention. 117 An important factor was the professionalization and internationalization of the main players in the field of relief aid. American and British aid agencies such as CARE, World Vision or ADRA, Plan, Oxfam or Save the Children founded national 'chapters' , 'branches' or 'offices' all over the world. Often these representatives concentrated only on raising funds and therefore relied even more on disaster relief. 118 Overall these organizations widened their influence on politics and brought into focus new regions that had not been subject to aid.
To be sure, in the long run, 'radical humanism' , its pursuit of 'purification' and its concentration on disasters paved the way only for a re-politicization of aid. By disconnecting aid from its national, Christian and leftist political implications it lost its somewhat idiosyncratic and refractory character. Soon, short-term relief proved to be an apt approach to doing politics under the shielding image of pure humanity coming into its own. State funding has gone increasingly to relief aid since the 1980s while expenses for development programmes have been cut back. 119 At the beginning of the 1990s, the founding of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office marked a step towards the integration of 'radical humanism' into the state policies of the 'Western World' regarding the Global South. 120 Thereby politics gained influence on the purportedly apolitical NGOs; in turn, the NGOs gradually took over functions of foreign policy. 121 GED was not part of that development. It has maintained its rejection of political influence and development, its non-bureaucratic way of organising aid and its co-operation with volunteers instead of professionals. Of course, such non-cooperation did not contribute to increasing the size of the organization. To this day GED operates from a small office in Cologne with only three employees, still relying on the sacrifice of committed technicians and logisticians, physicians and nurses. And today, in the age of a professionalized and re-politicized 'radical humanism' , GED really appears to be a remnant of a 'golden age' .