Culture of East Germany

Influences from the West were heard everywhere, because TV and radio that came from the Klassenfeind (enemy of the working class) could be received in many parts of the east, too (an exception being the area around Dresden, with its geographically disadvantageous position in the Elbe valley, giving it the nickname of “Valley of the Clueless” despite some Western radio being available). As rock music became increasingly popular around the world following the meteoric rise of bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and others, new bands began forming throughout East Germany. However, fearful of “degenerate Western values [corrupting] the young people who listen to [rock]"[4] as well as rock music's tendency to criticize establishments and governments, GDR officials set out to regulate much of the new music. The steps taken to control music included requiring rock bands to sing entirely in German and produce songs of educational value that promoted socialist ideas.[5] Another problem for the authorities was having to check song texts very carefully for anti-state tendencies. The band Renft, for example, fell foul of the authorities, which eventually led to its being banned and disbanded.[6]

State-sanctioned bands such as Puhdys were given "Auftrittserlaubnis" (Performance Permission) that granted them the ability to play in East German (and occasionally even West German) clubs, festivals, etc. Failure to obtain this card before a performance could result in the forced separation of a band or even imprisonment.[7] The Puhdys, Stern-Combo Meißen and Karat were popular mainstream bands, managing to hint at critical thoughts in their lyrics without being explicit. Like other mainstream acts, they appeared in youth magazines such as Neues Leben and Das Magazin. Despite the heavy censorship, regulation, and repression exercised by GDR leadership over the East German rock community, the government did, to a certain degree aid the development of the new music. This included the allowance of illegal instrument importation via bands that desperately needed foreign equipment[8] as well as significant airtime given to female artists. The latter allowed for what historians consider growth in the expression of female identity and sexuality.[9] The state also accepted the formation of more "underground" groups with a decisively western-oriented sound. Most notably, a number of punk and new wave bands such as Sandow and Feeling B could produce records with the official company AMIGA. Several East German rock stars left the GDR. Nina Hagen who published her first hit Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen in 1974 emigrated in 1976. Veronika Fischer emigrated in 1981.

Schlager, which was very popular in the west, also gained a foothold early on in East Germany, and numerous musicians, such as Gerd Christian, Uwe Jensen, and Hartmut Schulze-Gerlach gained national fame. Frank Schöbel was very successful. From 1962 to 1976, an international schlager festival was held in Rostock, garnering participants from between 18 and 22 countries each year.[10] The city of Dresden held a similar international festival for schlager musicians from 1971 until shortly before reunification.[11] There was a national schlager contest hosted yearly in Magdeburg from 1966 to 1971 as well.[12]

Several prestigious ensembles had roots in the pre-War period. Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was led by Kurt Masur since 1970. The Staatskapelle Dresden was led by Herbert Blomstedt since 1975. Jean Kurt Forest established the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra in 1969, and Hartmut Haenchen led the ensemble.

Other ensembles located in East Germany included the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Berlin State Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (Berliner Symphony Orchestra) and the Staatskapelle Halle.

On a more traditional level, the East German government celebrated the fact that Johann Sebastian Bach was born in East German territory, and spent a great deal of money converting his house in Eisenach into a museum of his life, which, among other things, included more than 300 instruments from Bach's life. In 1980, this museum received more than 70,000 visitors.

In Leipzig, an enormous archive with recordings of all of Bach's music was compiled, along with many historical documents and letters both to and from him. Werner Neumann founded the Bach-Archiv Leipzig in 1950.

Every second year, school children from across East Germany gathered for a Bach competition held in East Berlin. Every four years an international Bach competition for keyboard and strings was held.

Thomanerchor registered a number of Bach's works.

There were state recording companies. In 1947 Ernst Busch established Eterna Records for classical, folk, jazz and church music. For popular music there was Amiga Records. These operations became state-directed in 1953.[13][14]

Statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the Marx-Engels-Forum, Berlin

Political propaganda shaped GDR - monuments of Communist leaders including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, banners with political slogans.

Critical feminist artists were Gabriele Stötzer, Tina Bara, Cornelia Schleime, Doris Ziegler, Mita Schamal, Karla Woisnitza, Christine Schlegel, Else Gabriel, Yana Milev, Angela Hampel, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Janet Grau.[17][18]

Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages an acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. The GDR's economy produced a whole series of consumer goods and associated consumerist practices different from both West German and Soviet bloc cultures. A consumerist culture developed with (in contrast to the West relatively clear-cut) prestige allocations according to consumerist practices.

Strausberger Platz in East Berlin

Prager Straße in Dresden in 1972

Sharing some elements with Stalinist grandiosity, GDR architecture blends into the regionally different styles of post-war city-building of the world: Plattenbau suburbs were more a rule than an exception and there was a heavy reliance on the aesthetics of the atomic age, featuring a tendency against edges and corners as a semi-conscious attempt to do away with rectangular shapes from Nazism, without much devaluating its likenesses in Stalinist architecture. Still, it was after the Stalinist era, otherwise than in the other Eastern Bloc countries, aesthetically same as in the West.

One buzzword often heard in this context is Socialist Classicism, while the Western reference to the same phenomenon is Stalinist architecture. In the GDR its representative building tendencies were sometimes referred to as „stalinistischer Zuckerbäckerstil“ (roughly: "Stalinist Confectioner Style") or „Stalingotik“ (Stalinist Gothic), unofficially.

Notable examples of GDR architecture are / were:

• the Karl-Marx-Allee, originally Stalinallee, with the Strausberger Platz in East Berlin
• the Prager Straße in Dresden
• the Palace of the Republic
• the Alexanderplatz, where much of the GDR buildings still shape the place
• the city-centre buildings of Leipzig's Karl-Marx-University (now partly disassembled and partly being replaced by a post-modern building), including the City-Hochhaus Leipzig

East German leaflet, fired across the inner German border.