The East German punk scene was active and creative throughout the 1980s. It shaped the counterculture of the decade, right up through and beyond the collapse of the state and the reunification of Germany in 1989–1990. Punk developed in the GDR in the late 1970s, a few years after its emergence in Great Britain and the United States. East German punk also imitated the styles and tastes of punk in the West. In the different context of state socialism, however, punk inevitably acquired a different meaning. It became, as chronicler Tim Mohr has argued, “something uniquely […], even stridently Eastern.”

By 1989, when the East German revolution transformed the country, punk was the most visible, in-your-face countercultural style among East German youth. It did not by any means represent a majority of the youthful population, but it constituted a powerful and culturally influential minority whose impact went well beyond its immediate practitioners. Punk provided the nonconformist backdrop to the large-scale political, social, and economic transformations in East Germany. In many ways, as Peter Ulrich Weiß has argued, punk “dominated the subcultural wing of the GDR opposition movement until the demise of the GDR.”

Of course there were other countercultural scenes and movements in the GDR, including the peace movement, environmental groups, churchbased nonconformists, gay and women's rights advocates, samizdat publications, and independent art galleries, but, because of its open rejection of social and political norms, as well as its highly visible presence on the streets of cities, towns, and even villages, the punk scene was particularly prominent. The East German secret police complained about punk's “outward appearance, which is intended to make a public impact.” Punk also entered into productive alliances with other countercultural phenomena, including samizdat publications, independent galleries, and underground moviemaking, as well as with high culture and the Protestant church. However, punk was usually treated more harshly by the state than these other groupings.