OHL (band)

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OHL
General information
Genre (s) German punk , Oi!
founding 1980, 1993
resolution 1986
Website www.obersteheeresleitung.de
Founding members
German W.
Stiebel Eltron
Dr. Clean man
Läusie
Current occupation
singing
 German W.
guitar
 from Stauffenberg
bass
 Egon Krenz
Drums
 Kalashnikov
former members
guitar
 Falklands
bass
 Reagan
Drums
 Ingo Ost
guitar
 Sama
bass
 Oppenheimer
Drums
 Nero
guitar
 Rob West
guitar
 The emperor
guitar
 Steiner
guitar
 Gerd Saatze
guitar
 L. Kaida
guitar
 Stalin

OHL , as an acronym for Supreme Army Command , is a German punk band that is one of the pioneers of German punk . The band is considered controversial due to their political lyrics and the consistently military iconography of their record covers, but with their songs they clearly distance themselves from right-wing ideas and right-wing actions and actions.

history

Deutscher W. live with Der Fluch

OHL was founded in January 1980 by the singer Dirk Windgassen, who goes by the stage name "Deutscher W" (W stands for "resistance") in Leverkusen . Four years after the start of the punk wave in Great Britain, OHL was one of the first German punk bands. The founding members were mainly based on English models and initially adapted English punk titles. From Troops of Tomorrow by The Vibrators was so z. B. the title The Unrepaired .

After a self-driven cassette, Herbert Egoldt became aware of the band in the year it was founded and in 1981 produced two EPs and the first LP Heimatfront on his label Rock-O-Rama . Within five years the band released five albums on Rock-O-Rama. In 1987 Deutscher W separated from Egoldt and broke up the band in order to devote himself to his studies in Trier .

In the same year the LP Home Front was indexed. The city of Dortmund had applied for the indexing because of the special danger to young people of the songs Kraft durch Freude , Deutschland , Kernkraftritter and Wir sind die Unreparierte ; the BpjS contradicted this assessment with the argument that these pieces are not worth indexing, although they also show "tendencies that are harmful to young people". Nevertheless, the record was indexed because of the embassy song ("Storm the American embassy, ​​I don't believe in American friendship, I have nothing against the people, but against the state"), which the city of Dortmund did not mention in its application.

In 1993 Deutscher W left the name OHL in Cologne with new musicians, u. a. former members of the Emils from Hamburg and Berlin , resurrected, and there were concerts again. The studio side project The Curse , which already existed in the 1980s , was also revived in the mid-1990s. Since then, OHL's style has been back to punk.

OHL act very independently, contacts to other bands exist only to a limited extent; Since the mid-1990s, all albums have been produced in the studio of ex- Daily-Terror guitarist Uwe Golz in Braunschweig . Although or precisely because the publications have been produced independently since 1993, little has changed in the military iconography and the politically motivated texts up to the present day. For the loyal fan base, the band offers the usual fare, but the public and organizers are still rather skeptical about OHL.

In 2008, a tribute album called Brothers in Arms with bands like Cotzraiz , Mob and Gesocks , Verlorene Jungs and Totenmond was released on Sunny Bastards and the fan label Kernkraftritter Records .

On July 31, 2012 the LP Home Front was removed from the list of media harmful to minors.

Music genre

Stylistically, the band is one of the earliest representatives of German hardcore punk because of their first albums . On the fifth album Jenseits von Gut und Böse from 1986, gentler Gothic-Rock tones were also struck for the first time . As is usual with Herbert Egoldt's Rock-O-Rama label, the OHL records were recorded in a rather modest production quality, with "a [m] sound [...] that you cannot intentionally create even in the best studio with the greatest effort". The Rock-O-Rama publications, which appeared only in comparatively small editions, have now become sought-after collector's items. After the reunion in 1993, the band turned to more metallic sounds and played modern German punk with increased influences from metallic hardcore .

Texts and ideology

In the lyrics of OHL there is a polemic against both the radical left and the radical right. a. Belsen was a concentration camp , Russians in Afghanistan , Red Terror and 1942 or the album titles Home Front and Scorched Earth . The polemization against the left also extended to the so-called green-alternative-pacifist political spectrum, as in the song Kernkraftritter , which begins with the words "Alternative, long-haired pig, you look like your wife" and along with other massive insults Statements like “there is only hatred” and “you need violence” aggressively incite against pacifism and even against general philanthropy.

From the third album, the October Revolution , the band spoke out against real socialism in songs like Russians in Afghanistan and Red Terror, and emphasized on the back of the LP that after the debate against old and neo-Nazis, one against the extreme left was necessary. Since then, the band has repeatedly distanced itself from left and right political extremism and religious fanaticism.

