“Hitler’s children”: When the Ramones likened Ronald Reagan to the Nazis
Unlike many of their punk contemporaries, those who used the charged atmosphere of CBGB to take aim at politics and the establishment, the Ramones largely avoided overtly political songwriting. Instead, they threw themselves into a world of glue-sniffing misfits, leather jackets, and the sugary rush of Phil Spector-style pop.
Political protest has always been a core part of the punk rock ethos, whether it was present in the lyrics or not. Pretty quickly, though, the scene that sparked in 1976 split into those whose political leanings were part and parcel of their output – the likes of The Clash, Crass, and, a little later, Dead Kennedys – and those who adopted the abrasive sound of the punk revolution, without delving too deeply into its spirit of political rebellion. The Ramones found themselves in the latter camp.
Admittedly, the Joey Ramone-fronted outfit dabbled in the realm of politics on certain occasions, like their 1977 swipe at the American military-industrial complex on ‘Commando’, or satire of Cold War era politics on ‘Havana Affair’. For the most part, though, the band’s repertoire was made up of short, sharp punk anthems in the spirit of The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’ – the sound was rebellious, but the lyrics themselves were often pretty surface-level.
That was until 1985, when Joey Ramone penned the band’s most scathing, politically-charged effort in the form of ‘Bonzo Goes To Bitburg’. Fuelled by the frontman’s outrage at then-president Ronald Reagan visiting a German cemetery, which included the bodies of Nazi SS members, the track plays on the president’s fleeting film career, and the 1951 track ‘Bedtime for Bonzo’, while simultaneously warning him against becoming “one of Hitler’s children”.
Prior to that state visit to West Germany, the president caused understandable outrage when he claimed that the bodies of those buried at Bitburg – including the SS members, presumably – “were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps”. For Joey Ramone (who was Jewish, it is worth remembering), the entire scandal was too grave to ignore, and so ‘Bonzo Goes to Bitburg’ was born.
Unsurprisingly, Sire Records chose not to release the song as a single in the US, but imported copies eventually found their way into the college radio circuit, making the song a minor hit and evoking public frustration and outrage over the actions of the Republican president.
The Ramones were far from being the only punk outfit to take aim at Reagan; hardcore pioneers Reagan Youth, for instance, made sure Joey wasn’t the only one comparing the president to Nazism. Nevertheless, the fact that the song was so thematically out of character for the band is a good indicator of just how outraged Joey Ramone, in particular, was over the issue.
Even today, the song still remains a crucial cultural artefact of the Cold War period, and its criticism of Reagan has certainly stood the test of time, especially when looking at a political landscape in the US which is still so indebted to his administration.
Joey’s bandmates, particularly Johnny Ramone, might not have wholly agreed with the song’s politics, the guitarist being an outspoken Republican, but ‘Bonzo Goes To Bitburg’ still formed the stand-out of 1986’s Animal Boy, and remains a fan favourite all these decades later.
