Pankow are a German rock band, founded in East Berlin in 1981. Their name came from the Berlin district of Pankow, which was once home to most of the officials of the East German government. The band's original lineup consisted of Jürgen Ehle, André Herzberg, Rainer Kirchmann, Jäcki Reznicek and Frank Hille. Other members were Stefan Dohanetz, Ingo York and Jens Jensen.
As their lyrics often contained criticism of the East German regime, they frequently encountered problems releasing their music. "Like many writers, they were among the established names of aesthetic subversion," the journalist Christoph Dieckmann wrote in a 1999 article published in Rolling Stone.
With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the associated open access to media outside Germany Pankow also moved briefly into the focus of the Anglo-American journalism. The U.S. historian Timothy W.