Kraftwerk and the international ‘re-birth of Germany’: Multiplicity, identity and difference in music and International Relations
| Author | Benjamin Tallis |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221098488 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221098488
Cooperation and Conflict
2022, Vol. 57(3) 268 –289
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00108367221098488
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Kraftwerk and the international
‘re-birth of Germany’:
Multiplicity, identity and
difference in music and
International Relations
Benjamin Tallis
Abstract
Kraftwerk are widely recognised as one of the most important groups in the history of popular
music – and for (West) German national identity in the 20th century. They have been labelled
as both typically German and thoroughly cosmopolitan, but, rather than being paradoxical (as
some have claimed), this tension reveals an under-explored international politics at work. Using the
emerging approach of Multiplicity, I illuminate Kraftwerk’s international dimensions to develop the
insight that all societies are inter-societal and all nations international. The article thus intervenes
into an ongoing debate in International Political Sociology (IPS) that has seen calls to abandon
‘the international’ in favour of ‘the global’. In practice, this would also ignore ‘the national’ which,
as Cultural Studies scholarship on Kraftwerk and recent sociological work shows, remains an
important mode of meaning-making. Yet these same literatures dismiss cosmopolitanism or afford
no constitutive role to the international, meaning they slide back into methodological nationalism.
Using Multiplicity, I address both the national and the cosmopolitan elements of societal identity
and suggest a newly co-ontological conception of identity and difference for International Relations
(IR). Sketching Kraftwerk’s genesis, innovations, inspirations, influence and importance, I thus
illuminate the inter-national politics of the musical ‘re-birth of Germany’.
Keywords
identity, international political sociology, International Relations, Kraftwerk, multiplicity, popular
culture
Introduction: ‘a very (cosmopolitan) German problem’
Kraftwerk are today recognised as one of the most important groups in music history.
Their song ‘Trans Europe Express’ has been called one of ‘the most influential tracks in
the entire canon of popular music’ (Stubbs, 2014: KL-2685) and they have been described
Corresponding author:
Benjamin Tallis, Centre for International Security, Hertie School, Friedrichstraße 180, Berlin, 10117,
Germany
Email: tallis@hertie-school.org
1098488CAC0010.1177/00108367221098488Cooperation and ConflictTallis
research-article2022
Article
Tallis 269
as ‘the world’s most influential band’ (Rogers, 2013). Kraftwerk’s impact is seen as ‘wider
and more enduring’ than that of the Beatles (Reynolds, 2020) and they are credited with
‘revolutionis[ing] popular music’ (Sweeting, 2020) as well as paving the way for musical
genres as diverse as New Wave, Techno, Industrial and Hip-Hop (Petrusich, 2020).
This acclaim comes on the back of a sustained revival of interest in Kraftwerk and
other so-called ‘Krautrock’1 music, as well as in the wider artistic and cultural renaissance
in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) – ‘West Germany’2 – in the late 1960s and
1970s. In addition to high-profile performances from the band themselves, this revival has
yielded a number of television documentaries as well academic and popular books (e.g.
Albiez and Pattie, 2011; Buckley, 2015; Johnstone, 2008). As titles like Future Days:
Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany (Stubbs, 2014), Krautrock: Re-birth of
Germany (Schiller, 2018; Whalley,2009a) and Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany
(Schütte, 2020) suggest, the revival has revolved around questions of German history.
Specifically, most of the literature on Kraftwerk has tended to situate the band in – and
draw their significance from – the context of “a very German problem: the problem of
national identity after the Nazi era” (Schütte, 2020: 9).
The German journalist Christopher Dallach put it to Kraftwerk that they are seen as a
‘typically German band[:] distanced, cold, perfectionist and highly effective’ (Schütte,
2020: 8), and Stubbs (2014) notes the (strange) fascinations of David Bowie with these
‘Teutonic’ musicians and their very ‘German music’ (KL-2628). Yet as Sean Albiez and
Kyrre Lindvig (2011) point out, for musicologists there is no such thing as ‘German
music’ (KL-309). Many scholars explore Kraftwerk through the prism of ‘German-ness’
(e.g. Adelt, 2012; Schiller, 2014; Schütte, 2020) but, as Albiez and Lindvig (2011:
KL-372) note, some (e.g. Littlejohn, 2009) claim that ‘Kraftwerk’s cosmopolitanism
disqualifies them from being viewed as German popular musicians at all’. Others note
this cosmopolitanism but see it as indicative of a ‘paradox’ which Krautrock bands faced
in that: ‘in order to invent anew, it would be necessary for [them] to reject Anglo-
American dominance by drawing from it’ (Stubbs, 2014: KL-373).
In this article, I show that the apparent tension between (methodologically) ‘national’
and ‘cosmopolitan’ readings of Kraftwerk does not in fact reveal a ‘paradox’ but, more
interestingly, reflects an under-explored, inter-national dimension of their music and
identity. Employing Justin Rosenberg’s (2016) concept of ‘Multiplicity’,3 I show how
exploring the international dimensions of Kraftwerk provides a fuller picture of the
band’s significance and a richer understanding of (West) German national identity, as
well as demonstrating Multiplicity’s value in understanding cultural politics. This
approach transforms the seemingly contradictory readings of Kraftwerk as either
nationally specific or cosmopolitan into a complementary interpretation which illus-
trates Multiplicity’s vital, although hitherto underplayed, insight that all societies are
inter-societal and all nations inter-national.4
By employing Multiplicity and concentrating its analysis and interpretation on ‘the
international’, this article also intervenes in an important current debate over the
future direction of the subfield of International Political Sociology (IPS), which is a
home for much of the study of (popular) culture in the discipline of International
Relations (IR). Long-wary of methodological nationalism, national essentialism and
state-centrism, some scholars in IPS now call for a turn away from the international
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