At the start of the Cold War, Levi’s jeans represented everything communist governments were trying to stamp out. But Levi’s kept finding their way behind the Iron Curtain, especially into East Germany. There, people could see what they were missing just over the wall that separated them from the West. East German officials started to worry: Could a pair of pants bring down the government?
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Reported and produced by Julia Press, with Charlie Herman and Sarah Wyman.
Read more:
- Gerd Horten, Don't Need No Thought Control: Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Transcript
Note: This transcript may contain errors.
CH: As a college student in the 1980s in Boise, Idaho, Eric Schrader started buying up Levi's 501 jeans. Tons of them.
ERIC SCHRADER: I would buy, I don't know, 1500 to 2000 jeans a month, just out of retail stores.
CH: Eric's college roommate had clued him in on an opportunity to sell jeans on the European black market. All he had to do was buy some jeans, stuff them in envelopes and ship them to people in West Germany, who could then resell them to East Germans at a major markup. The operation was a lot more profitable than a library study job (I had one of those). Eric was easily quadrupling his money. But the guys he sold to in West Germany were the ones really making a killing. One of them told him he once got,
ES: Two cans of the best caviar and two bottles of the best champagne, just for a pair of Levi's, which would have been, you know, four or $500 at the time.
CH: Levi's tried to crack down on this kind of thing. Eric remembers the company limited the number of jeans one person could buy at any one time. But that didn't do much.
ES: I would just pay people outside of the store to go in and buy me, you know, four to six jeans, however many they would let you buy at a time.
CH: By the '90s, Levi's had even gotten a law passed in Europe that said only Levi's the brand could ship new pairs of its jeans overseas.
ES: And so then we started pulling the paper tags off the new jeans and putting them in an envelope. And then we'd put the new jeans in a bale of other clothes, all folded up and then we'd ship the used clothes, but they were really new jeans. And then we'd shipped the tags in a separate envelope. And then they'd just put the tags back on the jeans when they got to Germany.
CH: For decades, jeans smugglers like Eric had been trying to get pairs of pants into East Germany. Because the government had done its best to keep Western culture out of the country, and there was no greater symbol of that than Levi's.
From Business Insider, this is Brought to you by… Brands you know, stories you don't. I'm Charlie Herman.
At the start of the Cold War, blue jeans represented everything Communist governments were trying to stamp out: America, rock 'n' roll, Western culture, and capitalism.
But Levi's kept finding their way behind the Iron Curtain. And in East Germany, where people could see what they were missing, a pair of pants could be enough to bring down the government.
Stay with us.
ACT I
CH: Levi's were the world's first blue jeans. They were originally made for ranchers and miners in the American West, and they came to represent this open frontier, all-American spirit.
LEVI'S 1968 AD: Original Levi's blue jeans yeah...
CH: Levi's ads really played that up. Lots of denim-wearing youths on the open road. Two girls on a cross country road trip,
LEVI'S 1976 AD: Well it goes to St. Louis, down to Missouri...
CH: Or a rugged guy using his jeans to help an uptight couple fix their broken down car. This one ad has this girlfriend of this rock 'n' roll star talking about how she wooed him.
LEVI'S 1988 AD: I just put on my Levi's and a sweatshirt and went down to that party.
CH: And surprise surprise...
LEVI'S 1988 AD: Eddie asked me to stay.
CH: Levi's were the unofficial uniform of American youth culture. And that made wearing these jeans in East Germany more than just a fashion statement. It was political.
Levi's were seen as this symbol of the West, so wearing them set off alarm bells. It's not like you'd be scooped up off the street and thrown in jail just for having them on, but it could attract attention from the authorities. If you tried to walk into a dance hall wearing jeans, you'd be stopped at the door. Some kids who wore them to school were sent home.
After all, if you believed in Levi's, what else did you believe in?
SABINE ANTON: That cute little orange Levi's label said it all. It was almost like you became a member of a club. You finally got accepted, you know, to a very private club.
CH: Sabine Anton grew up in East Berlin in the 1960s and '70s. And to become a member of that denim club, she had to be pretty resourceful. A pair of authentic Levi's could set you back about a month's salary.
SA: I actually bought white bed sheets, and dyed them in pink and green and turquoise. And I made these kind of hippy dresses out of them. And I would actually sell one of those dresses, for 100 East German mark. And so I somehow managed to trade enough money to actually get my first Levi's and they were not pre-washed in those days, so I bought them fairly dark and couldn't wait to wash them so they finally looked like out of the Levi's commercials I had seen on West Berlin television.
