HMKV meets Rekorder: Tresen mit Lesen

“Tresen mit Lesen” means “A reading at the bar”. A cooperation of the HMKV and event location Rekorder Dortmund. Author Ulrich Gutmair reads from his book Wir sind die Türken von morgen. Neue Welle, neues Deutschland. Entrance 5 €. No pre-registration necessary.

Wir sind die Türken von morgen. Neue Welle, neues Deutschland (“We are tomorrow‘s Turks – New Wave, New Germany”) deals with a cultural revolution. At the end of the 1970s, intellectuals of the FRG suggested “German identity” as therapy against the presumably lost society. Young punks preferred to re-invent themselves instead. Prefarably shrill, loud and provocative.

Holes in their shirts and jeans referred to the general collapse of the circumstances. In Post-War Germany, they were a scandal since the perfect world wasn‘t supposed to contain cracks.

Germany had long become a migration country. But for the majority of society, this was hard to accept. The sarcastic response by Gabi Delgado-Lopez to the German fear of alienation was “We are tomorrow‘s Turks”. He and other migrant children had a major impact on the development of German pop language. Soon, the movement was called “Neue deutsche Welle”. The “German” in its name referred to the language, not the country.

The artists of the New Wave reflected on everyday life in a society that was still shaped by authoritarian norms and constraint. The punks were joking about old and new Nazis. Young women founded bands against the macho behavoir of men. There, they sang about their demands in order to mess with the patriarchy. Not least the styles and texts of the New Wave played with gender roles. They propagated a playful form of queerness. “But who are the girls, who of you are the boys?”, The Wirtschaftswunder aus Limburg asked. Their singer was a young Sicilian guest worker.

Photo: Sinem Tekel