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Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

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The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

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You are here: Home / Medium Cool / Wind of Change

Wind of Change

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Today we’ll be talking about Wind of Change, the podcast hosted by New Yorker investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe.  The eight-part podcast follows Keefe as he explores a rumor he heard from a source within the CIA – that the agency was behind the 1990 international hit power ballad “Winds of Change”.

Open Thread: Wind of Change?

Let’s talk about the podcast. I found it fascinating – music, stories, history, mystery, intrigue…

Here are some starter questions, but we’ll follow the conversation wherever it goes.

What did you all think?  Does he make the case?  Do you believe the CIA was involved?  Could have been involved?  What were your favorite parts of the series?  For me, the big surprise was learning all the ways the CIA has used music and musicians for propaganda purposes.

Even if you didn’t listen to the podcast, does the idea that the CIA was involved with this seem plausible?

Here’s a pretty good summary of the premise.

The elevator pitch is exquisite: What if I told you that “Wind of Change,” the sorta corny but kinda great 1990 power ballad from Scorpions, the German rock band best known for “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” might have actually been written by the CIA? And furthermore, that the song, which upon its release became a kind of anthem for peaceful revolution across Europe, was possibly a successful entry in a broader underground campaign by the West to expand its soft power against the Soviet Union during the Cold War?

There is even a TV adaptation of the podcast in the works at Hulu.

?

Programming note: Celebrity Autobiography at 8 pm ET:  A Georgia fundraiser for Fair Fight.

We are excited to invite you to a virtual fundraiser, Celebrity Autobiography, the show where celebrities read hilarious passages from other celebrity memoirs. This Sunday, December 27 at 8:00pm ET, join the creators of the hit Broadway show and an amazing lineup of stars as they raise money for Fair Fight ahead of the runoff elections in Georgia.

There will be an incredible line-up of performers, including Matthew Broderick, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Andrea Martin, Mandy Patinkin, Rosie Perez, Rob Reiner, Martin Short, Cecily Strong, Tony Hale, John Leguizamo, and some more surprise guests. Tickets start at $10 and your support will help us make sure that Georgians vote on January 5 and elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.   RSVP

 

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’ve worked with several folks from Langley. None of them could carry a tune, none had rhythm, and none could rhyme. And one was severely hearing impaired.

    That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    I know the CIA has been involved in things  like overthrowing governments, assassinations, and torture, but I find it hard to believe they would go so far as teaming up with The Scorpions.

  3. 3.

    encephalopath

    The song does not sound like it was written by a native English speaker.

    Has anyone who speaks German done a language analysis on the song? Are there phrases that look like idiomatic German that appear to have been translated to English? My untutored guess is that this would be true.

  4. 4.

    Gretchen

    I thought it interesting that people who worked with the CIA or knew how it operated thought it plausible.  Nobody said “that’s not possible”.  I also thought it interesting that it was quite different from their usual style of “girls/cars/booze” music.  But the interview with the supposed composer denied it.

  5. 5.

    Gretchen

    Whatever conclusion you come to, it was a very interesting podcast and I was sorry to get to the end of it.

  6. 6.

    geg6

    I loved every minute of it. Great fun!

    What did you all think? Does he make the case? Do you believe the CIA was involved? Could have been involved?

    What were your favorite parts of the series? For me, the big surprise was learning all the ways the CIA has used music and musicians for propaganda purposes.

    I had heard the story about Louis Armstrong before and, of course, their cooperation in the making of Argo, so none of that was a surprise and I find it plausible that they glommed onto the youth reaction to the song and made sure it was distributed all over the Iron Curtain countries as far and wide as possible. I don’t think they wrote it, though. I think Klaus actually wrote it sincerely from his heart. The interview with him and the episode at the Scorps concert in Ukraine were my favorite ones.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @Gretchen: I didn’t find the interview with Klaus (who supposedly wrote the song) to be all that convincing.