CH: Sabine's image of Levi's, one so connected to the West, was the result of growing up on the East side of the Berlin Wall.
SA: We always felt like too bad that we grew up in the Russian sector of the divided Berlin and not in the American sector, because then we would have all these awesome things that you could see on West German television.
CH: After Germany lost World War II, the country was divided into four zones: the Western ones were occupied by the US, the UK, and France, and the Eastern zone, by the Soviet Union.
The country was more or less split down the middle between the capitalist West and communist East. But there was one important exception: Berlin.
The capital city was right in the middle of East Germany and so it was also divided between the four world powers. That meant West Berlin became this pocket of the Western world within Soviet-occupied East Germany. And as the socialist government tried to block Western influence from their section of the city...
UNIVERSAL NEWSREEL 1961: The attention of an anxious world is focused on East and West Germany and Berlin. The last great exodus of refugees from the East…
CH: People kept fleeing to the Western side.
UNIVERSAL NEWSREEL 1961: ..as the communist German regime moves to close their border against further flights...
CH: In 1961, the East German government built the Berlin Wall, dividing East Berlin from West Berlin. If you fell on the East side, you could no longer travel freely to the West. Gerd Horten grew up in West Germany, far from the Berlin Wall. But he visited the East a few times when he was a teenager.
GERD HORTEN: It was like traveling in a time capsule, you know, you walked past Checkpoint Charlie, and then you came into this German speaking land that was wondrously different.
CH: Horton is now a historian, and he wrote a book about the role of Western consumer goods like Levi's in East Germany. It's called Don't Need No Thought Control: Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. He says his visits to East Germany when he was in college were what inspired him to start researching the subject.
GH: I realized that the East German youth, despite the propaganda of course, was not all that different from us. They listened to the same music. They had the same desires. They were clearly impressed by my attire, which was really not that special. It was jeans and, you know, tee shirt.
CH: But in the East, jeans were that special. In fact, that was the case throughout the Eastern bloc — in places like the Soviet Union and East Germany. In the late 1950s, Levi's were featured at events in Moscow that showcased American culture, like the World Festival of Youth and Students and the 1959 American National Exhibition.
BRITISH PATHE: Here, where the aim is to project a realistic and credible image of America to the Soviets through exhibits...
CH: A news report described the Levi's booth as being incredibly popular. Almost every day, the jeans on display had to be replaced because overnight, adoring fans would steal them.
GH: You know, they were obviously consumer goods, but they were loaded with other meaning for East Germans and East Europeans. They were seen as symbols of freedom, of independence, of being cool, of, you know, the wide open West, you know, Marlin Brando and James Dean.
CH: Horton says that in the '50s and '60s, the early years of the East German state, wearing jeans was risky business.
GH: It was poking the state authorities in the eye. It's basically saying, you know, 'I am representing my independence, my rejection of the government. And the West to me seems like a better alternative.' Which of course was very provocative and not, of course, advantageous to your economic future in East Germany.
CH: You might not be allowed to study at a university or get picked for a new apartment. You might've caught the attention of the Stasi, the East German secret police, and the result was, your quality of life suffered. That's because just getting your hands on a pair of jeans showed you had contact with the world beyond the Wall. You'd either bought the jeans on the black market or...
GH: The most common way was that you had a West German relative, "an aunt with a Western address" as they called it.
CH: After the Wall went up, many families were split down the middle. People in East Germany weren't allowed to go to the West. However, those in the West could send money or mail care packages to family or friends in the East. West Germans could even drive across the border to visit.
ELSE GABRIEL: It was like being in a zoo and like being the animal in the zoo.
CH: Else Gabriel remembers being visited by Western relatives during her childhood in East Germany. She had access to Western TV channels, and loved watching the ads that weren't allowed on Eastern channels for things like Levi's.
EG: You could only hope or beg for them if someone comes from the West and for a visit or what to bring it to you, and even hope, uh, that they bring the right thing or the right size.
CH: When Else got her hands on a pair, they didn't fit right — they were a bit too small. But she wore them anyway.
EG: Yeah Levi's was the brand of desire.
CH: This access to Western relatives, and Western goods like Levi's, it's what made East Germany different from the rest of the Eastern bloc. Throughout the Soviet Union, people were longing for jeans. But in East Berlin, people had contact with friends and relatives on the other side. And they were confronted day in and day out with what they almost had.
SA: For me and my little group of friends, we always loved The Rolling Stones.
