Timeline

In the Soviet occupation zone, the German Central Administration for Popular Education and the German Interior Administration decided to prohibit the free activity of artistic associations by prescribing their affiliation with the „democratic mass organizations“. In the following years, associations such as the Neue Bachgesellschaft (NBG) had to be integrated into the „Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands“. The composers’ association (Verband Deutscher Komponisten und Musikwissenschaftler), founded in 1951, was also initially only able to exist within the framework of the Kulturbund. As a result of the decision, the Hallische Händel-Gesellschaft was not even granted partial autonomy (as was granted to the NBG), so that it completely lost its independence and could only continue its activities in the form of a working group of the Kulturbund.

Under the direction of Hermann Scherchen, the premiere of the opera “Das Verhör des Lukullus” by Paul Dessau (text: Bertolt Brecht), which had been declared a non-public “rehearsal performance”, will take place at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, which was then located in the Admiralspalast. This event was preceded by a ban on the performance imposed by the party and state apparatus. The fact that the performance nevertheless took place was due above all to the State Opera Director Ernst Legal, who continued the rehearsals. The responsible cultural officials finally agreed to Brecht’s proposal to allow a closed performance on the condition that it would not be performed in public. In order to ‘save’ their work, Brecht and Dessau agreed to revise it. The premiere of the new version, entitled “Die Verurteilung des Lukullus”, took place on 12 October 1951.

At the general meeting of the Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft in Halle (Saale) the director of the Halle Handel House, Konrad Sasse, fails with an initiative that was intended to indirectly denounce the Federal Republic of Germany as the German state whose Handel care was still marked by the evil spirit of Nazi ‘forgeries’. West German and foreign members reject the adoption of a resolution prepared by Sasse, with which the Society was to distance itself from “all falsifications of the work of Georg Friedrich Handel, which took place at the time of the rule of fascism in Germany and contrary to the views of the peace-loving forces in the recent past, in editions and performances of the German Federal Republic”.

A Music Council (“Musikrat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik”) is founded in the GDR; Hanns Eisler becomes the first president, Nathan Notowicz the general secretary. The Musikrat publishes a “Bulletin”, which exists until the end of the GDR and informs about the musical life of this country; it appears less party-bound than other music magazines.

The first music biennial (4.–12.5.1967) begins in East Berlin, a festival of new music that alternates with the GDR Music Days, which also take place every two years.

The Gesellschaft für Musikforschung (GfM), founded in 1946, which had retained its status throughout Germany after the division of Germany, is deprived of its basis of existence in the GDR by a joint decision of the self-proclaimed “DDR Section”" of the GfM and the Commission of Musicology of the Verband Deutscher Komponisten und Musikwissenschaftler (VDK). The East German members are invited to join the VDK. The GfM branch office in Leipzig, headed by Frieder Zschoch, is subsequently closed. The decision is the result of a fundamental decision by the SED leadership: on 5 April 1967 the secretariat of the ZK of the SED decided “that there is no longer any basis for the existence and activity of so-called all-German societies and for the membership of GDR citizens in West German societies”.

The six members of the rock band Klaus Renft Combo, founded in 1958, banned several times, renamed and with critical lyrics, received written notice from the Department of Culture at the Leipzig District Council: “With effect from 22 September 1975, the dance music formation Klaus Renft Combo is regarded as dissolved”. In the following years, some band members voluntarily left the GDR. Two of the band members, Gerulf Pannach and Christian Kunert, were expatriated after nine months in the central remand prison of the MfS in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

The newspaper “Neues Deutschland” publishes statements by supporters of the expatriation of Wolf Biermann, including a statement by Paul Dessau. What is remarkable about this statement is that Dessau expressed in it what shocked him most about Biermann’s statements in his Cologne concert (which provided the occasion for expatriation), namely that Biermann spoke of a “socialist experiment” being conducted in the GDR. Dessau thus followed the view of the SED, which in contrast to West German left-wing intellectuals never regarded socialism as an “experiment”: “The GDR, in which I have worked since its foundation, is a historical law and not an experiment. We owe the fact that today we are a globally recognized, highly developed state to all those who have never let up in their unshakable conviction and their politically founded struggle for peace and progress. Knowing and proud, I can say that our artists, each in his own way and with the understanding support of our State, have contributed to this development. It is our duty to see through the dirty methods of the class enemy and to stand united against them”. (ND, A- and B-issue, Vol. 31, No. 277 of 20./21.11.1976, 3)

The Council of Ministers of the GDR decides to form the “Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten Johann Sebastian Bach der DDR” [National Research and Memorial Sites Johann Sebastian Bach of the GDR] (NFG Bach), which are under the direction of Werner Felix, musicologist and functionary appointed as general director. The Bach Archive Leipzig, founded in 1950, is thus integrated into the NFG Bach.

The composer Tilo Medek (1940–2006) is released from GDR citizenship and moves to Germany. In November 1976, he was the only composer to be one of over 100 signatories to the protest against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann initiated by Stephan Hermlin.