Almost 25 years ago, Bruce Springsteen gave communist East Germany its biggest-ever rock concert in a performance that fuelled a spirit of rebellion and may have contributed to events that brought down the Berlin Wall, a new book says.
Springsteen’s 1988 concert is a glorious example of the influence that rock ‘n’ roll can have on people who are hungry and ready for change
In Rocking the Wall, US journalist Erik Kirschbaum says the rock star’s music and his anti-Berlin Wall speech helped to inspire more than 300,000 fans at the concert in East Berlin, and millions more watching on tele-vision, to strive for freedom.
Germany was divided into East and West in the wake of World War II and by the time of the Springsteen concert in July 1988, the Berlin Wall had been up for almost 27 years, separating 17 million East Germans from their West German counterparts.
They were growing restless and impatient for reforms.
The author uses eyewitness accounts, interviews with Springsteen’s manager and translators, documents from concert organisers and files from the Stasi secret police to tell the story of how ‘The Boss’ ventured behind the Iron Curtain and, perhaps unwittingly, mobilised his fans.
“It’s great to be in East Berlin. I’m not for or against any government. I came here to play rock ‘n’ roll for you, in the hope that one day all barriers will be torn down,” Springsteen said at the concert.
Kirschbaum, a Reuters corres-pondent in Berlin, argues that this short speech, in German, touched a nerve in a country without freedom of speech, where media were censored, political opposition was all but non-existent and those trying to escape the Wall risked being shot by border guards.
“It was a nail in the coffin for East Germany,” Joerg Beneke, a Springsteen fan who was at the 1988 concert, told Kirschbaum. “We had never heard anything like that from anyone inside East Germany. That was the moment some of us had been waiting a lifetime to hear.”
The crowd went delirious and grew even wilder when Springsteen laboured the point by launching into the next song, Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom. Leaving the stage, Springsteen and his manager told each other they felt East Germany was about to change dramatically.
“Whether Springsteen deserves belated credit for helping end the Cold War depends on whether you believe in the power of rock ‘n’ roll,” Kirschbaum said.
“Springsteen’s 1988 concert is a glorious example of the influence that rock ‘n’ roll can have on people hungry and ready for change.”
The author was unable to interview Springsteen for the book but the 63-year-old star’s manager, Jon Landau, did cooperate.
The book jumps back and forth in time, from 1981 to the concert in 1988.
It is probably impossible to give a definitive answer to the question whether Springsteen played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In September 1989, a little more than a year after the Springsteen concert, East Germans took to the streets chanting Wir sind das Volk (we are the people), expressing discontent with the government and demanding basic civil rights.
Two months later, on November 9, 1989, East Berliners surged through checkpoints along the wall and breached the hated Cold War symbol as East German border guards looked on.