CH: That's Sabine again, who made and sold dresses to afford her first pair of Levi's.
SA: And once when they were playing in West Berlin, even so we couldn't go there, we pilgered, the closest we could get to the Wall from the East side. So at least we could hear them, at least we had the feeling we were as close as it can get.
[AUDIENCE CHEERS]
SA: I remember sometimes I was at Checkpoint Charlie, which is a gateway between East and West Berlin, and I would see the lit underground sign. It was like a big blue lit sign. And I could see that actually from East Berlin. And I would sometimes thought like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe this is West Berlin already. There are actually free people that can walk around there. But I can't.'
CH: East Germans like Sabine could see beyond the Wall. They had access to West German TV and radio. They were close enough to hear the Rolling Stones playing live on the other side. And seeing that "Western culture," just out of reach, that mattered when it came to things like Levi's.
SA: There was this one commercial in particular—
LEVI'S 1988 AD: Everything's gonna be alright this morning…
SA: It was a German model called Tatjana Patitz. And she played a girl on an American ranch where the super handsome guy comes down the stairs and she with her big, beautiful eyes looks at him and he comes down and takes his shirt off. And it was just the image of ultimate freedom and coolness.
LEVI'S 1988 AD: My mother said I'm gonna be...
SA: The people that they had in the commercials were exactly the way we wanted to be. And they were where we wanted to be. So the easiest way to be a little bit part of this American coolness were to wear some Levi's.
CH: Those Levi's jeans were more than a cool pair of pants. For East Germans, Levi's were the epitome of everything their government was keeping from them. And as the public got more and more discontented and pushed for access to goods like Levi's, East Germany realized it had to do something about it.
That's after the break.
ACT II
CH: We're back.
Until the 1970s, there was one place you could legally buy Levi's in East Germany, but East Germans were not allowed to shop there. It was at this special chain of stores called Intershops. Here again is Gerd Horten.
GH: Basically duty free shops initially that were set up for West German or Western European sailors who would bring goods to East Germany and they could buy, you know, their whiskey and vodka without having to pay taxes.
CH: The Intershops were set up as a way to bring foreign currency into East Germany. The government needed Western money to buy machinery and technology that it couldn't produce. Western visitors could buy things at the intershops tax free, and the money they spent would be funneled into the East German government's coffers.
And over the years, these stores catered more to West Germans visiting relatives in the East. The aisles became stocked with Western luxury items.
GH: Like good coffee, Swiss chocolate, Levi jeans.
CH: And the West Germans didn't have to pay taxes. To shop there, you needed to have Western currency. And for East Germans, that was illegal. These shops weren't for them.
GH: Here was everything they desired, but couldn't get their hands on. They were like little Western oases in East German territories.
CH: The Intershops were just another window into the West, like that Rolling Stones concert just out of reach. But in the early 1970s, that changed. The East German government had a problem on its hands. Symbols of the West, like Levi's jeans, kept coming into the country. And the government hadn't been able to stop them.
Treating citizens wearing jeans like enemies of the state hadn't worked. Plenty of people, especially young people, kept on buying and wearing them.
So when the government got a new leader in 1971, he decided to try something different. This General Secretary of the Socialist Party hedged his bets on a new strategy for dealing with the denim problem. It's what Gerd Horten calls "consumer socialism."
GH: Basically the bargain was, you know, if you keep politically quiet and toe the line, we will make sure that your lives get materially better over time.
CH: Consumer socialism was an attempt to appease young people like Sabine and Else, who were climbing the walls, sometimes literally, for a taste of life on the other side. The government couldn't give them the West, but it hoped that giving them some things from the West would be enough to satisfy them.
GH: This was almost like a safety valve. You know, you would relieve some of the pressure every once in a while and allow more consumer goods in. You know, it became this cat and mouse game with especially young people who are becoming increasingly disenchanted and alienated from the East German society and the East German culture and the government obviously understands that this is the future. They have to somehow try to hold on to them, if at all possible.
CH: For Levi's, that moment came in 1974. That's when the General Secretary opened up the Intershops to East German customers.
Again, the hope was that consumer socialism — material comforts — might make up for people's general dissatisfaction. And if East Germans had Western relatives who were willing to send them foreign currency to spend on consumer goods, well, the government could make some money in the process too.
At first, it looked like this might really work, especially as the West wasn't looking all that appealing then. The US was losing the war in Vietnam and was wrapped up in the Watergate scandal. West Germany was in the middle of an oil crisis. So if the East German government could make its citizens comfortable, that might have been enough to prove socialism was the best way forward.
