ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Bavaria as a subnational actor in educational development measures from the late 1950s, and especially during the East-West conflict. Bavaria is an example of the German Länder that had cultural sovereignty and were thus responsible for the implementation of educational programs. This text aims to show that the Federal Republic of Germany should therefore not only be considered on a national level, even if it is an interesting object of investigation when referring to the direct competition with the German Democratic Republic. The case of Bavaria is interesting here in several respects: it supported international students, developed agricultural projects in South America, designed vocational training programs for specialists and executives from the so-called developing countries, sent experts worldwide, and was the stage for excursions by visitors from all over the world. The Bavarian ministries cooperated closely with the federal ministries, local authorities, commercial enterprises, and non-governmental players such as churches. This chapter is supposed to show how diverse the activities and options for action of the Länder were. The most important finding is that although the cooperation between the federal and state governments was mostly very cooperative, Bavaria nevertheless pursued its own interests and must therefore be understood as an independent actor.
