"In July 1988, Bruce Springsteen gave East Germany the biggest rock concert it ever saw. In a new book, journalist Erik Kirschbaum says the Boss inspired an entire generation to strive for more freedom -- and deserves some credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall." Erik Kirchbaum will visit the University of Arizona in this moving talk on East Germany, the Wall and the final reunification sponsored by the Department of German Studies.
Kirchbaum's presentation will focus on the question: How could a rock concert move an entire nation, like Springsteen did in July 1988 in East Berlin, to rise up and reach out for more freedom? How could one artist singing about “Chimes of Freedom” and speaking out against the Wall (“…in the hopes that all the barriers are torn down”) have had such a major effect on the young generation of East Germans fed up with the stagnation of their Communist state that was even falling behind the more reform-minded other Eastern European countries in the late 1980s. Was rock ‘n’ roll and Springsteen with his four-hour concert the catalyst that inspired a generation of young East Germans to rise up? Or was the Berlin Wall going to fall sooner or later anyhow?
Erik Kirschbaum, a native of New York City, has been working as a foreign correspondent since 1989. He has spent most of the last 24 years in Germany writing about politics, economics, entertainment, climate change and sports for Reuters as well for several years for Time magazine, Variety and English-language newspapers around the world. But he has also reported for Reuters from Austria and the Balkans and been on extended assignments in Greece, Iran, China, Albania. Kirschbaum, a father of four children, is also a solar power entrepreneur who has with two partners built more than 12 mw of photovoltaic capacity – delivering enough CO2-free electricity for 12,000 people. Kirschbaum began working as a journalist in Connecticut at the age of 14, working for the Redding Pilot weekly, before working as a copyboy for the Danbury News-Times in the early morning hours before school. He earned an honors degree in history and German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984). His senior honors thesis, “The Eradication of German Culture in the United States: 1917-18” was published in 1985 by the H.-D. Heinz Verlag in Stuttgart and a book he wrote in London in 1985 “Swim + Bike + Run: Triathlon, the Sporting Trinity” was published by Allen & Unwin. Kirschbaum has also worked as a freelance journalist for the Madison Capital Times and Triathlon magazine. He worked for the Las Vegas Sun from 1987 to 88 before moving to New York in 1988 to work for AP-Dow Jones. In February 1989 he was transferred to Frankfurt. He joined Reuters in October 1990 in Frankfurt and was later posted to Berlin, Vienna and Bonn before returning to Berlin in 1999. Kirschbaum is chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Germany (VAP) and is also a member of the RIAS Berlin Commission.
Read more about it here:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/book-says-springsteen-concert-helped-bring-down-berlin-wall-a-906236.html
http://www.amazon.com/Rocking-Wall-Bruce-Springsteen-Concert/dp/1935902733
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/entertainment-us-germany-springsteen-boo-idUSBRE95P10520130626
Photo Credit: Herbert Schulze
Partial Text Credit: spiegel.de / David Crossland / American Council on Germany
