Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Techno and the GDR has been appropriated as right-wing heritage since the 1990s. I show how these claims to heritage have been constructed back then and today and ask role they play in a quest for cultural hegemony.

Paper long abstract

Techno and the GDR has been appropriated as right-wing heritage since the 1990s. I show how these claims to heritage have been constructed and contested.

Techno has been framed by the far right as a truly German culture, not polluted by American or Jewish influences, a vision that is both in opposition but also shows some resemblences to Techno being declared intangible cultural heritage of Berlin in 2024. Independently, there has been systematic attempts of right wing hooligans to take over the doors of Berlin techno clubs, thus practising another form of cultural appropriation.

In a similar way, the GDR has been imagined by fractions of the far right as the true German homeland, not polluted by foreigners and liberal elites. Some even imagine a combination of the GDR and Nazi Germany as an ideal state formation. At the same time votes for radical right parties have been particularly high in this region.

Both constructions have astonishing blind spots: Techno culture is historically usually associated with innovations of black musicians in Detroit and Chicago in the 1980s and the GDR was a socialist dictatorship which saw itself as a frontrunner in the fight against fascism. I show to what extent these claims to heritage work nervertheless and ask what role they play in quests for cultural hegemony.