Abstract
After its drastic measures in August 1961 to cut off the GDR physically from the West, in particular through constructing a wall across Berlin, the leadership of the country began gradually to loosen or even lose its grip on the world of culture. Although this may seem paradoxical, it can be explained in part by a new sense of stability, which, as the prospect of German unification faded, largely persisted until the events of autumn 1989. In the area of popular music, the state-owned Amiga label produced under licence a compilation of Beatles songs, including ‘She Loves You’ with its ‘yeah, yeah’ refrain in the early part of 1965. Positive articles also appeared in the press, stressing the group’s youthful freshness and lack of pretention.
This was the year in which the tide was to turn. During the 11th plenary of the Central Committee of the ruling Socialist Unity Party in December, its leader Walter Ulbricht suggested that, in the words of the title of the volume under discussion here, there should be an end to the monotonous music of ‘yeah, yeah’. As his word was law, there followed a period of repression during which, according to Wolfgang Martin in the book under review, such odious terms as ‘Hottentottenmusik’ (p. 33) were coined about Western music. His volume shows how the Beatles and other Western music not only managed to survive but also to gain an increased following, one reason being the impossibility of creating a ‘Berlin Wall’ in the airwaves.
It is important to point out that, despite the frequent references to politics, especially cultural politics, Schluss mit dem YEAH, YEAH, YEAH?: Die Beatles und die DDR is not a traditional history or politics book. It is written in a easily readable colloquial style and has few if any of the trappings of academic works such as footnotes and an index. There is in fact no simple way of classifying this work. There are two sets of illustrations, with photographs mainly of artists and record covers. In part, it is a kind of memoir, with Martin, for example, in his long prologue, giving an account of how he became a Beatles fan. Born in 1952, he discovered the group as a young teenager at a boarding school run by the GDR Ministry for External Trade, his father’s employer. This meant that he could visit him in Cuba and use the rare opportunity of a stopover in Canada to pick up Beatles memorabilia. As an adult, he stayed in the world of popular music as a radio journalist, especially when working for the DT 64 station which was dedicated to popular music and could not therefore ignore Western artists.
Apart from Martin’s own text, much of the book consists of interviews with or written statements by GDR musicians, who had to deal with the restrictions imposed by the state. One was that groups were banned from having English-language names, while in live performances and discos there was the rule that 60% of the music had to come from the east and only 40 from what was somewhat inelegantly called the nichtsozialistische[s] Währungsgebiet (non-socialist currency area). Alongside this ‘oral history’, the volume at times has an encyclopaedic quality, not least the chapter devoted to the beat music pioneers which contains over 20 individual or group names all written in capital letters, as is the case throughout the book. This is where an index would have helped. Finally, there are also the texts of a number of songs inspired by the Beatles or one member of the group. Today, some at least are available on YouTube.
Politics and its impact on everyday life are inevitably omnipresent. Negative reactions to beat music were not confined to the GDR, of course. When the Beatles were awarded an MBE in 1965, there was uproar especially among British Colonel Blimps. The difference is that this was a state honouring rather than seeking to eradicate their music. Paradoxically, those seeking to keep their music and their name alive in the GDR often needed qualities more associated with capitalism than communism, for instance, flexibility and resourcefulness.
Within the GDR, material about beat music often came into the category of ‘Bückware’ (‘bend-for goods’), so designated because the shop assistant had to bend down to retrieve something that was in short supply (a common occurrence) or potentially controversial, while the customer no doubt needed the nous to ask. Otherwise music fans could make use of Western connections, such as relations living in the Federal Republic. One testimony used by Martin shows particular resourcefulness. As a schoolboy, the fan in question used a visit from a French school, something that was not so rare in the GDR, to obtain a Sergeant Pepper album. The country’s eastern bloc allies could also prove useful, if cultural policy was more relaxed there. Martin speaks of having obtained Beatles records from Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and, with more difficulty, the USSR. Visits to Hungary also allowed him to see an exhibition about the Beatles and their film A Hard Day’s Night. Finally, in this context I should mention money. The only theoretical alternative for the boy saved by the French link was to buy from a fellow pupil with Western connections at the exorbitant price of 100 marks, when his pocket money was a mere five marks a week. Another of Martin’s interlocutors speaks of paying 160 marks for an album, not of the Beatles but of the American band Credence Clearwater Revival.
These stories should be of interest to anybody who needs to know more about the GDR and other eastern European countries, especially young people who have no first-hand knowledge of the pre-1990 world. They may come into the often-maligned category of ‘anecdotal evidence’ but are recounted in such a vivid way that they are likely to leave a lasting impression. Other potential readers, young and old, are those interested in rock music and what many see as its greatest exponents: The Beatles.