Today I would like to illuminate the phenomenon of punk from another side, this time from the side of the state power in the former GDR.
( For the younger ones among you, ... the German Democratic Republic was the Russian counter-design to the rather casual, American-influenced Federal Republic, it was hidden and protected from the enemy behind walls and barbed wire 😎 ).
They would have preferred to hide marginal phenomena like this one.
But it wasn't quite that simple, even in the workers and peasants state there were rules to which the police and state security had to adhere, even if only to a limited extent.
These gentlemen were not allowed to simply shoot someone or lock him up for no reason at all; they needed a certain amount of evidence to justify such action.
So they began to collect this evidence, or rather they tried to find it.
The criminal file KA " NADEL " was opened!
Yes, it was enough to stick a safety pin into the ear and to hang a toilet chain or similar around the neck to be classified as criminally endangered.
The following plan was launched against those who looked so unusual.
It was slow in the beginning to fulfill the tasks set out there satisfactorily and even 2 years later the civil servants still did not manage to get this motley bunch of uncontrollable enemies of the state under control, let alone dissolve it.
Therefore, the work plan was extended.
I believe that these small excerpts from my Stasi ( east german secret service ) file show well how helpless the government loyalists were in the face of the punk phenomenon.
The guys were completely overwhelmed with what there recently disfigured the cityscape, groping for a long time in the dark and understood nothing.
Their "SUCCESSES" were therefore only of a dubious nature.
As a punk, you were locked up for trivialities, had to surrender to harassment such as beatings or even washing your hair and shining your shoes at the police station, and the visits of various state security people who picked you up from work or school, invited you for a beer and wanted to recruit you as an unofficial collaborator, were an integral part of the state purge.
Daily personal checks by the police were part of everyday life and the infiltration of informers into the punk gang were known and made one's life in the self-chosen " underground ", not exactly easier.
House arrest, bans on leaving the city on certain days and arrests of all conspicuous individuals before city festivals, became more and more popular with the comrades, they thought they could protect the people from the young savages.
They could not!
Of course they did not succeed in keeping all these suddenly rebellious young people in check, there were only a few, but they were invincible and when then also a few long-haired young people dressed in leather jackets and listening to terribly diabolical music joined the punks in the cityscape, the confusion was perfect.
The criminal file KA " DANCE " was opened and devoted to a new phenomenon.
We called them the Heavy Metal's, ... cool guys with a shitty taste in music. 😄
For the Stasi they were, next to the punks, ... they were also enemies of the state and they started to make music too.
THE SOUNDTRACK OF THAT TIME ( very exhausting for today's listening habits 😎 ) was of course not presented on the big stages of the country (for this it required a playing permit which one did not get), but took place exclusively on privately organized parties, which were all too often broken up by the police, or on church grounds. (there the state power had, at least officially no access. )
Now I would like to introduce to you briefly some German Bands from Thuringian from this time, with which I was friends at that time.
Let's start with ANDREAS AUSLAUF, a band from Suhl.
Lonely local punk fame with numerous gigs in the region, release of a demo tape. Disbanded in 1987 due to changing musical interests, Tommi first founded Die Bastards with his Leipzig cousin Leander (recordings from 1988), then in Leipzig the Germany-wide successful ska band Messer Banzani. Wolf joined briefly in 1988 the Wartburgs for Walter.
Andrea's outlet.
In 1983, the punk band "Andrea's Auslauf" was formed in the environment of the Suhl Monday Circle, after previous NDW or punk band formations such as "Fünfahrplan", "Roter Stern" or "Infragrün" did not last or had to disband. They were musically influenced by West German bands like Fehlfarben and Abwärts. So you can find on the tape beside punk pieces like "Zivilisation" mainly new wave. The band existed until 1987.
The founding members of the band were Wolf Scheidt, Fetzer and Tommi Topp. Tommi did his own thing in different projects until he founded Messer Banzani with his cousin Leander Topp.
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KG REST from Weimar.
The band existed since spring 1984, consisted of personnel remnants of the Weimar fun punk bands Madmans and Ernst F.All and calculated by their name the departure of some members immediately. Role models like The Cure and Joy Division were the musical inspiration. The exclusively German lyrics were written by guitarist Helfried Menchén. They told of private everyday life in the GDR, sometimes combined with metaphorical-mystical doomsday moods. The band did not want to be pigeonholed into the usual categories of contemporary pop culture, be it punk or new wave, and described their music as no wave.
After various performances at student parties and in church halls, Der Rest, together with O.T.Z.E., blew up the Carnival Elferrat of the "Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen Weimar" because of missing permission to play. From the beginning they did not even try to get one for the purpose of a band career. Instead, the group recorded their LP "panem et circensis" on the initiative of Jürgen Onißeit, a member who had left for the West in 1985. In 1986, the record was distributed by the group itself in 500 copies from Berlin/West and also came to the GDR via intricate routes. It was to remain the first LP of a GDR punk band released in the West. At the same time, it documents the high point of KG Rest. The last supra-regional appearance in the late fall of 1986 in the church in Berlin/Friedrichsfelde for a reading and exhibition was a short one: after thirty minutes, the pastor broke things off because of audience rioting.
In mid-1987, the group disbanded after several lineup changes. Vollmann already founded Das Problem in 1986 (later with other ex- KG Rest), Volk in 1987 Sometimes It Snows In April (with Doebler). Menchén played as a guest with Timur und sein Trupp in 1988.
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MADMANS, also from Weimar. Members of this band played, or later co-founded KG REST.
"We started the whole story because of an upcoming birthday party in June 1979. None of us could play any of the instruments bands usually use. Only Hruscher at least knew which side of the guitar to blow in. But we wanted to be a band, and we believed in the "do it yourself" principle of punk, that anyone can and should make music if he/she wants to. Rightly so, I would say.
We had few qualms about giving a concert with four songs, playing at a garden party, at school or church, in attics or basements, for a hundred people or for two. Musically, we didn't limit ourselves to punk rock for very long. If you wanted to listen to us, you had to be able to stand the fact that a ska was immediately followed by a hardcore hit and then by a really nasty pop song, or that a lyric about deep heartbreak was followed by a verbal demand to smash everything around you to smithereens.
Then, in March '83, we tried to organize this grading gig. And lo and behold, the desk jockeys actually let us play. But we didn't get the "cardboard" until September, because Volle had misbehaved at the muster. And in February '84 the good piece was already gone again, because again some punks had misbehaved at a concert.
After that, we first got some air and disbanded the MADMANS, later re-founded, changed the line-up, made another classification, disbanded the band again, started again with the old line-up, gave concerts, made songs, celebrated the band's 15th birthday, the 18th birthday as well, etc., which is just what most bands do."
Author: Maik Vollmann, Source: CD "We are the unleashed average".
Holger Doebler founded in early 1984 with the three musicians of the friendly Ernst F.All the KG Rest, in which Vollmann and Hruschka later also played.
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The band SCHLEIM KEIM may not be missing of course, they played at that time the probably most radical punk rock in the country and wrote punk history.
That was my little lesson in punk history and I hope it was understandable, I have created this article with the help of the translation program www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version).
I had already published this article two years ago, in a modified form, in German.
PHOTO´s: @muelli
Thank you for your attention. 😎
