1
00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:16,794
SILENCE

2
00:00:23,319 --> 00:00:26,948
A movement-film
has to be made where there's motion,

3
00:00:27,399 --> 00:00:33,190
and when you make a film later
to pin down a movement,

4
00:00:33,639 --> 00:00:36,597
the describing
kills it off for good.

5
00:02:28,039 --> 00:02:31,827
We even fought with the police
in the station one night.

6
00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,997
They had brought us to Friedensstraße
in Friedrichshain.

7
00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:39,830
I was there, too. In '82.
- We were standing there.

8
00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:42,874
Against the wall like this.

9
00:02:43,319 --> 00:02:47,198
Sven, Jörg and Pogobär that is,
were lined up...

10
00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:49,630
My thing was resting on...

11
00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:53,952
Can you hold it?
One hour, 2, 3, 4 hours...

12
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:58,075
All the cops were out on calls.
Only two were in the station.

13
00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:01,680
The one out front and another.

14
00:03:02,119 --> 00:03:04,155
I started to unpack my thing...

15
00:03:05,119 --> 00:03:07,508
And he ran up and hit me in the neck.

16
00:03:07,959 --> 00:03:11,315
I banged into the wall...
it didn't hurt so bad...

17
00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:16,189
Pogobear, Jörg that is,
grabbed the cop

18
00:03:17,119 --> 00:03:20,236
pulled him down into a headlock

19
00:03:20,679 --> 00:03:22,397
and everyone started hitting him.

20
00:03:23,359 --> 00:03:27,068
We really smacked him one
and he called for reinforcements.

21
00:03:32,119 --> 00:03:37,398
Then we were sent to Wedekindstrasse
for questioning.

22
00:03:56,199 --> 00:03:58,633
When I got the invitation
I thought about

23
00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:02,755
what I'd like to show in Munich
and thought...

24
00:04:03,199 --> 00:04:07,078
I should choose stuff so
there'll be something in it for me.

25
00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:10,273
So I'll take some solid stuff,
it is a solid crowd there.

26
00:04:11,399 --> 00:04:13,276
Exhibition opening: Desire of the Flesh.

27
00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:16,154
My thing is to create some tension.

28
00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:19,599
An artist

29
00:04:20,040 --> 00:04:23,669
is never satisfied with reality.
You are constantly yearning

30
00:04:24,119 --> 00:04:28,749
and trying to put yourself
at a distance from reality.

31
00:04:30,480 --> 00:04:33,950
Because
reality isn't very satisfying.

32
00:04:34,399 --> 00:04:39,598
You could complain, but it's nicer
to make something to stand up to it.

33
00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:42,035
This job...

34
00:04:43,999 --> 00:04:45,717
is extreme.

35
00:04:46,760 --> 00:04:48,318
And I love extreme.

36
00:04:53,519 --> 00:04:56,113
I am technical director of the house.

37
00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:00,471
I am responsible for
the opera house and playhouse.

38
00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:03,388
The problem is I constantly
have to suck in my gut.

39
00:05:03,839 --> 00:05:06,307
I might
just turn blue and collapse some day.

40
00:05:06,999 --> 00:05:08,557
In my business

41
00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:11,195
you have to go where the work is.

42
00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:16,998
A bit of a mercenary mentality.

43
00:05:17,759 --> 00:05:18,714
Michael!

44
00:05:19,159 --> 00:05:21,514
Run 44 again, please.

45
00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,430
I think I already had,
"behavioral problems" at school.

46
00:05:25,879 --> 00:05:28,712
As the teachers would put it.

47
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:35,076
They tried to force me
from left-handed to right-handed.

48
00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:40,431
And when I was 6, my speech
system became extremely disturbed.

49
00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:44,077
It's okay now.
I still stutter, but...

50
00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:47,318
If I take the time
to speak slowly and clearly

51
00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:52,356
like they taught me in the special
kindergarten, it would be alright.

52
00:05:52,799 --> 00:05:56,712
But you always want to talk fast.
I have so much to say.

53
00:05:57,160 --> 00:06:00,755
So, and I didn't have a problem,

54
00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:02,952
I was lucky.

55
00:06:03,400 --> 00:06:06,949
I always asked
if I could sing to tell poems,

56
00:06:07,399 --> 00:06:09,390
because, it's been proven,
no idea why,

57
00:06:09,839 --> 00:06:14,435
but people with speech impediments
can sing easier than speak.

58
00:06:15,839 --> 00:06:17,795
I always liked hard and fast music.

59
00:06:18,239 --> 00:06:19,467
Ramones...

60
00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:21,515
Addicts...

61
00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:23,275
Atwords...

62
00:06:24,799 --> 00:06:26,073
UK Subs...

63
00:06:31,119 --> 00:06:34,156
I have to say, naked flesh
isn't so erotic anymore,

64
00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:38,070
it's too exhibitionist.
Erotic is when you want to reach in

65
00:06:38,519 --> 00:06:40,635
and free the flesh from its shell.

66
00:06:44,519 --> 00:06:45,474
Hold on.

67
00:07:00,119 --> 00:07:01,632
Sit. Sit!

68
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:04,152
Okay, shake.

69
00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:06,479
Good boy.

70
00:07:07,079 --> 00:07:09,229
At the time I was...

71
00:07:09,679 --> 00:07:10,634
14.

72
00:07:11,839 --> 00:07:14,399
That was around '79.

73
00:07:14,839 --> 00:07:16,397
One night my brother came home

74
00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:19,115
with a girlfriend,
also from Köpenick.

75
00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:22,398
Up until then,
my brother always looked normal,

76
00:07:22,839 --> 00:07:25,637
like any guy at the time.

77
00:07:26,079 --> 00:07:29,276
Jeans, hair a bit long...
and there he was in the doorway,

78
00:07:29,719 --> 00:07:33,268
pants torn at the knee
and an old, green sweater,

79
00:07:33,719 --> 00:07:36,187
in shreds, holes cut in it,

80
00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:39,438
and his hair standing up
and holes everywhere,

81
00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:41,996
and a safety pin in his cheek.

82
00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:46,035
I opened the door for him.
It was a shock, sure,

83
00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:50,109
it wasn't pretty. "What is
up with you? What are you wearing?"

84
00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:53,438
I'll never forget,
my brother standing there,

85
00:07:53,879 --> 00:07:58,031
'cause he didn't know what it was
either and said, "This is punk."

86
00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:01,040
You reinvent yourself as a punk.

87
00:08:01,480 --> 00:08:04,916
At the beginning you try
just what I was saying,

88
00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:09,876
distance yourself from the present,
fight against it and change yourself.

89
00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:14,279
Punk was new.
It was always interesting.

90
00:08:14,719 --> 00:08:17,916
Thank God we had Western TV
in Leipzig and when you saw

91
00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:20,476
what they were doing
and how... I dunno.

92
00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:23,309
Johnny Rotten always impressed me,
how he stood there.

93
00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:27,070
He was twisted
and his rigid stare,

94
00:08:27,519 --> 00:08:29,953
it was totally... so insolent.

95
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:34,598
I really hated the hippy culture.

96
00:08:35,359 --> 00:08:37,998
Smoking joints, too,
I never did that in my life.

97
00:08:38,439 --> 00:08:42,068
Just the thought of
everybody smoking and passing it on,

98
00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:44,954
that's Socialism all over again.
Everyone takes a hit

99
00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:48,472
and everyone
gets their stupid, little bliss.

100
00:08:48,919 --> 00:08:51,308
No, it was...
We wanted to be individuals.

101
00:08:51,759 --> 00:08:55,195
Sometime when I was young...

102
00:08:57,439 --> 00:08:59,748
I was at a concert.

103
00:09:00,799 --> 00:09:04,075
It was the first time
I had seen a band

104
00:09:04,519 --> 00:09:08,512
playing punk rock in East Germany.

105
00:09:09,959 --> 00:09:12,678
Dunno if I though so
at the time, but I mean...

106
00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:16,476
It was the first time
I had kinda seen people

107
00:09:59,920 --> 00:10:01,558
ART AND CULTURE ENRICH OUR LIVES

108
00:10:07,399 --> 00:10:09,708
I apply for Party membership

109
00:10:10,159 --> 00:10:11,672
Kindergarten, school,

110
00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:15,510
basic training in the Folks' Army,

111
00:10:15,959 --> 00:10:18,189
then you do an apprenticeship.
Folks' Army, have kids

112
00:10:18,639 --> 00:10:23,394
and then carry out the work plan
till the end of your life,

113
00:10:23,839 --> 00:10:26,433
working in some company for 400 marks,

114
00:10:26,879 --> 00:10:29,473
that was absolutely predetermined.

115
00:10:29,920 --> 00:10:33,754
There was a nice legal paragraph,
§249 or something like that.

116
00:10:34,199 --> 00:10:35,473
"Anti-social behavior."

117
00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:38,480
When you didn't work, you weren't a burden to anyone,

118
00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:40,239
no social office, labor office,

119
00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:44,150
those didn't exist anyway...
Well, in that case,

120
00:10:44,599 --> 00:10:46,396
you went to jail.

121
00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:51,352
Socialist Realism.
Paint the brigadiers and the workers.

122
00:10:51,799 --> 00:10:56,190
I was 22. It wasn't fertile
territory for a young person,

123
00:10:56,639 --> 00:10:59,028
painting stupid brigadiers.

124
00:10:59,479 --> 00:11:02,676
I broke out of it
and was forbidden to exhibit.

125
00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:06,317
So that started
my tendency towards music.

126
00:11:06,759 --> 00:11:08,317
You want to be seen,

127
00:11:08,759 --> 00:11:14,072
and when my pictures were forbidden,
I picked up the microphone.

128
00:11:15,759 --> 00:11:18,068
I was a rehearsal room fan

129
00:11:18,519 --> 00:11:21,192
and knew all the songs

130
00:11:22,039 --> 00:11:24,428
and always hung out
with the people from "Fit of Rage."

131
00:11:25,519 --> 00:11:27,555
I found it really cool,
it was all so different there.

132
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:29,672
The walls were covered
in posters from the bands

133
00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:34,193
I only knew from TV
and I thought, "This is it!"

134
00:11:34,639 --> 00:11:39,030
I was already fascinated by drums
and rhythm at school

135
00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:41,471
and I bought myself a drum set.

136
00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:46,391
And I always practiced on boxes
and stuff and on the school bus.

137
00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:49,759
I was already interested
in making music.

