Thug
Halbstarker is an expression from the German-speaking area, which was coined in the 1950s, colloquially derogatory, especially in the media for aggressively acting young people - mostly male and from the working class. With the term u. a. Hooliganism and riots , but also associated with a certain appearance influenced by rock 'n' roll . At times it was also used to describe (male) young people in general.
Youngsters in the 1950s
As an early pop culture- inspired subculture, the youngsters of the 1950s oriented themselves in terms of fashion and their habits to young actors from American films such as James Dean in ... because they don't know what they are doing and Marlon Brando in Der Wilde und die Stars des Rock 'n' Rolls popular at the time . In post-war Germany , Karin Baal and Horst Buchholz became idols of youth with the film Die Halbstarken . In 1965 the successful German song Halbstark by the group The Yankees took up the topic. The band often played the song after their television appearance on the Beat Club's first broadcast .
The youngsters often wore a quiff , jeans ("studded pants"), checked shirts and leather jackets. With their appearance they deliberately differentiated themselves from the German youth culture that was prevalent at the time. Mopeds and motorcycles were popular, with which they - similar to their role models in American films - drove through the area as “gangs”, because in the so-called economic miracle of West Germany, young people and adolescents for the first time had significant funds available for recreational consumption. Because of the lack of alternatives, youngsters often spent their free time outdoors. They met in groups on street corners, in parks or in public places, where they consumed large amounts of alcohol and were often involved in fights. Many of her adult contemporaries did not like this and criticized it in the press, especially in the Axel Springer AG media .
In contrast to the pop music popular at the same time, rock 'n' roll with its revolutionary sounds and rhythms offered an outlet for the fears and emotions of young people. The rejection of rock 'n' roll and its interpreters by broad strata of the population probably reinforced this effect.
“The youngsters were (...) the first generation that formed identically worldwide under the signs of a new era. Their culture, oriented towards technical innovations, made rhythm and speed a paradigm . Subsequent generations only practice variations of this transnational identity concept in the name of pop, which was first widespread in the 1950s, under names such as mods, rockers or punks. So there is a lot to support the thesis that pop culture only really began with the youngsters ""
The sociologist Helmut Schelsky sums up this assigned term in his book The Skeptical Generation 1957:
"This buzzword, inflated for journalistic reasons, has pretty much everything stuffed into it, from juvenile delinquency to youth neglect, from juvenile pranks and fooling around to the consumer rioting of occasional excesses of alcohol, from jazz fans and bebo dancers to motorcycle frenzies and riots and casseroles Adults as an 'emergency' or at least as unpleasant, if not only incomprehensible in the youth once again noticed. "
Riot riots
The first rowdy riots erupted after concerts or film screenings, which were often the "occasion" later on. For example, on December 30, 1956, following a screening of the film Out of Range (with Bill Haley ), around 4,000 young people rioted through downtown Dortmund, harassed passers-by and engaged in confrontations with the police. Large riots took place particularly between 1956 and 1958. Often the furniture in the cinema and concert halls was completely destroyed. The rioting riot led to heated discussions in the media and in politics. The apparent senselessness and aimlessness of the riots met with particular incomprehension. American pop culture has often been cited as the main culprit for this development.
Today, the riots, but also the general phenomenon of youngsters, are often understood as a protest against the society and its authorities, which the young people themselves felt as strict and desolate at the time, even if this protest was by no means politically motivated and organized. The term “thug” is now uncommon or out of fashion.
documentation
The life of the youngsters in Switzerland has been documented by name by the Zurich photographer Karlheinz Weinberger since 1958 . His photos are now collected by museums, as Weinberger was one of the few photographers who then had access to this youth movement.
See also
- Raggare , similar phenomenon in Sweden
literature
- Ulrich Binder; Pietro Mattioli (Ed.): Karlheinz Weinberger: Photos, 1954–1995 . Museum for Design and Andreas-Züst-Verlag, Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-905328-21-6 .
- Marina Fischer-Kowalski : Youngsters 1958, students 1968. One generation and two rebellions. In: Ulf Preuss-Lausitz et al. (Hrsg.): War children, consumer children, crisis children. On the history of socialization since the Second World War . 4th edition. Beltz, Weinheim 1990, pp. 53-70.
- Thomas Grotum: The youngsters: on the history of a youth culture of the 50s . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-593-35175-7 .
- Günther Kaiser: Rioting youth. A sociological and criminological study of the so-called “thugs”. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1959.
- Jakob Kandlbinder: Strong & Cool. Selected youth cultures since the 1950s. Telos, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-933060-18-4 .
- Sebastian Kurme: Youngsters. Youth protest in Germany and the USA in the 1950s. Campus Research, Frankfurt / New York 2006, ISBN 3-593-38175-3 .
- Kaspar Maase: Bravo America: Exploring the youth culture of the Federal Republic in the fifties . Junius, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-88506-181-3 .
- Bodo Mrozek : Thug! On the prehistory of pop culture. In: Mercury. German magazine for European thinking. 62nd volume, 2008, pp. 630-635.
- Uta G. Poiger: Jazz, rock, and rebels: cold war politics and American culture in a divided Germany . University of California Press, Berkeley 2000, ISBN 0-520-21138-3 . (English) ( Studies on the history of society and culture , 35).
- Axel Schildt : Modernization in Reconstruction: West German Society in the 1950s . Dietz, Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-8012-4042-8 ( series: Political and Social History , 33).
- Will Tremper : The youngsters. A gripping time novel . (E-Book) Kassel: MEDIA Net-Edition 2012, ISBN 978-3-939988-13-7 (E-Pub / Mobi), ISBN 978-3-939988-14-4 (PDF).
Web links
- Thug
- Youngsters
- Restless end of Ascension Day. Hanover 1953
- Youngsters mutinied again, WDR 1956
- Youth in the 50s
- Youngsters in the GDR Article, photos and document on jugendopposition.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Halbstarker in duden.de, accessed on November 7, 2014
- ↑ a b The youngsters are coming , Deutschlandfunk Kultur, October 4, 2006
- ↑ Bodo Mrozek: Thug! In: Merkur, No. 710, July 2008, p. 635.
- ^ Helmut Schelsky: Die skeptische Generation , Düsseldorf 1957, p. 495.
- ↑ Bill Haley and the Schmalzlocken Revolt , The West, June 1, 2011
- ↑ Photo book “Swiss Rebels” - Are the Cool Man! , Spiegel online, 23 August 2017