Sex, Thugs and Rock 'n' Roll: Teenage Rebels in Cold-War East Germany

by Mark Fenemore

A fascinating and highly readable account of what it was like to be young and hip, growing up in East Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. Living on the frontline of the Cold War, young people were subject to a number of competing influences. For young men from the working class, in particular, a conflict developed between the culture they inherited from their parents and the new official culture taught in schools. Merging with street gangs, new youth cultures took shape, which challenged authority and provided an alternative vision of modernity. Taking their fashion cues, music and icons from the West, they rapidly came into conflict with a didactic and highly controlling party-state. Charting the clashes which occurred between teenage rebels and the authorities, the book explores what happened when gender, sexuality, Nazism, communism and rock 'n' roll collided during a period, which also saw the building of the Berlin Wall.

Genres: Nonfiction

296 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Nathan Hillyer]

This is proof that not only should one never judge a book by its cover, but also not by its title. The only part one really needs to notice in the subtitle is the word 'monograph'. With a title like Sex, Thugs, and Rock and Roll one might get the wrong impression and think that it examines the actual teenagers' lives in depth from street level accounts and help me feel like I could see the world through their eyes. And sure, obviously then balance it out by the material from the regime and appropriate analysis. But nope! This was dry as a desert and about as scenic. This was not about the teenage rebels; it was about the regime (and a constant preoccupation with masculinity.) It was surprising to find that interviews with some people (a handful) did occur. Their presence was hardly noticeable. Like with so many scholarly works, the content becomes a web of interconnecting references and quotes to other writers, some of whom I have read actually. One drifts on a flow of spoonfed conclusions based on all these references and official reports without decent examples in context. Occasional attempts at first hand stories end up clumsily written, and some of the descriptions of fictional works are even confusing in how they are presented to the reader. Basically, my feeling was that this monograph didn't tell me anything I couldn't already guess from other content about East Germany I have read, and it felt like the kind of thing that could have been written entirely in a library. Another scholar will continue the cycle of using this as a reference for his or her own dissertation probably.

But as I mentioned, this had a particular fixation with studying the role of masculinity in every part of the subject matter, whether it was the rockers on the street, the members of the conscripted army, prison guards, or skinheads in the late 80s. I would argue that the theme of masculinity was the true intent of Fenemore's work. Fine. I suppose that is worth examining, but it is kind of subjective and was a redundant distraction from what I thought I would be reading about.

That I managed to finish this is a testament to my determination to get my money's worth since I spent more than I should have on acquiring a copy of it. I can't quite give only 2 stars to a book someone worked very hard on, and I can't even say it wasn't interesting. I can say it was dull. Look, if you are a student and need quotes for your own thesis, go ahead and make use of this. If you are actually interested in learning about the teenagers themselves in East Germany during the postwar years, steer clear of this because you will be looking at them from a distance, not up front and personal.

[Superstella]

First of all, do not, under any circumstance, use this for an intro class. They are going to say, "WTF DOOD! I never knew those three things could be so effing boring, anthropology must suck!" There are some interesting chapters for a gender class, which I'll elaborate on in a minute, but that's my overall take on this book. His writing is hard to follow, or maybe it's just the seemingly random insertion of German words... At one point I'm sure he used the word "cunt" just because one of his buddies swore he couldn't use it in a book.

But!

The parts I found particularly interesting were the sections about how socialism in East Germany tried to challenge/change Western notions of gender by placing women in the work force at supposedly equal positions and equal pay. In reality, however, this only served to further subjugate women because men didn't take over in the domestic sphere on an equal basis so now you have women who kind of have to hold paying jobs in the public realm AND keep up with the domestic duties of the private sector. Not equality! And he does discuss how that was a major failure.

I disagree with him on the part about Rock and Roll and how he interpreted its impact in E. Germany. He makes a good argument that expressions of masculinity and femininity were challenged via dancing and music and such, but he talks about how the youth of E. Germany at that time (late 50s) were "overly sexually charged" according to the authorities, and he goes on and on about how socialism influenced these teens/youth to act out in this manner. However, I think that if you look at Rock and Roll's influence in (for example) America during that same period you would see American elders making the same claims about those same things. That, for example, Elvis et. al are "non-music" and a bunch of noise which encourages hip-gyrating inappropriateness and sexual tension... things of that nature. I don't think that it was unique to East Germany, nor do I think it was a result of socialism although he tries to portray it that way.