Special join me for rocking the stars an extraordinary cold war story with a great soundtrack to coming up after the news. Hello I'm Tom what's with the b.b.c. News the Saudi Arabian financial authority has approved plans to try to raise billions of dollars by selling shares in the giant state owned oil producer Aramco as will be listed on the domestic stock exchange in what could be the world's biggest ever an issue of public offering Aramco which is the horse to be worth more than one of the half trillion dollars called the announcement truly historic The B.B.C.'s Casey Prescott says the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmond is on a drive to modernize It's all part of his strategy to divest the 5 the economy away from war and gas but also I think it's a way of showcasing Saudi Arabia on the global stage it's interesting they've chosen to initially list the shares in Riyadh because that will bring foreign investors who want to buy a piece around into Saudi Arabia probably for the 1st time and it's also really changed the company's strategy few years ago we didn't get accounts for Saudi Aramco nobody really knew how the company was fairing and over the last year that's noticeably changed the chief minister of the Indian capital Delhi says air pollution has reached unbearable levels across the north of the country quality worsened again on Sunday this report from Jill McGiver ng posting on social media debt is Chief Minister of in character of oh cool on the central government to take immediate steps to provide relief and tackle the pollution his comments unlikely to please government officials some of already accused him of politicizing the issue and playing a blame game I think just today show the Capitals landmarks obscured by a sick blanket of toxic small Dulles Airport announced that dozens of flights were diverted because of poor visibility schools have been ordered to close until Tuesday and construction work in the capital has been banned plans to finalize the world's largest trade deal looks likely to be delayed after Asian leaders apparently struggle to reach agreement leaders of 10 Southeast Asian countries a meeting that Chinese and Indian counterparts for a 2nd day in the. High capital Bangkok a deal would bring together half the world's population and around 40 percent of its commerce but sources suggest India has held up a negotiation and meeting leaders in Bangkok the United Nations Secretary General Antonio good terrorists made a direct appeal to me on Mars de facto leader chief to resolve the crisis hundreds of thousands of Ranger refugees are living in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution by their Benny's Army Mr Gutierrez said Me and mom must take responsibility for their safe return and gave examples of what was needed to facilitate dialogue with refugees and coffee this building measures to ensure humanitarian Nectars a full and unfettered assessed where is a return as well as need look Louve quick impact projects focus on my view. And will offer rapid solution of the. World news from the b.b.c. Thousands of people have rallied to show their support for Lebanon's president Michel after calls for his resignation Jaring anti-government protests across the country his supporters say he's the only man who could bring about far reaching political and economic reforms that the anti-government demonstrators have demanded the protesters have been angered by falling living standards rampant corruption and a lack of jobs. Demonstrators in Iraq have been shutting roads in the capital Baghdad and other cities as they continue a ways of anti-government protests which began last month since then more than $200.00 people have been killed in clashes with security forces Here's our Middle East analyst Alan Johnston reports from Baghdad speak of protesters setting fire to tires as they block road junctions students have been staging sit ins and government offices and state shots in a number of cities in the south on what's meant to be the 1st day of Iraq's working week the unrest has been fueled by anger corruption unemployment and public services the demonstrators want to sweeping away of the entire political establishment pressure elections have been promised only once a new election law has been put in place and it's not yet clear how long this might take 88 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean more than a week ago have been allowed to disembark in southern Italy among women 9 unaccompanied children the German flagship Alan Kurdi picked up the migrants of Libya after receiving strong criticism the organizers of a Japanese film festival have backtracked on a decision to cancel the screening of a documentary on forced wartime sex workers the film was shelved asked we gave it a security concerns months after an exhibition dealing with the controversial topic faced arson threats Japanese nationalists deny the so-called comfort women were coerced into sex work for Japan's Army during the 2nd World War b.b.c. News. B.b.c. World Service I'm Chris Bowlby ever wondered what really brought down the Berlin wall politics yes but how about the power of music. Sounds a bit far fetched but this is one of those fascinating Cold War stories that still emerging now how music and the sense of freedom that went with it changed history. I'm off to find out more because I had a