Full Description
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.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Gendering the GDR
Chapter 3. Remasculinisation
Chapter 4. Re-education
Chapter 5. A Teenage "Revolution"?
Chapter 6. Street Culture
Chapter 7. Sexing Up Socialism
Chapter 8. Remilitarisation
Chapter 9. Rock 'n' Roll
Chapter 10. Manufacturing Consent
Chapter 11. Making Men Out of Them
Chapter 12. Predatory Males
Chapter 13. Conclusion
Postscript: Where Are They Now?
Bibliography
Index
