The 1980s
In the 1980s, lots of new punk bands became popular in the scene and developed the so-called "Deutschpunk" style, which is not a generic term for German punk rock, but an own style of punk music that included quite primitive songwriting, very fast rhythms and politically radical left-wing lyrics, mostly influenced by the Cold War. Probably the most important Deutschpunk band was Slime from Hamburg, who were the first band whose LP was banned because of political topics. Their songs "Deutschland", "Bullenschweine", and "Polizei SA/SS" were banned, some of them are still banned today, because they propagated the use of violence against the police or compared the police to the SA and SS of Nazi Germany. While they still had some English lyrics on their first, self-titled LP, they have concentrated on German lyrics since their second LP "Yankees raus" ("Yankees out", named after the anti-imperialist title track). Other popular bands of this phase include Razzia from Hamburg, Toxoplasma from Neuwied, Canalterror from Bonn, and Normahl from Stuttgart. All of these bands released their records on one of the leading punk labels in West Germany: Weird System Recordings from Hamburg, Aggressive Rockproduktionen (AGR) from West Berlin, and Mülleimer Records ("Garbage Can Records") from Stuttgart. During this period also the band Die Toten Hosen from Düsseldorf was founded which is still active. Alongside with Die Ärzte and Böhse Onkelz they became the most successful German punk band to date and also gained international success.
During this period, many bands have been influenced by U.S. hardcore punk with bands like Black Flag or The Adolescents. Those bands were also known for their extremely left-wing attitude and aggression in their songs. Some of the most important German hardcore punk bands, who are also often labeled "Deutschpunk", included Vorkriegsjugend from West Berlin, Chaos Z from Stuttgart, Inferno from Augsburg and Blut + Eisen from Hannover. Some bands tried a slower, more elaborate style, inspired by bands like The Wipers, the most popular ones being Torpedo Moskau from Hamburg and a number of singer Jens Rachut's bands, like Angeschissen (1986), Blumen am Arsch der Hölle (1992), Dackelblut (1994) and Oma Hans (2000), also from Hamburg.
Popular compilations of this period were "Keine Experimente!" (Vol. 1-2) (Weird System Recordings) and "Soundtracks zum Untergang" Vol. (1-2) (AGR).
In the mid-1980s, many of the former popular Deutschpunk bands disbanded, which resulted in a new phase, when so-called "Fun punk" got popular in Germany. Bands like Abstürzende Brieftauben from Hannover, Die Mimmi's from Bremen, Die Ärzte from West Berlin or Schließmuskel ("sphincter") from Hamminkeln had a left-wing attitude, but had no (directly) political lyrics. Some of them got popular outside the punk scene, but were often criticized by the punk scene for being too trivial. Around the same time, more German hardcore bands started singing in English and got popular outside of Germany, like the Spermbirds from Kaiserslautern or Jingo de Lunch from West Berlin.
Read more about this topic: German Punk