There was, of course, a catch. The East German socialist system was built on the idea that you didn't need a competitive market for consumer goods. Society didn't need to be based on making the most money so you could buy the most things. Instead, everyone was to have equal access to all goods and services. But by letting East Germans shop at the Intershops, the government was relying on capitalism to support its socialist mission.
CH: You're sort of, basically undermining their own economic and political system.
GH: Absolutely. The tragic thing is, so these intershops absolutely undermined the whole notion of equality of, you know, we're all in this together, uh, because the East German society is becoming really it's separated by where you can shop.
CH: Items at the Intershops were expensive. Between the exchange rate and how rare the goods were, a pair of Levi's was an investment. But the government gave East Germans one other option: buy local jeans instead. It started producing its own blue jeans, sold under brand names like "Boxer" and "Wisent."
SA: Wearing East German jeans was not only not popular. It was also incredibly uncomfortable because that fabric was so thick. It felt like you're wearing a wood panel.
EG: The material was shitty and the cut was shitty.
CH: You did not want to be caught wearing the government ordered pants. It was embarrassing. Else remembers seeing this guy her age wearing jeans, obviously the East German "Boxer" brand.
EG: The material and the cut, you saw it instantly that this is not the real stuff.
CH: The jeans had a little red tag sewn into the back pocket.
EG: To pretend wearing Levi's jeans, but everyone saw that this is a wrong one. It's a fake... (laughs) simply pathetic. It's just this attempt to get, hold on youngsters and being cool, but whatever they did, it was more uncool than wearing the normal clothes.
SA: I mean the poor East Germans. I mean, they tried so hard to copy those Levi's jeans and it just didn't work.
CH: The off-brand jeans were just another nail in the coffin. More proof that everything in East Germany was inferior to the stuff you could get in the West.
By the end of the '70s, the government was getting desperate for cash. It owed the West billions of dollars, and its debt was increasing. Bankers were less and less willing to lend East Germany money. There were food shortages and East German goods were notoriously bad. Even plumbers were resorting to buying their bathroom fixtures from the West because the East German versions were made of plastic. The country's socialist model was not working.
Meanwhile, the Intershops were creating economic divisions, young people were increasingly unhappy, and people kept getting their hands on jeans — but not the East German jeans.
To make matters worse, 1979 would be the 30th anniversary of the East German state. Here's Horten again:
GH: These anniversaries are actually laden with stress and trepidation for the leadership because, you know, moments like that were always a time when they were put under the microscope and for East German population, especially, and West German television, you know, said, 'okay, let's just compare. How does East Germany do compared to West Germany? You know, are you better off in the East? Or are you better off in the West?'
CH: So the East German government decided to make a deal with the capitalist devil. It called up Levi's and placed an order for jeans. A whooooole lot of them.
That's after the break.
ACT III
CH: We're back. Over in San Francisco at Levi Strauss headquarters, there had been a targeted effort to get Levi's jeans behind the Iron Curtain for years.
TRACY PANEK: Levi's being used as a way to warm relations during the Cold War. It started out in 1959, and it continued.
CH: Tracey Panek is the historian at Levi's, where she manages the company's archives. They're full of photos, letters, and oral histories documenting the life of Levi's, and that includes the Cold War years.
TP: We have photographs from 1960 when the mayor of San Francisco, his name was Mayor Christopher, uh, was invited to go to Moscow, and the mayor is holding a pair of Levi's, he's pointing out details of them. And Khrushchev is looking with interest.
CH: Remember, Levi's had been included in that first American National Exhibition in Moscow. They were a symbol of America, and capitalism, and freedom, and that meant getting them into the Eastern bloc was in the national interest. It wasn't just good for Levi's bottom line, it was good for the US government. In fact, the FBI even called Levi's for updates on what it was doing in the Soviet Union.
TP: I suspect that in many ways they were interested in knowing how things were progressing. And from the accounts, we were happy to share that information.
CH: So imagine the delight of Levi's when in November 1978...
TP: The company receives a Telex and it is a request from the buying apparel arm of the East German government.
[TELEX SOUND]
CH: Yes hello, Levi's? This is East Germany. We'd like—
TP: About 800,000 pairs of jeans.
CH: And we're gonna need them fast.
TP: Get the jeans to East Germany by December 5th in time for the Christmas, you know, shopping spree or the holidays.
