The wall is down?

I don't think so. At least not when it comes to really important things - like music ;-) While pretty much everybody in East Germany knew about the Beatles and lots of people I'm sure had heard of Marius-Müller Westerhagen and of course Nena and Udo Lindenberg most of the bands that were popular in the GDR are still not known in most parts of the West. Karat, die Puhdys, Karussell, City - just to name some of the most important ones - are still well-known even in my generation. And I thought that at least their most popular songs would now be known allover Germany. Because here they still are played at parties and people sing along to the tunes.

When I went to a friend's wedding in Northrine-Westfalia (NRW) this weekend however I had to learn that musicwise there is still a huge gap between East and West. One of the best love songs that East German musicians ever wrote is Jugendliebe by Ute Freudenberg. So when at the wedding they started playing all kinds of wedding songs I asked the people at my table ( all in their early to late 20s) whether they thought that song might be played as well or not. You should have seen the faces I got from each one of them. They really hadn't heard of it! Nor of the singer!

Disbelieving I went around to ask more people - and every single time I got that blank and questioning look on their faces. Who? Even the DJ - HE DIDN'T KNOW IT!!! How could that be? The only song of East German rock bands he had was Alt wie ein Baum by the Puhdys. So I had him play that - and only two other people joined me on the dancefloor. At least someone in the crowd knew the song but most people didn't. I was really disappointed. How can such great music not be known?

So here it is, just for my friends: Ute Freudenberg and JUGENDLIEBE =D