138
00:11:51,879 --> 00:11:54,712
It's a punk philosophy: If you can,

139
00:11:55,159 --> 00:11:57,912
then do it.
If you can't, do it anyway.

140
00:11:58,560 --> 00:12:03,998
Because my voice is miserable,
I always had problems at rehearsals.

141
00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:06,510
I couldn't hit a single note.

142
00:12:06,959 --> 00:12:10,474
I was supposed to sing melody.
I cried at a lot of rehearsals.

143
00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:13,798
But in concert I was great.

144
00:12:14,239 --> 00:12:18,676
No one else was there.
I was the first at the rehearsal.

145
00:12:19,560 --> 00:12:23,075
And I was extroverted enough
to go to the mike.

146
00:12:23,519 --> 00:12:27,717
It was enough for drums, you had
to sing anyway. I was always coarse.

147
00:12:28,759 --> 00:12:31,910
The drums were totally abnormal.

148
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:35,194
Unbearable.

149
00:12:35,759 --> 00:12:38,068
At my school in Oberschöneweide,

150
00:12:38,519 --> 00:12:43,229
I had two friends
who were also into it.

151
00:12:43,680 --> 00:12:47,116
I noticed it was the same thing,
hair sticking up...

152
00:12:47,560 --> 00:12:50,632
We talked and I asked
if we should do something.

153
00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:54,032
We met a couple of times
in his father's garage,

154
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:58,712
but the horrible noise
was too much for his parents

155
00:13:01,039 --> 00:13:04,156
so we looked for
a rehearsal room and got to work.

156
00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:09,355
The first band we founded in 1980
had the legendary name, "Band Salad."

157
00:13:09,800 --> 00:13:10,755
Wutanfall,

158
00:13:11,440 --> 00:13:13,032
"Fit of Rage."

159
00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:14,670
"No idea."

160
00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:17,680
"Pink Extra."
- "Slime Germ," "Attack."

161
00:13:18,120 --> 00:13:21,430
We didn't have a name. We were nameless.

162
00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:25,156
Nameless. - Nameless somehow.
- Nameless was something. Nameless.

163
00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:29,559
"Slime Germ." - "Pig Bastard."
- "Fit of Rage" is a punk name.

164
00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:31,911
"Jack Frustration."
- "Canned Rebel."

165
00:13:32,359 --> 00:13:34,077
"Attack" is a bit anarchist.

166
00:13:34,519 --> 00:13:36,271
"Chirp Machine."
- "5 Weeks in a Balloon."

167
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:39,280
"Megalomania."
- "Concrete Romance." - "Paranoia."

168
00:13:39,719 --> 00:13:45,908
Everyone knows "Chirp Machine,"
but we changed names a lot.

169
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,670
We were called "Ambulant Musicians
on the Way to the Hospital."

170
00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:55,194
The name "Fit if Rage"
got us in a lot of trouble.

171
00:14:13,199 --> 00:14:16,077
It was the moment that counted,
the moment in the rehearsal room,

172
00:14:16,519 --> 00:14:20,194
so every band always had its
rehearsal room fans who were there.

173
00:14:20,639 --> 00:14:23,631
The concert, that was decisive.

174
00:14:24,079 --> 00:14:26,991
You had to go to a concert
to experience it.

175
00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:29,032
That was it.

176
00:15:06,799 --> 00:15:11,873
I was a pretty lively kid,
always doing things with friends,

177
00:15:12,319 --> 00:15:15,277
with cliques
and we hung out all over the place.

178
00:15:17,040 --> 00:15:21,079
I wasn't easy to handle
when I was young.

179
00:15:21,520 --> 00:15:24,796
I had a lot of fun, let's say...

180
00:15:25,519 --> 00:15:29,910
stirring up shit.
We were even criminal sometimes.

181
00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:33,477
We wouldn't subordinate.
We always had something to say.

182
00:15:34,039 --> 00:15:35,791
I think we were hyperactive.

183
00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:41,712
Climbing fences, breaking in,
stealing stuff from the store.

184
00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:45,152
The worst time, we broke into
a chemical warehouse in Leipzig

185
00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:51,869
and took chemicals
to make our own fireworks.

186
00:15:52,319 --> 00:15:54,674
I wasn't good at science in school

187
00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:57,395
my only A's were in art.

188
00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:01,071
And that was my world.
I always lived in a...

189
00:16:01,519 --> 00:16:03,987
Because I don't have siblings
or parents either...

190
00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:06,431
I spent a lot of time

191
00:16:06,880 --> 00:16:09,110
in my own head as a child.

192
00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:12,512
I come from a very musical family.

193
00:16:12,959 --> 00:16:17,077
At family gatherings, uncles,
aunts, my father, whoever...

194
00:16:17,719 --> 00:16:22,315
All the men...
There was no canned music at parties.

195
00:16:22,759 --> 00:16:26,274
There was guitar,
banjo, harmonica, whatever.

196
00:16:26,719 --> 00:16:28,994
Everyone sung at home.

197
00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:32,273
And they all played
their instruments very well.

198
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:38,588
PALACE OF THE REPUBLIC

199
00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:50,550
Then my daughter was born.

200
00:16:51,959 --> 00:16:55,156
This creature
really, massively changed my life.

201
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:01,477
In what way? Well, I'm alone,
her father isn't here

202
00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:03,478
and I have no other partner.

203
00:17:04,120 --> 00:17:07,271
And that's pretty hefty.

204
00:17:07,719 --> 00:17:09,755
Sometimes you think it really sucks.

205
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:13,476
I can never go wild
orjust let go.

206
00:17:13,919 --> 00:17:15,238
You can't do that anymore.

207
00:17:30,679 --> 00:17:33,477
My daughter is learning violin,
so I am, too.

208
00:17:33,919 --> 00:17:38,276
It's really fun. I had to play
as a child, but didn't want to.

209
00:17:53,919 --> 00:17:57,389
I have to change my life,
then my pictures change, too.

210
00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:01,071
You can tell that these pictures...

211
00:18:02,239 --> 00:18:06,152
What can I say?
They have another dynamic.

212
00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:09,831
As opposed to the static portraits.
What interested me...

213
00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:12,555
was the magic of a look.

214
00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:15,673
What interests me here is...

215
00:18:16,839 --> 00:18:18,318
It's like an awakening.

216
00:18:19,999 --> 00:18:22,877
In Dresden, there was
the legendary Door Exhibition.

217
00:18:23,439 --> 00:18:27,148
They showed my drawings of caged
women with their hair hanging down.

218
00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:31,513
The officials said East German women
don't look depressed like that.

219
00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:35,118
But the thing was that
I was pregnant and had my son,

220
00:18:35,559 --> 00:18:39,472
but I kept studying.
The models came to me at home.

221
00:18:39,919 --> 00:18:45,118
These nude models had already been
sitting 8 hours at the academy

222
00:18:45,559 --> 00:18:48,869
and were tired out,
and their heads hung in exhaustion.

223
00:18:49,319 --> 00:18:51,958
They interpreted it as depression,

224
00:18:52,399 --> 00:18:54,913
but the models were just tired.

225
00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:00,910
The nice female portraits
stopped working for me.

226
00:19:01,359 --> 00:19:06,035
Digging in the earth, and suddenly
these mob pictures started.

227
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:10,155
First, I worked in portrait format,
here it's like a panorama.

228
00:19:10,599 --> 00:19:13,671
You see it from up there
on my rooftop terrace and I thought,

229
00:19:14,119 --> 00:19:15,677
"Yes! Landscape format!"

230
00:19:17,479 --> 00:19:20,516
Whether you paint
a lemon, an apple or a sausage,

231
00:19:20,959 --> 00:19:22,677
it's always a self-portrait.

232
00:19:23,119 --> 00:19:25,508
Get off my leg!

233
00:19:25,959 --> 00:19:29,269
Clothes weren't
the most important thing to me.

234
00:19:29,839 --> 00:19:33,718
I wore things I liked.
I had gotten them.

235
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:39,433
Coloring our hair in the tram
with water colors

236
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,919
and then you look like a clown
if you're caught in the rain.

237
00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:49,038
It was a problem when it rained
and the soap ran down,

238
00:19:49,639 --> 00:19:52,437
'cause you looked like a drowned rat.

239
00:19:52,879 --> 00:19:55,439
We really made sure
our hair was sticking up just right,

240
00:19:55,879 --> 00:19:59,667
and that our leatherjackets
were messed up right,

241
00:20:00,120 --> 00:20:03,510
etc., but we made it all ourselves,
we didn't buy it.

242
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,269
You wanted
to go out and shock people,

243
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,439
so you wanted to be really shocking.

244
00:20:14,479 --> 00:20:17,277
In my late 20s I decided I didn't want

245
00:20:17,719 --> 00:20:20,995
a fat gut and so on
and I started to exercise.

246
00:20:21,919 --> 00:20:25,468
Firstjogging, condition,
and a little punching bag.

247
00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:31,555
But I'm not very ambitious,
vain, but not ambitious.

248
00:20:32,119 --> 00:20:35,156
My first tattoo?
What? Am I tattooed?

249
00:20:35,599 --> 00:20:39,114
We worked so hard to look punk
that we were almost trendy.

250
00:20:39,559 --> 00:20:42,949
We made a big effort over our outfits.

251
00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:45,914
But we were ironic about it, too.

252
00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:48,270
We were ironic about it,

253
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:51,359
but we really made an effort
to look good, us guys.

254
00:20:52,559 --> 00:20:55,949
We spent a lot of time
in front of the mirror.

255
00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:58,277
To me erotic
is something true to itself.

256
00:20:58,719 --> 00:21:01,711
When a man is really himself,
not posing in the mirror,

257
00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:04,720
not trying too hard.

258
00:21:05,439 --> 00:21:10,513
Jackboots cost 100 marks,
the exchange rate 1 to 6 or 7.

259
00:21:10,959 --> 00:21:14,474
You can imagine what we spent
on shoes. We were snobs really.

260
00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:20,079
I don't think anyone spent
as much on shoes as we did.

261
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:23,992
If you had jackboots
or Doc Martens, you were...

262
00:21:24,439 --> 00:21:26,669
My God, they were sacred.

263
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:45,830
Grandma had to get them
when she went to the West.

264
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:47,599
"Grandma. Y'know, the LP,

265
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:50,838
the LP is called this.
You go to Cortex,"

266
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:55,068
that was in Adalbertstrasse,
in Kreuzberg...

267
00:21:55,519 --> 00:21:58,875
"You go there, give them the note
if you can't pronounce it..."