feeling that music really mattered ever since I lived in Berlin back in the 1980 s. And could meet it daily by tube from one part of the West to another underneath East Berlin. Yeah this is the place Porat a straw so I recognize the name now this is where I used to begin my journey to work in 1900 cold in divided between the capitalist west in the Communist East and I would start my journey to work from here 5 am every morning on the underground but it was a really unusual journey. For the company's money and done a deal to keep the trains running but they would deter means to keep their base home early Sunday sealed off them on the train now it's bringing back memories of These days I can get off in Berlin wherever I like. But the stories still emerging life was like Inish Germany a music the kind of music I used to listen to when the train really mattered the Communists and the secret police try to control it but I'm off to discover how an extraordinary group of music lovers refused to dance to the. Communist East Germany the g.d.r. Was created after the pulse of Germany occupied by the Soviet Union after World War 2 but from the outset it faced a problem the western part of Germany occupied by the Americans Brits and French seemed much more attractive for its wealth and its Western culture so thousands of East Germans headed west until in 1961 a barbed wire border was built across Germany and a wall across Berlin to stop them and the 2 sides of that barrier grew more and more apart so young Brits like me who came to live in Berlin or the music producer Mark reader entered a bizarrely divided world which is slightly be some strange weird kind of fiction film. Little. 50 Cent and I. Need to explain to make clear to people that no such as a city was a kind of inside East Germany and then divided into separate parts because of the occupying forces at the end of the 2nd World War So you had a western part and an eastern part with a great big wall between them. From the rest of East Germany and the. It was the capital of East Germany but you could go. As someone with a British passport for the day across the wall yes. But it was like stepping from one world to another wasn't the power of the world. They have things which resemble the things of the house in the way they were kind of this. You know going down from like very mundane things like t.v. Sets and they look like they've been made in the fifty's. They sound if they smell different smells like a mixture of. Engine emissions and beach and coal. Eastern world of cabbage and coal seams even less attractive when Beatlemania broke out in the West soon after the Berlin Wall was built East German leaders like. Best to sneer. You're going to. Need to go. Through a new. Age Do we really have to copy all the rubbish that comes from the west. With all the monotony of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs before continuing with one of his endless turgid speeches to the communist faithful this whole idea of that the socialist East doesn't need the Yeah Yeah of those crazy people from the west. That works for the organization investigating the archives of the East German secret police the Stasi the organization has been researching how the g.d.r. Regime trying to reduce the appeal of Western music that became a quite a famous quotation mark in that sense I would say isn't that different from some of the Western leaders where everybody is to say what is happening to you. The hair is growing and the bell bottoms are growing on their right strange things on their jeans jacket one of these jeans jackets anyway so what is kind of you know the war generation the older generation is aghast at what the youth is doing of today g.d.r. Leaders fear that love of Western music would lead to love of Western politics so they desperately tried to develop their own communist youth culture to go with a compulsory Russian taught in schools instead of English there was a ludicrous quota system restricting how much western music could be played at parties and then there were the state plans dance steps. Need to be anti company. They came up with something called the lipstick. Which is a very strange. Brainchild of coming up with a dance that it would look like its own version of coolness culture but you know you can't organize an strategize a youth culture that's not how it works it comes from people picking up on society and vibe some things that are there and they want to express themselves and they don't express themselves according to some 70 year old political role member the and in his fantasy because they certainly are not the same instead of practicing the Lipsy youngish Germans were glued to their radios trying to catch the latest tunes been doing by Western stations walls and barbed wire borders were no barrier to radio waves and the regime's greatest fear was that this listening could corrupt even their elites such as soldiers and border guards. To. Poison from the airwaves streets this propaganda program made for the East German military which included a recording of a young soldier put on trial after confessing how Western music had led him astray . Applying the tough. When you take the dispute here the moral of this story how much home at the end of the program showed how fearful the g.d.r. Regime now was about the power of music breasts and when is true and I mean when it's