Germany's Go Ask Alice with Adrian Daub (Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo)

When I was a little kid in the 80s in Warsaw, we had the Polish language copy of this book at my house. It always scared me, then as I got older, it really made me sad. Also read Go Ask Alice as a teen in the 90s here. Oooof. Many, many feelings. Thanks so much for this!

Loved this book when I was a teen. Since we have this and Alice covered, maybe we get a 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed episode too?

I remember the movie coming out when I was in high school, and being enamored by its beautiful dark despair, I paired it in my memory with Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue, which also played in our local art house. Much as I was enamored of my classmates who loved the movie and began to emulate it too much. I summered in Germany in 1985 for college, and I still have a copy of the book, which I pull out every once in a while to struggle through reading, and a magazine that had an interview with Christiane, who was a celebrity with kind of folks who’d listen to Psychic TV, pretentious little saps like me, who visited Kudamm and pondered … something

I watched this movie for the first time after I listened to this episode. I am also trying to get a hold of the book. Love these episodes with Adrian Daub!

fantastic ep! heads up: about halfway through, the audio gets really quiet, and the outro music comes in too early and super loud, and drowns out the end of the show.

This movie came out the year I graduated high school, when I was a Rocky Horror kid. I was sort of enchanted with it, the same way I was enchanted with Go Ask Alice when I was way too young. Enchanted is such a strange thing to have been, but teenagers are strange. In each case it was a safe way to have a fantasy about living a dangerous life I was too scared (thankfully) to live, in cultures (hippie and punk Bowie groupie) I eternally yearned to be a part of. Thank you for talking about this film.

This was the book German teachers in Denmark would have you read when they wanted to be cool and with it.

I am so grateful you covered this one. As someone who grew up with this one and grew up in Berlin in the 90s, this was used by our teachers to scare us

Absolutely loved this episode. Thank you guys!

One of the most interesting things about the Bowie connection is that he went to West Berlin in 1976 to get clean from a serious cocaine addiction, and brought with him Iggy Pop, who was hooked on heroin. So Bowie knew something about that world.

Have you done an episode about the movie Thirteen? Very similar topics and sooo good!

The book is in my know prior knowledge- and movie but I don’t think I ever read it however it is possible my parents taught it- German professors . I grew up bilingual and as a tag along to women’s college study abroad programs in Hamburg for various years of my life. It is really impactful to hear the history and timing of things and then compare it to the anecdotes from my parents because although I probably got more nuance and German history education than most US children there is so much that I didn’t connect or realize and this was one of those ah ha experiences. Thank you both for such a great episode!

Love the book-focused episodes — would be great to see ones on some of the 1970s YA treatments of mental illness, like “Lisa, Bright and Dark” and “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” Also the “nonfiction” books “Sybil” and “Three Faces of Eve.” There was so much going on with portrayals of “crazy” women in that period!

OMG. All of these IBWTR crossovers are bringing me joy 💕

I was born in 1990 in then Czechoslovakia and when I was a teenager this book was read by so many people. I never read it but after listening I want to! Please more Adrian episodes ☺️ and please better sound editing? 🥺

I went to a german school in South America and they made us watch this movie in middle school

Hey hello from berlino! I grew up in France (in the 80s) i remember finding the book really dark (pretty violent title: Moi, Christiane F., 13 ans, droguée, prostituée...) but kind of forgot about it. I had to have a whole reassessment of the Christianne F story some years ago while living here and learning about the rest of her life, I really had no idea. Anyway thanks for the great episode!

Would love to learn even more about 20th moral panics in other places!! it's like a field trip ☺️

Such an interesting episode. This podcast is how I discovered Adrian's podcast, which I've really been enjoying too.

I really enjoyed the episode! FYI, heroin subculture and panics around it in the US predate the 1970s. There was a 1920s panic (think jazz culture, race anxieties), a 1950s panic (think beatniks), and I think post-civil war in the south. Historian David Courtwright has a book (Dark Paradise) on this.

So excited you covered this book! I was born in the 80s in Germany and read it at about 16 years old. Growing up in a small catholic, quite conservative Bavarian village this book was so shocking and Christianes life so foreign yet obscurely fascinating to me that I never dared to touch any illegal drug. I think an important part in that for 90s kids in Germany also played a big governmental campaign titeled „Keine Macht den Drogen“ (no power to drugs), which was everywhere at the time and featured lots of prominent footballers and other athletes. I‘m surprised Adrian doesn’t remember this but maybe the campaign wasn’t as widely circulated in other federal states. Also fun fact: I went to a Catholic all girls high school and my RE teacher, a priest, wanted to watch the Bahnhof Zoo film with us in class but the school had put it on the index 😄

I remember seeing the movie in a theater in New York. And at the end, when she’s walking on the street a guy in the theater said, “She’s coming to your town.”

Great episode, but what’s wrong with the sound? It was already rather quiet, and then it dropped somewhere near the middle and I could barely hear the rest of it.

Sarah can you do an episode on Pruitt Igoe towers? I learned about it in an urban economics class, I don’t think it’s talked about enough

I am French, born mid 80s, and this book was secretly passed around by teenage girls around me in the late 90s. I never dared read it tho!

Yay, Adrian! A weird book I’d never heard of and German history, I’m in love. Anything Sarah and Co want to tell me, I want to hear

I grew up in Germany in the 90s and screamed when I saw what you did there! Very well done, thank you! :)

Hi from Berlin and thank you!!! Nothing scared me more as a kid than this book and movie!

This actually makes me think more of the Basketball Diaries than Go Ask Alice

Usually listen while driving, but this time, I got to listen while cleaning and reorganizing my bookshelf... next level ND cleaning bliss!

What happens to the sound at 52 minutes? Is there any way we can get Michael back on the sound mixing? I hardly ever listen anymore because I have to fiddle with the volume all the time 😢

I was so confused by the title of this episode. I thought you had already discussed this book, but in the written intro, this being a re-broadcast isn’t mentioned, nor is that you’re looking further into the US vs German versions. However, a couple minutes into the episode it all becomes clear. I was in Germany, in Berlin, in 1990 when the wall went down. It was a wild time. Now, listening to this, I have such a desire to go back. Thanks for this excellent episode.

Woooooooow very excited for this one thanks pals

Love this book. Can't wait to listen to the episode when I have a chance 🌞

Ok look waking up to a Sarah + Adrian episode is as great as waking up to Sarah + Blair. After the week we've lived through this is the Sunday coffee listening I want and need. ❤️