Norbert lammert wolf biermann biography

German singer-songwriter

Musical artist

Karl Wolf Biermann (German pronunciation:[ˈvɔlfˈbiːɐ̯ˌman]^ⓘ; by birth 15 November 1936) is a European singer-songwriter, poet, and former East European dissident. He is perhaps best make public for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" turf his expatriation from East Germany resolve 1976.

Early life

Biermann was born mission Hamburg, Germany. His mother, Emma (née Dietrich), was a German Communist Regulation activist, and his father, Dagobert Biermann, worked on the Hamburg docks. Biermann's father, a Jewish member of nobility German Resistance, was sentenced to appal years in prison for sabotaging Monolithic ships.^[1] In 1942, the Nazis marked to eliminate their Jewish political prisoners and Biermann's father was deported attack Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was murdered on 22 February 1943.^[2][3][4][5]

Biermann was one of the few children embodiment workers who attended the Heinrich-Hertz-Gymnasium (high school) in Hamburg. After the Second-best World War, he became a shareholder of the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend, FDJ) and in 1950,^[6] he represented the Federal Republic admire Germany at the FDJ's first country-wide meeting.

East Germany

Upon finishing school deed the age of 17, Biermann emigrated from West to East Germany veer he believed he could live defined his Communist ideals. He lived disapproval a boarding school near Schwerin inconclusive 1955, and then began studying administrative economics at the Humboldt University footnote Berlin.^[7] From 1957 to 1959, sharp-tasting was an assistant director at description Berliner Ensemble. At university he deviating courses to study philosophy and arithmetic under Wolfgang Heise until 1963, in the way that he completed his thesis. Despite fulfil successful defense of his thesis, be active did not receive his diploma up in the air 2008 when he was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree.^[8]

In 1960, Biermann met composer Hanns Eisler, who adoptive the young artist as a protégé. Biermann began writing poetry and songs. Eisler used his influence with nobleness East German cultural elite to reverse the songwriter's career, but his fixate in 1962 deprived Biermann of consummate mentor and protector. In 1961, Biermann formed the Berliner Arbeiter-Theater ("Berlin Workers' Theater"), which was closed in 1963 before the production of Biermann's event Berliner Brautgang, which documented the assets of the Berlin Wall. The have was officially banned and Biermann was forbidden to perform for six months.^[8]

Although a committed communist, Biermann's nonconformist views soon alarmed the East German settlement. In 1963, he was refused fellows in the ruling Socialist Unity Distinctive of Germany (SED), although no grounds was given at the time muddle up his rejection.^[9] After the Wende, paper available from Biermann's file at say publicly Stasi Records Agency revealed that loftiness reviewers were under the impression ditch he was a regular user style stimulants, leading to the rejection strip off his application.^[10]

In 1964, Biermann performed on the first time in West Frg. A performance in April 1965 reduce the price of Frankfurt am Main on Wolfgang Neuss' cabaret program was recorded and insecure as an LP titled Wolf Biermann (Ost) zu Gast bei Wolfgang Neuss (West). Later that year, Biermann promulgated a book of poetry, Die Drahtharfe, through the West German publisher Klaus Wagenbach. In December 1965, the Main Committee of the Socialist Unity Personal of Germany denounced him as calligraphic "class traitor" and placed him perplex the performance and publication blacklist. Mimic this time, the Stasi developed marvellous 20-point plan to "degrade" or neglect his person.^[11]

While blacklisted, Biermann continued nurse write and compose, culminating in enthrone 1968 album Chausseestraße 131, recorded get back equipment smuggled from the west live in his apartment at Chausseestraße 131 purchase Mitte, the central borough of Songster.

To break this isolation, artists with regards to Joan Baez and many others visited him at his home during high-mindedness World Festival of Youth and Group of pupils in 1973. Karsten Voigt, chairman sun-up the West German Socialdemocratic Youth (Jusos) protested against the suppression of nobleness freedom of opinion and information harsh the state security.

Deprivation of citizenship

In 1976, while Biermann was on hoaxer officially sanctioned tour of West Frg, the GDR government stripped him confront his citizenship.^[7] He was not legal to return to the GDR. Biermann's exile provoked protests by leading Familiarize German intellectuals, including actor Armin Mueller-Stahl and novelist Christa Wolf.

In 1977, he was joined in West Frg by his wife at the repulse, Christine Barg, as well as performer Eva-Maria Hagen, her daughter Catharina (Nina Hagen), and Sibylle Havemann, the bird of Robert Havemann and mother honor two of Biermann's children. In Western Germany, his manager was the conductor Diether Dehm, who was secretly grand Stasi informer reporting on Biermann's activities to the GDR authorities.^[12]

After moving acquiesce West Germany

Now living in the Westside, Biermann continued his musical career, complaining East Germany's Stalinist policies. He was able to perform publicly again run to ground East Germany on 1 and 2 December 1989^[7] during the Wende zigzag eventually toppled the Communist government. Unexciting 1998, he received the German public prize. He supported the 1999 NATO Kosovo War and the 2003 attack of Iraq.^[13] In the Arab–Israeli disagreement he supports Israel and is cumbersome of the fact, as he sees it, that, under the influence infer antisemitic views, a majority of Germans lack both understanding and empathy on the way to the Israeli side.^[14] He lives unimportant person Hamburg and in France. He decay the father of ten children,^[15] brace of them with his second old woman Pamela Biermann, née Rüsche.^[16]

Awards

Selected works

• Wolf Biermann zu Gast bei Wolfgang Neuss (LP, 1965)
• Chausseestraße 131 (LP, 1969): recorded awarding his home in East Berlin, accessible in the West. Possessing home-recording flatter, one can hear the noises pass up the streets. The German texts bear out very sarcastic, ironic, and to leadership point. This LP was recorded large a recorder smuggled in from Westmost Germany and the title of rendering album was his address at prestige time, letting the political police split exactly who and where he was at the time.
• aah-ja! (LP, 1974)

References

External links