CH: Here was the thinking: Young East Germans were restless. They weren't happy with their lives on the East side of the Wall. Many of them couldn't afford to buy jeans at the intershops, or they didn't have Western currency. And as the 30th anniversary approached in 1979 and the government knew it would be under a microscope, it wanted to get on their good side.
But it didn't call Levi's until November. That left the company with only a few weeks to pull off this mission. So Levi's chartered about 13 different flights to get the jeans to East Germany in time. Most of the pairs of jeans came from warehouses in Nevada and Kentucky.
TP: And it turned out to be a boon for Levis, because we had a lot of, uh, Levis that'd been sitting around for a while, they were aged, a little older, or they weren't selling, or they were close outs. And it was an opportunity for us to clean out our warehouses.
CH: (laughs) You basically sent over to East Germany your hand-me-downs, the leftovers.
TP: They were new, but yes, they were the ones that weren't selling. And we told the government what we had. They didn't turn anything down.
CH: Any Levi's were better than the Boxer jeans that the government was selling. But finding the jeans to sell was one thing. Levi's real nightmare was logistical.
TP: One of the characteristics of these negotiations was secrecy. You can't just have an airplane fly into East Germany (laughs) so the company didn't receive the vectors for landing until they were in the air.
CH: Yes, the airplanes literally took off without a destination. And remember how the East German government really wanted Western money? Well, for Levi's to fly back after the jeans were dropped off...
TP: They had to have cash with them to pay for the gas to refuel.
CH: The deal went through for $9 million, and in what Levi's called an "airlift," the company flew hundreds of thousands of jeans into East Germany. The government had called up some other companies, too, but Levi's was the main seller.
GH: It was a million jeans, Levi's jeans primarily.
CH: Again, historian Gerd Horten.
GH: Strategically supposed to be delivered close to universities, and other places where young people gathered, especially in cities in order to sort of, you know, placate,young people's discontent to maybe help, you know, sway some, some tempers and temporarily at least satisfy some of this never ending demand for jeans and other Western consumer goods.
CH: The government had also ordered coffee and hard liquor for adults, and fruit drinks for kids. And as crazy as the whole Levi's transaction sounds, it wasn't the first trade deal of its kind. The government had done this before for other big anniversaries. In fact, there was an arm of the government devoted to brokering deals like the Levi's airlift.
GH: This agency was in charge of basically dealing with the political enemy, with the West, economically. And they were certainly seen as an essential part of the East Germany economy and political system because consumer goods were always also political in nature.
CH: Each pair of Levi's cost 149 East German marks, the equivalent of about $295 today. A New York Times article described the line as 20 people deep at a local department store. So, long story short, East Germans were buying jeans. But was the Levi's airlift a silver bullet? A way to get the government cash and make young people happy to be in the East.
GH: I mean, yes and no. It was a temporary Band-aid. It brought a million jeans over, so it satisfied some demand. I think from the records that I looked at, they estimated that there was still at least a pent up demand for 4 to 5 million more Levi's jeans. So you, not everybody who wanted them got them.
CH: And even if you were one of those lucky one million to get your hands on a pair of jeans, even if that made you happy for a brief moment, it would not be enough.
GH: Luxury is, is relative. You know, when you have one thing, if you have your Levis, you want the next better item, you know, you can always have more. So it becomes an ever increasing, for the East European, East German government, allowance of a culture and consumer goods that you really don't want in your society, and that are antithetical to your whole system, but you can't take it back because you're afraid what might happen if you do.
CH: I mean basically what you're describing is a snowball going downhill. It just picks up its own speed and the Eastern government is as guilty for their own demise as kids wanting a pair of jeans.
GH: (laughs) In hindsight I think we can certainly say definitely by, you know, deciding on consumer socialism as a way forward and not being able to fulfill the promises that are tied to that bargain — meaning ever increasing living standards — that is ultimately becoming a ruinous path.
CH: Over the next decade, the East German economy kept deteriorating. By the early '80s, East Germans had developed a dark humor about how hard it was to get basic goods, cracking jokes like "why aren't there more robberies in East Germany?"
GH: And the answer is 'well, you would have to wait for the getaway car for 13 years.'
CH: Yeah, that was the average wait time to buy a car. East Germans were getting restless. They weren't happy drinking thick, tasteless coffee substitutes and wearing polyester clothes instead of cotton. They were tired of dreaming of high-quality Western washing machines and freezers whose doors sealed tightly.
So the East German government basically started making its way down the wish list of its disgruntled population. You want rock 'n' roll? Check.
SPRINGSTEEN 1988: Far between sundown's finish...
