The German Gothic Subculture

Author(s): Gabriele Eckart

Source: German Studies Review , Oct., 2005, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Oct., 2005), pp. 547-562
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the German Studies
Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30038230

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 The German Gothic Subculture

Gabriele Eckart
Southeast Missouri State University

Abstract: Since the beginning of the 1990s, Germany has become the center of the
Gothic youth subculture. Their lyrics, music, and pronouncements combine a revulsion
against a rationalist, production-driven modern society and its alienating effects on the
individual, with a nostalgia for the past and a fascination with dark visions and death.
Inspired by such diverse sources as Hildegard von Bingen, the Romanticism of Eichen-
dorff, and early expressionism, their radical protest has moved both toward a fundamental
critique of an inhuman, one-dimensional society and toward a militant fascist aesthet-
ics. Special emphasis is put on the musical interpretation of poems by Gottfried Benn.

...mein Gesang macht mich heil, auch wenn er mich ver-riickt

Anke Hachfeld'

Gothic music, with its slow, dark, sometimes gloomy, electronic-based sounds and
deep-voiced vocals, emerged in the early 1980s as a provocative new force on the
German cultural scene. The musical genre's popularity increased tremendously
during the 1990s in a reunified Germany, and a growing number of fans have
evolved into a new youth subculture. Around the turn of the millennium it had
approximately sixty thousand members,2 called Grufties, in Germany and Austria.
They have their fanzines and magazines, the most important one being Zillo, and
each Easter they gather in Leipzig to celebrate the "Wave Gotik Treffen." Like the
Gothics or "Goths" in the United States, Britain, France, and other countries, they
dress in black and many paint their faces white.3 These colors, as well as accessories
like upside-down crosses, grave lamps, spiders, bats, and skulls, symbolize their
pain about and protest against the hopelessness and lack of alternatives in Western
civilization, combined with a fascination with the morbid and with death.
Subcultures are elusive, and therefore difficult objects of study. Using a text-
based approach, i.e. studying representative lyrics and pronouncements, this study
intends to introduce the Gothic subculture by means of describing three aspects of
it: 1) the socio-political reasons for the growth of the Gothic subculture around the
turn of the millennium, 2) the world view of, and 3) political differences within the
subculture. Special emphasis will be put on the musical interpretation of poems by
Gottfried Benn.

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548 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

Socio-political Reasons
Jerrold E. Hogle noticed that there has been an ap
around the turns of the last two centuries. He asks
the modem West inherently produce middle-class fe
and ominous that these are best externalized, albeit
or monstrosities... ?"4 Hogle's observations focus o
film, but his conclusions are also valid for Germany
the so-called Schauerromantik, and one century lat
sionism; both movements include Gothic elements
fears and anxieties of the middle class. At our turn
German literature show a Gothic revival in authors
Grinbein, and Duve, but Gothic also emerged in po
Gothic preoccupations in their own lyrics and set t
writers of the past whom they consider to have suf
hopelessness and anxiety.
The reason for the Gothic revival today, accordin
of totalizing computer simulations and Internet cyb
threat to human identity."'5 Gothic expressions in art
ing it from simulation. It does so, as Hogle shows, b
skeletal, or spectral monstrosities that push the fan
ity that is made from "irresolvable contradictions i
cultural existence."6 Many statements made by prot
that Hogle's observations are correct. Anke Hachfeld
wrote:

I think man has established himselfpretty inhumanly in his society. Our thinking
is becoming more and more one-dimensional, more and more brain-oriented.
We increasingly stress reason and focus with intense passion on the intellect.
This shift in emphasis, and most of us know it, has to do with the mode of pro-
duction and the increasing appreciation of technology. In our society everything
revolves around productivity and functionality.7

Bruno Kramm, composer and musician in the band Das Ich,8 expresses his feelings
of terror of the ever-increasing power of modemrn media. Asked about the reasons
for adapting poems from Gottfried Benn's early collection Morgue, Kramm said:

