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92 reviews for:
Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Tim Mohr
3.98 AVERAGE
92 reviews for:
Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Tim Mohr
3.98 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
The buildup to the fall of the Berlin Wall was exhilarating, but once the event passed, the story kind of fell off. The description of the suppression the East Germans felt was described well, but I would have liked to see how the punks who were still integrated with family saw how their families were affected. Overall a good read, because I wasn’t fully aware of the connection between the punk movement and the church during this time.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
Much like the reign of the Berlin Wall, I was just begging for this book to end.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
An extremely interesting read about a place and time period of history I knew nothing about. Had a surprising paragraph that let me know where a right-wing boogeyman idea came from. Made me lift an eyebrow.
I loved the writing and the history lesson about East Berlin/Germany punks who got things started toward the Berlin Wall coming down inthe 1980s.
I loved the writing and the history lesson about East Berlin/Germany punks who got things started toward the Berlin Wall coming down inthe 1980s.
While it was a little slow in parts, I enjoyed reading this. It wasn't what I expected from the title, but I wasn't disappointed. It was autobiographical in nature, and I found it an interesting way to learn political history of a time and place I knew little about.
Mark’s book review time: Burning Down the Haus : Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Tim Mohr (2018)
Five months ago, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d read a book about punk rock in East Germany. Ten days in December absorbing Radebeul, Dresden, and Leipzig led me, upon our return home, to the Radio GDR podcast. The Radio GDR podcast led me to this book, and it opened a door to a hidden history of which I was completely unaware.
In the late ‘70s, punk rock magazines smuggled into East Berlin from West Berlin sparked what eventually became a movement. East German youth (not all of them, but enough of them) were stifled by the oppressive Erich Honecker dictatorship. As author Tim Mohr writes, unlike the British punk slogan of “No Future” under the Thatcher regime, the problem facing East German youth was “too much future.” Everything, including educational opportunities and employment, was already mapped out for them.
Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall tracks the East German punk movement from 1978 up through the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and reunification the following year. Though young people were attracted to the music for the energy and fun it provided, it was also a vehicle in which creative and outspoken iconoclasts could express their dissatisfaction with the GDR regime. Throughout the book, Tim Mohr introduces the reader to a variety of East German punk bands, including Wutanfall (which translates to “Tantrum”), Planlos (“Aimless”), Namenlos (“Nameless”), and Feeling B (aka Feeling Berlin).
Punks and punk bands in East Germany had to defy and overcome several obstacles; their unorthodox hairstyles and clothing choices made it difficult to hold down jobs, and not being able to keep a job meant possible imprisonment; East German musicians needed an official license to perform at clubs and festivals, and most punk bands were unable to obtain these (for reasons that are probably obvious—more about this later); the Stasi (Ministry for State Security) viewed punk as a direct threat to the status quo, so interrogation, intimidation, and imprisonment were also tactics used to stifle the movement.
In East Germany, the churches were granted freedom from government oversight, and thus became places of refuge where dissenters and free-thinkers could express ideas and perform anti-authoritarian/anti-government music without a performance license and without fear of being arrested—unless, of course, there were snitches inside the walls of the church, and there often were. Still, churches in places like Leipzig, Halle, and of course Berlin provided a reasonably safe haven for punks.
Mohr makes a reasonably convincing argument that GDR punks were on the vanguard of political change, and though initially viewed skeptically by “regular people,” their willingness to take a stand along with the overt violent response they endured from authorities helped turn the tide against the GDR regime. However, the book could have been improved if a chapter had been devoted to a view of the punk movement through the eyes of regular East Germans.
Tim Mohr helps dispel the notion that East Germans were driven by the desire for blue jeans and Coca-Cola, or that Ronald Reagan declared “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!,” then snapped his fingers, tapped his heels together, and the Berlin Wall magically collapsed. Mohr also demonstrates how Germany wasn’t immediately improved after reunification, and in fact many of the hopes and dreams that East German revolutionaries had were not fulfilled after reunification.