268
00:21:59,439 --> 00:22:02,511
The guards
didn't know what to do with a grandma

269
00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:05,476
with a B-52s record.

270
00:22:05,919 --> 00:22:08,638
"No idea what this is, but
if she has it, it must be okay."

271
00:22:09,079 --> 00:22:12,276
"The band is called 'Exploited'
and I want the record,

272
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:14,836
'Punk's not Dead."'

273
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:18,556
She didn't know what it was.

274
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:21,275
All the punks there
looking at this old lady

275
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:25,156
with her East German glasses
buying punk LPs

276
00:22:25,999 --> 00:22:27,068
for her grandson.

277
00:22:28,399 --> 00:22:31,436
When you got an LP,

278
00:22:31,879 --> 00:22:37,078
in that moment,
you were obliged to make 400 copies

279
00:22:37,519 --> 00:22:39,111
on tape or whatever.

280
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,478
Later, I was in Hungary with Kaiser

281
00:22:42,919 --> 00:22:45,911
but I didn't buy any punk records,

282
00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:50,193
I bought Rolling Stones
or something like that.

283
00:22:59,679 --> 00:23:02,352
In '82, I came back from Erfurt,

284
00:23:02,799 --> 00:23:05,757
from a concert weekend
with "Slime Germ" and...

285
00:23:06,199 --> 00:23:10,351
My mother was upset.
"The police were here. Where were you?"

286
00:23:10,799 --> 00:23:14,917
We were supposed to report to them
on Monday. I was home Sunday.

287
00:23:15,360 --> 00:23:18,079
And then we went straight to them
because we thought

288
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:21,910
it was just "routine questioning"
as they always called it,

289
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,317
but they arrested me on the spot

290
00:23:25,759 --> 00:23:28,796
and sent me to a juvenile
detention center without warning

291
00:23:29,239 --> 00:23:32,117
or court appearance
and wanted to send me to

292
00:23:32,559 --> 00:23:35,517
East Germany's
kind of children's prison.

293
00:23:36,559 --> 00:23:41,155
I was in the detention center
for over three months.

294
00:23:41,599 --> 00:23:46,229
The first couple of weeks,
I had to struggle with myself.

295
00:23:46,679 --> 00:23:50,228
I had a Mohawk back then
and they wanted to cut it off.

296
00:23:50,679 --> 00:23:53,876
I fought them off like crazy,

297
00:23:54,319 --> 00:23:57,948
punching and kicking
till they locked me down.

298
00:23:58,399 --> 00:24:01,436
They put me in a concrete cell
in the basement

299
00:24:01,879 --> 00:24:05,155
with darkened windows.
There was only a concrete block

300
00:24:05,599 --> 00:24:09,114
and a cot.
You only got a blanket at night.

301
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:13,311
They locked me in there
and I stayed for a week.

302
00:24:13,759 --> 00:24:16,956
They tried to cut my hair again.
I said, "I won't let you,

303
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:23,157
but I'll do it myself." After that
I tried to fit in to the group,

304
00:24:23,599 --> 00:24:26,067
because there was just no point.

305
00:24:28,439 --> 00:24:31,715
The State really wanted
to do away with me,

306
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,550
But all they had was
three days of cutting school

307
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:38,479
and being a punk.

308
00:24:42,079 --> 00:24:45,389
It was surrounded by searchlights.
There was a rooftop garden, fenced in,

309
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:47,831
where they let us out.

310
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:52,751
I could see out over the lake
to Rummelsburger Prison.

311
00:24:53,199 --> 00:24:56,748
All summer I said to myself,
"I'm never going in there."

312
00:24:57,199 --> 00:24:59,872
The next winter
I was sitting on the other side.

313
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:14,998
You weren't allowed to belong
if you weren't allowed to belong.

314
00:25:16,159 --> 00:25:18,673
Tough luck for you.

315
00:25:19,120 --> 00:25:20,235
Punks everywhere!

316
00:25:20,679 --> 00:25:25,036
Sounds weird,
but notjust anyone could be a punk.

317
00:25:25,479 --> 00:25:28,676
People were chosen or not.

318
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,271
There was a term, the "Plastics."

319
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:38,316
To them, we were practically
punk nobility. "Plastics" in Berlin.

320
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:43,311
When a weekend-punk came along,
hair up in a kind of...

321
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:47,758
Beckham-Mohawk,

322
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:53,153
you can call it that now,
it's been fashionable lately,

323
00:25:53,599 --> 00:25:55,078
which I find awful,

324
00:25:55,519 --> 00:25:58,829
anyway...
his hair would be cut off or

325
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,716
he'd be "plucked,"
his cloths taken from him.

326
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:07,073
It was dangerous sometimes.
As a punk from out of town,

327
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:11,988
when you went to the Plänter Forest,
you came home in your undershirt.

328
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,313
There was
a lot of "plucking" in Berlin.

329
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,911
"Plucking" is what we called,

330
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:23,238
like, when a "Plastic" came along
with a cool leatherjacket,

331
00:26:23,679 --> 00:26:25,874
but it didn't suit him at all,

332
00:26:26,319 --> 00:26:28,992
maybe it suited me
or my best friend much better,

333
00:26:29,439 --> 00:26:34,991
then we managed to make sure
it belonged to us afterward.

334
00:26:35,439 --> 00:26:37,191
That was "plucking."

335
00:26:37,719 --> 00:26:40,950
I was lucky to be together
with Colonel in a way.

336
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:46,315
We got along well and
maybe we were a little bit in love.

337
00:26:46,759 --> 00:26:50,069
But I was lucky
because Colonel was a leader.

338
00:26:50,799 --> 00:26:55,350
A friend had a jacket
with "Fit of Rage" written on it

339
00:26:55,799 --> 00:26:57,198
and "Trade Fair City" over that.

340
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,473
Foolish way to dress in Berlin.

341
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:03,798
We went up to Berlin
and we really found some trouble.

342
00:27:04,239 --> 00:27:07,549
The Berliners always
thought they were the greatest...

343
00:27:07,999 --> 00:27:10,069
maybe they were, too...

344
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,713
I was messed up by Dresden, the Saxons

345
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:18,312
with punk haircuts, but,
"No, we have to go there,

346
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,594
and maybe we'll go there..."
But it didn't fit together.

347
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:26,316
We were more like hippies
than the Berliners.

348
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,274
Berlin's scene was harder.

349
00:27:29,719 --> 00:27:33,029
Leipzig was a lot like Berlin,
funnily enough.

350
00:27:34,519 --> 00:27:36,555
They were radical, too.

351
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,470
They were enormously radical.
Maybe because of the trade fair,

352
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:45,198
they had a lot more people
coming through their city.

353
00:28:03,079 --> 00:28:05,513
If you hung out with the Berliners
and experienced it...

354
00:28:05,959 --> 00:28:10,874
little us from Leipzig, following
in their wake, using their rep,

355
00:28:11,319 --> 00:28:14,391
but in the end,
we never managed to be like them.

356
00:28:43,719 --> 00:28:44,834
Music is definitely

357
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:49,478
a way to express
every kind of aggression.

358
00:28:50,119 --> 00:28:51,393
Frustration, whatever.

359
00:28:53,479 --> 00:28:55,435
There was nothing to do.

360
00:28:55,879 --> 00:28:59,235
That's not an excuse,
but there was incredible violence

361
00:28:59,679 --> 00:29:01,158
just under the surface.

362
00:29:01,599 --> 00:29:04,067
First the train conductor

363
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:08,999
who smacks you one
while you're still sleeping.

364
00:29:09,439 --> 00:29:12,317
There was
always trouble in local discos.

365
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,797
If you weren't in groups of five...

366
00:29:16,239 --> 00:29:20,630
even then sometimes.
I remember running for my life...

367
00:29:21,079 --> 00:29:26,597
With the neighbors, plumbers,

368
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,430
with our parents' generation
we came to...

369
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:36,512
came to blows more often.
...Slowly now!

370
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,554
In the beginning
we got beat up a lot,

371
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,878
'cause we were inexperienced,
but that changed later.

372
00:29:43,319 --> 00:29:45,469
We messed some people up.

373
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,310
When some jerk
looked at us on the street and said,

374
00:29:49,759 --> 00:29:52,831
"You should all be gassed!"
Then we let him have it,

375
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:54,235
he deserved it.

376
00:29:54,799 --> 00:29:56,755
Alone was bad.

377
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,758
Being alone was pretty dangerous.

378
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:03,876
We were always together somehow.

379
00:30:04,319 --> 00:30:06,355
We always grouped together.

380
00:30:06,799 --> 00:30:10,075
Either on Alexander Place
or some church center,

381
00:30:10,519 --> 00:30:12,111
or at someone's house.

382
00:30:12,559 --> 00:30:16,234
It's dangerous when you realize
there are 4 or 5 people, like a fist...

383
00:30:16,679 --> 00:30:21,036
"Wherever you go, always stick together
when there's trouble."

384
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,278
Later, that turned into, "We go there

385
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,678
and attack
as soon as something happens."

386
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,955
And later still,
"We go, we clean out the place."

387
00:30:34,399 --> 00:30:37,675
The provocation was deliberate.

388
00:30:38,719 --> 00:30:42,507
I never thought

389
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,839
we were corrupting the system
through subterfuge.

390
00:30:47,959 --> 00:30:52,077
It was simply
deliberate, intentional, provocation.

391
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,516
I remember a concert in the Palace,

392
00:30:57,319 --> 00:31:01,676
I had a fat lip...
some guy had hit me...

393
00:31:02,119 --> 00:31:03,711
Here's the scar.

394
00:31:05,599 --> 00:31:08,875
And I had this fat lip
and we were pogoing

395
00:31:09,319 --> 00:31:12,391
and there was this
funny singer-songwriter...

396
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:16,833
Billy Bragg. Pankow was there
and some of the other guys,

397
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:20,158
and he made sure
that nobody hit me,

398
00:31:20,599 --> 00:31:22,430
he kept me in the clear.

399
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,477
Everybody pogo now! Let's go!

400
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:04,558
Just about everything
there got me down,

401
00:32:04,999 --> 00:32:07,672
we couldn't travel,
we couldn't read what we wanted.

402
00:32:08,119 --> 00:32:11,475
Everything was censored...

403
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:16,355
I really felt...
That's my ball!

404
00:32:28,359 --> 00:32:33,228
As a punk, I played
on a really special rugby team

405
00:32:33,679 --> 00:32:34,828
called, "Gastronom Leipzig."

