Oktoberklub - Aha (Amiga, 1973)

"Singe-Bewegung" and "Oktoberklub" in East Germany, part 5.

The GDR viewed the whole democratic and revolutionary song tradition as its own cultural inheritance. The "Kampflieder" of Brecht and Eisler and songs from the Spanish Civil War were learned in scholls and in the army. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s these songs appeared in song books of the Free German Youth (FDJ) and the Young Pioneers alongside German folk songs and new, so called "Aufbaulieder" written specially for the GDR youth. Songs such as "Fleißig, nur fleißig" and Johannes R. Becher´s "Nationalhymne der DDR" encouraged diligence and a joyful common purpose in the building of the new socialist state. In general, however, the political song genre did not prosper in the 1950s. It was a serious, sacred tradition, not to be tampered with, and the writing of new songs critical of the GDR was unthinkable. On the other hand, as Lutz Kirchenwitz notes, for the young poets of the 1950s, who were inspired by the creation of a socialist state on German soil, the political crises caused by the uprising of 17th June 1953 and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 created an atmosphere of disillusionment that was detrimental for the writing of new political poetry and song.

By the early 1960s, a completely new kind of protest song culture was being encountered. The American civil rights song was filtering over the air waves via West Germany through to East Berlin. The building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 had given the GDR government a sufficient sense of security to relax the severity of censorship in the arts. During this political thaw, which lasted roughly up until the infamous 11th Plenum of the SED in December 1965, an independent folk music scene emerged in East Berlin, based on the informal Hootenanny model made famous by American folk singers such as Pete Seeger.
The Berlin Hootenannies were guided by the resident banjo-playing Canadian Perry Friedman. With his uninhibited performance style, Friedman made German folk songs attractive for the youth and freed the workers´ songs of their sacred aura.

The following members of the "Oktoberklub" contributed to the album "Aha", released in 1973 on the Amiga label: Peter Andert, Reinhold Andert, Volkmar Andrä, Helmut Baumert, Elke Bitterhof, Michael Brandt, Jürgen Briese, Reinhard Buchholz, Erwin Burkert, Rainer-Henri Butschke, Rene Büttner, Bernd Engel, Jörn Fechner, Sabine Fechner, Jürgen Feige, Carsten Görner, Reinhard Heinemann, Michael Höft, Gerhard Kegel, Lutz Kirchenwitz, Ursula Kleinert, Fred Krüger, Stefanie Lenke, Uwe Leo, Reinhard Mann, Waltraud Monzer, Rainer Neumann, Brigitte Normann, Karl Heinz Ocasek, Bert Ostberg, Katja Ostberg, Gina Pietsch, Peter Porsch, Gudrun Sonnenburg, Horst-Fred Stolle, Andreas Turowski, Ilona Wagemann and Siegfried Wein.

Oktoberklub - Aha (Amiga, 1973)
(Quality update: 320 kbps, front & back cover inclued)

To be continued...