Nearing the end of World War II and preparing for an all-but-guaranteed victory for the Allies, United States President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Union Czar Josef Stalin organized a meeting in Yalta, Crimea, to discuss the geographical reorganization of post-War Europe. The diplomatic congregation of the three global powers, later coined the “Yalta Conference,” settled on various provisions, including the dismantling of Germany, dividing the country and Berlin into four occupational zones supervised by France, the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, allowing Poland to institute a communist regime at Stalin’s behest, and the arrangement for the Soviet Union’s active participation in the United Nations. Moreover, the global powers reconvened shortly after at the “Potsdam Conference,” upon discovery Stalin disavowed the guidelines of the Yalta Conference and rejected open elections in Poland, further alienating the United States and Great Britain in the process. The Potsdam Conference was an extension of the Yalta Conference, where the global powers agreed to prosecute all Nazi war criminals, alter Germany’s economy from industrial too agrarian, decentralize Germany, and recognize Stalin’s Soviet influence on Poland’s government. However, the diplomatic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union began to falter, shortly after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in a catastrophic devastation of the Japanese people, an abrupt end to the war, and an increased pressure for nuclear arms development.
Tensions further intensified, reaching a boiling point on March 12, 1947, when President Harry Truman pledged to raise $400 million in funds directed at assisting Turkey and Greece from Soviet control, containing the spread of communism, and bolstering the ideology of Western Government. In turn, the “Truman Doctrine” marked a pivotal moment in U.S.-Soviet relations, ultimately spurring the Cold War for several decades, and resulting in the United States involvement in various wars staged across the globe. As for Berlin, the cities Eastern and Western districts were indefinitely separated through political ideology, with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) incorporating the Western political system, opposed to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) incorporating the Soviet political system. Twelve years later, on August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republic began construction on the infamous Berlin Wall, a barricade that physically separated the once unified nation and symbolized the opposing ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, amidst the 1960’s, the United States began experiencing a transformation of their cultural identity, where the youth and like-minded adults rallied for Civil Rights, legalized abortion, the Equal Right’s Amendment, Anti-Vietnam demonstrations, sexual exploration, and, above all, peace, love, and rock and roll. Musicians of the decade captured the growing contempt of the nation’s involvement in Vietnam, sparking a wide variance of rock and roll protest songs, embodying the counterculture movement, and capitulating the immersion of music and politics with the Woodstock Music Festival. By the end of the 60’s, the consensus amongst Americans was that the Nation was shifting towards a new era that promoted the peace and love efforts of the youth. However, the illumination of the counterculture spirt was abruptly dissolved at the dawn of the 70’s, for political conspiracies such as Watergate and the release of the Pentagon papers, the rapid rate of inflation, the continued deployment of troops into Vietnam, the murders at Kent State, the U.S. oil embargo and various other events plagued the 70’s with a nihilistic outlook of the future, thereby suppressing any newfound optimism. In turn, the psychedelic rock and roll of the previous decade evolved into a harsher sound: one that consisted of brash vocals, simple, yet ferocious chord structures, and an act of artistic rebellion to the social order.
The origins of punk music is often debated, yet most music historians trace the roots of punk rock to an assortment of bands at the beginning of the 1970’s, including the Stooges, MC5, and the New York Dolls, all of whom consisted of electrifying stage performances, providing a form of verbal retaliation for the voiceless, and igniting terror for outsiders who witnessed the congregation of jean-tattered youth participating in a musical revolt. T-shirts and Levi jeans became the uniform for the punk revolution, as the tenacious sound of punk merged into the mainstream with the commercial success of the Ramones, a quartet of brothers who are often regarded as the pioneers of punk, whose sound focused on rapid delivery, shortened song length, and captivating lyrics. Opposed to the progressive rock and heavy metal bands that emerged during the decade, punk rock was molded through the outcry of the urban, youthful angst, where teenagers felt ostracized by the surrounding society, using the combination of loudness, speed, and simplicity delivered by punk too express themselves in the comfort of fellow outcasts. Furthermore, punk rejected the preferred sound of the music industry, rivaled the conformity of pop music, and found solace in confined club auditoriums, such as the CBGB club, the New York mecca of punk rock that hosted the Ramones, the Pattie Smith Group, and Television.
In 1976, the same year the Ramones recorded their debut album Ramones, the punk movement began to spread across Great Britain, following the success of the 100 Club Punk Festival that produced a talented roster of unheard-of punk bands. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Siouxsie and the Banshee’s scorched through the festival, with lyrics capturing the rise of unemployment in Europe, resentment towards the British Monarchy, and sporting flamboyant stage outfits, consisting of black leather, dog collars, and multicolored mohawk haircuts. The emergence of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and the Ramones solidified punk music’s extension from the medium of music into a full-blown movement that was defined through fashion, political awareness, and an invigoration to youth culture. Furthermore, the punk movement turned into a global phenomenon, evoking a sense of anarchy across the world, and inspired a wave of revolutionary groups in Eastern Germany, who were captivated by the sound of punk movement and utilized the rebellious message to conjure their own coup against their overbearing government.