When designing the record covers , people liked to use photographic material from the First and Second World Wars . In the public reception, OHL was consequently perceived as being close to fascism , especially German National Socialism . However, the band was also popular in the punk scene for slogans such as “No chance for the 4th Reich - Beat the Nazis diaper-soft” (from the song Belsen was a concentration camp ) and turned against the ideology of Adolf Hitler in pieces like Never Again . The occasional classification of OHL music as Nazi punk is therefore wrong. Because of the predominantly militant anti-communist lyrics (eg: "Beat spies dead! Spies, spies, spies from the red zone"), the band's ideology at the time was often categorized as right-wing. Karl-Heinz Stille described OHL as “the only band that got involved in 'higher' politics and made texts against both the extreme right and the real left. Whereby the OHL wedges to the left caused significantly more scene eddies and beatings against the band in their time than the rather overheard anti-fasco statements of the group. So not without controversy, but definitely cult in the former GDR. And it was not advisable to get caught on the inner-German border with an OHL record like 'Oktoberrevolution'. "For Martin Büsser , who musically admits the band to have recorded" a handful of numbers "in the early 80s," the may be considered German punk classics ", OHL have no" clearly right coloring ", but use an unreflective war aesthetic and are" blunt, populist representatives "of a historical revisionism that tries to relativize the uniqueness of the Nazi crimes by equating fascism and communism. Sometimes the OHL music, for example by punk fanzines , was referred to as "CDU punk". Singer Deutscher W. describes his political attitude as “ radical liberalism ”. The LP Home Front , which was previously indexed by the Federal Testing Office for Media Harmful to Young People , also contains a cover version of the song Wir sind die Türken von Morgen by the group lunch break under the new title Türkenlied . The song was played by numerous bands from the punk scene and the Neue Deutsche Welle, such as B. from the false colors (title: Militürk ) or DAF ( kebab dreams ).

Discography

  • 1980: Sounds of Resistance ( demo cassette , re-released on LP in 2004)
  • 1981: Supreme Army Command (EP)
  • 1981: Live (EP) (contains studio recordings, no live pieces)
  • 1981: Home Front (formerly indexed)
  • 1982: The East , The power of fire , soldiers live longer and freedom to the Germans come (indexed)
  • 1982: 1000 crosses
  • 1983: October Revolution
  • 1983: Scorched Earth
  • 1983: The Kids Are United ( Split- EP with The Skeptix )
  • 1986: Beyond good and bad
  • 1993: The Resurrection (contains half new recordings of old pieces and half new titles)
  • 1994: That is not my God and all lies and deception on Welcome to the nightmare melody II
  • 1994: The 7th character
  • 1996: The moment of truth
  • 1996: Espionage / Die kleine Stadt (Single)
  • 1997: Nothing new in the West (2CD, contains almost all studio recordings from the 1980s)
  • 1998: Blitzkrieg
  • 2002: We are the Turks of Tomorrow (contains a large part of the album Heimatfront , the first 2 singles and an unreleased bonus track)
  • 2003: Back to the front
  • 2005: Live in Vienna 2004 (Picture-LP, live in Berlin June 28, 2002)
  • 2005: Homecoming (Live from the Bunker) (25 years of OHL, live in the JZ Bunker Leverkusen)
  • 2006: enemy contact
  • 2009: Civil War
  • 2013: Free will
  • 2015: Propaganda
  • 2017: The Enemy of My Enemy
  • 2018: Adrenalin (4 Track 12 ")
  • 2020: The salt in your wound

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Announcement No. 7/2012 on carrier media harmful to minors BAnz AT July 31, 2012 B4
  2. ↑ Hardcore '82 - A guide through the German punk scene, five years later . In: Sounds 10/82.
  3. ↑ a b Various artists: Punk Rock BRD . Weird System , 2003, CD 1, pp. 33 .
  4. ↑ “The« Supreme Army Command »is absolutely non-partisan! Political currents u. Directions in their extreme forms run counter to the self-image of the group members. Therefore it seemed necessary, after the accusations against the National Socialist [sic!] Past a. the neo-Nazis of the present (see 1. lp [sic!] "Home Front" + 2.LP. "1000 Kreuze") now also take a stand against the extreme left. Right and left want the masses to be manipulable !! Defend yourself in time !!!!!!! ”OHL: October Revolution , Rock-O-Rama 1983.
  5. ↑ "Political currents u. Directions in their extreme forms run counter to the self-image [sic!] Of the group members. Right and left want the masses to be manipulable! Defend yourself in time! "OHL: Scorched Earth , Rock-O-Rama 1983.
  6. ↑ “OHL fights all forms of political extremism and religious fanaticism. Right, left and religious systems that rise to the form of a state have only the oppression and manipulation of the people as their goal and thus the destruction of freedom. OHL also opposes that blind and deaf mass of ignoramuses who cannot or do not want to see reality. ” The Supreme Army Command ( Memento from May 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  7. ↑ Martin Büsser: Rebel in Society. The riot of punk from the spirit of puberty. in: testcard # 9: Pop and War . Mainz, Ventil Verlag 2000, ISBN 3-931555-08-9 , pp. 98-105, here p. 99
  8. ↑ Jennes: Scumfuck Interview ( June 15, 2009 memento in the Internet Archive ).
  9. ↑ OHL: The enemy of my enemy. In: Feuerbringer Magazin. November 11, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2018 .