Berlinshire at the GDR Disco

Berlinshire at the GDR Disco

In the German Democratic Republic, DJs weren’t called DJs. In order to distinguish themselves from their capitalist neighbours in the West, the East Germans invented their own vernacular for certain things. So, in the East, you didn’t eat hamburgers and hot dogs, you ate grilletta and ketwurst. And in East Germany you weren’t a DJ, you were a Schallplattenunterhalter (SPU)- a recorded disc entertainer, or later in the 1980s, a Diskomoderator - a disco presenter.
Like every other profession in East Germany, DJ-ing or ‘disco moderating’, had to be state-approved. In order to perform in public, you had to undergo official DJ ‘training’, pass a test, an exam, and then you’d get a DJ-ing permit, which was valid for two years.
In Berlinshire at the GDR Disco, I talked to Andreas Vendt-Schmidt, a former SPU from Cottbus in East Germany, about entertaining communist bureaucrats, East German Rick Astleys and music quotas behind the Iron Curtain.

Berlinshire is presented and produced by Maisie Hitchcock, and broadcast on Resonance FM in London