a few listening wants to a Western radio station is once too many mind you let's the poison is lose your class consciousness and put yourself at the Berkeley or not on the other side of the barricades. If there's one story that symbolizes g.d.r. Power annoyer about music and the tragedy of being a young music found it's the story of a Rolling Stones concert that never happened. And it started as a rumor by James from the quintessential at any rate the station of West Berlin this contravene radio in the American sector Putin's video screen certainly has as an American radio station with German D.J.'s a very large role to play in this ideological warfare the d.j. That sends out this story later said he was just stoned and he was just making a joke right so he says imagine that the new publishing house playing on that is building right at the border between East and West Berlin basic on the West going inside literally almost on the desk trip which is seen as very provocative by the East because spring it was a great sort of capitalist to get absolutely spring and build that building at the border because ideologically he wanted to make a point and opposable that he would want to stage a concert there and broadcast it straight into the like it had a possibility to spring up once too on the top of his 20 story building he wants to bring out the Rolling Stones and to taunt the east with you know the youth idols of the way. Just it made sense so when the d.j. Says hey guys on October 7th Springer will have the Rolling Stones playing a concert to all you fans out there in the east on top of that building it spread like wildfire to. The river also spread like wildfire among the g.d. All secret police the Stasi desperate to stop the stones worship their farmers from the time of full of things like photographs of slogans chalked on roads telling rock bands to come to Berlin and reports detailing how the Stasi tracked down and arrested the subversive sloganising as. If. You were down here and so you were hoping that the Rolling Stone. Was one of the teenagers who cared about the concert I met him at the exact spots where he came in 169 hoping to hear the Stones play. The room of the Rolling Stone play on the roof on the roof of that. Make a joke in a radio but you didn't think it was a joke no even if I was 16 but I was a new stones player from the human balls. People of regal people. They waited on the stones never appeared but the East German authorities did and became violent as the crowd of young people grew. It was 50800 people from I would go to the Brandenburg Gate. The police. Many many Mexicans. They beat you to be true. And then you were arrested Yeah what did they say you had done wrong that was the crime. And this is. The socialist element from a bad guy but on. Things went from pounds to worse for a man he was put on trial and as I discovered in the files the head of the. Took a personal interest in his case I've got here some of the documents which are being collected by the archives there's a very long description of what you what they say. Several pages long it's all typed up and it was the 20th anniversary of the founding of the g.d.r. But I don't think you were very enthusiastic about it because some of the Yeah Yeah Yeah this is Look here we've got to tell. Himself that he signs this room I have no idea this is extraordinary that Milka himself and they send you to prison for 2 years 2 years 2 years. And what was that like. Not Ok but what do I do but what I do. So a 16 year old paid a price simply for wanting to listen to music after 2 years in prison he was expelled from the g.d.r. And cut off from his family who remained in the east. This calling the brutal reprisal was meant to serve as an example to war young East Germans to try and stop what the regime. Feared a whole generation becoming anticommunist and in love with the Imperial astronomy of the West but the hunger for Western music just wouldn't go away the training tries the day Sabina they are almost a member of another East German elite athletes but g.d.r. Prided itself in its a limb pick triumphs and hothouse promising youngsters like Sabina a high jumper bringing them to live in special training schools and me they have very educated you know they have got. Very elite you know let's say but your teenagers What about music fashion. And no good try on that night time listen to the radio Western music yes we did and did nice and you know back to put this blanket over us and I know we had says b.b.c. And Dutch country. British on from. Us. And we were listening under the back yes and that musta been exciting thing to remember that yeah it's it was like me you know they had this stuff that bunk beds one on top of the other and and I remember for one you have to let it have been 8 persons in one room you know and so that must have us of it's they 2 guys have a close and then you know if you're not allowed to do this so. You're listening to the bad guys you may be all whispering to each other have you heard this you know what sort of music do you remember from the time listening to the sweets are something just how many say you know and even in English language you didn't understand anything about service members. And. That. We were wrong to what was Alex's childhood home use you were born here grew up here I grew up here and here and in this corner with my