I think Gottfried Benn is correct in his basic assertion that the heart, the soul,
and the ego are in danger, especially in today's world of multi-media where
contacts between humans have become more and more impoverished, where
people suffer from loneliness, where people are forced by the media to conform to
images, which they are unable to match and.., which ultimately break them.9

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Gabriele Eckart 549

The German Gothic su

during the 1990s, and
it had been Great Br
but it started to stag
reported to have most
wondered why the co
the West. "People in t
to the themes of our
from the desire to exp
In fact, however, the
been closely watched
1989 the Stasi counted
Jana Simon remembers

the GDR was the land

ears and around their n
of the ruling system
grandchildren of the
became immersed in

However, in the late 1

heavy metal, punk, ne
The authorities also str
wall, when they start
they liked, young Eas
its obsession with the
The East German wr
"Horrorvisionen" in t
ing visions for the fu
cause nightmarish fea
demonical powers? It
being a marketable en
many East Germans.
listening to strange m
their individual lives a
tory and scary reality
In West Germany, ho
tural style, there is als
not only in Leipzig, b
Germany come from t
between Gothic cultur
a German tribe. But s

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550 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

derives from the English tradition of the Gothic nov

funereal, scary. In the early 1980s, bands like The Cur
Gothic music from England to Germany; the name r
since the late 1990s, a new movement called "neofo
German Gothic subculture that stresses its relation to
Goths. The reason for the continuing strong interes
and the Gothic subculture, according to Joe Asmodo
must be: "ein typisch deutscher Hang zur Romantik

The World View

The world view of the present Gothic subculture in Germany, with its great diver-
sity of groups, is hard to define.16 In 2003, in a letter to the author of this article,
18-year-old Berlin Gothic Maria Roca, who is a fan of the band Goethe's Erben,
explained what Gothic means to her:

For me it means a kind of melancholy and reflectivity that spreads to all areas
of life. When I see the world through the eyes of a Gothic, I see mainly the
dark sides, which are by no means necessarily the bad ones. But if that were
the only thing, I could also listen to EMO17 or to some sad alternative rock.
With Gothic there is an additional sense of longing to reach a level that one
can't grasp as a normal person. I think that is why many Gothics feel drawn
to death and such. They are simply seeking something that goes beyond this
world and which completes their gloomy outlook.'8

Maria's emphasis on the concept of Sehnsucht or "longing" to differentiate "Gothic"

from other melancholic responses to our present world makes one suspect that its
worldview is neo-romantic. Interviews of key protagonists of the Gothic scene tend
to confirm this. Thus Hans D. writes:

Most people in the Gothic scene want to distinguish themselves from the average,
everyday world, where there is not much room for fantasy and deviation from
the norm. Gothic can be a fantasy world to escape into, a dark romantic world.
You can express a Gothic feel in music, but also in clothing, art, literature, film.
Some have a nostalgia for the past, others embrace modemrn technology. For
some people music is the most important, for others it's more about the look.
But it's all interconnected.'9

Such sense of interconnectedness of various manifestations of life had been part of

the romantic desire to overcome the functional differentiation of modemrn society
and its alienating effects on the individual. Most German Gothics share a nostalgia
for the past and dramatize it as an escape from what is perceived as a dangerous
development ofhuman society threatening the individual. It seems as if, by asserting

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 Gabriele Eckart 551

their nostalgic values,

capable of stopping or
the past is the mediev
German Gothic clubs ce
of the fans of the fam
Corvus Corax, Freibur
medieval music or com
the Gothic subculture. Meister Selbfried from Corvus Corax stated the reason for
his band's re-creation of the spirit of the medieval minstrels, including pipes and
drums in their orchestra:

These songs convey the reality between boisterous, worldly dance and spiri-
tuality. It is the closeness of life and death, of beginning and end, which the
medieval person experienced every day. Every new day could also be the last.
Life was a gift that one had to work hard for again each day, but which one
could also enjoy to its fullest.20