According to Tim Mohr, author of Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, life in Eastern Germany was predetermined by the communist state, where children were directed to join the Free German Youth, future careers for students were already designated, and college attendance was dictated by the government. In contrast to the British punk movement of the mid-70’s, where British youth felt their future was bleak due to the rise of unemployment, Mohr claims the Eastern German punk movement was inspired by the youth who felt their future was being thwarted by the government, or, as Mohr explains, “the opposite was the case because the dictatorship had planned out every aspect of their life. The Eastern Punks felt like they had to much future.” 1981 marked a pivotal year for the East German punk movement, for the first punk concert was hosted at the Yugoslavian Embassy, with 100 punks in attendance. Later, that same year, the Eastern German government sponsored a report that identified roughly 1,000 “punks” and 10,000 punk sympathizers, which evoked a heighten anxiety for government officials. In turn, the Eastern German government began to instruct the Stasi, the feared secret police who resembled the government in George Orwell’s 1984, to pursue the punks accordingly.
Punks received constant harassment from the Stasi: arresting the youth if they attempted to board a train, stopping and searching the punks without probable cause, inflicting merciless beatings, and even reverted to acquiring informants scattered through Eastern Germany. Likewise, local citizens of Eastern Germany participated in the harassment, where punks were no longer welcome at local restaurants, spat on by bystanders, and referred to the youth as “Filth from the West.” The punks resisted, however, and organized illegal concerts in various artist studios, apartments, and church basements, where bands such as Planlos (aimless), Schleim-Keim (slime seed), and Namenlos (nameless) began to rise to prominence in the underground punk scene. Throughout the 1980’s, Eastern German punk music and punk fashion represented an act of freedom, an anthesis to dictatorial approach of the government, a rejection of a predetermined life, a call for human rights, and voice to grant individuals agency. The Stasi continued to arrest the punks, often imposing extended prison sentences or forcing the rebels into careers of grave digging or hospital waste operators as punishment. However, the punks continued to strive for freedom, never faltering to brandish their mohawks, leather jackets, and dog collars as an act of righteousness.
East German punk lyrics often delivered a message of anti-authoritarianism, declaring the communist state guilty of suppressing their individuality. Likewise, punk bands verbally criticized the Stasi and the militarized police state, comparing the secret surveillance of residents and infiltration of secret societies conducted by the Stasi as the foundation for a totalitarian state. The Stasi retaliated, administering constant harassment and attempting to recruit local youths as informants within the underground punk circles to combat the rapid rise of the punk movement. In turn, punk band members were at the forefront of the harassment. According to Claire Walsh, in her article “The East German Punks Who Helped Bring Down The Berlin Wall,” Jana Scholsser, the lead singer of Namenlos, was sentenced to two years for comparing the Stasi to Hitler’s SS and Juergen Guthjahr, member of the band Wutanfall, recalled an incident where the Stasi arrested him, bound his hands together, put a bag over his head, and viciously beat him in a nearby forest. Moreover, members of the band Planos were detained by the Stasi and inscribed in the Eastern Germany army as punishment for defying the communist state, where the members endured a “rehabilitation period” akin to the A Clockwork Orange. Nevertheless, the punk movement displayed a presence of fortitude, resisting the efforts of the Stasi and Eastern German governments attempt to intimidate the steadfast uprising, and continued to protest for their right of independence from the state. At the beginning of 1988, the Stasi reported that the punk movement was the largest threat to the state, for more youth continued to enlist in the punk movement and voiced their resentment towards the lack of agency allowed by the government.
By the mid-80’s, multiple shifts abroad and domestically aligned with the punk movement. First, Mikhail Gorbachev was inaugurated as the new leader of the USSR during the decline of the government’s economy, which resulted in Gorbachev relinquishing a degree of control over Eastern Germany, thereby allowing western music to flow through the eastern border of Germany. Furthermore, countries previously controlled by the Soviet Union, including Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia began mounting protests against the Soviet Union and declaring their countries own independence from the communist state, including the “Singing Revolution,” a two million person mobilization by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania that protested for their freedom across the Baltic Republics. Lastly, mounting protests in East Germany, including the 70,000-person protest at Leipzig on October 9th, 1989 and the protest at East Germany’s capital city, Alexanderplatz, on November 4th, 1989 solidified the disdain of the East Germany’s population towards the government. As protests continued to lead up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, punks roared an attendance, symbolizing the act of rebellion against the faltering state. Then, on November 9th, 1989, two million populates flooded to the Berlin Wall, as the East German government announced the country would open the border wall, thereby granting East and West Germans freedom to travel openly and signifying the demise of the USSR.
Overall, it is not accurate to credit the East German punk movement as the defining factor of the reunification of Berlin, for several influences domestically and abroad played a role in the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Nevertheless, the punk movement in East Germany, that combined music and fashion as an artistic form of protest, carried a message of opposition that grasped the nations youth, who felt their futures should be seen as a blank canvas, opposite to the state’s insistence to dictate every facet of their life. One of the doctrines amplified by the punk movement was “destroy what is destroying you,” a statement that captured the rise of independent thought and encouraged the proliferation of East German youths to take hold of their own lives. In the end, the East German punk movement mobilized a growing youth movement, supplanted its legacy in the zeitgeist of the Cold War, and forged a bond of unification through music and fashion, an accomplishment of organizational protest that, as President Ronald Reagan demanded, helped “Tear Down the Wall.”
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