A new exhibition dedicated to German singer-songwriter and famous former East German dissident Wolf Biermann reflects the history of a divided Germany.
Wolf Biermann in Cologne in November 1976: He didn't even play his most critical songs — out of cautionImage: Wilhelm Bertram/dpa/picture-alliance
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Wolf Biermann's career is so directly intertwined with the history of East and West Germany that Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum (German History Museum) is now dedicating an exhibition to the poet and songwriter. Upon finishing school, he left Hamburg to emigrate to East Germany, as he believed he could live out his communist ideals there. But then the protest singer was spied upon by the Stasi, the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) secret police. Banned from performing in the East, he was eventually expatriated back to the West.
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Learning he was expatriated from the radio
After being forbidden to perform publicly for 11 years by the East German authorities, on November 13, 1976, Wolf Biermann was surprised to be allowed to travel to Cologne for a concert. That night, sitting on a bar stool with his sleeves rolled up, armed with only his a guitar, he mocked and protested against the (GDR) to a crowd of 7,000 people.
Although the singer-songwriter was not allowed to distribute his recordings in East Germany, his songs were so popular in West Germany that they had found their way back into the GDR in the form of clandestine copies.
Three days later, still on tour in West Germany, Biermann learned while listening to the radio that he would be deprived of his East German citizenship for betrayal and defamation of the GDR.
"I felt cast away," he wrote about the anxiety the news provoked in his 2016 memoirs, titled "Wolf Biermann: Warte nicht auf bessre Zeiten!" (Do not wait for better times).
His expatriation triggered protests. A petition to the government was signed by the GDR's most important intellectuals, including Stephan Hermlin, Christa Wolf, Stefan Heym, Günter Kunert, Heiner Müller and Jurek Becker. This response made the regime nervous: Surveillance, work bans and arrests increased.
The actors Manfred Krug and Armin Mueller-Stahl left the country. "The East German authorities were expecting an angry media reaction from the West, but they didn't expect that a group of recognized authors and artists from the GDR would protest for the first time publicly through a petition," Biermann wrote in his autobiography.
Critical, undesired, expatriated: Artists in East Germany
Following a concert in West Germany in November 1976, musician Wolf Biermann was expatriated from the German Democratic Republic. After protests, other artists ended up wanting or having to emigrate from East Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Protests, imprisonment and expulsion to West Berlin
Singer-songwriters Christian Kuhnert, Gerulf Pannach and Wolf Biermann with the writer Jürgen Fuchs (L to R) in August 1977 in West Berlin. Biermann had been in the West since November 1976; the East German leadership had expatriated him following a concert in Cologne. Among others, these three men protested his expulsion. They were arrested, and likewise expatriated and expelled to West Berlin.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Trial and immediate suspension of Eva-Maria Hagen
Actress Eva-Maria Hagen, also known as the "Brigitte Bardot of the East," was Biermann's partner from 1965 to 1972. Even after their separation, she continued to support him and protested against his expatriation. She was dismissed from her theater contract without notice and likewise expatriated in 1977. Together with her daughter Nina, she moved to West Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Schilling
Acting in the East, Punk rock in the West: Nina Hagen
Singer Nina Hagen (daughter of Eva-Maria Hagen) had wanted to become an actress in East Germany, but her application for admission to acting school was rejected without reason. East German rulers considered her to be politically unreliable. In 1978, one year after moving to the West, her LP entitled "Nina Hagen Band" was released (cover above). It remains a feminist classic of German punk rock.
Image: DW/S. Spröer
A hit TV show in West Germany: Jurek Becker
Jurek Becker, writer and screenwriter, also protested Biermann's expatriation. The author of the novel "Jacob the Liar" was expelled from the East German Communist Party and moved to West Germany in 1977. There, his screenplays for the TV series "Liebling Kreuzberg" (roughly "Beloved Kreuzberg") made him famous. The leading actor in the series was Manfred Krug, likewise from East Germany.
Image: Imago/United Archives
Work ban spurs emigration: Manfred Krug
In 1949, at age 12, Manfred Krug moved with his father from West to East Germany. He first trained to be a steel smelter, then an actor. He played a rebellious brigade leader in the film "Trace of Stones," which was promptly pulled from cinemas. In 1976, after protesting Biermann's expatriation, Krug was partially banned from acting work. He applied to leave the country and got approval in 1977.
Image: picture alliance / United Archives
Protest against tanks in Prague: Bettina Wegner
Berlin-based singer-songwriter Bettina Wegner came into conflict with East German state powers even before her opposition to Biermann's expatriation. She had already been in custody for "anti-state agitation" after protesting the Russian tanks that rolled into Prague in 1968. Due to her support of Biermann, she was banned from working in East Germany and moved to the West in 1983.