Such statements reveal the wish to return to a more organic form of traditional
life as an escape from the functionally differentiated modern society with its
rationalizing effects on human life. It is not surprising that German Gothics also
feel close to Romanticism, which had emerged as a reaction to social and cultural
rationalization during the age of Enlightenment. Many covers of the CDs include
symbols of Romantic art, especially that of Caspar David Friedrich. Many bands
adapt poems of romantic writers. A good example is Bruno Kramm's song "Der
Nachtmar" (elf), in which he plays with Eichendorff's poem "Mondnacht" (moon
night). Taking off from the famous lines "Es war als hitt der Himmel / die Erde
still gektisst," (It was as if heaven / had silently kissed the earth), Kramm ends his
song with a kind of wishful thinking that is typical for the Gothic subculture:

Es war als hitt' mein Weinen It was as if my crying

Den Himmelsgrund geriihrt Had touched Heaven
Und all das matte Leiden And moved all somber suffering
Zum Innehalt verfiuhrt.21 To cease.

In addition, Gothics try to blend different arts, mainly music, literature,

and film. Das Ich produced the sound for Helmut HaBler's underground fil
ewige Licht. The stage decorations for most bands' live performances are re
able art works, and so are the covers of some bands' CD's; most outstandi
those of Lacrimosa.22 The band Goethes Erben, on the other hand, combin
music with sophisticated acting and insertions of mime, calling its perform
not concerts, but Musiktheater.

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552 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

The most visible effort to intertwine different arts in

desire to unify sound and word, music and poetry. Tho

the band L 'aime Immortelle, remembers: "It was pr
me about the music in the 'Gothic' range: a perfect s
that had something to say."23 As Giovanni di Stefan
revive the myth of a unity of sound and word during
ended "almost inevitably in the complete dominatio
or vice versa."24 In the songs of most Gothic bands
overpowering that Thomas Rainer's impression of t
music and significant texts turns out to be illusory.
music and literature is remarkable. Most bands set thei
musical interpretations of renowned German poetry
production by Goethes Erben, the lyrics tend to ov
songs, this band from Bayreuth deconstructs concep
of German idealism like "Form," "Ideal," or "Sinnstr
In the lyrics of most Gothic bands words repres
repelling ugliness of the decaying human body, dom
in a side of Romanticism. Jochen Schulte-Sasse has
ing to Romantic opinion, the critical potential of th
Romantics viewed as being able to 'negate' the soci
lost completely in the functional appropriation of t
had to be useful for the society, but, for the Roman
"the essence of the fine arts not to want to be useful"
subjugates everything to an economic standard. Ho
tried to free the aesthetic realm and, with it, the categ
structure of bourgeois society, the German Gothics
ugly, which, they think wishfully, would resist any
seems that the predominance of the ugly in poem
the reason that several Gothic bands increasingly pr
Benn's and Georg Trakl's early poetry.
A good example is the CD Morgue, produced by Da
the perfect musical representation for Benn's seem
descriptions of decaying human bodies on the one han
of beauty on the other hand. As Christoph Eykman
beauty in Benn's early poetry only function as "unte
(an emphatic way to contrast).27 Das Ich, in its mus
poetry, goes far beyond this function. The little ast
from the corpse of a drunken beer delivery driver
music in "Nachtcaf6" do not merely render the de
even more repellent; the Gothics also use them to o
institutionally autonomous aesthetic realm.