back here is my record player and everything and this window out of this window I saw the whole. Alexander Kuna could sense the wider world even if he couldn't go there but he was desperate to bring as much of its music as possible to his village one way was to give your granny a shopping list pensioners were allowed by the regime to visit the West as they weren't seen as vital citizens. If you didn't make sure Granny knew exactly which records to bring back it could all go terribly wrong sometimes out of a Clash album. From 982 and I don't know maybe this was the grandmother she came back with at Johnny Cash and set and that was a huge nightmare but it's an easy mistake to make clash cash it's so different so it's very. Cool. And. You can still see the pain on his face but Alex was not the kind of man to give up exposing the fact that his village was near a major rail Junction he decided to start inviting fans and fans from all over East Germany and some from the West to come to his village and party in the simple room with a stage at the back of the village pub the news local farmers would see hundreds of punk rockers on new ribbon 6 had passed them at the bar. So where are we going to now we walk into this place to be today. And this is where it all happened this is. The owner of this time drove a truck bomb to the East German car and in the end of his career he drove. You help make you to get rich. In the hole how many people could you guys in here officially 150 what the police say but maybe me a 1000 coming back in here must bring back immediately memories of certain knowledge what do you think over your standing here I am reading this the party still. Sleeps. Alex could do all this more easily as he. Village was a long way from the forces of law and order though as we'll learn later there was one memorable confrontation between the stars and his mother but if you became a punk in the g.d.r. Capital you'd be sure to attract immediate secret police attention. But how could their secret police deal with or even understand something like punk I managed to track down. The officer trying to monitor it infiltrates what was seen as the anti state's subversive punk scene. He agreed to meet in a discreet corner of a city center restaurant and tell me about what the communist leadership had wanted him to do the snow. The aim was to controlling the scene as it expanded to stop it from becoming too well known in the end we wanted to remove it completely but the question was how to do it. Or especially interested in contacts between punks and Westerners like British music producer Mark reader he made friends in East Berlin punk scene and they came up with one of the most daring challenges ever to g.d.r. Music censorship bringing a West German Bondy talking who isn't over to the east for a secret concert I tell my friends look if we're going to do this thing for me if I get call a we get cold feet doing this concert I get thrown out the country never come back . If you get. Change because any visit stay and they will not we don't care but they do anyway so we risk. All kinds of cunning plans were made like finding scarce instruments was the western band couldn't attract attention by bringing their own across the border and then lead singer camp you know told me there was the problem of not looking like punks as they went through the intense security checks made on anyone crossing from west to east. We had to come. Get really probably close on them just. To hear every aspect of that they wouldn't let us in because we were punks Yeah I think Punk Rock didn't officially exist in the east but didn't want to spread the virus and then they form so that's why we decided to cross the border normally look in them and see what happens. Before they succeed but what you don't want to end in disaster in the 2nd half of the program we'll find out what did happen in the struggle between punk and secret police and what role music played as the Berlin Wall came down. The distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the United States is made possible by American Public Media producer and distributor of award winning public radio content engaging audiences creating meaningful experiences and fostering conversations a.p.m. American Public Media with support from t.d. Ameritrade you can get smart with your investing with customizable tools and education design for you at t.d. Ameritrade where smart investors get smarter member s.i.p.c. . B.b.c. World Service Chris. Coming up. The strangest of alliances with the church. Western music made it across to the east and how the free spice made music helped bring down the. Hall to. After the news. B.b.c. News with Tom what Saudi Arabia's giant state owned oil company a ram Co has confirmed it will be listed on the country's stock exchange and what could be the world's biggest ever an issue of public offering around those chief executive I mean describe the announcement as truly historic around care is thought to be worth more than one and a half trillion dollars pollution in the Indian capital Delhi has been classed as severe with suggestions the toxic smoke on Sunday could be the worst this year at least Chief Minister of intercultural well has called on the central government to act the poor visibility has forced dozens of flights to be diverted from Delhi's airport plans to finalise the world's