Around 1958, he insinuated himself into a totally different ‘scene’ of young rebels and bikers, who squirmed under the thumb of Conformity, and grasped at the crack in the universe which was Elvis Presley, James Dean, rock music, and motorcycles… just like kids in the rest of the world! These youngsters (dubbed ‘Halbstark’ – half-strong – by Swiss media) home-grew a flamboyant style, which veered away from the American ‘rebel’ dress code of blue jeans, t-shirts, and boots. They wore belt buckles the size of hubcaps, with crudely chased images of skulls, Elvis, or Gene Vincent, favoring oversize artillery shells, animal skins, and horseshoes as necklaces. They wore cowboy boots with heels rather than engineer’s boots. Better still, addressing the very source of Teen energy, they tore out the zippers of their blue jeans and replaced them with bolts, chains, or barbed wire, in an almost Medieval display of crotchery.
The Halbstark shaped a fiercely independent identity in their small, close-knit culture, and evolved in relative isolation, away from the prying eyes of the international press. After all, how many Swiss rock bands ‘broke out’ in 1958? Or ever? What part of Cool ever came from Zurich? The members of these gangs were ‘Nowhere’ and they knew it, but created their own life raft via subculture of fashion identity.
By the mid-1960s, the Swiss media began to take note of this homegrown oddity, and Karlheinz Weinberger’s photographs of the gangs were published for the first time. He remained loyally embedded with his friends over the years, documenting their dissipation as the 60s wore into the 70s, and the era’s corrosive elements began to take their toll.
In the last 7 years of his life, Weinberger was transformed from an obscure photographer to a celebrated cultural chronicler of a fascinating, lost subculture. In 1999 the first book of his photos was published – ‘Karlheinz Weinberger’ (Andrea Zust Verlag, Binder/Meyer/Jaegi authors), which is long out of print, and is now a collector’s item. Before and after his death, Weinberger was featured in numerous exhibitions around the world, and his photographs are in the collections of major museums. He was born in 1921 and lived most of his life in obscurity, but when he died in 2006, he was a famous artist.
During the 1950s and early 60s, other pioneering artists working with motorcycle gangs as subject matter (Danny Lyon, Kenneth Anger, etc) produced rich and fascinating bodies of work with very similar themes. Let’s call it the Zeitgeist of the 50s, which led these photographers and filmmakers into some interesting territory. A branch of Motorcycling evolved in the 1950s that was self-consciously ‘antisocial’, and brandishing imagery that was highly charged, threatening, or just plain offensive. They mined cultural turf that was anxiously avoided by ‘straight’ society (homoeroticism, fascist symbols, sadomasochistic hardware, blasphemous language). Motorcycles, symbolizing independence, fearlessness, and fun, became the perfect accessory for individuals who just didn’t jibe with how they were ‘supposed to be’, as the rest of society (mostly, their parents!) desperately grasped for a period of normalcy after the horrors of global War and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
While the numbers of ‘rebels on motorcycles’ were relatively small in the US, Britain, and Europe, their powerful imagery stained the public’s perception of Motorcycling for decades. Films about motorcycles during the 50s through 70s almost always featured violent gangs of ignorant thugs, with a few bright exceptions like ‘On Any Sunday’. It took the concerted efforts of Soichiro Honda and his advertising team to shine a light back on Motorcycling as a fun pastime, allowing just regular folks to approach ‘two wheels’ without stigma for the first time since the 1930s. But damn, those thugs looked cool.
You can purchase a terrific compilation of Karlheinz Weinberger’s work here: Rebel Youth: Karlheinz Weinberger.

TRY IT ON DEAR ITS ONLY NYLON
Dear Paul,
I really enjoy your writings on old motorcycles, and have included a link to you on my Ironhead Sportsters pages.
http://www.sporty-ironheads.com/motorcycles/links.php
A counterlink is not mandatory, but of course I would be honoured.
Keep ridin’!
Jan
So, where one asks were the motorcycles? Whizzers and Nimbuses out of the photo frame perhaps. Or bus passes?
I think you need to drop the tweed jacket and get a hubcap codpiece. Crouched over a Velocette you would really appreciate those Swiss hunks.
@Conchscooter; that’s exactly what Im talking about. See also Scorpio Rising, and The Loveless for that matter – ‘he’s just a joybang…’; the Village People knew exactly what they were getting at.
And Castro Cowboys ride Harleys, not Velocettes!
Yes he took pix of bikes, but there is nothing on the web. I’ve held the Karlheinz book and perused it, but couldn’t convince the owner to part with it…on display at an uber hip clothing shop in the Mission. When I have the book I’ll post the bike pix.
In reading this story, I am reminded of the basic qualities of that many of us motorcyclists share; an unwillingness to forsake our individuality, nonconformity, and a need for self expression. Where those basic qualities come from, well thats been well outlined here, if you can read well, and between the lines.
Many who ride in their youth give up bikes once they settle down, not too unlike single young women who call themselves democrats, then turn republican once they marry. We “grow up”, some of us anyways.
Cheers,
Don
Paul d’Orléans dons white cotton gloves, unlocks yet another ‘reference only’ cabinet in the wonderfully dusky motorcycle-anthropology section, and lets us into a little secret.
Thank you BP
A good story…one that IS SOME, youth all over the world, and might i add…if it wasn’t for the radicals with extreme culture’s, and what some might call tear-aways, in the 50-60’s ,the world would not have the flavor and universal culture it has today…as bikers we owe a lot to the errant 50-60 …well done VINTAGENT
Jimi Normal
wow.. that’s so interesting! thanks for posting
Those boys and girls drank too much absinthe!