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 Gabriele Eckart 553

Political Differences within the Gothic Subculture

Most bands that gather every year to celebrate the Wave-Gothic-Festival turn
toward periods of the past with irrational components. These are mainly periods
that dramatized the word death and raised the question "When is a human being
really dead?" The answers given to this question by different Gothics are diffuse;
they agree only that death is more than "clinical death."28 This strong interest is
escapist; the Gothic subculture is nonpolitical. However, there are exceptions.
In songs of the group Von Thronstahl,29 for instance, the sheer celebration of ag-
gressive instincts and the concomitant denigration of rationality lead its fans in a
politically right-wing direction. Joseph Klumb, the band's musical and ideological
mastermind, claims that he does not intend to glorify fascism.30 In the CD's ac-
companying art work he presents himself as a medieval knight with long hair and
a falcon sitting on his hand. However, in the band's most renowned CD "Imperium
Intemrnum," the mixture of bombastic and militaristic sounds with sampled spoken
vocals that focus on the words Heimat, Erde, Vaterland, as well as war cries, leads
nai've young people to just such a glorification.
Like many other Gothic bands, Von Thronstahl likes to combine poetry and
music in its songs; like Das Ich it has a preference for Gottfried Benn. However, an
analysis of the song "Das neue Reich" (track 12 of the CD "Imperium Internum")
shows that Von Thronstahl's approach to Benn's poetry is very different from Das
Ich's and, if we define fascism as a cult of masculine aggression, indeed fascist.
The song-a "driving, beat-heavy call to action and glory and bloodshed in
general"31 interprets Gottfried Benn's poem "Die Trunkene Flut," written in 1927.
The music--churning strings punctuated by occasional flashes of brass-is non-
developing; it is static. The band intertwines Benn's text with lines from Stefan
George's poem "Der Dichter in Zeiten der Wirren" (1921) from the collection
"Das neue Reich," which was later misused by the Nazis in their establishment
of the Third Reich. Benn's poem should be rendered here completely since it is
necessary to understand which parts of the poem Von Thronstahl ignored:

Trunkene Flut, Drunken tide,

trance- und traumgefleckt, dotted with trance and dream,
o Absolut, oh Absoluteness

das meine Stimrne deckt, that covers my brow,

um das ich ringe, that I strive for,
aus dem der Preis from which spring
der tiefen Dinge, all things profound
die die Seele weil3. that the soul knows.

In Stemenfieber, In a starry ecstasy,

das nie ein Auge mal3, which no eye ever beheld,
N~ichte, Lieber, nights, in love,

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554 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

when we forgot about death

dass man des Tods vergaf3,
im Zeiten-Einen, time fused into one
im Schapfungsschrei in the scream of creation
kommt das Vereinen, we are joined,
nimmt hin--vorbei. takes it--it's all over.
Denn du alleine Because you alone
nach grol3er Nacht, after a great night,
Komrn und Weine grains and wines
dargebracht, offered up,
die Wilder nieder, the forests down,
die Hiimer leer, cornucopias empty,
zu Gribern wieder and Demeter descends
steigt Demeter, to the graves again,

die noch im Riicken, she's still in our spine,

im Knochenbau, in our bones,
dann ein Entziicken, then ecstasy,
ein Golf aus Blau, an abyss of blue,
von Trinen alt, of old tears,
aus Not und Gebrest from distress and misery
eine Schdpfergestalt, emerges a creator figure
die uns leben lasst, who lets us live,

die viel gelitten, who has suffered much,

die vieles sah, who has seen so much,
immer in Schritten moving step by step
dem Ufer nah near the shore
der trunkenen Flut, of the drunken tide
die die Seele deckt that lends cover to the soul

gro3 wie der Fingerhut as big as the foxglove

sommers die Berge fleckt.32 that dots the mountains
in summer time.33

The song starts with bombastic music that almost drowns Klumb's voice, which
whispers the following lines from Stefan George's poem "The Poet in Times of
Troubles" (Der Dichter in Zeiten der Wirren):

Der Slinger aber sorgt in trauer-liuften

Dass nicht das mark verfault, der keim erstickt.
Er schiirt die heilige glut die iiber-springt
Und sich die leiber formt-er holt aus btichern
Der ahnen die verheilung die nicht triigt