largest trade deal look likely to be delayed after 10 Southeast Asian countries meeting in Thailand struggled to reach an agreement reports suggest India has hampered negotiations because of concerns about the impact of an increase of imports on its manufacturing and agricultural sectors speaking in Thailand the United Nations Secretary General Antonio good terrorists made a direct appeal to me on Mars de facto leader and sang Suchi to resolve the ridge to resolve the real hinge a crisis Mr Gutierrez said me on my How to ensure the safe return of hundreds of thousands of Ranger refugees living in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution by the army thousands of people have rallied to show their support for Lebanon's president Michel Aoun NAFTA calls for his resignation during anti-government protests across the country his supporters say he's the only man who could bring about far reaching political and economic reforms that anti-government demonstrators have demanded the British prime minister Boris Johnson has apologised for failing to fill his pledge to get Britain out of the e.u. Come what may last month he said missing his deadline was a matter of deep regret the head of the breakfast party said Mr Johnson's deal would result in Britain rejoining the e.u. . B.b.c. World Service I'm Chris Bowlby Welcome back to the 2nd part of rocking the show. We're discovering how music in communist East Germany became a cold war battleground as the regime tried to keep Western music out but music fans mounted an amazing resistance like a concert in which a West German punk band and who was and was smuggled across the Berlin wall for a secret concert in of all places a church British producer Mark Rita and lead singer campaign 0 remember it all when the vicar stopped his praying as to step up and play the game I remember we only had one amplifier and all the guitars were plugged into one amplifier including the microphone for the voice. And it was pretty soon clear that I was in law other than a little transistor radio so I decided to sing without any microphone and when the kids started to dance was about 25 people there the stomping was much louder than the music. From the 1st 2nd on it was clear it was a clear everybody in the room knew that this was something very very special and maybe would never ever happen again. We said these could be no photographs which will just take one photograph and people told again and that was 8 and somebody did take photographs of course joint accounts and they ended up in the Stasi files was an assumption you had to make that someone in any largish group of people would probably be informing I kind of got the problem quickly but you know that the idea that if you're in this group of people. Anybody could be top of the Stasi. We've played the show we packed our belongings together and said we had to go and the moment they all decided to bring us to the border so we went to the underground with about 30 people or so and I remember that we were all hugging each other really long and intense saying goodbye and saying we'll see this again but everybody knew it won't happen because it was at that point unbelievable that the war would come down so the whole thing was a very deep experience. Western bands might not come back for now but that didn't stop all punk cos that's happening East German bonds kept in contact with those music minded evangelical pastors offering churches as venue's coming off key from the punk bands admits it was a pretty strange alliance but it worked as the East German authorities were wary of being seen to crack down on church activities. It was a part of I don't know. Yeah that's why it was all about the possibility to meet without state control which in your private life was always difficult with repression visits from the authorities they could arrest you as your arrived in front of the door as you left here was a protected space here inside you were Saif This was unlike the youth clubs under state control Hey you could meet twice a week and make music. And make your music What's more in the middle of church service is halfway through a time of quiet Sunday contemplation in the Galileo church in Berlin pass to get hard see a verse would poor and then ask his mostly elderly congregation to listen to something just a bit different as. He was mad as a front man I could see right into the faces of the congregation who were completely shocked and passed the Cyrus explained We've got some young people there they've made a group that they'd like to perform we went out. And the whole place Roth was so much noise and we were shouting. The only ones who were like back about it with the children he jumped up straight to wife never forgetting one old copy of cover there is and then walked out I was completely shocked. The stars he was shocked to along by the idea of a punk or any other subculture spreading they used to make recordings of all their top level meetings now preserved in the archives so have a listen to the veteran minister of state security. Talking to his top brass and trying to get his head and his tongue around such baffling things as punks skinheads and fans of heavy metal version. Of the. Punks she is heavy. Videos or didn't. In the end the show did what they always did try to recruit informers among the young punk funds to spy on this new enemy. Was