"Put Mick Jagger in jail"
"They arrest and convict us because we love the new beat," two girls wrote on leaflets in Leipzig in early November 1965, expressing their anger at the security forces’ brutal crackdown on beat fans just a few days earlier.
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Freiheit für alle Beatsfans!
On October 31, 1965, hundreds of young people had gathered in Leipzig to protest the crackdown on the beat scene. 267 young people were “taken into custody.”
Courts imposed penalties on 162 beat fans—many were forced to perform hard labor in open-pit lignite mines. This made the Leipzig beat demonstration the largest protest event between June 17, 1953, and the Peaceful Revolution of 1989–90.
The event draws parallels between the repression of youth and music culture in the GDR at that time and the current situation in Iran. There, music, dance, and Western influences are subject to strict censorship; women, in particular, are prohibited from making music in public. The panel discussion will shed light on how female artists in Iranian exile are continuing this fight for artistic freedom today.
Program:
Film screening of “Für Mick Jagger in den Knast” (2006, 45 min.) followed by a panel discussion with Gerhard Pötzsch (eyewitness, Leipzig), Udo Gebhardt (eyewitness, Halle), Juliane Thieme (historian, Leipzig Civil Rights Movement Archive), and Faravaz (Iranian artist and singer in exile).
Moderated by Dagmar Hovestädt (author/moderator).
Venue: Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, Building 22. The building is not wheelchair accessible.
Pre-event program: Guided tour of the Stasi Records Archive, starting at 5:00 p.m., duration: 45 minutes
Meeting point: Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, “Building 7” foyer
To register for the guided tour, email: einblick-ins-geheime@bundesarchiv.de
Dates
August 2026
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