During the 1970s, a “Folk Music Revival” began to emerge in the GDR. This movement, which was influenced by, among others, new folk music trends from Ireland, Sweden, and the US, is described by GDR folk musicians as a kind of counter-movement to the dominant singing movement of the time, mostly organized by the FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend) and the GDR authorities. German Volksmusik was since WWII stigmatized as Nazi and the Folk Music Revival, where folk music was spelled with an ”F” instead of a ”V”, also should renew folk music with the help of influences from other countries, including Western countries.This article provides some examples of ideas about folk music and politics in the GDR during the 1970s and 1980s which existed among folk musicians, local authorities and the state surveillance apparatus. Through historical discourse analyses of some concrete examples from sources from Stasi archives and published interviews with contemporary witnesses the scope for action between political adaption and artistic freedom is examined. More specifically, the article provides insight into how the authorities, and in particular the Stasi, exercised power in concrete terms, how that power was justified, accepted, and challenged, and what consequences this had for those affected. The study shows that in the early 1970s, when the first folk music groups outside the official singing movement emerged, the GDR authorities were not particularly familiar with the phenomenon and were unprepared for the numerous groups that began to appear in the late 1970s and during the 1980s. It was common for folk musicians to try to maintain contact with the authorities responsible for organizing musical life, but at the same time they also tried to express social criticism by, for example, rewriting the lyrics of well-known songs or embedding performed songs in a socially critical context. While some musicians succeeded in building a career as folk musicians in this way, others got into trouble with the authorities and some, such as Wolf Biermann and Stephan Krawcyk, were expelled to West Germany.

This article is the introduction to the book "The Cold War through music-making in the GDR: political goals, aesthetic paradoxes, and the case of neutral Sweden". This introduction provides an insight into the political and musical situation in the GDR; it discusses terms that are fundamental to the entire book, such as cultural diplomacy, romanticism, classicism, cultural heritage, socialist realism and formalism, and it gives a short introduction to the political and musical relations between the GDR and Sweden. The individual contributions to the book are also briefly introduced.

In this book, researchers from different disciplines use the case of the German Democratic Republic to show how music was employed to further the state's cultural and political policies, as well as influence its international relations, culture, and politics. 

The study spans the Cold War, including the GDR's creation, the great-power struggle for control, the importance of returning war refugees for the construction of the GDR, the building of the 1961 wall, the central intelligence activities and the state's struggle for diplomatic recognition.

Contributors examine the function and position of music within East German cultural politics, focusing on the relationship between music and authoritarian state politicies. While most of the contributions emphasize classical music, referred to in German as ernste Musik, "serious music", some of them also touch on popular music and jazz. Music also constituted a major factor in the GDR's international outreach, particularly to "neutral" countries as Sweden (a central focus of the book).

The volume is editied by Petra Garberding, associate professor in European Ethnology at Södertörn University, and Henrik Rosengren, associate professor in History at Lund University. Contributors are Lars Klingberg, Andreas Lueken, Meredith Nicoll, Matthias Tischer and Stefan Weiss. 

In the GDR there was a folk revival in the 1970s and 80s. Inspired by American artists, such as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, among others, numerous folk music groups emerged during this period. Groups such as Folkländer, JAMS and Wacholder were very successful, and folk music and folk dance spread. These activities were often seen by the participants as an alternative to the official FDJ singing movement in the GDR. Within the GDR folk scene, musicians and the audience were able to gain a certain amount of political and artistic freedom. One important strategy for this was, among other things, the use of historical song collections published in the GDR, such as the “Steinitz”, the song collections of “German folk songs of a democratic character from six centuries” published by the folklorist and linguist Wolfgang Steinitz. Songs from the Steinitz in particular were often used by folk musicians to express a covert critique of society, which was usually understood by the audience, without risking interrogation by the Stasi. Another strategy was to contact key people, such as the music ethnologist Erich Stockmann, who was employed at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in East Berlin and was able to arrange important contacts at home and abroad, as well as keeping the musicians informed about interesting musical innovations. This contribution provides an insight into how folkloric and music ethnological knowledge was transformed in order to protest against political injustices as unnoticed as possible by the authorities.