Using new archival sources--including previously secret documents of the East German secret police and Communist Party--M. E. Sarotte goes behind the scenes of Cold War Germany during the era of détente, as East and West tried negotiation instead of confrontation to settle their differences. In Dealing with the Devil, she explores the motives of the German Democratic Republic and its Soviet backers in responding to both the détente initiatives, or Ostpolitik, of West Germany and the foreign policy of the United States under President Nixon.