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 Gabriele Eckart 555

Dass die erkoren sind zum hichsten ziel

Zuerst durch tiefe iden ziehn....34

But in a mournful age it is the poet

Who keeps the marrow sound, the germ alive.
He stirs the holy flame that leaps across
And shapes the flesh in which to burn, discovers
The truth of tidings, which our fathers gave:
That those elected to the highest goal
Begin by passing through the waste....35

After a bombastic musical interlude, the song then continues with Klumb's Sprech-
gesang. This time, the singer's voice is loud and clear. Stately, it recites Benn's
poem starting from "o absolut" until "die die Seele wei3." Afterwards, the voice
goes back to George's poem, quoting the following lines in a whispering tone:

Gestihlt im banne der verruchten jahre

Ein jung geschlecht das wieder mensch und ding
Mit echten mal~en misst das sch5n und ernst
Froh seiner einzigkeit vor fremden stolz.
Sich gleich entfernt von klippen dreisten dtinkels
Wie seichten sumpf erlogner brtiderei

A younger generation rises toward him,

The youths who, steeled by times of galling pressure,
Again have honest standards for the probe
Of men and things who-fair and grave and proud
In alien worlds accept themselves for what
They are, avoid the rocks of brazen boasting
And the morass of would-be brotherhood.36

Loud music; drums produce the sound of thunder. Again, the affect appears to be
more important than musical development. Following George's verses, Klumb's
voice recites clearly Benn's poem from the lines "Im Sternenfieber" to "dass man
des Tods vergal." The last line is repeated by an echo-effect. After another short
theatrical musical interlude, Klumb continues his recitation from Benn's poem
until "nimmt hin--vorbei." "Nimmt hin" also is repeated by means of an echo.
The song ends with loud neo-Romantic-sounding music while Klumb's voice
sharply whispers George's final lines: "Er fiihrt durch sturm und grausige signale
/ Des frihrots seiner treuen schar zum werk / des wachen tags und pflanzt das
neue reich"37 ("Through tempests and the dread fanfares of dawning, / He leads

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556 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

his tried and faithful to the work / Of sober day and

The last three words are repeated slowly, in a kind o

It is important to point out that Von Thronstahl

leaves out the title as well as the first two lines of
which hint at a "Dionysian ecstasy"39 that could be
sons, including an intoxication through alcohol or a
the beginning lines, the band limits "die Aura der U
of Benn's following exclamation "o Absolut" and, g
George's poem, channels its meaning in a militar
poem, this "Absolut," which the poetic ego wants
Since Stirne in Benn's work "approximates the mean
tion "o Absolut" also suggests "that the Dionysian m
capacity for reflection."41 He is now ready to listen
hidden in his soul. While in Benn's poem the poeti
what these "deep things" signify, the band in its in
doubt about their meaning. Instead of continuing t
Stefan George's lines follow. They are put in betw
"ein jung geschlecht" (youths) that are "gestahlt,"
"froh seiner einzigkeit vor fremden stolz"-glad of
before foreigners. Benn's "deep things" are clearly
tion of German superiority.
In addition, Von Thronstahl certainly interprets B
around the word "Vereinen" (uniting), not sexually
of forming a "Verein," an organization of men wh
ignore death. Therefore the band cut off Benn's p
The Dionysian "drunken tide" makes the poet not
the collective unconscious, but also of past times, w
present time in the "Zeiten-Einen"--men of differe
purpose. While this serves the band's nationalist int
fourth stanzas, which evoke the history and myth
Mediterranean lands do not. Instead of risking the
associations in pondering Greek mythology, Von Th
Benn's poem with Stefan George's verses: "Er fihr
signale/Des frihrots seiner treuen schar zum werk/
das neue reich." (130) In the leaflet that accompani
shortened and turned into an exclamation: "Fithr u
Signale und pflanz in uns das neue Reich!" (Lead us
signals and plant in us the new empire!)--a call to e
like language.
This mentality also explains why Von Thronstahl
the poem where the word "gefleckt" appeared as a p

