Fifty years of fahren auf der Autobahn

01 October 2025, The Tablet

Kraftwerk performing ‘Autobahn’ in 2009

mabi2000 / flickr | Creative Commons

Blast from the past

Older readers will probably remember German synthesiser pioneers Kraftwerk from their legendary appearance on BBC1’s Tomorrow’s World back in 1975. Normally one tries to avoid racial stereotyping, but it had to be said that Ralf, Florian, Wolfgang and Karl, eager and besuited, seemed the absolute epitome of Teutonic earnestness as they discussed the machine-driven “music of the future” to the accompaniment of their big hit “Autobahn”, a song then taking Europe by storm.

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