    At the end of that episode, I thought it was more likely that the story of the CIA involvement was true.

  11. 11.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    The whole band is German.  It has the Scorpions’ sound to it.  It’s only different from their other songs in that it is political.  It’s not so far, musically, from another of their big hits, Still Loving You.  This is why I have no doubt that the Scorpions, more specifically Klaus, wrote it.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    Decades ago, I came out of the Oliver Stone movie JFK thinking that I didn’t know whether the CIA had been involved, but I thought it was certainly very possible that they were.  That’s kind of how I felt about this at the end.

    It could be a bit like the “telephone” game where details weren’t correct, but there could have been some truth to it.  Maybe the CIA played a role in distributing the Scorpion’s music when it was prohibited, or maybe they put some ideas in his head that ended up being part of the song.

    I thought it was super interesting that it is common knowledge that the CIA used other musical people without them ever knowing about it.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    With disinformation campaigns being in the news, and propaganda, I can easily see that the CIA might not want to admit (publicly in so many words) that they are actively involved in doing that in other countries.

    I found it compelling that the CIA said “no” to a bunch of FOIA questions, and yet on the question of whether they were involved in the writing of that song, the answer was basically “we can neither confirm nor deny”.

  17. 17.

    hilts

    The big surprise was learning all the ways the CIA has used music and musicians for propaganda purposes.

    The CIA also infiltrated and co-opted many literary journals and programs:

    The CIA helped to fund and shape the institution of the MFA program in creative writing. In the mid-20th century, as the literary historian Eric Bennett writes in Workshops of Empire, the CIA, together with other government entities such as the State Department and the United States Information Agency (USIA), began a program of investment in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

    By the late 1960s, intelligence agencies were supporting literary and intellectual journals such as Daedalus, Partisan Review, Poetry, Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, and the Hudson Review, co-founded and edited by Frederick Morgan ’43. The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), which the CIA founded as an anti-communist front, bought thousands of subscriptions to these magazines and distributed the issues abroad. Many alumni and affiliates of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop became affiliates (with or without knowledge of what they were getting into) of the CCF, including Robert Lowell, Norman Holmes Pearson, John Crowe Ransom, and Allen Tate.

     

    h/t https://paw.princeton.edu/article/p-source

  18. 18.

    Barbara

    Half way  through. First episode was a bit meh because I didn’t find the topic to be inherently irresistible, but the next four installments gave interesting background on the CIA, the use of culture as diplomacy and propaganda, and of course, the craziness of the music industry.

    Former agent made the point that there could have been multiple efforts but this is the one that stuck.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    Another thing I thought was compelling was that “Doc” was caught up in the huge drug bust, and everyone else ended up in prison, and he got off without any real consequences.

    If push comes to shove, I think Doc was definitely involved with the CIA, and the band was also, at the very least through that connection.

  20. 20.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    Using culture to infiltrate societies with ideas that encourage change is as old as civilization.  And the CIA has always used methods like this.  Low cost and low risk with the possibility of paying high dividends.  They’d be stupid not to.  We are seeing that here in this country with Russian disinformation and bots in social media.  Obviously, it works.

  21. 21.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    CIA produced Adam Sandler’s movies. The play them in a loop to torture prisoners.

  24. 24.

    CliosFanBoy

    seems perfectly possible and logical to me.

    and “JFK” is garbage, and consistently places near the top in polls of historians as “most historically inaccurate movie that is supposedly accurate.”  it competes with Braveheart for the “honor” of being the biggest piece of crap, historically.

  26. 26.

    WaterGirl

    Do you think it’s ethical for the CIA to use private citizens in their operations without the citizens knowing about it?  That seems wrong to me, as it seems like it would put those people in danger.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @CliosFanBoy: I wasn’t saying it wasn’t garbage, but I could, and still can, believe that it’s possible that they would be involved in the assassination of a president who was viewed as a threat to them.