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Gabriele Eckart 557

und traumgefleckt." N
Benn's Dionysian frenz
sounds too much like
source of "trance and
would probably contr
the band hardens the p
with the clearer ones
This face of the Goth
Gothic revival in Germ
repulsed by the embr
culture that seemed to
assert the body by re
Das Ich musically adap
human body to protes
protest by hardening t
of German fascism ca
the musicians wear bo
and Joseph Klumb wa
rays represented for
be seen in the floor m
Paderborn.
On the other side of
militaristic agenda. Th
participate in the Got
his surprise, on the st
of the vocalist of the

Various images were

was a big rotating sw
after a few seconds th
stars in the USA-flag

The most outspoken le

that describes a proced
other Gothic bands' m
anxieties about the fu
connected with the de
terror of these two b
more concrete. Prager
realm of multimedia a
their song "Deutschlan

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558 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

Die Schlacht der Schlachten hat begonnen

Die Schmach ist nun zurtickgekommen
Mit breitem Grinsen rasiertem Haupt
Hauser liegen im schwarzen Rauch
Zufluchtsorte brennen im Nu

Buirger klatschen Beifall dazu

Zum GruBle heben sie ihre Hand
Am Ende scheint nun dieses Land
Die braune Seuche hat uns befallen

Man h6rt es durch die Stadte hallen

Deutschland wir sind wieder wer
Man muss sich schimen um so mehr....44

The battle of all battles has begun

Disgrace has now returned
With a broad sneer and shaved head
Houses smolder in black smoke
Sanctuaries are ablaze in no time
Citizens clap their approval
And they lift their hand to greet
This country seems done for
The brown plague has struck
You can hear it echo through the cities
Germany, we are a somebody again-
Yet more reason to be ashamed ....

Das Ich presents its political messages more in apocalyptic images of the future,
which, in Stefan Ackermann's and Bruno Kramm's view, will be haunted by what
we repress today. Part of the musical artist's task is to reflect about these images
in great detail.
The participation of bands that are so different in their political agenda as Von
Thronstahl and Prager Handgriffor Das Ich in Gothic festivals frequently leads to
fights. In the 1980s, before one of the "Black Easter Festivals," Bruno Kramm had
written a petition against the participation of Death in June--a British band that is
known for its militaristic chants and blood curdling screaming. After all musicians
had signed, Death in June decided not to perform, but at the festival Kramm was
criticized for his actions by many members of the Gothic subculture, who had been
looking forward to listening to that controversial band. Kramm remembers: "I
again realized how blind people are. The lack of interest in politics is horrifying.
Especially with us as a minority that must finally realize that it is a minority."45
To address this blindness, a group of Gothic bands started a campaign in 2000,

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Gabriele Eckart 559

"Gothics against th
a bat with the writ
group of bands infor
in Germany. After s
gegen Rechts" conc

The fact is that the

tral for them are l
mainstream and m
which in their mus
with fascist ideolog
rightist ideas amon
notice or suppress.4

After this, the orga

indifferent when th
and to boycott righ
At the same time B
also resists the undi
political pronouncem
been unjustly accus
attack bands when
used during the Thi
use of such symbol
about the meaning o

I have also been int

of the bands that a
occur to me even t
confront people w
ambiguous stateme
expression of an ae

For Kramm, such di

and chat-rooms on t
desired interconnec
reflection. Collectio
Deutschland aus der
efforts to find a fo
reasoning, that is, t
around 1800, reflect
anchor"49 that it is

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 560 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

