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In Search of Space: The Trope of Escape in German Electronic Music around 1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2016

TIMOTHY SCOTT BROWN
TIMOTHY SCOTT BROWN*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; [email protected]
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Abstract

‘In Search of Space’ explores the history of Krautrock, a futuristic musical genre that began in Germany in the late 1960s and flowered in the 1970s. Not usually explicitly political, Krautrock bore the unmistakable imprint of the revolt of 1968. Groups arose out of the same milieux and shared many of the same concerns as anti-authoritarian radicals. Their rebellion expressed, in an artistic way, key themes of the broader countercultural moment of which they were a part. A central theme, the article argues, was escape – escape from the situation of Germany in the 1960s in general, and from the specific conditions of the anti-authoritarian revolt in the Federal Republic in the wake of 1968. Mapping Krautrock's relationship to key locations and routes (both real and imaginary), the article situates Krautrock in relationship to the political and cultural upheavals of its historical context.

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Forum
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 339 - 352
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 See for example Siegfried, Detlef, Sound der Revolte: Studien zur Kulturrevolution um 1968 (Weinheim: Juventa, 2008)Google Scholar; Siegfried, Detlef, Time Is on My Side: Konsum und Politik in der westdeutschen Jugendkultur der 60er Jahre (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006)Google Scholar.

2 See Brown, Timothy S., ‘Music as a Weapon? Ton Steine Scherben and the Politics of Rock in Cold War Berlin’, German Studies Review 32, 1 (February 2009)Google Scholar; see also chapter four in Brown, Timothy Scott, West Germany in the Global Sixties: The Anti-Authoritarian Revolt, 1962–1978 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Important recent treatments of the genre include Simmeth, Alexander, Krautrock transnational: Die Neuerfindung der Popmusik in der BRD, 1968-1978 (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Seidel, Wolfgang, Wir müssen hier raus!: Krautrock, Free Beat, Reeducation (Mainz: Ventil Verlag, 2016)Google Scholar; Stubbs, David, Future Days: Krautrock and the Birth of a Revolutionary New Music (New York: Melville House, 2015)Google Scholar.

4 Zane Van Dusen, ‘Krautrock: The Obscure Genre That Changed the Sound of Rock’ (https://ainhoaaristizabal.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/krautrock-the-obscure-genre-that-changed-the-sound-of-rock/).

5 BBC Documentary ‘Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany’, 2009.

6 Seidel, ‘Berlin und die Linke in den 1960ern’, 27–8.

7 See Beal, Amy C., New Music, New Allies. American Experimental Music in West Germany from the Zero Hour to Reunification (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See Fenemore, Mark, Sex, Thugs and Rock ‘n; Roll. Teenage Rebels in Cold-War East Germany (New York: Berghahn, 2007)Google Scholar; Ryback, Timothy, Rock around the Bloc: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

9 The Monks are the subject of a documentary film, Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios, 2006).

10 See Schildt, Axel, Siegfried, Detlef and Lammers, Karl Christian, eds. Dynamische Zeiten: Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deutschen Gesellschaften (Hamburg: Christians, 2000)Google Scholar.

11 Siegfried, ‘Music and Protest’, 61.

12 Ibid.

13 BBC Documentary ‘Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany’, 2012.

14 Ibid.

15 See Kater, Michael H., Different Drummers. Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Brown, Timothy Scott, West Germany in the Global Sixties: The Anti-Authoritarian Revolt, 1962–1978 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Brown, Timothy Scott, ‘Music as a Weapon? Ton Steine Scherben and the Politics of Rock in Cold War Berlin’, German Studies Review 32, 1 (February 2009)Google Scholar.

18 BBC Documentary ‘Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany’, 2012.

19 Ibid.

20 On the Horla commune see Kaiser, Rolf Ulrich, Fabrikbewohner (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1970)Google Scholar.

21 The co-founders were Boris Schaak and Achim Roedelius; Krenz, Detlef, ‘Das Zodiac am Halleschen Ufer’, in Wolfgang Seidel, Scherben. Musik, Politik und Wirkung der Ton Steine Scherben (Mainz: Ventil, 2005), 61–8, 62Google Scholar.

22 When the Kommune I moved to its new Warhol-inspired ‘factory’ in the Stephanstraße in late summer 1968, Schnitzler's band Geräusche rehearsed in a space on the ground floor. ‘Everyone who looked in the door, whether they could play an instrument or not, got involved’; Wolfgang Seidel, ‘Freie Kunst’, Jungle World, 12 May 2004.

23 ‘Kommt zur roten Ebrach, Knast Woche nach’, in Der Blues. Gesammelte Texte der Bewegung 2. Juni (Dortmund: Antiquariat ‘Schwarzer Stern’, 2001)Google Scholar.

24 Reiser, Rio, König von Deutschland. Erinnerungen an Ton Steine Scherben und mehr. Erzählt von ihm selbst und Hannes Eyber (Berlin: Möbius Rekords, 2001), 244 Google Scholar.

