Wolf Biermann
Wolf Biermann |
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Karl Wolf Biermann (born 15 November 1936 in Hamburg) is a former East German dissident who works as a German singer-songwriter.
Biermann's father, who worked in the Hamburg docks, was a member of the Communist resistance. In 1943 he was killed in Auschwitz concentration camp as a Jew who had sabotaged Nazi warships.
Wolf Biermann was one of the few children of workers who attended the Heinrich-Hertz-Gymnasium (high school) in Hamburg. After the Second World War, in 1953, he became a member of the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend, FDJ) and in 1950[citation needed] represented the Federal Republic of Germany at the FDJ's first national meeting.
On finishing school at the age of 17, Biermann decided to emigrate from West to East Germany where he believed he could live out his Communist ideals. He was helped in this move by Margot Honecker who knew him from their youth. Until 1955 he lived at a boarding school near Schwerin; he then began studying political economics at the Humboldt University of Berlin. From 1957 to 1959 he was an assistant director at the Berliner Ensemble; at university he changed courses to study philosophy and mathematics.
In 1960 Biermann met composer Hanns Eisler, who adopted the young artist as a protégé. Eisler used his influence with the East German cultural elite to promote the songwriter's career, but his death in 1962 deprived Biermann of his mentor and protector. In 1961 Biermann formed the Arbeiter- und Studententheater (Workers' and Students' Theater). It produced a show called Berliner Brautgang documenting the building of the Berlin wall and was shut down by the authorities in 1963. Although a committed socialist, Biermann's nonconformist politics soon alarmed the East German establishment. In 1963 he was refused membership in the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Two years later, publicly denounced as a "class traitor," he was forbidden to publish his music or perform in public. To break this isolation, artists like Joan Baez and many more made a small group and visited him at his home during the World Youth Festival in 1973. Rudi Dutschke was first not allowed to visit him, one day later the same with Ulf Wolter, who later published books on the Holocaust, dissident voices, President Gorbachev rehabilitated in 1987, writings by Havemann and Bahro, another dissident and political friend of Biermann. Karsten D. Voigt, chairman of the socialdemocratic youth (Juso) protested against the suppression of the freedom of opinion and information by the state security.
In 1976 the SED Politbüro decided to strip Biermann of his citizenship while he was on tour in West Germany. Biermann's exile provoked protests by leading East German intellectuals, including novelist Christa Wolf. In 1977 he was joined in West Germany by his wife at the time, East German actress Eva-Maria Hagen, and her daughter, Catharina (Nina Hagen).
In the west he continued his musical career, criticizing East Germany's Stalinist policies. He was able to perform publicly again in East Germany in late 1989 during the Wende, or peaceful revolution, that eventually toppled the Communist government. In 1998 he received a German national prize. He supported the 1999 NATO Kosovo War and the 2003 war against Iraq.
He now lives in Hamburg and in France. He is the father of ten children, three of them with his wife Pamela Biermann.
Selected works
- Wolf Biermann zu Gast bei Wolfgang Neuss (LP, 1965)
- Wolf Biermann: "Chauseestrasse 131" (LP, 1969): Probably one of his best achievements, recorded in his home in East Berlin, published in the West. Homerecording charme, one can hear the noises from the streets, and the German texts are very sarcastic, ironic and to the point.
- Wolf Biermann: "aah-ja!" (LP, 1974)
External links
- Biermann Interview
- Biography in German
- The ghosts are leaving the shadows on "The Life of the others", a film about the Stasi, the East German Secret Police. Biermann comments on its closeness to reality.
- Some of this article is translated from the German article of January 21 2006