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Fact #153172

When:

Short story:

West German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen play a secret gig in Erlöserkirche, East Berlin, East Germany, Europe. The gig is organised by Mark Reeder, formerly of Manchester band The Frantic Elevators, who had moved to West Berlin in 1979.

Full article:

Mark Reeder (Music fan from Manchester who moved to Berlin) : Living in Manchester, nobody knew anything about Berlin. Nobody gave a shit. ‘Berlin? Oh yeah David Bowie just went there and recorded an album.’ And that was about it. I just wanted to get away to be honest. I didn’t have any reason. I didn’t even think I was gonna stay here. I just wanted to see what it was like.

For me Berlin was always just one city, it never felt divided because I moved between the borders.” Many West Berliners would never venture over the border into the east, he explains, or, if they did, only for school trips and family visits. “But for me, [East Berlin] was a completely different playground altogether. It was a ‘Disneyland for depressives’.

I always found it difficult to see the people I liked living [in East Berlin] – my friends, having to go through their everyday lives under such circumstances. It always frustrated me that I couldn’t do more for these people. You couldn’t just walk into a shop and get your guitars and drums and synthesizers with your own money and go off and play. It wasn’t like Manchester. Everything was controlled. Every single aspect of society, at every single level.
(Source : http://sangbleumagazine.com/2015/06/16/if-we-get-caught-here-were-fucked-were-all-fucked-mark-reeder-on-berlin-punk-and-techno-in-the-80s/)

Jürgen Breski (former Stasi officer) : They wanted to bring a kind of socialist lifestyle to the people so we tried to combat anything that didn't belong to that. The aim was to control 'the scene' as it expanded, to stop it from becoming too well known.
(Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40447191)

Mark Reeder : Sometime in early 1981 I was in East Berlin and got chatting to this Jesus-looking guy in a bar who mentioned owning an electric guitar – which in the GDR were like rocking horse shit. Under some five-year plan they were supposed to be manufactured in Czechoslovakia, but they were almost impossible to find, let alone buy. Playing any music in the GDR was seen as potentially anti-state. If you officially wanted to play to the public, all lyrics had to be pre-approved. Anyone performing in public was vetted to assess their proficiency and political reliability. I wanted to know where this guy played his music, and he said he played in a church at something he called a ‘blues mass’.
(Source : http://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/)

I was like, ‘okay whatever’, and then a week goes by and I’m thinking to myself: ‘I wonder if I could play there with my own band, Die Unbekannten, maybe’.
(Source : http://sangbleumagazine.com/2015/06/16/if-we-get-caught-here-were-fucked-were-all-fucked-mark-reeder-on-berlin-punk-and-techno-in-the-80s/)

Around that time I’d met a girl in East Berlin who introduced me to her circle of friends. They were into similar music and keen on my church gig idea. Die Unbekannten were an electronic, synth-heavy band. There was no way of smuggling in all our equipment undetected, so I started putting all the synth and drum parts onto tapes. But in East Berlin, no one would lend me a cassette player. Everyone was terrified that if our gig got busted it’d be confiscated, which would have been the least of their worries. A cassette player was something holy – it was how people listened to illegally distributed music or recordings off the Allied Forces radio stations. So instead we decided that my friends Die Toten Hosen, a West German punk band, would play instead, as they would only need traditional instruments.

Slightly sceptical, he (the priest at the church) saw my enthusiasm and said yes, though insisting that it was a church service and not a gig, and we would have to pray and all the rest, to which we all agreed.

It was a potentially dangerous and volatile situation for the church, but although the priests absolutely loathed the music they were incredibly supportive. They understood about freedom and wanted to show that the church was about doing something good.
(Source : http://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/)

We ended up doing two secret Toten Hosen gigs: One in March ‘83 and the other later in ‘88. The first gig especially was very, very nerve-wracking. ‘If we get caught here, we’re fucked, we’re all fucked’ we thought. Not just me but all my friends too.

The church in East Germany was tolerated to a degree because there were so many Christians, but it was actually a form of silent protest.
(Source : http://sangbleumagazine.com/2015/06/16/if-we-get-caught-here-were-fucked-were-all-fucked-mark-reeder-on-berlin-punk-and-techno-in-the-80s/)

East Berlin was like the hardest club in the world to get into. If we went in as a group they’d be suspicious. I went last to check everyone got through.
(Source : http://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/)

Andreas Frege, aka Campino (lead singer, Die Toten Hosen) : We had to comb our hair, get proper clothes on ... Punk rock didn't officially exist in the East, they didn't want to spread the virus in any form.
(Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40447191)

Mark Reeder : We met up in Rummelsburg, at the apartment of a couple who were helping us put on the gig. We sat there watching a West German TV feature about the difference between an established German rock band called BAP and a new punk band, Die Toten Hosen – who were all sitting in their living room drinking ersatz coffee and eating homemade cheesecake. They couldn’t believe it, the band were actually there in their flat and on West German telly.

About forty people came.
(Source : http://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/)

Campino : Everyone in the room knew this was something very special and maybe would never happen again.
(Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40447191)

Mark Reeder : There were no photos, no evidence. At any moment the Stasi could have kicked in the door and arrested everyone. I was incredibly aware that if the gig was raided I would probably only serve a minimum of time in prison, if any, before being deported, but these kids would have had to live with the consequences. Their lives could be really shit from that point on, their chances of getting a job or going to university could be fucked.
(Source : http://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/)

I made sure they understood, because it was their lives that were at risk. I wasn’t going to get shot or disappeared. They all knew it was totally illegal to have a western punk band playing unofficially in East Berlin. They’d seen bands like Boney M come over and play big sanctioned concerts on TV, but nothing like this. Although we didn’t realise then, it was actually the very first time a band from West Berlin had played an illegal gig there. I wanted to bring them this music because there was no question of them being allowed to leave to watch a gig in West Berlin. When it was finished I was in tears. It felt like we’d done something historic.
(Source : http://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/)

At the time we weren’t aware of what the significance would be,” he smiles. “We thought there were punk rock concerts everywhere, in cellars across the nation. Not a fucking chance. It wasn’t like that at all.
Source : http://sangbleumagazine.com/2015/06/16/if-we-get-caught-here-were-fucked-were-all-fucked-mark-reeder-on-berlin-punk-and-techno-in-the-80s/)