406
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,670
The punks here are Chaos,
the singer from "Fit of Rage" and me.

407
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:41,998
We were the mascots.
There were some pop kids, too.

408
00:32:42,439 --> 00:32:45,476
A real mix of sub-cultures.

409
00:32:46,799 --> 00:32:48,869
Driving around as a team,

410
00:32:49,319 --> 00:32:52,675
playing exerienced teams
like Falkensee

411
00:32:53,119 --> 00:32:56,077
it took subculture to another level.

412
00:33:01,559 --> 00:33:06,030
Every dickhead played soccer.
Who cared? Rugby was special.

413
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,155
I'd like to form a team.

414
00:33:10,599 --> 00:33:12,715
I know lots of people
who are interested.

415
00:33:13,759 --> 00:33:19,231
I'd like to build it up a bit
with international exchanges.

416
00:33:19,679 --> 00:33:21,670
Today, I am...

417
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:25,919
a conformist supporter of democracy.

418
00:33:26,679 --> 00:33:27,668
I am.

419
00:33:28,119 --> 00:33:29,438
But...

420
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,317
I'm not revolutionary anymore
and I have no motivation to be,

421
00:33:34,759 --> 00:33:37,671
'cause I think
things are okay as they are.

422
00:33:38,119 --> 00:33:42,078
I have more of a problem

423
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:47,469
with groups who
are against freedom and democracy.

424
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:52,755
I fight the extremists.
I tell myself, "Not like that."

425
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:02,595
The encounter center is part of
the "Open Your Eyes" initiative

426
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:04,519
and was founded in 2000.

427
00:34:04,959 --> 00:34:07,268
I am kind of the center of it.

428
00:34:07,719 --> 00:34:09,789
LÖBAU CITY COUNCIL
It takes a while

429
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,948
to build an initiative
and find partners

430
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,154
and have an identity
so that people perceive you

431
00:34:18,599 --> 00:34:21,113
and come to you.

432
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,875
I do political work now.
It doesn't come down to punk,

433
00:34:27,319 --> 00:34:31,995
it comes down to the time
when you just open your mouth

434
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,159
and damn the consequences.
To stop being afraid.

435
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:38,319
"Is that politically correct?"
"Will I still have enough voters?"

436
00:34:38,759 --> 00:34:41,876
"Will I be reelected?"
I have to stop caring about that.

437
00:34:47,879 --> 00:34:49,358
Itjust goes to show

438
00:34:49,799 --> 00:34:54,429
that life changes and that
every young person in trouble today

439
00:34:54,879 --> 00:34:57,347
could be on the city council later.

440
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:06,676
As a subcontractor,
you don't have much chance,

441
00:35:07,119 --> 00:35:10,236
you don't make your schedule,
your employer does.

442
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,309
But when you're sick of it,
you can always say,

443
00:35:15,279 --> 00:35:16,268
"Screw you!"

444
00:35:18,119 --> 00:35:19,268
Who cares.

445
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,235
I don't work because it's nice.

446
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,274
Home or the band room,
that's nice.

447
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:37,471
You have to get the people excited.

448
00:35:43,039 --> 00:35:45,553
Thank you for coming
but I am tired.

449
00:35:45,999 --> 00:35:47,955
No one out there cares.

450
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,113
It really takes a lot of energy to do this.

451
00:35:54,559 --> 00:35:57,357
It's been 3 months.
We'll see how it goes.

452
00:35:57,799 --> 00:35:59,027
We're about to go on.

453
00:36:07,759 --> 00:36:11,593
Construction workers hated us,
waiters, too.

454
00:36:12,039 --> 00:36:16,271
That's one reason why
we were so restless,

455
00:36:16,720 --> 00:36:20,269
going from one pub to another,
one club to another,

456
00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:24,076
in a group
that they'd never let in anyway.

457
00:36:30,759 --> 00:36:35,628
Sometimes you'd go the whole night
without having a beer or cola.

458
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:50,678
There weren't any discos,
clubs or pubs where you were allowed.

459
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:56,798
The only real hang-outs
were Alexander Place

460
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:01,313
and then on summer weekends,
from spring till fall,

461
00:37:01,759 --> 00:37:04,990
in the Plänter Forest,
at the fair there.

462
00:37:10,999 --> 00:37:12,432
We were always there.

463
00:37:28,240 --> 00:37:30,913
Sundays in the Plänter Forest
starting at seven.

464
00:37:31,359 --> 00:37:35,955
It's dark and I'm standing there.
This local cop comes up to me

465
00:37:36,839 --> 00:37:39,956
with his walkie-talkie, gun,

466
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:42,277
brown shoulder bag, hat on,

467
00:37:42,720 --> 00:37:46,952
and marches right into our group

468
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,756
and asks what's going on
and if we're a mob and stuff.

469
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,078
Then he asks for our IDs.

470
00:37:54,999 --> 00:37:58,958
It was dark, we think,
"What is this? What does he want?"

471
00:38:02,359 --> 00:38:05,431
He starts to get firm

472
00:38:05,879 --> 00:38:08,518
and asks if we'd understood
that he wanted our IDs.

473
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:13,317
We didn't say anything,
but we all understood,

474
00:38:13,759 --> 00:38:15,954
and wham, his hat was off.

475
00:38:16,720 --> 00:38:19,314
Someone knocked it off from behind.

476
00:38:19,839 --> 00:38:22,114
That was already attacking the state.

477
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:27,793
He got nervous
and tried to pull his gun.

478
00:38:28,240 --> 00:38:30,834
I don't know how many hands
were pulling on him,

479
00:38:31,279 --> 00:38:33,747
his walkie-talkie was taken,

480
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:36,839
his gun was out of its holster

481
00:38:37,279 --> 00:38:40,476
and the shoulder boards
were gone from his uniform

482
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:43,434
and he got beaten to a pulp.

483
00:38:43,879 --> 00:38:47,508
We knew we couldn't show our faces
in the next weeks,

484
00:38:47,959 --> 00:38:50,154
there were so many cops there,

485
00:38:50,599 --> 00:38:52,237
you couldn't believe it.

486
00:38:55,119 --> 00:38:59,078
In a studio or apartment
the police cleared out this party.

487
00:38:59,999 --> 00:39:04,311
It wasn'tjust punks, there were
artists, painters, theater people.

488
00:39:04,759 --> 00:39:08,468
The scene was very mixed
in the late 80s, early 90s.

489
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:12,879
There were punk concerts
in artists' studios

490
00:39:13,319 --> 00:39:16,356
until they
moved to the churches later.

491
00:39:18,559 --> 00:39:21,357
The church was a safe haven.

492
00:39:21,799 --> 00:39:25,633
We were observed from outside,
but the cops never came in.

493
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,869
There were church youth programs

494
00:39:31,319 --> 00:39:34,197
in the Protestant church and they

495
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:39,993
let 'outsiders' use their rooms
so they could "express themselves."

496
00:39:42,799 --> 00:39:46,474
They didn't know what
they were in for in the beginning.

497
00:39:48,399 --> 00:39:53,393
So the bands now had the chance
to play for larger audiences.

498
00:39:53,839 --> 00:39:57,070
Berlin, Church of the Savior,
the Blues-Mass...

499
00:39:57,519 --> 00:40:00,955
Word got around
that we could play there.

500
00:40:01,399 --> 00:40:04,436
Punks are going to play there
so we're going to, too.

501
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:06,871
We went, everything was set up.

502
00:40:07,319 --> 00:40:12,154
I dunno if they brought their guitars,
but the drums were set up there...

503
00:40:13,359 --> 00:40:17,477
I perfectly remember
rocking behind these drums

504
00:40:17,919 --> 00:40:21,116
and then rocks started to fly,
hitting the drums. I thought,

505
00:40:21,559 --> 00:40:25,154
great! Just like the Sex Pistols!
Bottles were thrown, too.

506
00:40:25,599 --> 00:40:28,477
So many people were pogoing.
There were lots of punks there,

507
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,753
pushing people back against the wall,

508
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,589
out into the bushes,

509
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:36,951
dancing around...

510
00:40:37,399 --> 00:40:41,074
These drunk hippies were there
throwing their bottles.

511
00:41:12,119 --> 00:41:14,269
You feel really great

512
00:41:14,720 --> 00:41:17,439
to see people pogoing to your music.

513
00:41:18,359 --> 00:41:23,558
For me, our very first concert
was somehow the greatest.

514
00:41:23,999 --> 00:41:26,957
It could have finished right there.

515
00:41:27,999 --> 00:41:30,069
It was everything we'd done...

516
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:34,396
crystallized into...

517
00:41:36,240 --> 00:41:37,878
a single moment.

518
00:41:38,319 --> 00:41:39,354
In Leipzig

519
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,638
we played in the church sometimes,
but also in student clubs.

520
00:41:44,079 --> 00:41:48,630
Sometimes we played
at artists' openings.

521
00:41:49,079 --> 00:41:52,913
Every tour was a highlight
because we traveled with this mob

522
00:41:53,959 --> 00:41:57,235
of people and somehow
made do in every city we came to.

523
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,319
There was something new every day.

524
00:42:00,759 --> 00:42:02,636
Every day a new band,

525
00:42:03,079 --> 00:42:04,910
a new outfit...

526
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,591
Always changing and developing.

527
00:42:09,039 --> 00:42:11,997
It was all in constant motion.

528
00:42:12,439 --> 00:42:16,751
Horrendously long tours
from Karl-Marx-Stadt to Berlin and back

529
00:42:17,999 --> 00:42:20,229
in dirty old trains.

530
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:23,114
Halle was very important,
the Friedenskirche in Halle.

531
00:42:23,559 --> 00:42:27,632
Gigs in the Friedenskirche
were a really big deal.

532
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:31,470
Everyone from Leipzig, Berlin
and Dresden all met up there.

533
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:34,480
The STASI would
turn back whole trains

534
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:37,309
if they saw punks on them.

535
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:47,390
After 45 minutes,

536
00:43:47,839 --> 00:43:50,751
we'd done all our songs.
They kept on clapping,

537
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:54,476
so we had to do it again.
It was so great with "Slime Germ"

538
00:43:54,919 --> 00:43:56,796
especially with the differences.

539
00:43:57,240 --> 00:44:00,232
I thought they were great.
It was so different.

540
00:44:00,679 --> 00:44:03,239
They were younger
and wanted something else.

541
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:05,750
He played drums

542
00:44:06,199 --> 00:44:07,871
like he was slaughtering a pig.