No 'wonderful years' in East Germany: Reiner Kunze
Reiner Kunze's prose work, the "The Wonderful Years," was published in West Germany in 1976. The East German writer and translator sharply criticized the communist state. Kunze was expelled from the East German Writers' Association and was threatened with imprisonment. His application to leave the country was granted, and in 1977 he moved with his family to West Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Scheidemann
Departure after party expulsion: Sarah Kirsch
Writer and poet Sarah Kirsch was one of the first signatories of the appeal against the Biermann's expatriation. She was expelled from the SED, the East German Communist Party, and the Writers' Union. Since this ultimately translated into a ban on her profession, she left the GDR with her son in 1977.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb
A star in East and West: Armin Müller-Stahl
In the East German TV series "The Invisible Visor," Armin Müller-Stahl played a James Bond-esque East German agent. But following his opposition to Biermann's expatriation, he was barely offered any acting roles. In 1980, his application to leave the country was approved and he moved to West Berlin. He became one of the few stars to succeed in both East and West Germany, and even in Hollywood.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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At the time, he didn't know that the authorities had decided to strip him of his citizenship long before the first West German concert, even though what he said on stage was used as the official justification afterwards.
The GDR, the country he had chosen as his home, and where he had lived for 23 years, no longer wanted him.
Parents made Biermann a communist
Biermann owed his communist allegiance to his parents. His father Dagobert was a shipyard worker, communist and Jew, who had resisted the Nazis and landed in prison.
His mother, Emma, wanted the young boy to remember his imprisoned father and hid a little present every day in his name. Whenever the little Wolf would find these small toys or candies, she would explain that his father had sent them "through the moon beam."
When his father was deported from prison to Auschwitz and murdered there in 1943, his death certificate landed without a stamp in Biermann's mailbox. "An absurd joke from the Holocaust," wrote Biermann.
Communism and anti-fascism were inculcated in Wolf Biermann almost religiously. He was 6-years-old when he escaped the Allied bombing of Hamburg during World War II. "My mother had only one goal since these dark times," he recalled, "I should survive in order to avenge my father and build communism."
The GDR, which welcomed him at the age of 16, became a land of hope, a "fatherland," as he described it, or an opportunity to create paradise on Earth. His deceased father remained the guardian of his faith in "true" communism.
In East Berlin, Biermann studied economy, math and philosophy. Bertolt Brecht became his greatest influence. "I licked, I chewed, I swallowed and I enjoyed the great poet," wrote Biermann.
Wolf Biermann, outspoken political dissident and singer-songwriter
In East Germany, the singer-songwriter was a figurehead of the political opposition. After he was forced into exile in 1976, Wolf Biermann started anew in West Germany — but always remained true to himself.
Image: Sebastian Ahlers/DHM
The eternal critic
At the age of 16, Wolf Biermann left the town where he grew up, Hamburg in West Germany, and emigrated to East Germany, where he first lived in a boarding school. He hoped to live out the ideals transmitted by his mother, an active member of the Communist Party. He would quickly come into conflict with the authorities — and remained disobedient. "I always went a little too far," he says.
Image: Michael Kappeler/dpa/picture alliance
Keeping quiet
East German dissidents could expect work bans, and they were spied upon and arrested. The chemist Robert Havemann (pictured in his East Berlin apartment in 1972 with Wolf Biermann, right) was one of the leaders of the protest movement. The Stasi, East Germany's secret police, monitored everything he did, and discussions took on conspiratorial tones. Biermann had a son with his daughter, Sibylle.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Comrades and artists
The suppression of East German dissidents worsened in the mid-70s. More and more artists applied to travel abroad, but their applications were usually rejected. The Stasi arrested singers Christian Kunert (left), Gerulf Pannach (second from left) and author Jürgen Fuchs (right). In August 1977, Biermann's friends were released from prison and deported to West Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Legendary concert in Cologne
In the sold-out Sporthalle in Cologne, Wolf Biermann gave a concert on November 13, 1976, the first one in West Germany since 1965. The East German government had forbidden his performances years ago, blacklisting him for criticizing the "system ruled by political bureaucrats." Fans acclaimed him in Cologne.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Solidarity network
East German authorities stripped Biermann of his citizenship in November 1976, sending him into exile in West Germany. His friend, author Günter Wallraff, first hosted him in his apartment in Cologne, where he had to start anew. Instead of being constantly followed by Stasi spies, Biermann was trailed by reporters from the German tabloid "Bild." It was a difficult period for him.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Prominent sympathizers
East German actors, such as Armin Mueller-Stahl (pictured) and Manfred Krug, who were until then well positioned in East Germany, signed a petition to the authorities in November 1976: "We are protesting against the expatriation of Wolfgang Biermann and plead for this decision to be reconsidered." Honecker retaliated by banning these artists from performing and working. They left for West Germany.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Under Stasi surveillance
Friends, acquaintances, authors, journalists, artists and other colleagues: Everyone who had been in contact with Biermann was monitored by the Stasi. The artist Gabriele Stötzer (second from left in this Stasi photo) was imprisoned for a year for "defamation of the state," as she had collected the signatures against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann.