1 "my singing heals me even though it dis-joins me." Ank

ich singen," in: Gothic! Die Szene in Deutschland aus der
Matzke and Tobias Seeliger (Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Sch
2 Klaus Farin, Die Gothics (Berlin: Thomas Tilsner, 1999
3 Cf. J. Gunn, "Gothic: A really short and shitty history
edu/~gunn0025/classix.html> 12/6/02.
4 Jerrold E. Hogle, "The Gothic at Our Turn of the Century:
Return of the Body," in: The Gothic, ed., Fred Botting (C
5 Ibid., 158.
6 Ibid., 159.
7 "Ich finde, dass sich der Mensch in seiner Gesellschaft recht unmenschlich eingerichtet
hat. Unser Denken wird immer eindimensionaler, immer kopflastiger. Der Schwerpunkt
liegt mehr und mehr auf der Betonung der Vernunft und der Intensitit der Leidenschaft in
Richtung auf den Intellekt. Diese Schwerpunktverlagerung, und das wissen die meisten von
uns, hat mit der Produktionsweise und der zunehmenden Wertschatzung der Technik zu
tun. In unserer Gesellschaft kommt es auf Produktivitit und Funktionalitit an." Hachfeld,
"Seelenbilder," 63.
8 "Das Ich". Morgue. Wirsberg: Danse Macabre Records, 1996. Cf. also Chris Gabriel,
"Interview with Das Ich--4/99." <http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/-casanova/DasIch/interviews/
interview7.htmll> 12/6/02; Maik Heinsohn, "Das Ich-live in Bremer Modernes." <http://
home.t-online.de/home/maik.heinsohn/dasich .htm> 2/15/00.
9 "Ich glaube, diese Grundaussage von Gottfried Benn, dass das Herz, die Seele und das
Ich in Gefahr sind, die stimmt heutzutage besonders in dieser multimedialen Welt, in der
zwischenmenschliche Kontakte immer mehr verarmen, in der Menschen vor allem unter
Einsamkeit zu leiden haben, wo Menschen gezwungen werden, durch die Medien, einem
Bild zu entsprechen, dem sie gar nicht entsprechen krnnen, und... daran zerbrechen." Cited
in Gabriele Eckart, "Charles Baudelaire and Gothic Musik in Deutschland." Germanic
Notes and Reviews. 33,2 (2002): 101-2. Kevin Stueve, "Interview mit Bruno Kramm"
(Unpublished manuscript, July 2000), 1.
10 Johannes Berthold, "Unsere Musik ist furchtbar kitschig." <http://www.laut.de/vorlaut/
interviews/2002/03/13/02616/> 10/27/02.
11 Farin, Die Gothics, 5.
12 "Damals war die DDR das Land der Grufties. Die Jugendlichen hangten sich Kruzifixe
an die Ohren und um den Hals, oft wurden sie deshalb von ihren Lehrern wieder nach Hause
geschickt, fundamentaler hitte die Absage an das System nicht sein k6nnen. Die desil-
lusionierten Enkel der Revolutionire sangen keine frdhlichen Lieder mehr, sie versenkten
sich in Weltschmerz und Todessehnsucht oder in Sarkasmus." Jana Simon, Denn wir sind
anders (Berlin: Rowohlt, 2002), 35.
13 See Peter Wicke, "Pop Music between Conformity and Resistance," in: Studies in GDR
Culture and Society, eds. Margy Gerber and Roger Woods (Lanham, New York: University
Press of America, 1996).
14 Till Sailer, "Fragen an den Autor," in: Von Abraham bis Zwerenz (Bonn: Bundesministe-
rium fiir Bildung, 1995), Vol. 3, 1768.
'5 Joe Asmodo, Letter to the author, June 17, 2003.
16 I have avoided the term "message" because the Gothics are not message-driven like Polit-
Rock of the 1970s or, most recently, Hip Hop in Germany.
17 "EMO" is an outgrowth of hardcore punk with deeply personal and expressive vocals.

