Weirdness is Revolutionary: Punks in the GDR

By Cara Williams

Prior to my stay in Berlin, I had low expectations for the city. I was told to expect a lot of concrete and prepared myself for a drab city covered in haunted memorials. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find that although the city blocks were not always vibrant, the people certainly were. I watched a man with what must have been a footlong neon yellow mohawk spike descend the subway steps and groups of box-dyed-hair teenagers walk down the streets. It was impossible to ignore how vast the alternative culture, or punk, scene there was around me and I began to learn about its deep roots in Berlin which span back to the GDR.

My own experience with the punk scene is limited. I have a few bad stick-and-poke tattoos, wear heavy dark eyeliner every now and then, and have alternative friends that encourage me to “get weirder now”. I have always been amazed with people who are not only comfortable being weird, but revel in being weird. Unlike other groups that were persecuted by the GDR, being part of the punk group was a choice. Punks faced discrimination not only by the Stasi, the brutal secret police force of former East Germany (GDR), but also by the public and, typically, their families. Being punk meant being hated – being spit at on the street and being arrested for no reason. Most punks were in their youth and had limited resources to fall back on after facing societal rejection. Despite the hardship they faced, punks made the choice to keep their ripped leather jackets on, and their safety pins stuck onto their eyebrows and lips.

The decision to be punk was a choice with many obstacles in its path. Punks first appeared in the GDR in the 1980s. While this would be the last decade of communist rule, the party still restrained forms of personal expression. Punks faced challenges in their ability to find clothing or resources to punk-ify clothing that would be suitable to the in-group of punks because of the constant shortages in the economy. Some punks turned to ink to dye their hair black – they were willing to do whatever it took to be shocking to people on the street (Wunsch, 2019). They were not only hated for what they wore, but what they believed in. Many punks proudly touted the classic anarchist symbol of an A in a circle on their clothes. Besides anarchy, they advocated for freedom that was impossible under the GDR’s rule. Communism dictated the life paths of those it controlled, and punks simply rejected that idea – both of control and of a predetermined life path (Wunsch, 2019). The punks were also punished for their “ties” to the West – the western punks in cities such as London and West Berlin that the GDR punks were inspired by.

Tucked away in the controversial “colonial” Humboldt Forum lies a little corner dedicated to the punks in the GDR and their ties to the church in the 1980s. The installation is part of “Berlin Global”, a permanent exhibition that invites visitors to learn about Berlin beyond the purely political or historical. Amongst features on clubs, fashion, the smells of the city, and sexuality in Berlin, the museum pays homage to a lesser-known form of resistance in the GDR – the punks and churches. Prior to visiting this exhibition, I was unaware of the strange collaboration between churches and the punks in the 80s – in fact, this went against all assumptions I had about both groups.

Not all churches in the GDR were havens for the punks. Those that were, were mostly Protestant and found a shared sentiment in dislike for the GDR. The communist regime prof

essed atheism in its policies and ideology, and thus churches and their leadership were repressed, just like punks. The churches used this shared distrust to give punks space to build community and openly discuss the painful regime – ultimately, encouraging political activism amongst the punk youths. One of the most important ways churches supported the punks was by allowing them to hold irreverent concerts in their buildings. Hatred from the Stasi and their supporters limited where punk concerts could be held, so churches became instrumental in keeping the subculture alive. These concerts attracted youth beyond the punk movement, spreading discontent with the regime. Though they are not solely responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, all the pressure that the punks garnered helped the public and the GDR to act against the communist regime (Wyatt, 2023).

Punk involvement in taking down communism was not an isolated incident in the Soviet bloc. In Poland, punks played a similar, anti-establishment role at the time of the Solidarity Movement. “Polish Punk” emerged slightly earlier than in the GDR, with a 1978 concert of the British punk band Raincoats held in Warsaw, whose songs were accompanied by explicit clips of sex and violence. Like the punks in the GDR, the Polish punk scene was dominated by youth, domineering dark aesthetics, and ideals of independence. The punk movement was tied closely to the arts and despite censorship, punks and punk-rock fans kept the movement alive by all sorts of art – graffiti, the creation of obscene punk t-shirts, and the distribution of zines, for example, which were independently published and full of art, both visual and written. When the Solidarity movement spread across Poland, punks in the West voiced their support for the movement. Bands dedicated songs to the brave Gdansk shipyard workers that started the movement in 1980, further connecting the West to the isolated East and raising awareness about the political situation behind the Iron Curtain. (Panek, 2019).  The permanent exhibition in the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, like the Humboldt Forum, contains a section that examines how the punks resisted and pushed back against totalitarian rule until Poland’s independence was reached in 1989, helping to bring their important history to life.

Having spent the semester learning about a dark history of war, genocide, and oppressive regimes in central and eastern Europe I have taken away a lot of hard lessons about caring. I have learned to care more; to avoid any complacency in history. The punks of the GDR and the Polish People’s Republic offer a different lesson about caring. Sometimes it is best not to care when it comes to what people think about your identity. Sometimes it is enough to simply dig your heels in the ground, dye your hair, and be weird. Weirdness can be a revolutionary act, so in the words of my friends cooler and much more punk than me: get weirder now.