  32. 32.

    geg6

    @CliosFanBoy:

    Agreed about both movies.  Total crap.

    I’m not a big conspiracy fan.  Oswald was the lone gunman and he was just a crazy person.  Jim Garrison is no better than Lyn Wood.  And as for the other, don’t get me started on Scots history.

  35. 35.

    CliosFanBoy

    @WaterGirl: except they DIDN’T view him as a threat. The CIA LIKED Kennedy and he liked them.  They gave him what he needed in the Cuban Missle Crisis to avoid WWIII and after that, they were his favorites. The idea that JFK was about to pull out of Vietnam (as purported by many conspiracy theorists)  is, to put it mildly, nonsense. He was a died-in-the-wool Cold Warrior.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    Interesting. I was going to point the finger at you because no single human could do all that you do for this site.  You obviously have a team of agents behind you.  And as a front pager, you have access to all our metadata and our precious bodily fluids.

    ETA: Actually, the precious bodily fluids is another site I frequent. Never mind.

  45. 45.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl:

    I saw a reference to Doctor Zhivago above, and I guess they tell that story. It’s always presented as something sinister. But it’s a great novel, so good for the CIA if they helped distribute it. I don’t put that in the same category as the GRU helping to elect Trump. Trump ain’t no Pasternak.

  47. 47.

    CliosFanBoy

    @The Moar You Know: Yeah, because no US intelligence agency could possibly have access to native speakers in other languages?   No one is claiming they were written by some GS 11 from Utah.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia:

    But it’s a great novel, so good for the CIA if they helped distribute it. I don’t put that in the same category as the GRU helping to elect Trump. Trump ain’t no Pasternak.

    Could not agree more.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    We could combine popular culture with Festivus, and go with grievances related to popular culture.  The director/producer who fucked up a franchise, TV series that ended too soon, someone who totally ruined a song with their terrible cover of it.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    Is anyone going to watch the Georgia fundraiser event I linked to up top?  I have a feeling that it’s either going to be awesome or be a total bust, not something in between.  Either way, they have my $10 to help make Georgia go our way.  Any gut feelings on Georgia?  I think we have a good shot at winning both seats – not based on logic or polls, just gut feeling.  What good is a poll when 12 or 15% of the peeps are undecided, or not saying?  (Answer: no good at all.)

  52. 52.

    Tony Jay

    @Barbara:

    Former agent made the point that there could have been multiple efforts but this is the one that stuck.

    Or it’s typical disinformation, not-really-but really claiming responsibility for one thing in order to shade away their genuine responsibility for something else. Did the C.I.A. write and promote Winds of Change? Probably not, but it sounds just about convincing enough in context to be a maybe.

    They are, however, entirely responsible for The Final Countdown. It’s the only plausible reason for that spitball of backcombed cockrock awfulness still polluting the airwaves today. There is no other explanation. There can’t be.

  53. 53.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: I’ve voted, given money and been bombed with texts and mail and I’m done

     

    here’s a post from a friend

     

    “I am so disgusted with the millions of dollars spent on this, tv adds, mail pollution and signs. Cant the money be used to feed and house those in need. I will never give a penny to any candidates after seeing this. Everyday our mailbox is full of campaign pollution that I will never read or will any of it change votes . I hear you , I said the same thing a month ago.”

  54. 54.

    The Pale Scot

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Simples, they hire Rick Rubin who uses his contacts to find a scruffy West German band that wasn’t Euroglam or connect’d to the West Coast have metal scene, maybe talk Michael Schenker to come back for tour

     

    It could have happened

  55. 55.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Great Podcast! I actually only managed to listen to only the 6th episode or so, but based on what the evidence, I think the CIA probably used the Scorpions as an influence operation in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc. It makes a ton of sense. They got a songwriter to work for them who wrote “Wind of Change”. It’s definitely plausible, imo, based on the CIA’s history of using culture to influence other countries

  56. 56.

