Don't Die in the Waiting Room of the Future tells the secret history of underground punk in East Germany, from its beginnings in East Berlin in the late Seventies to its role in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the emergence of the club scene of modern Berlin.
This book is not a fairy tale about the revolutionary triumph of Western pop culture over the humorless, badly dressed bureaucrats from the East who wanted to stop the youth from having fun. The apolitical nihilism of the East's punks quickly evolved into a hardcore ideology that related to their particular circumstances. While punks in the West sang about having "no future," about being marginalized by capitalism, the situation in the East was just the opposite: your future was already predetermined, from membership in the FDJ to an education to a factory job as part of the planned economy. The problem wasn't "no future," it was "too much future." Everything was predetermined.
The former activists of the early East German punk scene now live fairly insular lives and tend to be suspicious of strangers. Tim Mohr met many of the key players from back then when he was a DJ in Berlin in the 1990s. Back then, many clubs were run by former punks. Fascinated by their incredible stories, he set his mind on bringing this history to light one day. Many of the protagonists of East Punk, like something called Major, never spoke publicly about their experiences. Mohr interviewed about 50 of these contemporary witnesses. Their stories form the basis for a breathtaking historical social drama. In addition, Mohr studied numerous Stasi files related to the punk scene and also gained insight into personal files.
Text source and more information about this event: http://www.mousonturm.de/web/de/veranstaltung/stirb-nicht-im-warteraum-der-zukunft-
