OstPUNK: Too much Future

Punk in Western Europe was a pop culture phenomenon with a political background. While on the other hand, Punk in the GDR was a political phenomenon with a pop-culture background. When the first punks showed up in East-Berlin and Leipzig in 1979 it wasn’t the reaction of social and artistic outsiders against a saturated consumer society. Instead it was a reaction against a society of lack, equally underequipped with material goods as well as fundamental freedom. The punks in the GDR tried to overcome the limitations of a system that strived to control its young people.