one of the stars the officers whose job included punk persecution. Yes of course you. Well there were so cold on official collaborators or informants nothing would have worked without them there were various opportunities to recruit them either through pressure they were all young they lacked life experience of you get to them with pressure and bluff talk. Not really. Some of the straight edge to really work with us and also you said well you go in there and try to infiltrate they're in there but also a lesion from us didn't realize they were being used as informers So you're saying some of them didn't know that they are becoming a former So you would say to them oh we'll just have a conversation from time to time but they didn't realize they were informants you cannot and you talked about some of them you would apply pressure to look how did dots happen what did you do how does this scar Zor that wound were various gray areas you'd forbid them from going to certain areas or say that if you don't do such and such you'll go to prison they didn't have the experience to know whether that was real or a bluff. Also attempted to recruit informers among musicians like took off as. The joints you know there were various And I think the classic norms arrest of e.p. Arrested maybe a concert or party and threatened with punishment. Then there'd be the offer it doesn't have to be like this we don't have to punish you if you work with us some of our eating would be tracked down and for example when I was at college the director came into the classroom one day and told me to come to her office as my uncle was that uncle was going on a wanted so I came into the office and stars the officer was sitting there and he began along the lines of hair color now ski we're very interested in working with you it would be very good for you save a lot of trouble we just want to deal with the black shape your cable not the others blah blah blah and I stopped things and I said Hold on I'm not doing that but I kept trying until I think 1988 when I put in an application to leave the g.d.r. I want to be clear I'm not working with you I want out. Others were less defiant when the g.d.r. Collapsed in Germany reunified stars the files were opened Dirk and the rest of the band was shocked to discover their drama someone they'd seen as a close friend had been a very thorough informer for Michel's the officer you're going Bressie told me he and his comrades also had cruder methods of trying to stop violence from playing. On your show an Indian by the West nice ideas military service which for example you knew about certain illegal bans a couple of times a year members would be called in for individual meetings and you take one or 2 members from each band and you'd have them called up for military service and spread them around the country want to the No one in the south and so on suddenly the band had no musicians and couldn't get back together again quickly mind you being sent a long way from the city didn't necessarily mean giving up on music in the 1st part of the program we met Alexander Kuna who organize parties for hundreds of music fans in his sleepy village of several hours drive from Berlin. You're working hard to stay out of too much trouble with your thirties but you get arrested once didn't you what happened then yeah idea rest before from off of night took you away they took me away to different some other produce station and they had a cell downstairs and they put me in there and they said to me tomorrow they come from cop or state mean Stasi thing other guys and they beat you up or something when you're sitting there not so they're talking about people coming from coppers you're thinking this could be really serious at the beginning or you were easier then I was very frightened and they told my mother did you pick the other Alex up to please and. So your mum comes the police station and she's actually got some status because she's a schoolteacher She's a member of the Communist Party and how does she actually get you out she told this guy. What you doing here my school doing nothing but Chance just of a concept I did celebrating this birthday and it's nothing a reason for 2 to arrest him what you do and what I teach you all the time because you're one of the peoples yesterday on the desk right right and maybe he was right since the time before and so she gave him a lecture largely without a scolding. And the Monday after that was in the school but I know whenever she never told me what's what they got they came to visit I didn't resent her not me. But she never told you want to know never told me that So looking back how do you feel about what your mother did 10 Yeah she's my hero. So the Ministry of State Security was no match for a determined mother and that extraordinary musical life rocked on it was the soundtrack to a kind of freedom that few outsiders ever realized was possible. Yes the regime could impose all kinds of restrictions but still music fans created free spaces a unique state of mind across Europe West German punk musician camp you know came across this on his travels behind the Iron Curtain. On a train ride very long we had to cross the d.v.r. There was a school class on the same train and they passed all seats and how to look in the 2nd one and then and there was a room on it's going to be did from West Germany and so they all