Bonzo Goes To Bitburg - Background and Inspiration

Background and Inspiration

The song was written in reaction to the visit paid by U.S. president Ronald Reagan to a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, on May 5, 1985. Reagan laid a wreath at the cemetery and then gave a public address at a nearby air base. The visit was part of a trip paying tribute to the victims of Nazism and celebrating West Germany's revival as a powerful, democratic U.S. ally.

Reagan's plan to visit the Bitburg cemetery had been widely criticized in the United States, Europe, and Israelbecause among the approximately 2,000 German soldiers buried there were 49 members of the Waffen-SS. This was the combat arm of the SS, the paramilitary organization that helped run the Nazi extermination camps and committed many other atrocities, including the murder of American POWs. Among those vehemently opposed to the trip were Jewish and veterans' groups and both houses of the U.S. Congress. The phrase "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" was coined by protesters in the weeks leading up to Reagan's trip. Employed as an epithet for Reagan, Bonzo is actually the name of the chimpanzee title character in Bedtime for Bonzo; Reagan was the top-billed actor in the 1951 film comedy. The phrase also echoes the title of the film's sequel, Bonzo Goes to College (1952), though Reagan did not appear in that picture.

Before departing for Germany, Reagan ignited more controversy when he expressed his belief that the soldiers buried at Bitburg "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." In his remarks immediately after the cemetery visit, Reagan said that "the crimes of the SS must rank among the most heinous in human history", but noted that many of those interred at Bitburg were "simply soldiers in the German army.... There were thousands of such soldiers for whom Nazism meant no more than a brutal end to a short life." Also, as Bitburg Mayor Theo Hallet pointed out, all German military cemeteries were likely to contain at least a few SS graves, as the rate of attrition for the service was so high, with up to 200,000 killed and a further 72,000 missing in action amounting to 6% of the entire German Armed Forces.

Discussing the inspiration for the song, Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone, a Jew, explained that the president "sort of shit on everybody." Interviewed in 1986, he said,

We had watched Reagan going to visit the SS cemetery on TV and were disgusted. We're all good Americans, but Reagan's thing was like forgive and forget. How can you forget six million people being gassed and roasted?

Joey shares writing credit with Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone and Ramones producer and former Plasmatics bassist/keyboardist Jean Beauvoir. Commentators on the song tend to suggest that Joey was its primary author. Mickey Leigh, Joey's brother, who was particularly close with Dee Dee, claims that while "everyone believed Joey had been the impetus to write the song ... it was actually Dee Dee."