“We were born in Liverpool but grew up in Hamburg.”
– John Lennon
 
DP+AERIALS: Felix Lübbert
53min, GB / DE 2025

In August 1960 the Beatles were about to arrive in Hamburg. The Beatles had to learn quickly. They were raw material both on and off stage. They had to up their game playing many hours each night in front of an often drunken and aggressive crowd. Glasses would fly, fists were thrown but the boys had to play on. The first tour of duty lasted only four months when the 17-year-old George Harrison headed home for being underage, and Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested and deported – for arson.

The Beatles returned to Hamburg in April ’62, now with Epstein as their new manager. They were getting tighter, and stage hardened. But as they arrived back in Hamburg there was crushing news, their former bass player and John’s best friend Stuart had died tragically young.

By their fourth visit in November 1962 the Beatles were back in Hamburg with “Love Me Do” released and a new drummer, Ringo Starr who had previously played in Hamburg with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. After a short break back in Liverpool in December 1962 the Beatles returned to Hamburg.

It would be nearly four years later that the Fab Four played Hamburg again, this time as the biggest pop stars on the planet. Smartly dressed in their suits, with screaming fans drowning their voices, how different they were to the fresh-faced teenagers who travelled from Liverpool in that little van back in 1960. In short, they were turned from boys into men.”

The Beatles had grown up in Hamburg, and it was this Hamburg apprenticeship that shaped their future career.

arte – DE / FR (tv + web)
www.arte.tv/de/videos/112224-000-A/die-beatles-in-hamburg

amazon – GB (web)
www.amazon.co.uk/No-Hamburg-Beatles-Roger-Appleton/dp/B0DH2CSWMW

Finnland (tv + web) – Inget Beatles utan Hamburg
Japan (cinema) – NO ハンブルグ NO ビートルズ
Australia
Canada

producer: Scott Millaney