Stefan Müller has published an extensive case study on foreign policy in German union history. His book is based exclusively on detailed research in various West German government and institutional archives. Focusing on the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) as the umbrella organization of the West German trade unions, he covers his subject in five long chronological chapters that deal with unions and foreign policy before 1969; the DGB's eastern contacts during the formative phase of the SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik between 1969 and 1972; bilateral union-to-union relations during the 1970s “between euphoria and stabilization”; Poland and Solidarność in 1980–1981; and finally the 1980s, which Müller headlines “from Ostpolitik to intra-German policy” (5–7). The narrative basically concludes in the summer of 1989, with just one page (364) hinting at what happened after.

Except for the Polish chapter (addressed below), the foreign policy activities by mostly high-ranking, full-time union officials which Müller describes were basically complementary within the overall framework of West German government policy. The foremost issue concerned improving status in domestic “bourgeois society” through union actors gaining international prestige. In contrast, the comparatively mundane domestic union advocacy to fight private and public employers for better wages and benefits for the labor force did not allow for much glamour. According to Müller, the DGB leadership viewed itself, and acted accordingly, as a “national player”: they were “acting as ‘quasi-state actors’ to such an extent that in foreign policy matters they could hardly be called a nongovernmental organization” (392).

If the West German unions acted this way in their foreign policy toward Eastern Bloc states, then they moved somewhat closer to the official function of trade unions in the Soviet Bloc. However, the difference between roles, rights, and functions of unions in West Germany as opposed to the Soviet Union or the GDR was vast. In the communist states, unions were a so-called socialist mass organization with no rights to call strikes and bargain for workers’ wages, benefits, and working conditions—the latter being part of daily union business in West Germany. However, this is hardly addressed in Müller's book. Maybe this is due to differences being hardly raised by West German unions when meeting their eastern counterparts. Such discussions were deemed inappropriate—instead, one focused on bilateral parity and diplomatic protocol. Eastern contacts of West German union delegations were overall modest in numbers, and they were mostly conducted through group visits of higher-ranking officials, without much involvement of the rank and file. West German union leaders were actually concerned about too much unscripted member activities from below in this regard, so they declared eastern contacts to be an issue for union management only. Furthermore, those contacts were hardly true exchanges or were met reciprocally by the eastern side. The eastern unions only included privileged and loyal officials in union delegations visiting West Germany.

The only short-lived exception to this pattern was the period of the independent Polish Solidarność union between summer 1980 and December 1981. Despite the West German government under Helmut Schmidt scrupulously staying out of Polish affairs in order to safeguard its special relationship with the GDR, West German civil society, including union members, engaged in intensive “solidarity for Solidarność” activities. In this case, the DGB leadership refrained from playing the role of quasi-state actor and listened to union members instead. The material union support for Solidarność from West Germany represented transformative action, which the Polish communist government dubbed “interference in internal matters” (253). Müller strangely uses this phrase without quotation marks as a headline for his chapter describing these activities. Still, with the imposition of martial law in Poland in December 1981, the West German unions fell back on their default option of complementing government policies. After two perfunctory events in 1982, the DGB let Polish affairs be handled by the Poles and focused exclusively on intra-German union relations with its official GDR counterpart. This abandonment of Solidarność by the West German unions during martial law stood in striking contrast to solidarity from other western trade unions, in particular the activities of the AFL-CIO.

In his mostly descriptive approach, Müller does not consider DGB policies regarding Poland as worthy of much critical discussion. The same applies to the lack of comparison with DGB foreign policy outside of the Eastern Bloc, where, in contrast to their approach toward the Soviet Union and the GDR, West German unions frankly criticized deficient labor rights in authoritarian regimes, regardless of official West German policies. In a somewhat baffling choice, Müller also decided not to use the large trove of easily accessible GDR archival files on intra-German trade union relations. With the deep focus on West German internal and official views, the “other side” is left out of the picture and stays mostly above the fray and criticism.

While, according to Müller, the “central motive” of DGB eastern contacts consisted in “contribution to foreign policy and to become part of this foreign policy” (394) of successive West German governments, the book does not actually say much about this subject—except for the comprehensive, extensive, deeply researched, and detailed narrative from West German archives this book dutifully provides.