IN THE SUMMER of 1988, the southern German volkstümliche (folksy Schlager) music group the Original Naabtal Duo scored a hit with “Patrona Bavariae” (Bavaria's Patron Saint), their song dedicated to the solace provided by the Virgin Mary and the Bavarian Heimat. Six months later, in February 1989, the year before the erstwhile German colony Namibia gained its independence from South Africa, the Kinderchor der SWAPO (Children's Choir of the South West African People's Organization) performed at the German Democratic Republic's headline Festival des politischen Liedes (Festival of Political Song). Then in 1990, Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle (FSK, Voluntary Self-Control), a Munich-based pop group, bridged the two by recording an album titled Son of Kraut. A record made during the Wende (period of German reunification), Son of Kraut was steeped in memory and provocatively played with categories of (a)political music. Amongst other things, Son of Kraut included a version of the national anthem of the by now defunct GDR, as well as a new song called “Patrona Namibiae” (Namibia's Patron Saint). The latter was effectively a pop history of the former German colony, but clearly referenced the Original Naabtal Duo's Heimat song “Patrona Bavariae.” This essay draws together these various enactments of music, memory, and politics. I argue that FSK's popular music focused new, ambivalent attention on the expanding German Heimat, as well as on Germany's troubled extraterritorial past. It did so in ways that were political whilst eschewing seemingly outmoded concepts of music and politics that had been in circulation during the folk revival of the 1960s, as well as in 1980s’ ideas of “Rock against Racism,” or the GDR's ritualization of political song. This essay throws light on how popular music like FSK's could act as a political memory culture in a way that is not yet sufficiently analyzed in the context of the field of Memory Studies, especially in Germany.

German Music and Politics around 1990

Popular music has contributed at various points to “identifying social problems, alienation and oppression, and facilitating the sharing of a collective vision,” and has been intimately connected with social movements, including during the 1960s’ folk music revival. Music has also been actively employed in order to advance political causes, not least during the Cold War.