Deutsche Pop Zustände (2015)

A documentary film about the interplay between pop culture and extreme right ideology, which reflects the development of nationalist music since the late 1970s in Germany. For decades, popular culture was considered modern and emancipatory but in reality it has long been part of the center of society and it has noticeably opened itself up to the right-wing. The transition from the mainstream to neo-Nazi ideology has become apparent. Music played a central role to NSU (National Socialist Underground)-terrorists Uwe Bönhard, Uwe Mundlos and Beate Zschäpe, who were politicized within the subculture of the neo-Nazi scene and often attended its concerts. The extreme right-wing music scene, especially the network "Blood & Honour", were supporters of the NSU-terrorists. The scene increasingly builds on the mobilizing effect of the music; an idea that the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany) made its own in 2004 when it sought "the hearts of young people to be conquered through music" by way of the so-called NPD-Schoolyard CDs that were distributed in German schools. To date, these CDs describe very precisely the actual ideological state of right-wing music. The documentary by Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios characterizes these developments and gradually establishes connections to the socio-political developments in Germany from the late '70s to today. Similar to its pop-historical documentary "Monks - The Transatlantic Feedback", which in 2009 was awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize (German TV-Oscars), the authors also work in this film without a narrator by using instead intensive conversations and meticulously researched archive material, establishing a dialogue between pop theorists, sociologists, musicians, label owners and protagonists of the right-wing scene.