543
00:44:08,319 --> 00:44:09,638
It was a different energy.

544
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:11,479
They weren't artists, they worked

545
00:44:11,919 --> 00:44:13,477
at the slaughterhouse.

546
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,480
They brought something new to punk,

547
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:19,480
different than us academy students.

548
00:44:21,519 --> 00:44:24,238
The cops never asked,
"Is Corneila Schleime there?"

549
00:44:24,679 --> 00:44:29,275
Or "Anybody with a Mohawk?"
They just moved us all out.

550
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:33,075
I had this top on once
and my left breast came out.

551
00:44:33,519 --> 00:44:36,431
"I'm not going to put it back in!
I'll just leave it!"

552
00:44:36,879 --> 00:44:39,677
They all thought it was on purpose.

553
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,476
I was so ashamed,
Catholic and romantic before...

554
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:46,150
And there I was on the stage

555
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,433
and I didn't care
if my breast was showing or not.

556
00:44:49,879 --> 00:44:51,995
It changed a lot inside of me.

557
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,352
At that time, it was the best way

558
00:44:55,799 --> 00:44:59,474
for me to confront the state,

559
00:45:00,879 --> 00:45:04,269
living it out in my subculture.

560
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:09,637
It's more fun
than fighting with the kid next door.

561
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:13,231
Punk is communication,
I didn't write lines for myself,

562
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,468
What do I get
from saying it all to myself?

563
00:45:17,919 --> 00:45:19,671
No, it has to
be yelled into an audience.

564
00:45:20,119 --> 00:45:24,112
So it was a form of communication.

565
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:30,954
It was very direct.

566
00:45:31,399 --> 00:45:35,836
I was in the now,
not in an artificial bubble, in the now.

567
00:45:36,279 --> 00:45:38,076
There's a change right there.

568
00:45:38,519 --> 00:45:41,033
Earlier,
I had been in a bubble, in the past.

569
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:43,789
I wanted to paint like
Paula Modersohn-Becker or something.

570
00:45:44,240 --> 00:45:46,231
We read a lot.

571
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,797
We occupied ourselves with the past.
There was no present in East Germany,

572
00:45:50,240 --> 00:45:53,391
it was all too pathetic,
we made do with the past.

573
00:45:53,839 --> 00:45:55,909
There was no future, either.

574
00:45:56,359 --> 00:45:59,954
So punk was the only chance
to live in the present.

575
00:46:00,399 --> 00:46:05,268
Just the fact of our existence
was already a rebellion.

576
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:09,553
There was no way
we could see that at the time.

577
00:46:09,999 --> 00:46:13,548
We wanted to change the world
and maybe we did, just a little.

578
00:46:13,999 --> 00:46:15,796
A little, tiny bit.

579
00:46:26,359 --> 00:46:29,635
I had a couple
of illegal exhibitions in the East.

580
00:46:30,079 --> 00:46:32,309
People reacted differently. They said,

581
00:46:32,759 --> 00:46:35,557
"Wow, Connie, you're developing
so well! When I think

582
00:46:35,999 --> 00:46:39,469
what you were doing 2 years ago
and now you're doing this!"

583
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,151
In the West,
they only count the 'sold' stickers.

584
00:46:43,599 --> 00:46:47,069
No one is interested how an artist developed.

585
00:46:50,359 --> 00:46:52,156
There's a gap...

586
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:54,672
I hate that...

587
00:46:59,759 --> 00:47:04,435
You live alone out there with
your inner monologue, paint pictures.

588
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,348
Then all these people saying,
"That is so great!

589
00:47:07,799 --> 00:47:10,677
So many red stickers,
red stickers, red stickers..."

590
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,998
I almost had a breakdown.
I should have been happy

591
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:18,399
to have sold everything, instead...
I took off at 12 o'clock.

592
00:47:18,839 --> 00:47:21,353
All the collectors in the restaurant

593
00:47:21,799 --> 00:47:23,630
and I disappeared at 12.

594
00:47:24,079 --> 00:47:26,229
I'm still the same as always.

595
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:31,674
Whether a punk or not,
I am still Connie Schleimer.

596
00:47:32,119 --> 00:47:33,916
And not very compatible.

597
00:47:35,799 --> 00:47:38,871
I always make a spectacle of myself,
I was born that way.

598
00:47:39,319 --> 00:47:42,470
No idea, it's just how I am.
I can't even separate

599
00:47:42,919 --> 00:47:46,878
what is show and what is really me.
It's all just part of me.

600
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:23,311
Does the backup usually sing that?

601
00:48:23,919 --> 00:48:25,716
No, they go...

602
00:48:36,399 --> 00:48:41,029
One more time.
I did that shorter last time, right?

603
00:48:42,319 --> 00:48:44,879
Okay, you can do two more anyway.

604
00:49:32,319 --> 00:49:36,790
Fine. We'll look at it at 4 o'clock.
If it's necessary...

605
00:49:51,079 --> 00:49:54,867
for whatever reason,
even if it's only for your self-esteem,

606
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:59,871
then you have to be prepared
to give everything for that.

607
00:50:01,319 --> 00:50:02,468
Sorry...

608
00:50:12,199 --> 00:50:15,635
It's a real sore point in my life,

609
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:19,231
that you have to be ready

610
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:22,478
to give everything
for what you believe in.

611
00:50:22,919 --> 00:50:26,628
I have had to sacrifice a lot

612
00:50:27,079 --> 00:50:30,594
for those things,
in my case, especially

613
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:33,873
for my career, I've had to pay.

614
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:39,348
I've had to fight
with all of my shortcomings.

615
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:42,678
My relationships never really work,

616
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:46,192
I feel a regret for that.

617
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,670
I am very happy.
My wife and I have a daughter.

618
00:50:50,119 --> 00:50:53,156
She turned 17 two days ago.

619
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:04,758
In the early 90s,
I met a couple of guys from the Rocker Club

620
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,510
and we got pretty close
and so I said, "Okay"...

621
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:12,077
'cause I'm a bit of a family guy...
"This is my place in life."

622
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,273
I decided to do it
and became a member.

623
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:18,153
You had to have a Harley.

624
00:51:22,119 --> 00:51:25,998
That decision affects everything.
You have to live with that

625
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:28,471
and know yourself very well.

626
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:31,990
But it doesn't always work.

627
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:34,556
At least not in my case.

628
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:37,668
The charge was
blackmail and armed kidnapping.

629
00:51:38,119 --> 00:51:40,474
It was 60 million marks.

630
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:43,957
We were arrested at the hand-over

631
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,437
and were all sent
to different prisons to await trial.

632
00:51:47,879 --> 00:51:50,188
I went to Stammheim prison,

633
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:52,596
where the RAF terrorists had been.

634
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,315
Riding a Harley is like
listening to punk, or vice versa.

635
00:52:24,359 --> 00:52:27,078
Shooting toward the horizon
with a thundering roar.

636
00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:30,478
That and a bit of happiness,
that's a Harley to me.

637
00:52:30,919 --> 00:52:33,387
It's just a toy to me.

638
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,070
I like riding motorcycles,
but I don't need to boast

639
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:39,159
about riding 3000 km through
the snow, that's not my thing.

640
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:41,716
"What's a little rain and snow?
We all love the Soviet Union!"

641
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:46,639
My favorite time
is always June or early July,

642
00:52:47,079 --> 00:52:51,550
when the Linden trees blossom
and you drive through Berlin at night

643
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,197
with that sweet smell. That's okay.

644
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:03,635
That's living!

645
00:53:07,240 --> 00:53:09,276
Baby, I am on set!

646
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:13,670
Yes... No, it's fine.
What is it? Doesn't matter.

647
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:19,115
I was out on my bike
and we're almost finished.

648
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:24,480
Bye. We can continue now.

649
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:32,113
The first song I ever wrote,

650
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:36,917
"Ugly," was about a guy my age

651
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:38,395
who is ugly,

652
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:41,550
who doesn't look like he wants to.

653
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:57,111
He is alone,

654
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:00,791
he's Ionesome and nobody cares.

655
00:54:01,240 --> 00:54:07,076
The chorus was, "Everyone walks
past him, he's the latest thing."

656
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:11,149
"When women mix with men,
there are no heroes anymore.

657
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:15,309
Our fathers lie sweating in the night,
cold winter, I fell off."

658
00:54:15,759 --> 00:54:18,876
Good God, with emphasis?
- "War, death, get up again."

659
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:24,474
"You stand in line, you don't
turn around, you recognized him."

660
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:28,515
"Close your windows, you won't hear
our screams, then you'll have peace."

661
00:54:29,639 --> 00:54:32,392
"I'm gonna kill you, drop-out."

662
00:54:32,839 --> 00:54:36,878
"Close your ass and your hands,
faded like a crocodile's flippers

663
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:40,073
and your noses
blew up in your faces."

664
00:54:40,519 --> 00:54:42,874
"Everywhere you may go,
they'll check your pass

665
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:46,835
and you know what'll happen
if you say the wrong thing."

666
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:49,475
"War, death, get up again."

667
00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:53,672
At 14 you're afraid, sure.

668
00:54:54,119 --> 00:54:58,032
Afraid that the cops
will show up at your door and...

669
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:01,597
make something of your lyrics.

670
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,510
"And your legs, pointy and thin,
they carry a jellyfish body

671
00:55:05,959 --> 00:55:08,427
that trembles in fear at night
because everything's gone wrong."

672
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:10,871
"Close your windows,

673
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:12,196
you won't hear our screams,

674
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:13,675
then you'll have peace..."

675
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:28,592
Free from my parents' inhibitions,

676
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:32,237
out of the inhibitions
of my mother's life,

677
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:34,875
finally free and finally...

678
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:38,437
You're still young
and it's perfectly clear that first

679
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:39,869
you're gonna have fun.

680
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:52,913
We moved into an apartment,

681
00:55:53,639 --> 00:55:56,028
it was our first squat.

682
00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:58,797
We'd really made ourselves at home.

683
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:02,356
Punks visited, too, and we really lived.

684
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:05,629
For a while,
I had such a great feeling,

685
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:09,709
but it was still summer.
It went well until August 11th.

686
00:56:10,160 --> 00:56:12,071
I was 17 and a half.

687
00:56:13,720 --> 00:56:15,711
I'd been awake all night.

688
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:19,830
There was a knock at the door.

689
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:23,556
Then Jana said... It was Jana,

690
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:24,989
"It's open!"

