Abstract:

Berlin has always had a strong working class tradition and a history of political activism that was echoed in its music, literature, and film. This paper asks how immigrant workers and working-class sympathizers have interacted with Berlins’ indigenous proletarian tradition. Considering representations of international worker’s solidarity during the 1970s, this paper examines the degree to which Turkish-German labor migrants can be regarded as contiguous with Berlin’s earlier traditions of organization and protest. Central to the analysis are songs from the album İşci şarkıları ve marşları (1974) by Tahsin Incirci and the Türkischer Arbeiterchor West Berlin. Even during the early stages of immigration during the late 1960s and early 1970s, this paper reveals, the choir incorporated the guestworkers’ perspective into the tradition of German labor and protest movements. My analysis will show how Incirci and his choir emphasized the mutual influence and constant interaction of Turkish and German cultural traditions – in particular, workers’ songs and politically engaged literature – and, in so doing, created something new: a synthetic, genuinely proletarian, Berlinrooted musical tradition.

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