came and we the few beers and we had a long talk was that a train ride was 12 oz also. And it was 1st to speak to the other. And they were great they had a certain kind of pride. And a belief. Even that they lie. Music and rock n roll music and whatever they said you know you in the west you've got the best clothing the fashion all those things but we've got friendship and solidarity and we have each other and we're not superficial you know I think that's really interesting a lot of people would have the idea that these are people like robots living under a dictatorship but they had a spirit in a culture of how to just because they were living under a dictatorship Absolutely and they what they were having these friendships and those friendships amongst each other they meant more than all well because they had to pay a big prize for everything that went wrong. Once an elite East German athlete later a student also valued this sense of freedom amid so much repression and that for some made life in the g.d.r. Seem less controlled so in a way is that what people need to understand about East Germany they might think if they don't know that it's a dictatorship and everybody behaves like robots but actually what happened is that people made spaces where they could live a more independent life and find their own culture the new King I mean you always have this crowd and you still have I didn't want to be east of us not so political because I was gave each this and other things to try things out you know and to ask why and to just push a little bit from them that. I'm once Alexander Kuno had created a unique musical world in his village you no longer felt the need to try and flee to the west maybe for most of them there was escape the 1st idea for me not I don't know why and I think the Western media and because we had everything here I had friends. I felt comfortable right here and in some ways during system but during my friends and everything and bring the west to a small East German village was one off from the dreams was very big and maybe debts then they can happen. To a friend but the seductive beat coming from the west still had its magnetic power bring the west to a small East German village one on one off from the dreams was very big and maybe deaths then they can happen. To a friend but the seductive beat coming from the west still had its magnetic power and in the mid 1980 s. As a new leader in Moscow McCall Gorbachev began loosening the Soviet grip on East Germany Western music was reverberating more and more strongly around the Berlin wall itself. Through to. $987.00 no less a figure than David Bowie played a concert right by the wall on the western side. Bowie a global star who'd lived in Berlin new it's a real Cold War atmosphere a musical energy while he recorded some of his most famous albums that like Heroes was. A shot from the stars the archives a study of how this concert was part of an intensifying musical competition between West and East Berlin that constant at the Berlin Wall was certainly seen as an ideological showoff if you look at it. In the east but in point of view and to have hundreds of the young people demonstrating there listening wanting to hear the music and they couldn't allow for that sort of making them look bad and that's why they were kind of against that whole idea of having their use on the streets listening to music on the other side of the wall because again it would expose the wall and the absurdity of that we. Were Good earlier how the false rumor of a Rolling Stones concert on the western edge of the wall encouraged hundreds of young East Germans to head towards it hoping to listen now David Bowie really was there the sound rose above the rice talk and over into East Berlin and again fans from the east trying to get as close as possible. A headache professional and personal for the youthful deputy head of East Berlin police. He'd always been a rock fan but was now answerable to the communist leadership for maintaining order on the East Berlin streets. You hadn't Zionist as the models are few and it wasn't the 1st time that a concert by the Brandenburg Gate had such an effect on East Berlin it became more and more common for young people from the east to come and try to listen to the music lives and to come as close to the wall as possible the flashpoints was on the street on the den Linden where I was gathered we believed the majority just wanted to listen to the music but of course there were others who wanted to explore the situation for other things did you feel as a policeman that it was your job to stop these people listening to the music to keep order to keep them away from the wall but as someone who'd been a rock fan as a young man you thought wow I know how much it would mean to me to listen to these bronzed dissin is. Absolutely stage on this big and yes that's absolutely right I had no problem with those who just wanted to listen to the music and I thought there was no need for the police to intervene but in 987 particular situations developed where some of the rock fans try to break through police formations and that became difficult was dance an important time do you think as people became more confidence in challenging the regime did you feel well this is pointless we can't stop people from wanting to listen to this music it's going to undermine the regime and I so