691
00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:28,713
That was strange. Why a knock?
That wasn't normal.

692
00:56:29,159 --> 00:56:31,434
It was always open, come and go.

693
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:39,510
We investigated and ascertained
who had been on stage

694
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:42,155
and then they were simply...

695
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:47,318
very early in the morning,
they were paid a visit.

696
00:56:47,879 --> 00:56:51,667
It had never happened to me
that someone had come so early

697
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:56,349
and taken me for "routine questioning"
without warning.

698
00:56:56,800 --> 00:56:58,677
I knew this was it.

699
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:02,078
The goal
was to undermine the music groups

700
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:04,112
and thereby the whole scene.

701
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:06,994
This had never been done

702
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,271
before with such a large

703
00:57:09,720 --> 00:57:12,029
group of undesirables.

704
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:14,232
I felt strong.

705
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,472
I felt really strong
because I knew it was time.

706
00:57:18,919 --> 00:57:22,195
It was time
to find out if I was truly strong

707
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:24,471
and I knew I was.

708
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:31,758
But I didn't know what it was
all about, the scale of it.

709
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:37,876
But in any case,
you can see it in my files,

710
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:41,471
that I didn't say anything.
There was a lot of pressure,

711
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,480
not physical, but psychological,

712
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:47,639
to talk. I only said,
"I refuse to make a statement."

713
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:53,473
The 24 hours you had for questioning
were, naturally, intensively used...

714
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:55,831
The interrogations were aggressive.

715
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:58,953
The guy pulled my hair
and kicked my chair.

716
00:57:59,399 --> 00:58:02,869
You knew you were helpless.

717
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:05,072
It is psychological warfare.

718
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:13,873
<i>The State Security Ministry [STASl]</i>

719
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:15,878
<i>Ensures the inviolability</i>

720
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:17,275
<i>of the security</i>

721
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:19,153
<i>of the German Democratic Republic</i>

722
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:20,669
<i>in every situation.</i>

723
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:22,551
The classic example
was the Blues-Mass in 1983.

724
00:59:23,239 --> 00:59:26,470
At such a BLUES-MESSE event,
the punk group "Nameless"

725
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:31,232
was invited to perform.
This lyric was among their songs...

726
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:34,197
Here, "Terrorist," this is it.

727
00:59:36,120 --> 00:59:39,157
"Is it worth marching
for the one who doesn't love you?

728
00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:41,955
Is it worth marching...

729
00:59:46,759 --> 00:59:49,478
Is it worth marching
for the one who locks you up?"

730
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:50,989
Clearly counter-revolutionary.

731
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:53,715
"Speak it, say it, cry it out,

732
00:59:54,160 --> 00:59:56,515
the truth is so distant!

733
00:59:56,960 --> 00:59:59,349
Speak it, say it, cry it out,

734
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:01,438
what will it all come to?

735
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:03,996
Speak it, say it, cry it out,

736
01:00:04,560 --> 01:00:06,551
the papers are red.

737
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:09,195
Speak it, say it, cry it out,

738
01:00:09,639 --> 01:00:11,630
the citizens look dead.

739
01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:14,238
Speak it, say it, cry it out,

740
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:16,557
listen to us, informant.

741
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:20,909
If we go to prison for this,
you can be sure

742
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:24,112
that we're coming out one day

743
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:25,709
and we're gonna..."

744
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:31,635
The next morning

745
01:00:32,080 --> 01:00:35,834
the imprisonment orders were signed.

746
01:00:45,240 --> 01:00:47,879
Then I was in a cell.

747
01:00:48,480 --> 01:00:51,552
The cell was wonderfully calm.

748
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:55,471
Finally some peace and quiet.
It had all been so much.

749
01:01:01,639 --> 01:01:03,550
This isn't some game.

750
01:01:04,600 --> 01:01:07,273
No parents or friends to help you...

751
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:09,358
You were in the lion's den.

752
01:01:09,799 --> 01:01:12,871
From there, you were transported
to whatever prison you were going to.

753
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:16,073
In East Germany,
they always took you to another city,

754
01:01:16,519 --> 01:01:18,874
in a prisoner transport train.

755
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,995
I was sent to Naumburg,
to the regular prison.

756
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:27,956
We had to work, it was prison,
and I'd been there 2 or 3 months

757
01:01:28,960 --> 01:01:33,238
and I was doing fine,
I was coping with the situation.

758
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:36,752
I knew some people,
it wasn't my first time...

759
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:41,432
The first time, I was in STASI
custody and then out again.

760
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:45,270
The second time
I was imprisoned for real.

761
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:50,271
The door opened and in came
the newcomers, the latest batch.

762
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:53,188
I came into the room, 16 guys,

763
01:01:53,639 --> 01:01:56,199
with my cup
and my blanket under my arm...

764
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:59,393
I thought,
"Here we go. What happens now?"

765
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:02,957
You go in, find a bed,
there was only one free...

766
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:05,197
I asked if it was okay...

767
01:02:05,959 --> 01:02:10,077
And there was Stracke.
He hadn't seen me.

768
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:13,557
He had his bowl,
his blue and white sheets and...

769
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:16,958
he was looking around,
kind of intimidated.

770
01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:21,279
I'd recognized him,
but hadn't said anything...

771
01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:26,350
There was Colonel in the corner!
I hadn't recognized him at first.

772
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:29,394
He looks at me, I look at him
and I thought, "Thank God!

773
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:31,273
I'm gonna be alright."

774
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:35,670
I'm sure he knew the old stories,
fucked in the ass or whatever...

775
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:38,839
Eastern prisons were pretty harsh.

776
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:41,999
The Colonel
had experience with all this

777
01:02:42,439 --> 01:02:45,636
and I knew that Colonel

778
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:48,150
is someone you can rely on.

779
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:52,793
A girl came to my cell sometime

780
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:57,233
and I learned from her
what all the knocking was.

781
01:02:58,119 --> 01:03:02,829
I learned how to
talk with the others by knocking.

782
01:03:03,280 --> 01:03:06,716
You were in a cell
and never addressed by name.

783
01:03:07,160 --> 01:03:09,879
You were either "left" or "right,"
depending where your bed was.

784
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:13,312
Either you were alone
or you were called "one" and "two."

785
01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:16,752
I was in custody 7 weeks.

786
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:18,872
Almost exactly.

787
01:03:19,920 --> 01:03:23,674
Firstly, I was under-aged and
secondly, somehow conspicuous.

788
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:27,078
Whatever.
I don't know why they decided...

789
01:03:27,520 --> 01:03:29,636
Maybe because my father was Venezuelan

790
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:32,548
and had some diplomatic ties here...

791
01:03:34,279 --> 01:03:36,349
I was psychologically examined.

792
01:03:36,800 --> 01:03:40,588
Six weeks later, I was pulled out,
"Left, step forward!"

793
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:44,350
I was taken downstairs to an empty cell.

794
01:03:44,800 --> 01:03:47,030
My regular clothes were there.

795
01:03:47,480 --> 01:03:50,790
I knew I was getting out.
I had to go to some court building

796
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:55,836
where my parents and Connie
and some others were waiting for me.

797
01:03:56,280 --> 01:04:00,592
Then an officer picked me up
a couple of minutes later,

798
01:04:01,040 --> 01:04:06,239
we went down a couple of hallways
and came to another section.

799
01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:10,309
There was wallpaper and carpeting
and there were lots of single rooms.

800
01:04:10,759 --> 01:04:14,149
The door opened, I stood there,
my Marlies was sitting there,

801
01:04:14,599 --> 01:04:17,671
my fucking interrogator and a guard.

802
01:04:18,119 --> 01:04:21,077
I was happy,
but didn't know what to say.

803
01:04:21,519 --> 01:04:24,795
We'd hadn't seen each other,
didn't know what had happened.

804
01:04:25,240 --> 01:04:28,550
You weren't allowed to touch
or say hello or anything.

805
01:04:28,999 --> 01:04:33,789
You had to sit there,
totally agitated,

806
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:38,233
but you couldn't kiss,
or hug or anything.

807
01:04:38,920 --> 01:04:41,798
Then I got out and it was horrifying.

808
01:04:42,240 --> 01:04:45,391
I had been bad, too, and wanted...

809
01:04:46,320 --> 01:04:50,472
So you're suddenly out
and all your friends are still inside

810
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:57,278
and you can't handle your freedom...

811
01:04:57,720 --> 01:05:01,599
What good is it?
The punk scene was basically destroyed.

812
01:05:02,040 --> 01:05:03,917
I had really strong paranoia.

813
01:05:04,359 --> 01:05:09,353
I drank a lot of alcohol
and took pills, hoping to die.

814
01:05:09,799 --> 01:05:12,996
I walked the streets, drunk and crying.

815
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:17,673
People tried to help me.
There was this one woman...

816
01:05:18,119 --> 01:05:23,751
I was crying underneath a streetlamp

817
01:05:24,720 --> 01:05:27,314
and this woman comes up to me
and asks if she can help.

818
01:05:27,759 --> 01:05:31,195
What made it worse was knowing
she couldn't help me at all.

819
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:36,077
All my friends are in jail
and itjust wasn't possible.

820
01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:57,198
The situation was so bad.

821
01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:06,392
Where was I?

822
01:07:27,240 --> 01:07:31,597
If I know what the digger is for,
I can't use the image anymore.

823
01:07:32,040 --> 01:07:35,077
That's why I started
to paint these martial images.

824
01:07:35,520 --> 01:07:38,398
This wheel,
pulling mud out of the lake

825
01:07:38,840 --> 01:07:41,912
had something erotic to me.
It is like...

826
01:07:42,880 --> 01:07:46,555
Although it's mechanical,
it was still very erotic,

827
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:50,390
that digger,
going in and pulling out the mud.

828
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:55,436
Itjust worked. I never question
the images. It's all gut-feeling.

829
01:07:55,879 --> 01:07:58,677
I think I wanted images that showed

830
01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:02,635
the feeling of imprisonment.
East Germany was a prison,

831
01:08:03,079 --> 01:08:05,149
you couldn't be who you wanted to be

832
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:08,672
and I think the bandages were that
to me, the pressure of them.

833
01:08:09,120 --> 01:08:11,634
That you can't see or breathe.

834
01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:18,991
I did it with wire, too.
It was a kind of mutilation.

835
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:23,990
You wanted to be shocking, too.

836
01:08:27,720 --> 01:08:29,870
I walked through Berlin
wearing a gas mask.

837
01:08:30,320 --> 01:08:34,279
I did things I couldn't believe.
I was so unhappy.

