As in other European socialist countries, in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), research on Latin America has increased steadily since the 1960s. After the reopening in 1946 of the high schools and universities in what was then the Soviet Occupied Zone, research and teaching on problems of Latin America developed initially in a sporadic way according to the personal interests of scholars within various scientific disciplines. From the beginning, however, these efforts were founded upon the democratic and humanistic traditions of German research on Latin America. The scholars tried consciously to uphold the heritage of Alexander von Humboldt, above all his idea of mutual give-and-take and his sympathy for the fight for independence against the Spanish colonial regime.1 By eschewing nationalistic, racist, and eurocentrist biases, Latin American studies in the German Democratic Republic aim, in the von Humboldt tradition, to avoid patronizing the Latin American people.