    HinTN

    @raven: Being from northwards of y’all, I can’t vote for them but the rest is spot on. They, and Stacy, got my money. I hope they’re putting to good use.

  57. 57.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @raven:

    “I am so disgusted with the millions of dollars spent on this, tv adds, mail pollution and signs. Cant the money be used to feed and house those in need. I will never give a penny to any candidates after seeing this. Everyday our mailbox is full of campaign pollution that I will never read or will any of it change votes . I hear you , I said the same thing a month ago.”

    It’s for the fate of the country. Political ads are annoying, but American democracy is in the balance

    Also, what @WaterGirl: said below

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I will point out that it wouldn’t be legal to get campaign funds and then spend them to feed the hungry or house the homeless.  What are you supposed to do when you have a handful of rich people Republicans giving 100 million to a candidate at the last minute?  And they are running hideous lies about you on on endless ads on TV?

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    If anyone does go to the fundraiser event, let me know if you have problems getting in.  I had to try to or three things in order to get it to work.

  60. 60.

    Stuart Frasier

    I once took a donkey taxi in Gili Trawangan in Indonesia and it had a boombox playing Scorpions’ Greatest Hits.  Listening to Winds of Change in the back of a donkey-drawn cart on a tropical island was surreal.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    You know how the Monkees and their songs were deliberately created to appeal to the kids?  I wonder if something like that wasn’t done for winds of change, at least for the melody, and then Klaus wrote some lyrics which the CIA “fixed” into the message they wanted.  Or maybe they suggested some key words and let him write the actual lyrics.

  62. 62.

    Zelma

    I’m not sure what they were trying to accomplish, but back in the 60s and 70s, the CIA apparently funded this great cultural magazine, Encounter.  It was hard back, four color and just beautiful.  My husband had the whole run.  It contained some of the best and most interesting historical writing of the time.  A lot of the writers were Brits. It was pretty mainstream but by no means conservative.   I have to believe there were worse ways to spend government money.

  63. 63.

    Citizen_X

    Well now, how should I ask this politely? How about: What the unholy fuck is this conspiracy-addled horseshit doing here?

    I read this post, and the first, with one question in the forefront: What do the Scorpions say about it? Klaus Meine said the CIA had nothing to do with writing the song. That is the end of the story. They don’t have to do a new song and video to convince you. Everything else is unfalsifiable speculation. Unless, of course, you have some (early) emails to Meine saying, “Sorry, but Langley says the solo should switch in the next measure to the Mixolydian mode; that would undermine the Warsaw Bloc more effectively.”

    Did the CIA have a hand in supporting and distributing it? Sure, maybe. That is different from making inferences about what’s going on in a songwriter’s head.

    Yes, yes, I know, it’s easy and fun! to talk about this unsupported nonsense. So’s your mom. But that’s not, you know, news, either. This is sub-Q idiocy, leave that stuff to them.

  64. 64.

    Rokka

    Almost everything in the Sixties was written to appeal to teens.
    Eric Burdon and the Animals put out the first Winds of Change song and album in 1967 so the CIA didn’t write the title.
    The Jefferson Starship Winds of Change came out in 1982 which got to #38 and should have gone higher. Disclaimer: I’m Facebook friends with the Keytar player, did rehearsal sound for the drummer etc.
    youtube.com/watch?v=o7dJ3a-U6WQ

  65. 65.

    geg6

    @Citizen_X: 
    That’s a little harsh. It’s fun and even informative about the history of the music biz and the unsavory characters within it, the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall and crumbling of the Soviet Union and its satellites and some interesting tidbits about the CIA that most of the general public don’t know. I found it very engaging and entertaining. And you won’t find anyone more disdainful of conspiracy theories than I am. I thought Klaus had a good sense of humor about it all and I, personally, did not detect any hidden meanings in the interview. I liked how he came off. I ended my listening with that interview thinking I’d like to have a beer and talk with him. He seemed very cool and chill. And I’ve never even been a Scorpions fan! Despite being subjected to them regularly by an ex-BF who was a big fan. LOL!