Image: BStU
The political activist
In West Germany, Biermann remained a politically active and outspoken artist. In 1983, he protested against the deportation of an opponent of the Turkish regime with Green Party politicians Petra Kelly (behind the police officer) and Lukas Beckmann (center). The police was called to clear the protest and Biermann was arrested.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/E. Steiner
Wild family life
Eva-Maria Hagen (second from left) was one the most popular actresses of East Germany. After she met and became a couple with the political songwriter in 1965, her career ended abruptly, as she was monitored by the Stasi and banned from performing. In 1977, she decided to flee and followed her partner to West Germany, along with her daughter Nina Hagen (right). This family photo is from 1988.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Jewish roots
Biermann didn't mention his Jewish roots very often at the beginning. His father, a Jewish and Communist shipwright, was murdered at the concentration camp in Auschwitz. Biermann would let this painful experience resonate only through his music. He became good friends with the Jewish theater director George Tabori. They are shown here on Tabori's 90th birthday in 2004 at the Berliner Ensemble.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb/M. Rittershaus
Unexpected honors
He said he found it somewhat strange, but the former East German dissident was still visibly touched when he was declared an honorary citizen of the reunited city of Berlin in 2007. Next to him on the picture is the city's then-Mayor Klaus Wowereit. In 2008, Biermann was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he had defended his thesis in 1963.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/W. Kumm
International solidarity
To this day, Biermann continues to prominently support persecuted political dissidents around the world. There's more than artistic solidarity that binds him with the author in exile Liao Yiwu (right), one of China's most famous poets, who spent several years in prison. In 2010 and 2011, they went on tour together through Germany.
Image: IMAGO
Troubadour of German divisions
A historical moment: On November 7, 2014, during a memorial ceremony for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wolf Biermann performed during a parliamentary session in the German Bundestag. He grabbed the opportunity to slam the "comrades" of the Left party, filmed by TV cameras. Speaker of the house Norbert Lammert reminded Biermann that he was only invited to sing.
Image: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images
His guitar as a sword
The song that Biermann performed that day was personally selected by Norbert Lammert. It is one of his most famous ones, "Du lass dich nicht verhärten, in dieser harten Zeit" (Don't let yourself harden, in this hard time). As outspoken as ever, he described himself as a "dragon slayer," and the Left party politicians as "dragon spawn" and "a miserable remnant of what was fortunately overcome."
Image: Wolfgang Kumm/dpa/picture alliance
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He started working as an assistant theater director at the Berliner Ensemble. The theater would become a turning point in his life. He would start playing his own songs — which also pleased the composer Hanns Eisler, who had long been Bertolt Brecht's musical and political associate.
Biermann grew a mustache and turned out to be quite a womanizer. Altogether, he became the father of 10 children.
His love affair with East Germany, however, dwindled quickly. When he planned to stage a play dealing with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1963, the government closed down his newly founded Workers' and Students' Theater.
In 1965, GDR authorities also prohibited him from performing publicly and publishing his works.
Even though Biermann's East Berlin apartment was bugged and under surveillance, it became a meeting point for critics of the regime. It felt to him like "the waiting room for the world revolution," he wrote about that period.
He was still performing at concerts. His bitter songs provided hope to fellow dissidents. His song "Ermutigung" (Encouragement) became the hymn of the oppressed in East Germany, where he encouraged everyone "not to harden in these hard times; not to embitter in these bitter times; not to get frightened in these frightening times."
He saw blind loyalty to the East German regime as betrayal of communism and the revolution. The Ministry of State Security, the Stasi, feared the influence of his bold texts. By then, Biermann had released six LPs and several poems in West Germany. He was so popular that it protected him from imprisonment.
Biermann with journalist Günter Wallraff, shortly after leaving East GermanyImage: picture-alliance/dpa
Even after losing his citizenship, Biermann kept believing in communism — but not in the GDR. He finally broke with the ideology in 1983. "And that was the decisive jump in my life," he wrote. Communism, he added, "is a way through hell to force paradise on Earth" and is a social idyll that requires oppression and exploitation.
Far from retirement
To this day, Biermann has remained an outspoken critic and is still performing around Germany and Europe.
When he won the Ovid Prize for his lifetime achievement in October 2021, he passed it on to imprisoned Belarusian activist Maria Kolesnikova, as a sign of solidarity with the work of those who are fighting against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko.
Now his life and work is revisited through the exhibition "Wolf Biermann. A Poet and Songwriter in Germany," which runs at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin from July 7, 2023 through January 14, 2024.
This article was translated from German and is an updated version of a profile from November 15, 2021.
