The Skinhead Scene in the GDR

The Eichplatz is the central square in Jena, as it was in the 1980s as well. In GDR times, the square was called „Platz der Kosmonauten“ (Cosmonaut Square). It had a fountain, the Orchid Fountain, and at the foot of tower – now called JenTower – was the Café Orchidee. 

The Orchid Fountain was a popular place for children to play, but also for young people to meet. The station to the Young Community was already about youth subcultures in the GDR. These spread more and more in the 1980s and their members also met here at the fountain and on the benches.

This stop is also about youth subcultures. In particular, it looks at how the GDR security authorities dealt with the right-wing skinhead scene.

The Socialist Unity Party (SED), the state party of the GDR, believed in educating youths to become „socialist personalities.“ Deviant opinions and attitudes, but also deviant appearance, were considered „anti-socialist“ and were rejected.

How did the state, especially the security agencies, react to the presence of right-wing skinheads? For the Ministry for State Security (MfS), or „Stasi“, the decisive factor in observing all alternative youth cultures was that they evaded the prescribed discipline and leisure activities. The following overview comes from the MfS in Weimar: All deviant youth cultures are summarised in it by the Stasi as „negativ-decadent youths“. 

For the MfS, skinheads were merely another of these deviant „negativ-decadent“ subcultures. What attitudes the youths actually held was irrelevant. Crimes committed by skinheads were usually depoliticised and simply described as „youth violence“ and „rowdyism“. In any case, the punk scene was the main focus of state repression for a long time. In the eyes of many GDR citizens, right-wing skinheads had a well-groomed appearance and were considered hard-working - this also gave them an advantage over punks in the eyes of the state security.

October 1987 marked a change in the way the state dealt with neo-Nazis in the GDR. A punk concert was held in the Zion Church in East Berlin. Here again it becomes clear how important church spaces were for the GDR opposition and for non-conformist youth cultures. The concert was attacked by skinheads from East and West Berlin, and the perpetrators were arrested afterwards. After the West Berlin press reported on it, the incident could no longer be hidden from the GDR public either.

The reaction of the GDR judiciary was harsh; the perpetrators received long prison sentences. The attack in the Zion Church marked a new strategy of the state in dealing with right-wing violence: harsh punishments as a deterrent. However, a social discussion, with a self-reflection on where right-wing youths could come from in a supposedly „anti-fascist state“, failed to materialise.

The MfS also continued to proceed on the assumption that the  „skinhead ideology“, as it was called, was „imported“ from the West. After the Zion Church attack, the security authorities increasingly focussed on skinheads. The Stasi headquarters in Berlin issued instructions to all GDR districts to report on skinheads. For the district of Gera (to which Jena belonged), this state approach towards the radical right-wing scene can also be traced at the local level, as shown by the analysis of sources from the MfS, reports from the People's Police (Volkspolizei) and the public prosecutor's office.

In 1988, the MfS documented the existence of an organised skinhead group in Lobeda. In addition, the Stasi reported that racist attitudes were generally widespread among young people in Lobeda.^*

According to the sources, the documented incidents increased greatly in 1989. For Jena, there are records of racist insults by fellow students^* , the harassment and racist insults of a school group from France at Jena West station by skinhead hooligans^* and intimidation by skinheads in front of a student dormitory in Lobeda^* . In addition,„Cosmonaut Square“, i.e. Eichplatz, also appears in the sources as a meeting place.^*

In summary, it can be stated: Organised neo-Nazis groups were in Jena even before the fall of the Wall. Today's Eichplatz was evidently a meeting place, although not the only one. Through the attacks that took place here, Cosmonaut Square became a fear zone for some. With the exception of within opposition circles, the question of where right-wing ideas, attitudes and also violence came from was not honestly discussed.

Already in the 1980s, more and more punks joined the skinheads; this trend intensified with the end of the GDR. Right-wing violence also became more open and brutal in the 1990s. The violence of the „baseball bat years“ is often attributed to the uncertainties of the upheaval from 1989/90. Accordingly, young people became skins and neo-Nazis because so much changed at once.

However, it is more plausible to explain the right-wing radicalism of the 1990s as a continuity from the GDR to the united Germany. There was already a relevant proportion of the population in GDR times that held right-wing and racist attitudes. The phenomenon already existed before and intensified in the course of the system change.

The second continuity lies in the way right-wing violence is dealt with. Even in the 1990s, right-wing violence was often dismissed purely as a „youth problem“ and neo-Nazi youths were even met with empathy and understanding. Few wanted to accept that it could be a problem of society as a whole. The attitudes of the general population, which passively supported the radical attitudes, were not sufficiently discussed.

As in the GDR, the focus of attention in the 1990s was not on the victims of the attacks, but rather on the perpetrators. This imbalance and the attempt to correct it are the subject of further stops on this tour.

Text: Raphael Bergmann