GHDI logo

Neues Deutschland: "Bill Haley and NATO" (October 31, 1958)

page 2 of 2    print version    return to list previous document      next document


But at least the Tagesspiegel manages to arrive at the following insight: “Every society has the youth that corresponds to its social conditions. This sounds like materialism. Yes, but where are the ideals?” Young people, it goes on to say, feel a vague discontent with life, are looking for a way out of an emotionally impoverished world of experiences, and are calling for a communal experience. In other words, the nuclear war system is giving the youth precisely the communal experience and ideals that are in keeping with its nature. More precisely, it has nothing to offer that one could call a communal experience and an ideal.

Ideals that are worth working, fighting, and living for are not to be found in this system. However, the young Germans who can tear their eyes away from the gyrating transatlantic St. Vitus dancers and look over to the German Democratic Republic will discover a new world: a community that is worth applying one’s energies to for the common cause. Here they behold a bright future, which will be their own as soon as they have sent the militarists and their entire decadent hangers-on packing.

The issue therefore is not that young people are bad, or the quality of their music. Rather, the issue is the clerical-militaristic system, NATO, American occupation, which is still clinging to German soil thirteen years after the war. The conclusion from the frightful events on Sunday and Monday must be: Ami, go home! Namely all of them together, from the howling St. Vitus dancers to the nuclear strategists together with their bombs. AMI, GO HOME!



Source: “Bill Haley and NATO” [“Bill Haley und die NATO”], Neues Deutschland, October 31, 1958.

Translation: Thomas Dunlap

first page < previous   |   next > last page