At the ZZF, Slobodian will research a new project entitled Mao in the Two Germanies. This project will look at the challenge to political culture presented by Chinese Communism in both East and West Germany from the year of the founding of all three states, 1949, until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. It will focus, in particular, on the oversized cultural presence of Mao Zedong, whose writings were both canonized and demonized in the two Cold War Germanies, and whose policies were both praised and condemned. Topics explored will include academic Sinology, the alternative Chinese model of development, the Chinese critique of peace, the traffic of Chinese and East German functionaries, teachers and students between the two republics, and the place of Mao in contemporary German memory culture.