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Gabriele Eckart 561

18 "[Es] bedeutet fiir mi

Bereiche des Lebens aus
sehe ich vor allem die du
aber das eizige wire, kin
Rock. Ich denke, beim G
eine Ebene zu gelangen,
das ist der Grund, aus d
einfach etwas, was weit
Roca, letter to the autho
19 Hans D., "Funeral Pro
tory4.asp> 10/28/02.
20 "Diese Lieder vermitt
sinnlichkeit. Es ist die Na
Mensch jeden Tag aufs N
war ein Geschenk, das m
mit ganzer Kraft freuen
Szene in Deutschland au
(Berlin: Schwarzkopf&
21 Bruno Kramm, Coeu
22 The Web page of the
<http://www.lacrimosa.d
gallery with changing ex
famous "Sixtinische Mad
hints at the dangers con
23 "Und genau das fasz
Symbiose von Musik mi
wie Wunden bluten," in
24 "...fast unweigerlich
Musik oder der Musik d
als poetisches Ideal in d
25 Jochen Schulte-Sass
1795-1810," in: A Histo
hendahl (Lincoln: Unive
26 Quoted in ibid., 116.
27 Christoph Eykman, D
und Gottfried Benns (B
28 Volkmar Kuhnle, Got
29 "Von Thronstahl." Im
30 See Josef Klumb's sta
ferent way, he described
ofAdolfHitler and the N
great ideas and visions
architecture will rise a
life and visions-A grea
Imperator." Quoted in Lo
com/italienblackmetal/vt

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562 German Studies Review 28/3 (2005)

31 Scott Sweet, "Reich n'roll, baby!" <http://www.amaz

/B00004WJCE/103-7152814-5750249?v=glar...> 8/12/0
32 Gottfried Benn, Gedichte (Wiesbaden: Limes, 1960), 6
3 Translation by Albrecht Classen in cooperation wit
Prowe.

34 Stefan George, Gedichte (Leipzig: Reclam, 1987), 129

35 Olga Marx and Ernst Morwitz, The Works ofStefan Ge
York: AMS, 1966), 296.
36 Ibid., 296-97.
37 George, Gedichte, 130.
38 Marx/Morwitz, The Works, 297.
39 Mark William Roche, GottfriedBenn s Static Poetry: Ae
Interpretations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
40 Hans Otto Horch, "der Bilder schweigendes Sein," in:
GottfriedBenn, ed., Harald Steinhagen (Stuttgart: Reclam
41 Roche, Gottfried Benn s Static Poetry, 6.
42 Klaus Theweleit, Mdnnerphantasien (Reinbek: Rowoh
43 Bastiaen, "Live Report: Hau Ruck! Festival" <http://ww
festival.asp> 12/6/02.
44 Prager Handgriff. <http://www.pragerhandgriff.de/lyric
45 "Mir wurde wieder bewusst, wie blind die Leute doch s
erschreckend. Gerade bei uns als Minderheit, die sich end
muss, dass sie eine Minderheit ist." Bruno Kramm, "Inh
and Seeliger, Gothic!, 228.
46 "Tatsache ist, dass die Mehrheit der Gothics keinerl
anhingt. Vielmehr stehen die Liebe zur Musik, die Teiln
Mainstreamund des Massenkommerz im Mittelpunkt. Trot
pen, die von ihrer musikalischen Ausrichtung der Gothic
mit faschistischen Ideologien und Symbolen kokettieren
nicht wahrgenommen oder verdraingt, versuchen einig
unter ihren Anhingem zu verbreiten." Fortunecity <http:/
bauhaus/149/html/infos.htm> 12/6/02.

47 ,... auch ich interessierte mich fiir Runen. Ich kenne d

jener Bands, die sehr stark imNeofolk und Heidentum verank
ein, bei ihnen irgendeinen faschistoiden Ansatz auch nur zu
werden erforderlich, wenn eindeutige oder manchmal eben
Statements abgegeben werden. Ein paar Runen auf dem
Ausdruck eines Asthetischen Empfindens." Kramm, "Inha
48 Cf. endnote 1.
49 Schulte-Sasse, "The Concept," 117.

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