The Beatles:
The Beatles (AMIGA 8 50 040)

The Beatles on Amiga 8 50 040 — released in January 1965 — is one of the great Iron Curtain rarities: the first official Beatles long-player released by the East German state record company. It appeared at the precise intersection of a brief political thaw and an impending crackdown, which is a large part of what makes it so interesting to hold.

The Political Moment

By the early 1960s, the SED leadership had accepted that an outright ban on beat music was counterproductive — it alienated East German youth without achieving anything useful. A cautious opening followed: some domestic beat groups received performance licences, and Amiga began licensing Western recordings for the first time. The Beatles were among the earliest beneficiaries. A 1964 single of „Ain’t She Sweet” / „Cry for a Shadow” — from the Hamburg Tony Sheridan sessions, licensed from West German Polydor — preceded the LP, followed by further singles in 1965 including „It Won’t Be Long” / „Devil in Her Heart”.

That opening closed almost as soon as it had begun. The riots at the Rolling Stones’ concert at West Berlin’s Waldbühne on 15 September 1965 gave the authorities their pretext. In Leipzig the following month, 54 of the city’s 58 registered beat groups were banned; over 2,000 teenagers took to the streets in protest, in what became the largest unsanctioned demonstration in the GDR since the 1953 uprising. Police made 267 arrests, 97 of whom were sent to work in open-cast coal mines before their cases had even come to trial. The 11th Plenum of the Socialist Unity Party’s Central Committee in December 1965 formalised the crackdown, with Erich Honecker — later Ulbricht’s successor — leading the charge against what he called the „sceptical, nihilistic and pornographic” influence of Western culture. Ulbricht himself asked the now-famous rhetorical question: „Is it truly the case that we have to copy every piece of filth that comes from the West?” The Beatles LP on Amiga remained an isolated exception — no further official Beatles releases appeared in East Germany for many years.

The Record

The album is a twelve-track compilation drawing from the first three Parlophone albums and the „She Loves You” single:

Side A: She Loves You / Misery / A Taste of Honey / You Really Got a Hold on Me / A Hard Day’s Night / P.S. I Love You

Side B: I Want to Hold Your Hand / Please Please Me / Ask Me Why / Do You Want to Know a Secret / Little Child / Please Mister Postman

The sleeve was produced by VEB VMW „Ernst Thälmann”, Werk Gotha-Druck — the firm responsible for a substantial portion of East German LP artwork throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Two rear sleeve variants exist, differing only in the pressing plant address printed on the green background: VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin W8 or VEB Deutsche Schallplatten 108 Berlin. Both variants were in circulation from the original release. Like the Parlophone original of With The Beatles, the sleeve misspells the Smokey Robinson title as „You Really Gotta Hold On Me” rather than „You Really Got a Hold on Me”.

Label Variants and the Misprint

The first pressing carries the orange and white Amiga label with the logo in an orange circle, catalogue number 8 50 040. Its distinguishing mark — and the first thing any specialist checks — is a label error on Side A: track 5 is printed as „It Won’t Be Long” when the actual recording is „A Hard Day’s Night”. The confusion almost certainly arose from the concurrent Amiga single release of „It Won’t Be Long” / „Devil in Her Heart”, which was being produced at the same time, causing a crossover in the print plates. This is a classic production misprint, and it is what separates the most sought-after copies from the merely rare ones.

Later pressings from 1965 carry the same orange and white label and catalogue number but with the error corrected — „A Hard Day’s Night” is properly identified. Minor typographic differences (letter weight, text layout) exist between copies. Both rear sleeve address variants appear across pressings.

Matrix codes: 8 50 040 A 0503221* M 4 W-x (Side 1) / 8 50 040 B 0503222 L 4 W-x (Side 2).