Berlin Calling: A Story of Anarchy, Music, the Wall and the Birth of the New Berlin

Fascinating… Paul Hockenos has written a detailed, doggedly researched, personally involved history of Berlin’s political and musical underground over the last 50 years. Berlin Calling should be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about the German capital’s still-hip music and street politics, and to get a flavor of that turbulent city’s dark history and stubborn spirit.

Hockenos uses music as the lens through which to understand the subcultures, countercultures, evolutions, and devolutions that echoed through a West Berlin isolated by a wall whose first iteration was barbed wire and guards and whose final iteration was the “world’s biggest art gallery.” Hockenos bore witness to punk rock’s egalitarian dissonance, political and anarchistic in its assertion that everyone could make punk. …. Now, Hockenos sees a current Berlin that thrives while remembering its bohemian roots.

Can unruly artists change the world? Or do they just provide the soundtrack to history? The Berlin of the 1980s is famous for two things: a wild counterculture and the surprising end of the Cold War. Paul Hockenos, who knows the city inside out, brings them together in a fast-paced, sometimes astonishing story of underground clubs, squatters, and dissidents.

West Berlin with its bars that never closed and hard narcotics practically on tap beckoned and inspired Bowie, Iggy, Brian Eno, and Nick Cave. An untold tale until now is that of the punks, anarchists, dissidents and yes, even neo-Nazis, who rebelled against totalitarian rule in the east. I know of no other book that tells their story. Hockenos has made a vital contribution to the cultural history of post-WWII Europe. A must read…

Paul Hockenos takes a deep insider’s look at the cultural forces that have transformed and are transforming Berlin, and act on creative cities, for better and for worse, across the world. A must read for anyone who is interested in the challenges posed by the reurbanization and gentrification of the world’s great cities.

Hockenos’ secret history is knowing but never cynical, wry but serious, and effortlessly (though never casually) erudite. An extraordinarily gripping insider’s guide to the past and present of this unique, shape-shifting city, Berlin Calling also offers savvy hints as to its intriguing possible futures. This is the book every Berlin aficionado needs to own.

Hockenos uses music as the lens through which to understand the subcultures, countercultures, evolutions, and devolutions that echoed through a West Berlin isolated by a wall whose first iteration was barbed wire and guards and whose final iteration was the “world’s biggest art gallery.” Now, Hockenos sees a current Berlin that thrives while remembering its bohemian roots.