838
01:08:34,719 --> 01:08:38,189
I waited for years to emigrate
and they wouldn't let me.

839
01:08:40,120 --> 01:08:43,032
I hoped
the STASI would see the films

840
01:08:43,480 --> 01:08:45,357
and finally want to get rid of me.

841
01:08:49,400 --> 01:08:53,188
I wanted some pigeons
and stupidly thought to catch them.

842
01:08:53,640 --> 01:08:57,474
Then I called the agriculture
ministry, saying I was making a film.

843
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:01,356
They thought it was for the TV
and not some little super-8 thing.

844
01:09:01,800 --> 01:09:04,314
The guy from the ministry told me

845
01:09:04,760 --> 01:09:08,833
the pigeons in Berlin were sick.
"How unfortunate," I said.

846
01:09:09,279 --> 01:09:13,557
He gave me the number
of the pigeon fanciers' club.

847
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:18,278
The guy there said,
"Come on over, I'll give you 15 or 20

848
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:22,789
from my coop.
They were all prizewinners

849
01:09:23,239 --> 01:09:25,594
that he'd caught and boxed up for me.

850
01:09:26,040 --> 01:09:29,316
"How do I get them back to you?"
"Open the window.

851
01:09:29,760 --> 01:09:32,069
They're homing pigeons,
they'll just fly back."

852
01:09:32,519 --> 01:09:35,158
You could get away
with a lot in East Germany.

853
01:09:35,920 --> 01:09:39,629
The film set was chaos.
I'd brought a duvet,

854
01:09:40,080 --> 01:09:43,629
shook all the feathers out. There
I was with pigeons and feathers.

855
01:09:44,560 --> 01:09:48,599
But the feathers
also flew down onto the street

856
01:09:49,040 --> 01:09:52,157
and of all people,
his wife saw it and called him

857
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:57,310
and told him
I was massacring his prizewinners!

858
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:05,358
Life in the punk era
was more communicative and dynamic.

859
01:10:05,800 --> 01:10:08,473
I couldn't capture that dynamism
in my paintings,

860
01:10:08,920 --> 01:10:10,672
because they follow other principles.

861
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,953
Like I said before,
"Time passes slowly," etc. There.

862
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:18,075
So I needed an adequate artistic
medium to express this feeling

863
01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:19,794
and that was film.

864
01:10:21,840 --> 01:10:25,753
I wanted something
to occupy me and keep me busy

865
01:10:26,200 --> 01:10:30,318
since making punk music
was out of the question.

866
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:34,910
Not because I was afraid
of going to prison again

867
01:10:35,360 --> 01:10:37,396
but because it was over for me.

868
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:39,956
I had to develop something else.

869
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:44,117
I had always
painted and drawn and stuff...

870
01:10:45,400 --> 01:10:47,675
I didn't really feel better
until I'd fallen in love

871
01:10:48,120 --> 01:10:51,829
in my first real...
in my first lover.

872
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:57,673
And the sex thing started happening
and I had work out a lot of stuff

873
01:10:58,119 --> 01:11:01,873
and I always tried to
use the painting to help with that.

874
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:04,436
I painted a lot of porn, for example.

875
01:11:04,920 --> 01:11:09,471
Back then,
the small group of punk women

876
01:11:09,920 --> 01:11:15,472
were faced with a huge group
of punk men eager to get together.

877
01:11:15,920 --> 01:11:21,040
That's why you had to find other chicks.

878
01:11:21,840 --> 01:11:26,516
I turned 18 in March and the
big defloration happened in April.

879
01:11:26,960 --> 01:11:30,475
I always
found the Berlin girls totally hot.

880
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:31,955
Honestly.

881
01:11:32,400 --> 01:11:35,358
I was impressed that they were
always there with their big mouths,

882
01:11:35,800 --> 01:11:40,351
just like the other Berliners.
They had to assert themselves.

883
01:11:41,760 --> 01:11:45,799
Whenever I see Colonel at 17,
he drives me completely wild.

884
01:11:46,239 --> 01:11:49,834
I was so in love with Colonel
that I can still feel it.

885
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:53,989
Well, you know, maybe I am...

886
01:11:54,440 --> 01:11:55,793
I am a nice guy.

887
01:12:01,040 --> 01:12:02,871
We lay together,

888
01:12:03,320 --> 01:12:08,030
our hands gently, tenderly touching
for so long. It was so great...

889
01:12:10,960 --> 01:12:13,110
I was tingling for weeks.

890
01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:14,995
With Mita?

891
01:12:15,440 --> 01:12:18,512
That was one
of my most important relationships.

892
01:12:18,960 --> 01:12:19,915
Kaiser?

893
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:25,834
At the time I regretted
that it didn't last.

894
01:12:26,280 --> 01:12:29,875
With time,
I fooled around with a lot of them.

895
01:12:30,919 --> 01:12:32,875
Confessions of unfaithfulness...

896
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:38,957
Yeah, we'd already
broken up by that time.

897
01:14:02,640 --> 01:14:06,076
I walked out and in my rage,
I kicked over an ash bucket

898
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:09,273
without thinking of the consequences.

899
01:14:10,040 --> 01:14:13,316
The ash flew everywhere, of course.

900
01:14:14,440 --> 01:14:18,718
The only comment was,
"You know where the vacuum cleaner is."

901
01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:27,357
But I wouldn't necessarily
want to change what happened.

902
01:14:29,720 --> 01:14:32,280
It's part of life, right?

903
01:14:37,440 --> 01:14:39,032
Kicked it over...

904
01:14:39,880 --> 01:14:44,271
In the second you kick it,
you already see it coming down,

905
01:14:45,199 --> 01:14:47,474
Going everywhere, ashes, ashes...

906
01:14:48,800 --> 01:14:50,950
As black as a chimney-sweep.

907
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:52,790
Fine.

908
01:14:53,720 --> 01:14:56,280
I have to answer this one.

909
01:14:58,119 --> 01:14:59,438
My sweet wife.

910
01:15:01,040 --> 01:15:02,393
Hey, sweetie.

911
01:15:03,920 --> 01:15:05,478
Missed her twice in a row!

912
01:15:06,440 --> 01:15:08,954
Never make a woman wait.

913
01:15:09,400 --> 01:15:13,916
There's a mike in my face,
keep it clean!

914
01:15:16,360 --> 01:15:17,793
I love you, Annika.

915
01:15:34,480 --> 01:15:36,675
A... It's A.

916
01:15:41,160 --> 01:15:43,594
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...

917
01:15:52,000 --> 01:15:55,072
Just remember the E.
Play E twice in a row.

918
01:15:59,719 --> 01:16:00,674
Keep going.

919
01:16:05,120 --> 01:16:07,350
You join in, my friend

920
01:16:07,800 --> 01:16:09,472
and sound me out,

921
01:16:10,920 --> 01:16:13,434
you report the lies

922
01:16:13,840 --> 01:16:15,592
that you need.

923
01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:18,549
A hyena is

924
01:16:19,040 --> 01:16:20,951
threatened by a mouse.

925
01:16:21,960 --> 01:16:23,757
The mouse goes behind bars,

926
01:16:24,480 --> 01:16:26,550
the hyena gets let out.

927
01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:39,555
It was shocking to find out
that two guys in our band, in the bands,

928
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:42,275
were STASI informants.

929
01:16:43,279 --> 01:16:46,077
I never expected that
from either of them.

930
01:16:47,160 --> 01:16:50,470
I read my STASI files of course,

931
01:16:50,920 --> 01:16:51,909
they were very long.

932
01:16:52,400 --> 01:16:54,516
Our best friend spied on us.

933
01:16:55,120 --> 01:16:59,193
The worst part was that I didn't
have any private photos of myself.

934
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:02,279
Then in the 90s, in '91,

935
01:17:02,720 --> 01:17:06,269
when I was allowed
to read my STASI files,

936
01:17:06,719 --> 01:17:10,314
there were private photos of me.
That bothered me the most,

937
01:17:10,759 --> 01:17:12,909
being confronted with myself.

938
01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:15,469
Oh well...

939
01:17:15,920 --> 01:17:18,559
It really sucked.

940
01:17:19,000 --> 01:17:22,913
Only much later,
after I'd read my file, did I realize

941
01:17:25,120 --> 01:17:27,998
what kind of shit he'd done.

942
01:17:28,440 --> 01:17:33,719
The STASI system
stripped me completely bare

943
01:17:34,480 --> 01:17:37,995
and I still got through
personally without any damage.

944
01:17:38,440 --> 01:17:40,795
I should do something with that.

945
01:17:41,240 --> 01:17:46,678
I am also very open
about how I do things.

946
01:17:47,120 --> 01:17:49,839
Basically, nothing embarrasses me.

947
01:17:50,280 --> 01:17:53,875
They figured out
they couldn't control the punk scene

948
01:17:54,520 --> 01:18:00,390
and tried to infiltrate it
with other bands in the late 80s.

949
01:18:00,840 --> 01:18:04,310
When you infiltrate something,
you kill it.

950
01:18:23,840 --> 01:18:26,638
I think knowing

951
01:18:27,880 --> 01:18:30,872
that you've been let out,
but that you're not free

952
01:18:31,320 --> 01:18:34,278
was the worst part
of being out ofjail.

953
01:18:34,840 --> 01:18:39,356
That's what
landed me in the loony bin at 17...

954
01:18:39,720 --> 01:18:40,994
attempted suicide.

955
01:18:42,640 --> 01:18:46,519
Pretty banal. I drank
the mercury from a thermometer,

956
01:18:46,960 --> 01:18:49,599
hoping to poison myself for good.

957
01:19:18,200 --> 01:19:22,239
I write about
my psychiatric experiences, hoping

958
01:19:22,680 --> 01:19:25,592
that working them out
that way would make it unnecessary

959
01:19:26,040 --> 01:19:29,032
to go through it all again.

960
01:19:29,960 --> 01:19:32,394
It is very stressful
and yet boring at the same time.

961
01:19:32,839 --> 01:19:36,718
You get put away, you get pills,
get depressed, go back in again...

962
01:19:37,159 --> 01:19:40,834
No one bothers to help you really.
So I did it for myself.

963
01:19:41,560 --> 01:19:45,951
I won't take any pills at all.
I think that's totally crazy,

964
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:50,757
the pills just dumb down
all your senses.

965
01:20:05,360 --> 01:20:10,195
Talking with my doctor,
he told me to figure out

966
01:20:11,719 --> 01:20:15,951
what situations in life give me joy,
'cause I sort of lost that.