CH: Here's Bruce Springsteen to perform a huge open-air concert in 1988. By the country's 40th anniversary in 1989, East Germans were still unhappy. The concerts and fancy kitchen appliances were not enough to distract them from how badly they were craving life on their side of the Wall. And it didn't have the money or power to roll out a fancy airlift this time around.
GH: It's no coincidence that the Wall is maybe falling a month after the anniversary. By then they just didn't have the means anymore even to put up a good front.
CH: On November 9, 1989, the East German government announced that its citizens could now travel freely to the West. They hadn't meant to remove the border completely, but once they opened the doors, it was too late. The floodgates were open, and East Germans rushed through them to the West. The Berlin Wall fell, literally and figuratively. And you've probably seen the images, or you remember where you were when you heard the news—
ABC NEWS: They are here in the thousands, they are here in the tens of thousands. Occasionally they shout "die mauer muss weg," "the Wall must go." Thousands and thousands of West Germans…
CH: Crowds of triumphant Germans standing on top of that concrete mound. They were waving flags, and wearing blue jeans.
GH: It is an iconic image, you know, it was that great moment of unity and camaraderie, of course, between East Germans and West Germans.
CH: And where do Levi's fit in that?
GH: By the 1990s, you can go over and buy yourself a pair of Levi's jeans, so it becomes part of the normalization between East and West.
CH: But even though the Wall fell and the division between East and West Germany became a thing of the past, Levi's did not let people forget about what had happened in the East. Because ironically enough, not being allowed to sell or advertise in the East had done more for Levi's brand image than any ad ever could.
GH: I mean a Western advertising agency could not have set up a better way to create an, an infinite desire, for Western consumer goods.
CH: When the socialist governments of Europe tried to keep Levi's out, they only reinforced the company's image: rebels, free thinkers, people who want to ride through the Wild West on Harley-Davidsons. And even though jeans were now available to anyone who wanted them, Levi's kept that brand identity alive. Tracey Panek, Levi's corporate historian, has seen ads from after the Wall fell.
TP: We have one that says, 'Levi's knows no boundaries,' and there are young people dressed in blue jeans sitting on top of the Wall.
CH: And then there's this TV spot that aired in 1995 where you see a little white car zipping around the streets of Prague for almost a full minute before the driver gets out and... he's not wearing pants.
LEVI'S 1995 AD: In Prague, you can trade them for a car.
CH: Like any good ad, this one told you that a pair of Levi's was more than just a pair of pants. Once that great symbol of the West, Levi's was now leaning into the image it had in the East. By wearing them, you were fighting back, taking a step towards freedom, reaching for the consumer goods on the other side of the Wall.
But here's the thing, once East Germans could get their hands on a pair of Levi's more easily, the jeans were still not enough. Because if you give a teen a pair of jeans, they might also want a leather jacket to go with it. And if you give them that leather jacket, they might ask for a pack of cigarettes and maybe a CD player too. It goes on and on and on. That's consumer capitalism for you! There's always another thing, another product, another brand that seems like it is the key to happiness.
Once the Cold War ended and the denim curtain fell, Levi's jeans became one of many products available to East Germans. Just a little red tag on the back pocket of your pants.
CREDITS
CH: This episode was produced by Julia Press, with Sarah Wyman and me, Charlie Herman.
The news clips you heard came from a Universal Newsreel, British Pathé, and ABC News.
Special thanks to James Sullivan, Constantine Pleshakov, Catarina Bannier, Chuck Lane, Peter Keup, Felix Franz, and Paige Siegall at Levi's. Thanks also to Caroline Fox at Insider who suggested we look into this story.
And thanks again to Gerd Horten, who shared his research with us. He's currently continuing his work on the East Germany media landscape after the Wall fell, as a research fellow at the Center of Contemporary History in Potsdam. And believe it or not, Eric Schrader, who used to sell Levi's on the black market?
ES: 1500 to 2000 jeans a month.
CH: He now owns a vintage denim shop called Junkyard Jeans, and Levi's is one of his biggest customers.
Thanks also to Claire Banderas and Tyler Murphy at Insider. Sound design is by Bill Moss. Music is from Audio Network. John DeLore and Casey Holford composed our theme. And Micaela Blei is our editor. Dan Bobkoff is the podfather. And Sarah Wyman is our executive producer.
We're taking next week off for Thanksgiving, but we'll be back with a new episode on December 2. Stay safe, and thanks for listening.
Brought to you by... is a production of Insider Audio.