  66. 66.

    Mike G

    Promotion is a big part of having a successful record, and a lot of that part of the business is murky, payola scandals, etc. I don’t buy that the CIA wrote the song (authoritarian politically-motivated ‘art’ tends toward heavy-handed and awful), but it’s very possible the organization found it an appealing political vehicle and so had their media contacts spread some money around and lean on promoters to favor the song and push into the big time.

  67. 67.

    Citizen_X

    @geg6: And what if Meine was not “chill” about it? The German musicians I know are all punk rockers. They would fucking furious if some Yank told them they “knew” the CIA wrote their songs for them.

    Conspiracy hogwash is usually made to be fun and entertaining. It does not belong here.

  69. 69.

    Splitting Image

    I think that the real story behind the podcast is that some Americans want the song to be about the continuing rivalry between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and not the reunification of Germany, an event that would have been slightly higher in a German songwriter’s consciousness in the year 1990.

    The Berlin Wall fell towards the end of 1989 and East German elections in early 1990 produced a government that wanted unification sooner rather than later. By the end of the year, it was a fait accomplit. The Scorpions were in the studio while all this was going on.

    Keep in mind that the division of the country meant that Germany was still bound by treaties made by the powers which occupied the country in 1945, and the partition itself was a result of a dispute between those powers that began right after their victory. Division meant that Germans weren’t able to move past the Nazi era, never mind the Cold War. Most Germans’ feeling about reunification was something like Americans felt in November when they learned that Trump had finally, definitively lost – but closer to how they would feel if Trump had been in power for 45 years instead of four.

    Imagining that the CIA helped write the song makes no sense. Reunification wasn’t only about East Germany and West Germany coming together; it also marked the formal end of the partition treaties made by the U.S., Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. For the first time in most Germans’ lives, the country was going to look to a future that didn’t require checking with its rivals before conducting its basic functions. Whether one likes the song or not, it expresses exactly what a lot of Germans felt during the year of 1990. Does it sound remotely likely that a group of Germans would work with a group of foreign spies to piss on a moment like that?

  71. 71.

    SixStringFanatic

    This podcast was the biggest load of horseshit I’ve heard in a long, long time.  The basic premise is that some desk-jockey at the CIA wrote a song that “became an anthem of peaceful revolution across Europe” and was part of a “CIA soft power effort to influence issues in Russia”.

    Complete fucking horseshit.  Here’s why.

    The song was the third single from The Scorpions album “Crazy World” and didn’t become a hit until late August 1991. The Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989. Germany reunited as a country in October of 1990. Every Eastern European country had tossed the Communists out of power by the summer of 1990.  The aborted coup in the Soviet Union, where the old hardliners tried to wrest power back from Gorbachev, took place as the song was climbing the charts across the world and it was that aborted coup which resulted, four months later, in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  “Wind Of Change” wasn’t an anthem of peaceful revolution, it was a celebration of change that HAD ALREADY HAPPENED.

    On top of all that, the CIA was completely clueless about the events happening in eastern Europe and were as surprised as the general public when the Berlin Wall fell, when the Communists were tossed out of power, and when the Soviet Union dissolved. Sure, some CIA flack says, “it sounds plausible” when somebody spins this horseshit tale; it makes them look a lot better than the actual story.

    If you want to know the real story behind the song and the life experiences that went into it, the life experiences of a man who had spent his entire life in a country divided by the Cold War, read this article:

    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/scorpions-wind-of-change-the-oral-history-of-1990s-epic-power-ballad-63069/

  72. 72.

    Barbara

    @geg6: Having now listened to most of the rest of it, I doubt if the CIA wrote the song.  I can believe that it funded the tour or used levers to spread the tapes throughout the USSR and its satellites.  This is consistent with how it used other cultural activities — it laid the groundwork but it didn’t seem to be actively involved in creating works{

    ETA: Per SixString, a German band might have been inspired in a way an American band would not by the the prospect of change in the USSR.  It meant a lot to Germany as well.