Five months ago, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d read a book about punk rock in East Germany. Ten days in December absorbing Radebeul, Dresden, and Leipzig led me, upon our return home, to the Radio GDR podcast. The Radio GDR podcast led me to this book, and it opened a door to a hidden history of which I was completely unaware.
In the late ‘70s, punk rock magazines smuggled into East Berlin from West Berlin sparked what eventually became a movement. East German youth (not all of them, but enough of them) were stifled by the oppressive Erich Honecker dictatorship. As author Tim Mohr writes, unlike the British punk slogan of “No Future” under the Thatcher regime, the problem facing East German youth was “too much future.” Everything, including educational opportunities and employment, was already mapped out for them.
Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall tracks the East German punk movement from 1978 up through the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and reunification the following year. Though young people were attracted to the music for the energy and fun it provided, it was also a vehicle in which creative and outspoken iconoclasts could express their dissatisfaction with the GDR regime. Throughout the book, Tim Mohr introduces the reader to a variety of East German punk bands, including Wutanfall (which translates to “Tantrum”), Planlos (“Aimless”), Namenlos (“Nameless”), and Feeling B (aka Feeling Berlin).
Punks and punk bands in East Germany had to defy and overcome several obstacles; their unorthodox hairstyles and clothing choices made it difficult to hold down jobs, and not being able to keep a job meant possible imprisonment; East German musicians needed an official license to perform at clubs and festivals, and most punk bands were unable to obtain these (for reasons that are probably obvious—more about this later); the Stasi (Ministry for State Security) viewed punk as a direct threat to the status quo, so interrogation, intimidation, and imprisonment were also tactics used to stifle the movement.
In East Germany, the churches were granted freedom from government oversight, and thus became places of refuge where dissenters and free-thinkers could express ideas and perform anti-authoritarian/anti-government music without a performance license and without fear of being arrested—unless, of course, there were snitches inside the walls of the church, and there often were. Still, churches in places like Leipzig, Halle, and of course Berlin provided a reasonably safe haven for punks.
Mohr makes a reasonably convincing argument that GDR punks were on the vanguard of political change, and though initially viewed skeptically by “regular people,” their willingness to take a stand along with the overt violent response they endured from authorities helped turn the tide against the GDR regime. However, the book could have been improved if a chapter had been devoted to a view of the punk movement through the eyes of regular East Germans.
Tim Mohr helps dispel the notion that East Germans were driven by the desire for blue jeans and Coca-Cola, or that Ronald Reagan declared “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!,” then snapped his fingers, tapped his heels together, and the Berlin Wall magically collapsed. Mohr also demonstrates how Germany wasn’t immediately improved after reunification, and in fact many of the hopes and dreams that East German revolutionaries had were not fulfilled after reunification.
An essential read, one of the best pieces of corrective history I’ve come across. I’m biased, of course. I was in Berlin when the Wall fell, an impressionable eleven year old who vividly remembers seeing punks everywhere but had no idea of the significant role they played in bringing down the East German dictatorship. This book documents how an underground musical and political movement grew into mass collective action, contributing to the fall of the Berlin Wall in less than 10 years. Well-written, well-researched, brimming with a spirit and energy we’d do well to replicate. 30 years on and the spirit of 1989 is rapidly fading from view: “Don’t die in the waiting room of the future.”
Before reading this book I didn't know much about the punk scene outside of the music itself and even then my knowledge wasn't exactly extensive nor did I know much about the Berlin Wall other than it was eventually taken down. This book was both an insight into the German punk culture as well as the German political climate during the Cold War era. Mohr does an amazing job describing these punk kids and the struggles they faced within East Berlin from constantly getting beaten up and arrested to loosing their jobs and squatting in abandoned buildings because they have nowhere else to go. At times I felt I was reading a dystopian with how bad everything seemed and I feel that just goes to show how well Mohr's research and writing are. There were times where I got some of the people and places mixed up but only because there were so many and I can't speak any German so my brain would just gloss over things like Marx-Engels-Platz S-Bahn and Zwitschermaschine. Overall I enjoyed this book and thank Tim Mohr for introducing me to a part of history I was previously unaware of.