this does need a consequence that it wasn't quite so straightforward but it was clear to me that music rock music belonged to young people and that there was no way you could deny that to young people so I and a couple of others began to argue why don't we do something like this but there must have been people high up in say the stars the or the Communist Party who said we should not do this we mustn't have large groups of young people coming to concerts from Western bones that will be a bad influence on our young people just log on stations all yes that was definitely the case but those with responsibility in the g.d.r. Well just those in the older generation there were people like me in my mid thirty's who had their own opinions so yes it was completely unthinkable for some in the leadership to stage because vents in the g.d.r. With the likes of Bob Dylan and Joe Cocker and Bruce Springsteen but for my generation it was simply great. I then the next year 88 they allowed Bruce Springsteen to give one of the biggest concerts ever in East Berlin and that's a huge milestone he's had it for such milestone hundreds of thousands of people come here and sort of you know Bruce Springsteen is quite a symbol of mainstream America and to have him go in there to allow him on the stage and have this huge concert there was even to the east Jimmy. I think it was impressive to a degree 1st because they can say well I was stating that makes that happen so it's not that bad after all we even we also get the great stars to come to all country now. And joining the Bruce Springsteen read a statement in Germany expressing the hope that one day old Barrios would be torn down. He didn't say rules but everyone in the crowd roaring their appreciation you're exactly what he meant. At the same time though all these concerts become a rallying point for demands of freedom fumin rights of axes to travel and to express his imagined 100000 East German youth singing Born In The USA. And what does that do to to a society that basically said we're the leaders all in their seventy's and eighty's saying we have a wall and that wall is going to stand for another 100 years I mean how does that work so it's sort of the all these cracks in society then that have a long history I mean the wall didn't open on one day right the music builds up to it and so they do invited him because they need the pressure release with their young people because they already knew they kind of lose them but at the same time it in forces their desire to not work within socialism but to go out and verses the kids that in the late sixty's go to see the centers the Rolling Stone concert and pay dearly with jail and persecution in the eighty's that fear is gone you know that the state has long lost control. Within 18 months the Berlin Wall had been torn down East Germany was disappearing the Cold War was over the free spaces 1st created for music had also become free spaces for democratic debate and the mighty ministry of state security with its huge army of informers was in meltdown a leech stars the offices like you're going Bressie was suddenly and humiliatingly out of a job he's since made a living working in shops petrol stations and call centers with plenty of time to reflect on how the stars he once thought it could and should control virtually everything when you think back about that time now do you regret some of these activists is you think there was no point in doing this and we. Gave some young people a very difficult time by doing what we did to them. Regrets is. No regrets yes and no From today's perspective much seems pointless waste of effort age wasn't only the Ministry of State Security that was too concerned with attempting to control the society completely 1st it was pointless and secondly in the cheating much. As for the punks Sometimes we had influence but in the end there were no results in that respect it was pointless so people were sent to prison because of the actions of you and your colleagues. Yes How do you feel about that now. Today I'd be against doing something like that but you grow up in a society grow up with this is odd he's norms you profit from. It and then later you have the chance to see that from a different perspective if you say Ok that was a mistake it should have been that way. And those of us lucky enough to have been around at the time now realize that what was going on in the Cold War was extraordinary and moving concrete borders machine guns and barbed wire could stop many things but not music so they mark reader and. Not the spirits that went with it the sound of a sense of freedom that dictators could never silence. The truth. Is the thrill of illegally smuggling in the late records I just bought the week before to take them to cassette smuggling that into East Berlin knowing that this one cassette will feed thousands of East German kids you know like I go to parties and I. Made months and months and months ago kind of feeling that you heart of doing something really special. To. You. Music comes into your spirit and to your head and you listen and it basically means a very old German Volver called you could try the thoughts of frying so the music that can't be stopped by borders or anything come into your head and they remind you constantly there is joy in self-expression. Our. Land. Might work in great concrete wall that you 1st came.