The War and the Wall: Berlin and the Divided Music City of Exiles (1700s to 1990s)

Abstract

Derived from disciplines such as journalism studies, social history and musicology, coupled with up-to-date qualitative data, this chapter examines Berlin’s war and the wall, which unified, divided and reunified its urban sociability. From German Enlightenment, the Weimar (jazz inspired) Republic of the 1920s to influx of creative foreigners (Wahlberliners), it highlights that by the 1930s Berlin was the center of the music world. As the rise of the Nazi regime exiled creative identities, the Berlin Wall erected in the 1960s became the catalyst for a German style of music, known as Kraftwerk. By the 1970s German draft dodgers and western musicians (Bowie, Pop and Cave) descended on West Berlin to record at Hansa Tonstudios. As the Geniale Dilletantens raged with urban activism, it highlights that in East Berlin, punk musicians were imprisoned for subversion. The chapter concludes that after the fall of the wall in 1989, reunified Berlin emerged as a techno music city and music and technology paradise which attracted the global corporate world.