  73. 73.

    Citizen_X

    @WaterGirl: As I *think* I intimated, I would be fine if it were a story about how the CIA may have promoted the song. That’s something that’s inherently hard to prove anyway. It’s the whole “we helped write it” part that’s going too far.

  76. 76.

    WaterGirl

    @Barbara:

    Having now listened to most of the rest of it, I doubt if the CIA wrote the song.  I can believe that it funded the tour or used levers to spread the tapes throughout the USSR and its satellites.  This is consistent with how it used other cultural activities — it laid the groundwork but it didn’t seem to be actively involved in creating works.

    I think that’s quite possible.  That’s what I was getting at when I mentioned the “telephone” game.  The CIA may well have been involved, but the details may have morphed from what really happened to “they wrote the song”.

  77. 77.

    WaterGirl

    @Citizen_X: To be clear, the person who did the podcast doesn’t state that they wrote the song, he spent a year on a quest to find out whether there was truth to that rumor.

    Even at the end of the podcast, he doesn’t state any particular conclusion to the “did they or didn’t they” question.

    And apparently there are musical artists who were used by the CIA, without their knowledge or consent.  So there is that possibility to consider, too.

  78. 78.

    Rokka

    @SixStringFanatic: The record company didn’t like the whistling, so if the CIA was involved, they would have gotten Zamfir to play the part which would have helped push the song in Eastern Europe.
    Disclaimer: I have seen Zamfir live.

  79. 79.

    SixStringFanatic

    @WaterGirl: Again, it is not possible that the CIA could have distibuted the song through the Soviet Union “OR ITS SATELLITES”.  The USSR had lost its satellite countries before the song was released as an album track, let alone a single.

    The communist governments of Eastern Europe fell over a period of a few months, from November of 1989 until summer of 1990.

    “Crazy World”, the album that included “Wind of Change” was released in November of 1990.  The song was released as a single in January of 1991 but didn’t peak on the charts until the end of August 1991, a couple of weeks after the failed coup that actually ended the USSR.

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    @SixStringFanatic: To me “or its satellites” was a throwaway phrase.  So just assume that what I was agreeing with didn’t have that phrase in it.

    edit: I will be the first to say that you know much more of the history of that period than I do.

  81. 81.

    SixStringFanatic

    @WaterGirl: The CIA were caught by surprise by all of the events of 1989-1991.  They did not anticipate that Gorbachev would cut over half a million Soviet troops.  They did not anticipate that he would tell the eastern European nations, “We will no longer be making your policy decisions for you”.  They learned that the Berlin Wall was opening up the same way everyone else did: they watched it on TV.  They did not anticipate that every Eastern European country would peacefully (with the noted exception of Romania) toss the Communists out of power over a period of less than a year.  They had predicted that there might, at some point, be a hardline reaction against Gorbachev, but they were as surprised as anyone else when it actually happened and as surprised as anyone else when the whole thing fell apart, peacefully, in less than a week.  They did not anticipate that the Soviet Union would just announce, “Oh by the way, we’re completely dissolving tomorrow” and then peacefully do so.

    Beyond that, it wasn’t a “youth movement” that ended the Soviet Union. It was the complete collapse of their economy, which the CIA also failed to predict, mostly because the CIA had been overestimating the USSR’s economic strength for years.

    That podcast didn’t just end with a “we can’t answer the question one way or the other”.  It ended without having produced one single shred of evidence corroborating any part of its central thesis. It retold some old stories about tours that happened decades before and used that as the basis for pure conjecture about this particular song.

    This article does a much better job at conveying the idea I’ve been trying to get at:

    https://podcastreview.org/review/wind-of-change/#:~:text=Wind%20of%20Change%20isn't,more%20people%20will%20believe%20it.

