The Punks of Plänterwald
How a U.S. author from Brooklyn brought late fame to East Berlin's subculture
You thought you already knew all the cool stories? Then you're just like me! But every day I’m starting to realize a little more that I may have heard some of them, maybe even many — but nowhere near all the colorful stories about the GDR, the fall of the Wall, and East Berlin.
Punks at Alexanderplatz, sure. In the church, no doubt. Repression, Nazi attacks, Stasi infiltration – all known. But punks in the Plänterwald, whose rite of passage involved drunkenly riding the carousel only to then empty their stomachs in front of respectable citizens? I didn’t know about them – even though I myself was at the Plänterwald fairground in the Treptow district many times in the 1980s.
Plänterwald punks portrayed
So how did I come across this now? That’s a sad story. Because I only found out about the book “Burning Down the Haus*” (German: „Stirb nicht im Warteraum der Zukunft*“), in which, among others, the punks from Plänterwald are portrayed and given a voice, through an obituary. An obituary for the book’s author, Tim Mohr.
US-Author Tim Mohr. (Picture: Thomas Hoeffgen/Penguin)
The Brooklyn-born American, who even saw GDR punks as a role model for social justice movements in the U.S., died in early April 2025 at the age of 55. After a short, serious illness, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
And to Mohr, who created a memorial to the Plänterwald punks and by all accounts must have been a pretty cool guy in general, I’d like to tip my hat here. Did you know that the (probably) very first punk in East Berlin was a girl from Köpenick?
Mohr even experienced the GDR live in its final breaths. In 1990, as a guest student at Humboldt University, the American German studies scholar lived in a student dormitory in Berlin-Lichtenberg, near Friedrichsfelde Zoo. The apartments for international students were located in a Plattenbau high-rise.
Hip-hop, techno, fascist skins
Trust me, I spent the first six years of my life near there, and later, when I was already living in Berlin-Marzahn, I often visited my grandmother there. In those wild years of reunification, it was there—on concrete stairs and walkways—that I first encountered techno and hip-hop, skateboarding, as well as neo-Nazis and fascist skins.
And so it doesn’t surprise me that Mohr wrote how, at night, the roar of the wild animals and the shouting of the skinheads were hard to tell apart for him. Like me later on, Mohr was soon drawn closer to the city center, toward the squats. It was in this environment that the American finally came into contact with the punk scene. Mohr, however—quite unlike me—also found a home in techno and even became a DJ himself.
Especially cool: Mohr brought the book about GDR punks to the U.S. as well, where it was published in 2017 under the title “Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution and the Fall of the Berlin Wall*”. Rolling Stone immediately named it one of the best books of the year.
Late fame for East Berlin’s punk nobility
Instead of traditional readings, Mohr organized full-blown “multimedia punk rock events,” as Peter Richter wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. These events featured video footage from the Stasi archives about the punks from Plänterwald. Punk musicians also performed live. In this way, East Berlin’s original punk nobility achieved fame and recognition in the U.S. after all.
But I could have stumbled upon the Plänterwald punks even without the obituary for Mohr and his work. Der Spiegel, for example, wrote about them a few years ago. The headline: “Pogo under the Ferris Wheel.” While police intervened at other gathering spots of the GDR punk scene, the punks in Plänterwald seemed to be tolerated.
Memories of the East Berlin Punk Scene
For this article, Spiegel author Anna Mielke spoke with eyewitness Ronald Galenza. He documented his memories of the East Berlin punk scene in his own book: „Wir wollen immer Artig sein. Punk, New Wave, Hiphop und Independent-Szene in der DDR von 1980 bis 1990*“.
Members of the scene’s most well-known bands also showed up here — the Leipzig band Wutanfall or the Erfurt punks from Schleimkeim led by Otze — “grubby working-class punks,” as Galenza puts it. Contrary to what one might think, the punks in Plänterwald had also been under surveillance. After 1983, when the Stasi tightened the reins on the punk scene and many were arrested, drafted into the army, or deported to the West, things also quieted down around the scene in Plänterwald.
The meeting spot lost its significance. After 1986, when the SED leadership relaxed its cultural policies, punk concerts could also take place outside the previously limited venues. For many who thought or looked different, churches remained the most important gathering places for music, culture, and politics until the end of the GDR.
How Norbert Witte failed with the Spreepark
Speaking of Plänterwald: In 1991, Spreepark was sold and was supposed to be turned into a Western-style amusement park. But the concept didn’t work out. The park closed in 2001/02 — burdened with millions in debt. Anyone who wants to learn more about this experiment by showman Norbert Witte (grandson of the fairground artist and conman Otto Witte) should watch the film Achterbahn* (“Roller Coaster”).
Currently, parts of the park are accessible again. The Ferris wheel (fans may know it from the children’s TV series “Spuk unterm Riesenrad”, which was set there) is scheduled to be put back into operation soon. The reopening of the planned Plänterwald Art and Culture Park is scheduled for 2026.