Memories of how Springsteen rocked Berlin

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN (Reuters) - When Bruce Springsteen spoke out against the Berlin Wall at the biggest concert in East German history in 1988, no one in the crowd of 160,000 had the faintest idea that the symbol of the Cold War would soon be history.

But now -- 20 years after the American rock star went behind the Iron Curtain -- organizers, historians and people who witnessed it say his message came at a critical juncture in German history in the run-up to the Wall's collapse.

It was not the only show that summer with political fallout. In June, a concert for Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday in London was beamed to millions worldwide. Two years later he was freed from an apartheid jail and later elected South Africa president.

Such concerts for a cause remain part of the summer music calendar, even if their impact is diluted in the internet age.

Springsteen, an influential songwriter and singer whose lyrics are often about people struggling, got permission at long last to perform in East Berlin in 1988.

Even though his songs are full of emotion and politics, East Germany had welcomed him as a "hero of the working class". The Communists may have unwittingly created an evening that did more to change East Germany than Woodstock did to the United States.

Annoyed at the billing "Concert for Nicaragua" that Communist East German leaders stamped on his July 19 performance, Springsteen stopped halfway through the three-hour show for a short speech -- in heavily accented German:

"I want to tell you I'm not here for or against any government," Springsteen said, as he pointedly introduced his rendition of the Bob Dylan ballad "Chimes of Freedom".

"I came to play rock 'n' roll for you East Berliners in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down."

The words fed the discontent building in East Germany and added to a restless mood in the country severed from the West after World War Two -- and especially in the city split by the Wall, built during the darkest hours of the Cold War in 1961.

TASTE OF FREEDOM

The East German organizer told Reuters hardline leaders only reluctantly endorsed the plan by the Communist party's FDJ youth group to let Springsteen in. It was an era of change sparked by the "perestroika" reforms of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

"It obviously wasn't easy and we had to fight hard to get permission but we eventually succeeded," Roland Claus, an ex-FDJ leader and now a member of parliament, said in an interview. East German hardliners were skeptical of Gorbachev.

"The higher-ups understood that rock music was international and if East Germany wanted to do something to improve the lot of young people, we'd have to try it," he said. "We were proud we got him and had great hopes it'd help modernize East Germany."

Instead, the open-air concert at a cycling arena only seemed to make East Germans long more for the freedoms that Springsteen sang and spoke about in a show also broadcast on TV and radio.