A Social History of Early Rock ‘n’ Roll in Germany: Hamburg from Burlesque to The Beatles, 1956-69

by Julia Sneeringer

A Social History of Early Rock 'n' Roll in Germany explores the people and spaces of St. Pauli's rock'n'roll scene in the 1960s. Starting in 1960, young British rockers were hired to entertain tourists in Hamburg's red-light district around the Reeperbahn in the area of St. Pauli. German youths quickly joined in to experience the forbidden thrill of rock'n'roll, and used African American sounds to distance themselves from the old Nazi generation. In 1962 the Star Club opened and drew international attention for hosting some of the Beatles' most influential performances. In this book, Julia Sneeringer weaves together this story of youth culture with histories of sex and gender, popular culture, media, and subculture.

By exploring the history of one locale in depth, Sneeringer offers a welcome contribution to the scholarly literature on space, place, sound and the city, and pays overdue attention to the impact that Hamburg had upon music and style. She is also careful to place performers such as The Beatles back into the social, spatial, and musical contexts that shaped them and their generation.

This book reveals that transnational encounters between musicians, fans, entrepreneurs and businessmen in St. Pauli produced a musical style that provided emotional and physical liberation and challenged powerful forces of conservatism and conformity with effects that transformed the world for decades to come.

304 pages, Hardcover

Published May 31, 2018

About the author

A specialist in the history of modern Germany, Julia Sneeringer is professor of history at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Reviews

[Michael Platt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son gave me this book because I am a Beatles fanatic. I was expecting a "light" read. This book is actually quite dense with a very deep dive into the history and culture of St. Pauli/the Reeperbahn. A great job of showing just how important it was that the Beatles and other musicians cut their teeth there. In the Beatles' story, it seems kind of random that they landed these gigs in Hamburg but after reading this book it just seems like another of those miraculous coincidences without which there would not have been the Beatles or even many aspects of pop music culture that followed.