Communist cowboy Dean Reed was eventually abandoned by everyone

Germany’s the eastern half of the federal republic has been in the news in recent weeks. Germany’s new extreme right has gained strong support especially in the eastern states.

In the years 1949–1989, they were part of East Germany, i.e. the German Democratic Republic (GDR). East Germany was a communist state whose way of treating its citizens was brutal and controlling, sometimes even absurd. The country’s biggest enemies were the Western countries, especially the United States.

Therefore it is confusing that an all-American country and pop singer enjoyed great popularity in the GDR for more than ten years Dean Reed. And not only in the GDR, but also in the Soviet Union.

Appeared in Yle Areena’s repertoire since the beginning of the year Thomas Latterin document Red Elvis: Cold War Cowboy (Red Elvis: The Cold War Cowboy, 2022) tells the story of Dean Reed. The documentary can be seen until the end of September.

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As a political figure, Dean Reed was gullible and easily led.

Reed was originally like any successful singer-songwriter. He also got a recording contract, but remained far from the top of the US charts until 1962 when his songs became hits in South America.

During his concert tours in Chile, he had a political awakening. Reed believed that poverty and inequality would be eliminated from the world through socialism and communism. Reed’s enormous popularity brought him close to the left-wing rulers of South and Central America and finally to Europe, where the GDR government saw Reed as a good propaganda tool and also recruited him for intelligence work.

Although Reed moved to what was then East Berlin, he did not give up his American citizenship or his love for his homeland. He was able to travel back to the United States, where the authorities treated him as a spy.

Document shows that as a political figure Dean Reed was gullible and easily led. It was also his fate in the end.

In 1986, Reed visited the United States and was interviewed by the popular 60 Minutes -to the current programme. He praised the communist system, defended the Soviet military operations in Afghanistan and compared Ronald Reagania to Josef Stalin.

The reaction of the American public was outraged. Reed returned to Berlin, and just six weeks into the show, he was found dead in the Zeuthener See lake in the southeast corner of Berlin.

Reed’s official cause of death was accidental drowning, but in the years since, various theories of suicide and assassination by the CIA, KGB or Stasi have been put forward, so far without evidence.

Red Elvis: Cold War Cowboy not trying to dig into the cause of death. The most memorable part of the documentary is the image of a utopian artist who wanted to be a beloved entertainer, a healer of the world and an American communist cowboy at the same time. In the world of the Cold War, it was not only an impossible but also a doomed idea.

Red Elvis: Cold War Cowboy. Yle Areena.