967
01:20:16,999 --> 01:20:21,197
After that evening I can say,
"I really feltjoy

968
01:20:21,639 --> 01:20:24,676
on stage singing and drumming."

969
01:20:32,640 --> 01:20:35,473
A lot of the guys
who went to jail when I did

970
01:20:35,920 --> 01:20:38,673
left for the West after that.
I didn't want to go.

971
01:20:39,120 --> 01:20:41,918
I wanted to stay like Jana and Mita

972
01:20:42,359 --> 01:20:46,716
after they were arrested.
I wanted to do something at home.

973
01:20:47,160 --> 01:20:50,436
'84. That's what made it happen.
I never actually wanted to go.

974
01:20:50,880 --> 01:20:53,633
I always wanted to stay.
"You'll never beat me down!"

975
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:58,358
But we went to the fucking
Baltic coast once, to Bansin,

976
01:20:58,800 --> 01:21:01,189
and the cops picked us up,
kept us off the camping place

977
01:21:01,639 --> 01:21:06,997
and we were all arrested
and our stuff was taken away.

978
01:21:07,440 --> 01:21:09,510
We had to go home

979
01:21:09,960 --> 01:21:12,679
and report to the local
police station within 24 hours.

980
01:21:13,120 --> 01:21:16,635
If we didn't,
we'd all be locked up and shit.

981
01:21:17,080 --> 01:21:19,992
At some point you say to yourself,
"How long can this go on?"

982
01:21:20,440 --> 01:21:23,477
Locked up, out again...
The army would have been

983
01:21:23,920 --> 01:21:26,229
the next big problem.
That would have been bad.

984
01:21:26,680 --> 01:21:31,470
I didn't want to serve for that country,
or any other country.

985
01:21:31,920 --> 01:21:34,878
I wouldn't go to the army
in West Germany either,

986
01:21:35,320 --> 01:21:39,791
no way, no how.
No one tells me to join the army.

987
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:43,277
I didn't have a breakdown,
but I came to realize

988
01:21:43,719 --> 01:21:45,710
that nothing would change here.

989
01:21:46,159 --> 01:21:49,674
It wasn't a life
in which I could be happy anymore.

990
01:21:50,119 --> 01:21:53,748
I was close to despair.

991
01:21:54,200 --> 01:21:57,112
You couldn't leave
and they messed with you...

992
01:21:57,560 --> 01:22:01,314
I felt really paranoid,
I had this paranoia

993
01:22:01,760 --> 01:22:04,672
and I thought I was being followed.

994
01:22:05,120 --> 01:22:09,159
Which wasn't without reason
if you go and read my files.

995
01:22:09,600 --> 01:22:14,879
"Is it not a great state,
one in which everyone is free?"

996
01:22:15,320 --> 01:22:18,676
So I slept on it
over the weekend and thought,

997
01:22:19,120 --> 01:22:23,636
"I'm going to go on a hunger strike
in the church to the bitter end."

998
01:22:24,080 --> 01:22:27,390
But first I had to come
to the decision and to do that

999
01:22:27,840 --> 01:22:29,831
I had called my friend, Ralf Kehrbach.

1000
01:22:30,279 --> 01:22:33,157
He wanted to tell the RIAS radio

1001
01:22:33,600 --> 01:22:37,798
so that the West would know
but the STASI had heard the call

1002
01:22:38,240 --> 01:22:40,708
and told me to leave within 24 hours.

1003
01:23:14,520 --> 01:23:15,748
That was a time,

1004
01:23:16,200 --> 01:23:20,079
looking at it from my perspective
now, where we made

1005
01:23:20,519 --> 01:23:23,477
these grave decisions in a totally
carefree and uninhibited manner

1006
01:23:23,920 --> 01:23:25,956
from one day to the next.

1007
01:23:26,400 --> 01:23:31,076
A duvet in my right
and 10 pictures rolled up...

1008
01:23:32,199 --> 01:23:35,191
under my arm.
That's all I have from that time.

1009
01:23:36,800 --> 01:23:38,279
You leave one system

1010
01:23:38,720 --> 01:23:40,836
and arrive in another.

1011
01:23:41,600 --> 01:23:44,956
It was astounding
to check in at Schönefeld

1012
01:23:45,400 --> 01:23:47,550
and get off in Milan.

1013
01:23:48,240 --> 01:23:52,870
When we drove over in the bus,
the other prisoners and I,

1014
01:23:53,320 --> 01:23:56,790
I sat there thinking of my friends
and what I left behind,

1015
01:23:57,240 --> 01:23:59,959
and they were all glued to
the windows in the West,

1016
01:24:00,400 --> 01:24:03,676
"Look, a Mercedes!"
"Oh, a Porsche!" and stuff...

1017
01:24:04,120 --> 01:24:05,917
I didn't give a shit.

1018
01:24:06,359 --> 01:24:10,432
I went through and
was trembling to get that stamp...

1019
01:24:10,880 --> 01:24:15,510
When I had it, it was...
A weight was lifted from me.

1020
01:24:18,520 --> 01:24:22,479
The first two or three years
after I got there...

1021
01:24:24,120 --> 01:24:27,510
I wasn't very political.
I still went to punk concerts

1022
01:24:27,960 --> 01:24:30,599
in all the places, all the bands
I'd always wanted to see.

1023
01:24:31,040 --> 01:24:33,474
I went to concerts every week.

1024
01:24:39,760 --> 01:24:42,399
I went to concerts, traveled,
I felt really good,

1025
01:24:42,839 --> 01:24:47,469
but somehow it wasn't...
I wasn't a fighter any more, y'know?

1026
01:24:47,920 --> 01:24:52,072
It was like you were...
like a retired soldier.

1027
01:24:52,519 --> 01:24:54,430
"Now you can settle down."

1028
01:24:54,879 --> 01:24:58,508
Getting into college without
a high school diploma was impossible.

1029
01:24:58,960 --> 01:25:02,077
Then someone told me
you can do that in Amsterdam,

1030
01:25:02,520 --> 01:25:05,318
at the Ritfeld Art Academy,
they take people anyway,

1031
01:25:05,760 --> 01:25:09,878
if they're good.
I'm good. I applied.

1032
01:25:10,320 --> 01:25:13,710
I went there and was accepted.
Stupidly enough.

1033
01:25:15,160 --> 01:25:19,278
Then I suffered through
six months there, absolute torture,

1034
01:25:20,440 --> 01:25:23,830
studying art, Western-style.
It was terrible.

1035
01:25:24,280 --> 01:25:26,430
They knew nothing about hard work.

1036
01:25:26,880 --> 01:25:30,589
They only wanted you
to act like an "artist."

1037
01:25:31,040 --> 01:25:32,996
I could never do that. Pity.

1038
01:25:34,400 --> 01:25:35,879
Not much on this one.

1039
01:25:36,320 --> 01:25:41,348
By the way,
the nasturtiums there make great salad.

1040
01:25:45,520 --> 01:25:49,433
While I had the professorship,
my nerves couldn't take any more.

1041
01:25:49,880 --> 01:25:53,395
I ate a lot of young nettles

1042
01:25:53,840 --> 01:25:55,910
to get my strength back.

1043
01:25:56,359 --> 01:25:57,951
This works!

1044
01:25:58,800 --> 01:26:02,759
I was named professor for life.
It was so touching, so great,

1045
01:26:03,200 --> 01:26:05,475
but I didn't have the time...
I couldn't take commuting

1046
01:26:05,920 --> 01:26:08,673
between Berlin, Ketzin and Münster,

1047
01:26:09,120 --> 01:26:11,315
I quit a month later.

1048
01:26:12,600 --> 01:26:14,238
A German record, I think.

1049
01:26:14,680 --> 01:26:18,514
To quit a lifetime professorship
one month later...

1050
01:26:20,440 --> 01:26:24,479
The is the Palace of the Republic,
or what's left of it.

1051
01:26:25,120 --> 01:26:30,148
We were never allowed in here
as little punk rockers.

1052
01:26:32,239 --> 01:26:34,992
What is this! I can't work like this!

1053
01:26:36,360 --> 01:26:39,477
I was banned from the Palace

1054
01:26:39,920 --> 01:26:41,433
and now I am burying it.

1055
01:26:42,839 --> 01:26:46,434
They aren't called bouncers anymore,
now they are servants of property.

1056
01:26:47,120 --> 01:26:49,873
But I'm not an attacker,
now I'm a defender.

1057
01:26:50,360 --> 01:26:53,636
As we learned in the East back then,
"Peace requires arms."

1058
01:26:59,520 --> 01:27:00,430
Empty.

1059
01:27:01,520 --> 01:27:02,873
Now I feel good.

1060
01:27:03,920 --> 01:27:05,319
I got it all out.

1061
01:27:05,760 --> 01:27:08,149
It's a nice feeling.

1062
01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:13,196
All I want now is
a quick shower and to disappear.

1063
01:27:14,680 --> 01:27:17,274
Maybe drink some tea or something.

1064
01:27:42,599 --> 01:27:44,590
A CONCERT 25 YEARS LATER

1065
01:28:26,040 --> 01:28:30,238
East German punk grew up alone
and died a Ionesome death.

1066
01:28:30,680 --> 01:28:32,955
It died like it came.

1067
01:28:33,400 --> 01:28:36,153
It couldn't mutate into something new.

1068
01:28:38,360 --> 01:28:41,636
The fact that we had been
totally isolated only became clear

1069
01:28:42,080 --> 01:28:43,638
when the door opened.

1070
01:28:49,600 --> 01:28:53,593
In Leipzig,
in a crowd of a hundred thousand,

1071
01:28:54,319 --> 01:28:56,549
an individual can hide.

1072
01:28:57,040 --> 01:28:59,508
But we never hid.
We showed our faces,

1073
01:28:59,960 --> 01:29:04,078
we stood for it all with our names
and our music and we paid the price.

1074
01:29:08,440 --> 01:29:12,718
Then they put up a sign,
"Leipzig, City of Heroes."

1075
01:29:18,239 --> 01:29:22,278
"City of Heroes?" Pretty bad
when you think about it. Fucking hell,

1076
01:29:22,719 --> 01:29:24,789
where were you all 10 years earlier?

1077
01:31:55,239 --> 01:31:57,275
Subtitles
Jeffrey A. McGuire

1078
01:31:57,720 --> 01:32:00,075
Film und Video Untertitelung
Gerhard Lehmann AG