25 BBC Documentary ‘Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany’, 2012.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 On this theme see the discussion of the 1978 Tunix Congress in West Berlin and the debates leading up to it in Brown, West Germany and the Global Sixties, 347–62.

29 See Schildt, Axel, ‘Across the Border: West German Youth Travel to Western Europe’, Schildt, Axel and Siegfried, Detlef, Between Marx and Coca-Cola. Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies (New York: Berghahn, 2006), 149–60Google Scholar.

30 Seidel, Wolfgang, ‘Berlin und die Linke in den 1960ern. Die Enstehung der Ton Steine Scherben ’, in Seidel, Wolfgang, ed., Scherben. Musik, Politik und Wirkung der Ton Steine Scherben (Mainz: Ventil, 2006), 25–50, 33Google Scholar.

31 See Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1991)Google Scholar.

32 The Saturday night ‘Happening’ at the Grugahalle figures in a novel by Bernd Cailloux; see Cailloux, Bernd, Das Geschäftsjahr 1968/69 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005)Google Scholar.

33 ‘You play for us today’, Agitation Free, Malesch (Music Factory, 1972).

34 Interview of Florian Fricke by Gerhard Augustin, Feb 1996, http://www.eurock.com.

35 A rump group belatedly released recordings under the name Amon Düül. See the interview with Amon Düül II's John Weinzierl here: http://www.furious.com/perfect/amonduulii.html.

36 Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Die Niklashauser Fahrt (1970).

37 See Brown, Timothy Scott, ‘The Sixties in the City: Avant-gardes and Urban Rebels in New York, London, and West Berlin’, Journal of Social History, 46, 4 (Summer 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 See Sarah Panzer, ‘The Prussians of the East: Samurai, Bushido, and Japanese Honor in the German Imagination, 1905–1945’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2015).

39 On appropriation and authenticity see Ege, Moritz, Schwarz werden. “Afroamerikanophilie” in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren, (Bielefeld: Transcript - Verlag für Kommunikation, Kultur und soziale Praxis, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reichardt, Sven. Authentizität und Gemeinschaft: linksalternatives Leben in den siebziger und frühen achtziger Jahren. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014 Google Scholar.

40 ‘Commentary by Wolfgang Seidel on Kluster’, http://www.eurock.com/Display.aspx?Content=Kluster.aspx.

41 ‘Kluster was formed in West Berlin – much closer to Siberia than to San Francisco, Haight Ashbury and Golden Gate Park. What came to Berlin with a two-year delay were only the outer fringes of the “Summer of Love”. Its blossom would have died soon in the Cold War breeze. And by 1970 a lot of the optimism of the mid 60ies had already ceased’; Ibid.

42 See for example the interview with Manuel Göttsching by Eurock, 2006 at http://www.eurock.com.

43 Frank Gingeleit, ‘The Drumming Man: An interview with Mani Neumeier of Guru Guru’, Aural Innovations, 19 (April 2002).

44 On Hesse see Cornils, Ingo, ‘Hermann Hesses orientalische Sinnlichkeit’, in Wehdeking, Volker (ed.), Licht aus dem Osten? Hermann Hesses transkulturelle Orientbezüge, (Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 2011), 213–235 Google Scholar.

45 Rabben, Mascha, Begegnung mit Niemand (Berlin: Ki-Buch Verlag, 1981), 76–7Google Scholar.

46 Scaruffi, Piero, ‘A Brief Summary of German Rock Music’, A History of Rock Music, 1951–2000 (Bloomington: iUniverse, 2003)Google Scholar.

47 Scaruffi, ‘A brief summary of German rock music’.

48 Interview with Manuel Göttsching by Eurock, 2006, http://www.eurock.com.

49 BBC Documentary ‘Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany’, 2012.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

52 Scaruffi, ‘A brief summary of German rock music’.

53 Kaiser wrote some dozen books on popular music and underground culture between 1967 and 1972. Husslein, Uwe, ‘“Heidi Loves You!” In Knallgelb – oder: Pyschedelia in Germania’, in Summer of Love. Art of the psychedelic Era. German edition (Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz Verlag 2006)Google Scholar. Kaiser’s books include Protestfibel. Formen einer neuen Kultur. Mit einem lexikographischen Anhang von Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser (Bern, Scherz, 1968); Fuck The Fugs: Das Buch der Fugs (Cologne: Kinder de Geburtstagpresse, 1969); Zapzapzappa – Das Buch der Mothers of Invention (Cologne: Kinder der Geburtagpress, 1969); B ist doch ein Scheißer. Das Beste aus der deutschen Untergrundpresse (Köln: Kinder de Geburtstagpresse, 1969); Das Buch der Neuen Pop-Musik (Econ: Munich, 1969); Underground? Pop? Nein! Gegenkultur! (Cologne: Kiepenheuer u. Witsch, 1970).

54 Jan Reetze, ‘Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser & Gille Lettmann: The Cosmic Couriers Story’, http://janreetze.blogspot.com/2011/05/rolf-ulrich-kaiser-gille-lettmann_1460.html.

55 Scaruffi, ‘A brief summary of German rock music’.