Leipzig beat demo

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The Leipziger Beat Demo , also beat riots or beat uprising called, took place on 31 October 1965 in the city of Leipzig instead. It was an expression of youth emancipation in the GDR , directed against the state ban on beat music and numerous beat groups. The main reason for the demonstration was the ban imposed ten days earlier on 54 of the 58 registered Leipzig bands, including the popular band Butlers . The demonstration was violently broken up by the People's Police and State Security immediately after it began. Of the 264 arrested demonstrators, 97 were deployed for up to six weeks in “supervised work” in the Kitzscher and Regis-Breitingen open- cast lignite mines. The Leipzig Beatdemo was the largest unauthorized demonstration in the GDR after the events of June 17, 1953 and, in addition to the events of October 7, 1977 on Berlin's Alexanderplatz (468 arrests), remained unique in this form until autumn 1989 . The event had a significant impact on the youth and cultural policy of the GDR leadership and indirectly on youth culture in the GDR .

The situation in advance

Beat music, which emerged in the early 1960s, also found numerous followers in the GDR. Many young people founded their own bands (in official parlance : guitar groups). The music was recorded on tape recorders and played over and over again by ear. The most famous groups were the Sputniks from Berlin and the Butlers from Leipzig.

Making music in a group and the beat concerts not only meant recreational fun, but also served as an outlet for many young people against state constraints. Initially, the beat movement was tolerated by the state and even praised as a progressive phenomenon. In particular through the youth organization FDJ one tried to gain influence on the young people. This led to FDJ functionaries and local cultural functionaries promoting and supporting the young bands in the early 1960s. This development was laid down in the SED's youth communiqué issued in 1963 , which declared the youth to be the “hosts of tomorrow” and promised their “trust and responsibility”. However, the emphasis on personal responsibility was later explicitly cited against Beatmania. The German meeting of the FDJ , held in 1964 at Pentecost in 1964 , from which the radio station DT64 emerged , is generally cited as the highlight of the new openness . The youth functionary at the time, Hans Modrow , later said: "Of course, you understood that if you want to win over young people, you have to accept what moves and inspires young people".

Political dispute about direction and turning point in state youth and cultural policy

The new opening of the FDJ Central Council, which praised the “guitar sound as a progressive phenomenon of dance music development” in a “position of the culture department on working with guitar groups”, was controversial from the start. In particular, the Leipzig SED district leadership proposed on September 9, 1964, "to take the band (meaning the butlers) and the youth groups who regularly attend dance evenings in this band into operational processing". A functionary of the "Ideological Commission of the City of Leipzig" gave his assessment "that the type of game as well as the hit successes do not contribute to a positive upbringing of the youth". The most important opponent of the new youth policy was in the Politburo of the SED. During Walter Ulbricht's vacation, Erich Honecker , then responsible for security issues in the Politburo, in preparation for the XI. Plenary of the Central Committee of the SED took the initiative and let the Central Committee debate “questions of youth work and the occurrence of hooliganism” along with other “harmful tendencies and views that are foreign to socialism”. The result of these discussions was clear: In a proposal, Honecker recommended that the Minister of the Interior be instructed to “initiate the necessary measures that the internal affairs department of the councils of the districts and districts should include the members of such groups ( bums and the like) who violate the laws of the GDR, [...] be sent to labor camps ”.

A concert of the Rolling Stones in West Berlin's Waldbühne on September 15, 1965, during which riots broke out, offered a welcome argumentation aid for these resolute opponents of the beat movement . The state power of the GDR fundamentally changed its attitude towards the Beat movement. In order to rule out similar incidents in Leipzig from the outset, the movement was generally prohibited. As a result, all beat concerts were canceled and fifty-four bands alone were banned. Fate overtook Klaus Renft and the Butlers on October 21, 1965.

October 31st and its consequences

Two young people from Markkleeberg near Leipzig, who refused to accept the ban, then produced leaflets calling for a protest demonstration. The demonstration was to take place on October 31, 1965 on Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz in downtown Leipzig. The demand was the re-admission of the beat bands. Due to the short time and the limited technical possibilities, the effectiveness of the leaflet campaign was low. When the authorities became aware of the planned action, they initially acted agitatively and propagandistically against the young people. The beat movement was defamed, especially in the local press, and warned against participating in the demonstration. At the secondary and vocational schools in Leipzig, teachers and officials warned students not to participate and threatened with expulsion and other penalties if they failed to comply. If the leaflet campaign attracted comparatively little attention, the reaction of the state had the opposite effect. Many young people only found out about the planned demonstration in this way.

Finally, around 2,000 to 2,500, mostly young people, gathered on Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz in front of the New Town Hall . Among them a core of about 800 "real" Beat supporters and many officials and security forces in civilian clothes. The demonstration was broken up with a massive police presence, using rubber truncheons, dogs and water cannons. A total of 267 demonstrators were arrested. 97 of them had to do forced labor for up to six weeks in open-cast lignite mines in the Leipzig district without a court ruling . Although there were isolated protests against these drastic measures, there were no further gatherings.

After this event, the GDR introduced the concept of hooliganism as a criminal offense and responded to the 11th plenum of the SED Central Committee in December 1965 with a radical turn in cultural and youth policy. On October 29, 2005, a memorial concert took place at Haus Auensee in Leipzig under the motto “All you need is beat”. In addition to the Butlers and the Sputniks , Klaus Renft performed together with his companions, the Klaus Renft Combo , Peter "Cäsar" glasses , Hans-Jürgen Beyer , Jürgen Kerth , Christiane Ufholz and Tony Sheridan .

Literary processing

In his novel Es geht seine Gang , published in 1977, Erich Loest integrated the Leipzig Beat Uprising into the biography of his hero Wolfgang Wülff. He only found out about the demonstration through his civic education teacher, who urgently warned against participation several times during class, went to Leuschnerplatz out of curiosity and was bitten by a police dog. The butlers are called the Old Kings here .

See also

literature

  • Marc-Dietrich Ohse: In youth after the wall was built - adaptation, protest and obstinacy (GDR: 1961–1974) . Links, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-295-6 .
  • Yvonne Liebing: "All you need is beat" - youth subculture in Leipzig from 1957–1968 . Forum, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-931801-55-1 .
  • Michael Rauhhut: Beat in the gray area. GDR rock 1964 to 1972 - politics and everyday life . BasisDruck, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-86163-063-X .
  • Christian Sachse: Active youth - well-educated and disciplined. Defense education in the GDR as an instrument of socialization and rule (1960–1973) . Lit, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-8258-5036-6 .
  • Dorothee Wierling: Born in year one. The 1949 year of birth in the GDR and its historical experiences . Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86153-278-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "We don't tolerate bums" - The Beatrevolte on October 31, 1965 in Leipzig. Accessed on May 3, 2013
  2. ↑ a b Kathrin Aehnlich: The "Leipziger Beataufstand" in October 1965. Retrieved on May 3, 2013
  3. ↑ Michael Koch: Military instruction in the countries of the Warsaw Pact. Retrieved February 19, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Bundesstiftung Aufverarbeitung: “Es geht seine Gang” ( Memento from March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 89 kB). Retrieved on May 3, 2013