  82. 82.

    SixStringFanatic

    @SixStringFanatic: It also does a better job at explaining just what angers me about this whole podcast.

    It’s an amusing tale with no basis in fact.  Though the subject might not be all that important, it’s one more bullshit tale at a time when we are, as a country, drowning in bullshit tales. And the reaction that so many people have, ” I dunno it’s sounds plausible” is exactly how conspiracy tales and bullshit are spun into accepted fact.

    Sorry to be so cranky but it appears I have at least one thing in common with Matthew McConaughey’s character in True Detective:

    I’m no fun at parties, either.

  83. 83.

    SixStringFanatic

    @WaterGirl: I was an Army brat my entire childhood.  I spent five of my teenage years living in West Germany in the 80’s.  I traveled to West Berlin half a dozen times in those years.  I saw the Berlin Wall, saw the guard towers with armed guards staring down at us. I saw the crosses placed at the points along the Wall where people had died trying to cross it.  I’m not German but I understand some of what Klaus Meine was talking about in that Rolling Stone article, how it was to be a German born into a world that had just defeated the Nazis, how he and his generation uncomfortably carried the burden of those atrocities and how they grew up, spent their entire lives in a country divided by soldiers, Walls, and militarized borders.  I get what he meant when he wrote that song; the first couple of times that I saw the accompanying video, with its scenes of the Wall coming down and people dancing on top of it, I was moved to actual tears.

    To have all of that stained by third hand gossip that it was just, in whole or in part, another CIA operation, is more than a little distasteful.

  84. 84.

    SixStringFanatic

    @WaterGirl: I’m also sorry if this came across as a personal attack on you.  I certainly didn’t intend that. I will acknowledge that my tone was more than a little harsh but, I mean, it’s Balloon Juice, right?  They don’t call us the jackaltariat for nothing!

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @SixStringFanatic: No worries.  I read your last 4 comments with great interest and I really liked the article you linked to.

    Having spent 5 of your formative teenage years in Germany, I can see how that would impact your take on the whole thing, that it could feel personal.

    I still like the podcast and I see it more as him taking us along on this journey with him, as he asks questions and follows leads.  I thought it was really fun; I enjoyed the music and the stories and the history I learned along the way.  I liked that there were more questions than answers.

    I have enjoyed the back and forth as people, sometimes vehemently, state their positions and why they believe what they believe.  I thought it was a fun podcast.  I hoped to be able to engage with other people who had listened to it, so I am happy enough with the outcome.

  86. 86.

    Barbara

    @SixStringFanatic: Super late, but one thing that the the author noted was how the CIA might have started the rumor to embellish its own image. I actually find this theory to be more plausible than the CIA writing a song for a German band. The CIA might have helped to fund the Moscow tour — it had funded other earlier tours of musicians. It might have used the manager, and all that. But I find it implausible that it would have actually written a song for a German band. I do find it plausible that the CIA might have felt a little nonplussed that the wall came down without any obvious American assistance.

    Among other things I did not like about the podcast was the interview between Meine and and the author when Meine tries to articulate why he was so moved by the Moscow concert, explaining how he knew of people in the DDR who had been jailed if they were caught listening to rock music. And the author’s response, “Really??!!!” as if he had never read a competent account of the DDR or the Stasi.

  87. 87.

    Pittsburgh Mike

    @Barbara: I’m with you.  My guess is that the CIA helped get the concert in the USSR produced — someone who could get serous drug charges dropped was clearly involved.   But Klaus Meine sounded convincing to me when he said he hadn’t even heard the theory that the CIA wrote the song.

    My guess is the CIA internally took responsibility for producing the concert that inspired Klaus to write the song, and over time, that fact mutated through sloppy repetition, into the story that the CIA actually wrote the song.

    Watching how even unclassified history gets mangled over time, this doesn’t seem implausible to me.

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