culture … its empty sensationalism and above all its fury for war and destruction … We should speakplainly here of a fifth column of Americanism. It would be wrong to misjudge the dangerous role of American hit music in the preparation for war.” 19
In the wake of this conference, the East German state took active measures to fight against this new scourge. Around the country, regional governments began to force dance bands and musicians to obtain licenses. Some banned jazz outright. Though the enforcement was irregular, there were arrests. The writerErich Loest remembered one jazz musician who, when told to change his music selection, pointed out that he was playing the music of the oppressed Negro minority. He was arrested anyway and went to prison for two years. 20
The regime also sought alternatives, though tentatively. Nobody was quite sure what progressive dance music was supposed to sound like, after all, or where it was supposed to be played. At theGerman Academy of Art, a learned commission of musicologists came together to discuss the “role of dance music in our society.” They agreed that “dance music must be purposeful music,” which meant it should be only for dancing. But those present could not agree on whether dance music should be played on the radio—“merely listening to dance music is impossible, the listener will forget what its purpose was supposed to be”—and they feared young people would ask for “boogie-woogie” instead of “real” dance music anyway. 21
In May 1952, the Culture Ministry tried to solve this problem with a competition and prizes to be given to composers of “new German dance music.” The competition failed, as none of the entries were deemed sufficiently attractive by a committee that was probably looking for a modern version of Strauss’s Vienna waltzes. As the new “Dance Commission” of the Central Committee complained, much of the work submitted was based on unprogressive, uneducational themes such as sentimental love, nostalgia, or pure escapism. One song about Hawaii, the committee declared, could just as well be set in Lübeck.
Much of the time, young East Germans responded to this sort of thing with howls of laughter. Some bands openly mocked letters they had received from party officials and read them aloud to audiences. Others simply flouted the rules. One shocked official wrote a report describing the “wild cascades of sound at high volume” and the “wild bodily dislocations” he’d heard and seen at one concert. Inevitably, there were escapes as well. One band, a particularly notable “propagandist for American unculture,” caused a sensationby fleeing to the West and then immediately beaming its music back into East Berlin on RIAS.
In truth, the problem of Western music and Western youth fashion never went away. If anything, both became even more alluring after the first, sensational recording of “Rock Around the Clock” reached the East in 1956, heralding the arrival of rock and roll. But by that time, the communist regimes had stopped fighting pop music. Jazz would become legal after thedeath of Stalin, at least in some places. Rules on leisure clothing would relax, and eventually Eastern Europe would have its own rock bands too. As one historian notes, the battle against Western pop music was “fought and lost” in East Germany even before the Berlin Wall was built—and it had been “fought and lost” everywhere else too. 22
For adults who had to hold down jobs and maintain families in the era of High Stalinism, flamboyant clothing was never a practical form of protest, though a few professions did allow it.Marta Stebnicka, an actress who spent much of her career in Kraków, put a great deal of effort into designing interesting hats for herself in the 1950s. 23 Leopold Tyrmand, the Polish jazz critic with the narrow ties and the colored socks, was an adult style icon too.
But adults who couldn’t or wouldn’t dress
In the wake of this conference, the East German state took active measures to fight against this new scourge. Around the country, regional governments began to force dance bands and musicians to obtain licenses. Some banned jazz outright. Though the enforcement was irregular, there were arrests. The writerErich Loest remembered one jazz musician who, when told to change his music selection, pointed out that he was playing the music of the oppressed Negro minority. He was arrested anyway and went to prison for two years. 20
The regime also sought alternatives, though tentatively. Nobody was quite sure what progressive dance music was supposed to sound like, after all, or where it was supposed to be played. At theGerman Academy of Art, a learned commission of musicologists came together to discuss the “role of dance music in our society.” They agreed that “dance music must be purposeful music,” which meant it should be only for dancing. But those present could not agree on whether dance music should be played on the radio—“merely listening to dance music is impossible, the listener will forget what its purpose was supposed to be”—and they feared young people would ask for “boogie-woogie” instead of “real” dance music anyway. 21
In May 1952, the Culture Ministry tried to solve this problem with a competition and prizes to be given to composers of “new German dance music.” The competition failed, as none of the entries were deemed sufficiently attractive by a committee that was probably looking for a modern version of Strauss’s Vienna waltzes. As the new “Dance Commission” of the Central Committee complained, much of the work submitted was based on unprogressive, uneducational themes such as sentimental love, nostalgia, or pure escapism. One song about Hawaii, the committee declared, could just as well be set in Lübeck.
Much of the time, young East Germans responded to this sort of thing with howls of laughter. Some bands openly mocked letters they had received from party officials and read them aloud to audiences. Others simply flouted the rules. One shocked official wrote a report describing the “wild cascades of sound at high volume” and the “wild bodily dislocations” he’d heard and seen at one concert. Inevitably, there were escapes as well. One band, a particularly notable “propagandist for American unculture,” caused a sensationby fleeing to the West and then immediately beaming its music back into East Berlin on RIAS.
In truth, the problem of Western music and Western youth fashion never went away. If anything, both became even more alluring after the first, sensational recording of “Rock Around the Clock” reached the East in 1956, heralding the arrival of rock and roll. But by that time, the communist regimes had stopped fighting pop music. Jazz would become legal after thedeath of Stalin, at least in some places. Rules on leisure clothing would relax, and eventually Eastern Europe would have its own rock bands too. As one historian notes, the battle against Western pop music was “fought and lost” in East Germany even before the Berlin Wall was built—and it had been “fought and lost” everywhere else too. 22
For adults who had to hold down jobs and maintain families in the era of High Stalinism, flamboyant clothing was never a practical form of protest, though a few professions did allow it.Marta Stebnicka, an actress who spent much of her career in Kraków, put a great deal of effort into designing interesting hats for herself in the 1950s. 23 Leopold Tyrmand, the Polish jazz critic with the narrow ties and the colored socks, was an adult style icon too.
But adults who couldn’t or wouldn’t dress
Similar Books
