Helms was born in
Teterow into a Jewish family, who were able to escape the
Holocaust by using falsified papers. He spent his childhood and youth in Teterow and Berlin. He received his first musical education whilst young, learning the piano and theory from an immigrant from Byelorussia. During the
Nazi era he became acquainted with
Swing and
jazz from secretly listening to "enemy transmitters". In the years immediately after
World War II, Helms studied
tenor saxophone with a member of the US army and appeared from 1950 until 1952 in Sweden as a jazz musician. He played with, amongst others,
Charlie Parker and
Gene Krupa, and also in 1953 in Vienna with
Hans Koller. As well as being preoccupied with
new music (
Charles Ives,
Henry Cowell,
Alban Berg and the
Second Viennese School) Helms, working at the Viennese radio station (RWR), created with, amongst others,
Ingeborg Bachmann, the radio genre . In
Göttingen, where he lived from 1953 onwards, Helms first made the acquaintance of the philosopher and sociologist
Helmuth Plessner, then later with
Theodor W. Adorno. His social and cultural critiques were significantly influenced by the
Frankfurt School and
critical theory. He also studied
comparative linguistics with
Roman Jakobson and philosophy and social theory with
Max Horkheimer and
Siegfried Kracauer; however, Helms describes the
Marxist economist
Jürgen Kuczynski as his most important teacher. In 1955, the self-taught Helms began to compose. From 1957 onwards he made his base in Cologne, where he worked together with the composer
Gottfried Michael Koenig at the buildings of the
Studio for Electronic Music at
Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). He directed phonetic experiments together with the physicist and communications researcher
Werner Meyer-Eppler, who also advised
Herbert Eimert and
Karlheinz Stockhausen at the same time. This work consisted of speech and sound analyses as well as linguistic and cybernetic studies. Helms made contacts with Stockhausen,
Pierre Boulez and
John Cage through the
Donaueschingen Festival and the
Darmstädter Ferienkurse (where Helms visited and sometimes lectured from 1957 to 1970); he was especially drawn to Cage's music using radio broadcasts and writings. In Helms' abode a circle was formed, which included, as well as Koenig, also
Mauricio Kagel and the musicicologist
Heinz-Klaus Metzger; a central preoccupation was
James Joyce's
Finnegans Wake. From this influence, Helms developed two 'language-music compositions' (
Sprach-Musik-Kompositionen),
Fa:m Ahniesgwow and
daidalos; later, in collaboration with
Hans Otte, came
GOLEM and
KONSTRUKTIONEN. His
Text for Bruno Maderna (1959), a work consisting entirely of phonemes, was used by Maderna in his stagework
Hyperion (1964). Helms would apply principles to language which derived from musical techniques of
serialism, organising phonemes and morphemes to create new linguistic constructions in such a manner. This work paralleled that of other contemporaries of the time, in particular
Dieter Schnebel. During the 1960s, when Helms became a private pupil of
Adorno, he studied the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and its roots in
Marxism. Thereby he discovered
Max Stirner, whose work
Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (
The Ego and Its Own) had provoked a violent critique from
Marx, which led in consequence to his basic concept of
historical materialism. Helms worked for many years upon this work of Stirner and its reception, producing his literary
magnum opus, the 600-page
Die Ideologie der anonymen Gesellschaft in 1966. Helms saw himself, with his critique of Stirner, in the tradition from both Marx and some contemporary Marxists, who had already recognised 'the suppurative focus' and Stirner's 'current danger'. In his work, Helms presented the view that Stirner created 'the first consistent formulation ... of the ideology of the middle class' and further that
Hitler articulated a specifically middle-class ideology and that Stirner-ism and
National Socialism are both variations upon the same fascist demons. "Because this demon lives on in
West Germany, controlled by the middle classes, he has written this book to fight it." Afterwards he stopped composing in order to concentrate on producing music broadcasts and films (including works on Ives, Boulez and Stockhausen), believing radio and television as the more effective media for presenting social critique. He concluded his studies in sociology with a doctorate at the
University of Bremen in 1974; as well as travelling to European and North African countries, he held a Guest Professorship between 1976 and 1978 at the
University of Illinois. In 1978, he moved to the United States, and from 1982 lived in New York City. Here Helms investigated the effects of the computer and telecommunications development on the field of employment, engaging in critiques of capitalism and globalization, as well as the social consequences of modern town planning. He predominantly made use of field research and interviews. He published his findings in political and scientific, music and literary magazines, trade union journals, and daily papers; and compiled radio and television productions for several
ARD broadcasting corporations. In 1988, Helms returned to Germany, first living in Cologne; in 2003 he moved to Berlin. He adds to his studies work on the history of the Jews in Eastern Europe, as well as, separately, looking critically at the conditions of work of contemporary composers who use electronics and computers. == Works ==