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German Post War Music and Films


Graeme

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Unfortunately this won't take long - it's only 1 band!!!!!

I had all their albums and singles. Went to see them live. Perhaps I will post the pics from the gig one day. I even persuaded the blonde girl opposite me at work to cut her hair like that. Her boyfriend wasn't too happy. Even less so when he found out I was shagging her ohmy.gif

Xmal Deutschland



This one is from when they had one last attempt to break the american market

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  • 8 years later...

It's true when they say that when the British empire faded a new British cultural empire was born with the Beatles leading the British invasion. I'm struggling to think of any German bands that had a lasting influence on me, although I did like Nicole who won the Eurovision song contest for West Germany in 1982. I'm sure there are others too that I just can't think of at the moment.

 

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And here's what the politicians in the DDR - foremost, Walter Ulbricht had to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, alles Monotonie....Diesen Dreck aus dem Westen, müssen wir nicht kopieren...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6zoyTwfrKE

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Yes I suppose East Germany probably had a dampening effect on half the nation. Were you still living in Hamburg Paul, in the early days before the Beatles were famous and they used to play the clubs of the Reeperbahn 1960 - 1962?

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I was in London at the time. Later, when they (in the DDR) noticed, young people were wanting to do their own thing, they tried to influence them with their own offiially permitted "groups", and songs sung by the FDJ "Sag' mir wo Du stehst..." blah, blah, blah.... Which didn't catch on too well outside the FDJ. In the end, they had to give in a little, to save their power and popularity.

 

However, they did make some good films, here one of the most popular, which I think in the end was banned - "Die Legende von Paul und Paula", starring Wilfried Glatzeder and Angelika Domröse - here, the trailer. Recommended film of a past era (1973).

 

 

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That looks like a rather strange film, allot of rather strange films I've seen have been German, I like Werner Herzog have you seen any of his films?

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I first saw that film around the year 2000 much later. The film did not strike me as "strange" at the time, as I had just moved to East Berlin, and I was very interested in the ex-DDR at the time. I did find the film somewhat different, certainly different to West films, but understandable when you think of the situation in the DDR from 1945 till the end. The film had been banned shortly after it came out, and only was rediscovered after 1989-90, like many other films of it's time. In those days, everything was checked and approved by the party, and if not, it simply disappeared. The name rings a bell, can't remember seeing one of his films.

 

I remember, my old friend Wolf Fengler (deceased 2012), who was a real DDR "original", told me the story of the American film and swing idol, Dean Reed, of whom I had never heard of. He was not so well known in the West, as he defected to the East, living for many years in the DDR. He was so popular in Russia, DDR, etc. - with the youth, especially "female", young women just used to swoon in his presence - until he started opening his mouth and critiicising the system, something he did everywhere he went - and that led to his downfall. He was first of all isolated, all further films were a flop, so he carried on singing, which got less. Then his marriage began to falter. The story ended when he was found dead in the Zeuthener See (1986), in water just knee-deep, just outside Berlin. It was found to be suicide. He had apparently cut his wrists and consumed a large quantity of alcohol and sleeping tablets beforehand. Some people thought the Stasi may have been behind this, or lthe KGB or the CIA. He had been rather unpopular in the USA for criticising the system there. An interesting story that is not widely known. You can find more under wikipedia, etc. Wolf Fengler knew quite a few "artists" in the DDR, as he often used to make some of their LP covers and shoot the photos (freelance). Can't remember him doing that for Dean Reed. He did some for Marianne Rosenberg, etc., and got good West money for it. After 1989 there was practicly no more work of this kind.

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Here, one example of his appearance in the DDR:

 

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That's quite strange too, I've never seen anybody singing on a horse in a TV studio before. Poor guy, never a good idea to mix music and politics ,he's probably the prime example of that.

Werner Herzog films are rather strange too, allot of them featured Klaus Kinski and Clemens Scheitz both rather odd actors too.

My favourite is Stroszek , here is the full film, in the beginning one of the thugs is played by Burkhard Driest who played Pvt. Maag in Cross of Iron, another of my favourite films. Strangly both films were made in 1977 a great year for movies. Some of my favourite films were made in 1977, Star Wars, Cross of Iron and A Bridge too far , oddly enough the last two films also starred Maximilian Schell.

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Maximilian Schell passed on just a couple of years ago, he was very much of a philospher and bespoke several historical presentations on TV. Klaus Kinsky was a very young WW2 veteran, who ended the war with a head injury. He was very unreckonable and bad-tempered. One of his most famous parts was in 1955 in the film "Ludwig II". a real Klassiker, in which he played the part of Prinz Otto, the younger brother of Ludwig. Here is the Ludwig II film, with O.W.Fischer in the main role, Ruth Leuwerijk as Empress Elisabeth of Austria, this is a really superb film with a lot of historical and background detail, (original Wagner music), if you like Bavarian ( an important part of German- ) history:

 

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a rather eerie film

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:D If you think that one is eerie , this one is worse Werner Herzogs film "Nosferatu the Vampyre" Klaus Kinski stars as Nosferatu alongside Bruno Ganz who played Hitler in downfall.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VXBZOaz7Ts

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