VA - Melodien der Freundschaft (ETERNA, 1973, X. Weltfestspiele)

50 years ago, July 28, 1973, was the opening day of the "X. Weltfestspiele der Jugend und Studenten".

The GDR’s leaders were very sensitive about how their country was perceived internationally. Seen by many as a rump state and proxy of the Soviet Union, East German leaders took great pains to assert their legitimacy whenever and however they could. These efforts increased in 1971 with the ascension of Erich Honecker to the positions of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and Chair of State Council. Under Honecker, East Germany pursued international recognition through a variety of means including diplomacy (e.g. supplying aid to Third World countries, applying for and receiving member status at the United Nations (1973), signing the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe at Helsinki (1975)) and sport (by pouring huge amounts of money (and anabolic steroids) into the country’s Olympic programs to support the country’s “diplomats in training suits”). Another way the GDR attempted to massage its international image was by hosting the 10th iteration of the World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin in the summer of 1973, an event that has come to be known by some as the “Red Woodstock”.

The World Festival of Youth and Students was called into existence  in the aftermath of World War II by the World Federation of Democratic Youth and was initially inspired by a spirit of peace and anti-fascist activism. It offered one of the few platforms for exchange between young people from East and West (and the Global South) during the Cold War and was intended to be held at sites around the world on a regular basis. However, the festival quickly came to be controlled by supporters of the Soviet Union and its political agenda with the result that it tended to be hosted by East Bloc countries or their allies. The festival participants were typically left-leaning youth and usually convened under a motto exhorting the participants to “peace”, “friendship” and, in later years (including 1973) “anti-imperialist solidarity”.

East Germany hosted the third festival in East Berlin 1951, an event that was in many ways its international “coming out”, but country really pulled out all the stops twenty-two years later seeing in the festival a chance to buff its international image after the PR debacle that was the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. By 1973, much of the East Berlin city centre had received its “socialist facelift” and was ready to act as the stage for an event which would attract some eight million visitors between July 28 and August 5, 1973. Of these participants, over 25,000 were international guests from more than 140 countries.

The festival program included 1,500 seminars conferences, lectures and discussions on a wide variety of themes plus a cultural program with more than 5,000 events taking place on 95 stages across the city. At the time, the festival seemed to come at a moment when some observers were beginning to wonder whether East German might be getting it right: wages were up, shelves were filling with consumer goods and relations with West Germany were moving in the direction of normalcy thanks to the signing of the Basic Treaty by Honecker and his West German counterpart, Chancellor Willy Brandt.

For many former-East Germans who were teenagers or young adults at the time of the festival, the event is recalled as a time of real openness in which the stringent social controls normally in place were suspended, if only briefly. Participants’ reminiscences are filed with stories of partial nakedness in public fountains, camping at the foot of the Berlin TV tower and trysts with exotic visitors in city parks. These sorts of behaviours would normally not have garnered just a wink and a nod from the People’s Police, but the accounts of the event suggest that authorities, eager to leave a good impression, largely left participants to themselves.

The festival program was heavy on the anti-imperialist ideology and reflected the Cold War debates of the time. Amongst the notable foreign guests present was Angela Davis, the American political activist famous for her membership in the Communist Party USA and for her links to the Black Panther Party (see above).
 
Thanks to http://gdrobjectified.wordpress.com/

Musikschau des Zentralen Musikkorps der FDJ und der Pionierorganisation "Ernst Thälmann" anläßlich der Eröffnungsveranstaltung Der X. Weltfestspiele der Jugend und Studenten

Tracklist:

 
A Melodien Der Freundschaft
B Melodien Der Freundschaft

VA - Melodien der Freundschaft (ETERNA, 1973, X. Weltfestspiele)

(192 kbps, cover art included)