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This essay considers the history of VEB Deutsche Schallplatten (VEB DS), East Germany's sole record company. Founded initially to distribute socialist music from the eastern bloc, the company eventually caved to western influences and sold licensed versions of recordings by artists like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. Incorporating personal interviews, legal documents, and press from the GDR, this essay explains what it meant to produce an LP in East Germany. Because the leadership of VEB DS provided clear-cut guidelines for every aspect of record production, including the specific roles of individuals within the organization, producing albums should have been easy. This essay relies on the writings of former VEB DS executive Alexander Schindler, whose unpublished manuscript from 1995, described VEB DS and its processes at great length. Schindler also explained the post-Wende dissolution of VEB DS into both smaller niche record labels and Sony GmbH.
Although some of the recordings created by VEB DS, especially its popular music division, Amiga, were newsworthy and well-received, for the most part the organization kept a relatively low profile and did not have open disputes with its artists. However, this changed in 1978 when art rock group Stern Combo Meißen recorded the concept album Weißes Gold, a 40-minute song cycle chronicling Johann Böttger's discovery of porcelain, an innovation that has forever linked the city of Meissen with German porcelain. Although the band carefully followed VEB DS protocol, they were the target of the GDR's first copyright lawsuit. Lyricist Kurt Demmler, upset at potential lost royalties, successfully sued the band for his share. The production Weisses Gold provides an unusual case study as a challenging project that threatened the smooth operations of VEB DS.
Much has been written about popular music in the East Germany (the German Democratic Republic or GDR), most notably by Peter Wicke, Michael Rauhut, and Olaf Leitner.1 VEB Deutsche Schallplatten (VEB DS), the country's official and only legal record label, was responsible for all musical output and faced challenges unique to a socialist organization. VEB DS was a nationally-owned enterprise (a volkseigene Betrieb), as were most East German businesses. VEB DS worked exclusively with professional bands - as of 1988 the official count of professional rock bands (not including dance bands) was...