Wolf Biermann

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Wolf Biermann
Wolf Biermann Lauter Lyrik.jpg
Wolf Biermann, 2008
Background information
Birth name Karl Wolf Biermann
Born (1936-11-15) 15 November 1936 (age 78)
Hamburg, Germany
Genres Folk music, political ballads
Occupation(s) singer-songwriter, poet, and dissident
Years active 1960–present
Labels Broadside Records

Karl Wolf Biermann (born 15 November 1936) is a German singer-songwriter and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976.

Early life[edit]

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


East Germany[edit]

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 lived at a boarding school near Schwerin until 1955, and then began studying political economics at the Humboldt University of Berlin.[7] From 1957 to 1959, he was an assistant director at the Berliner Ensemble. At university he changed courses to study philosophy and mathematics under Wolfgang Heise (de) until 1963, when he completed his thesis. Despite his successful defense of his thesis, he did not receive his diploma until 2008 when he was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree.[8]




To break this isolation, artists like Joan Baez and many others visited him at his home during the World Youth Festival in 1973. Karsten D. Voigt, chairman of the West German Socialdemocratic Youth (Juso) protested against the suppression of the freedom of opinion and information by the state security.

Deprivation of citizenship[edit]

Wolf Biermann 1977 in Hamburg

In 1976, the SED Politbüro decided to strip Biermann of his citizenship while he was on an officially authorized tour in West Germany.[7] It turned out that the Politbüro had decided to do so before the first concert in Cologne, even though this concert was used as the official justification afterwards. Biermann's exile provoked protests by leading East German intellectuals, including actor Armin Mueller-Stahl and novelist Christa Wolf. In 1977, he was joined in West Germany by his wife at the time, actress Eva-Maria Hagen and her daughter Catharina (Nina Hagen).

Return to the west[edit]

Now living in the West, Biermann continued his musical career, criticizing East Germany's Stalinist policies. He was able to perform publicly again in East Germany on 1/2 December 1989[7] during the Wende that eventually toppled the Communist government. In 1998, he received a German national prize. He supported the 1999 NATO Kosovo War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[12] He lives in Hamburg and in France. He is the father of ten children, three of them with his wife Pamela Biermann.[citation needed]

Selected works[edit]

  • Wolf Biermann: "aah-ja!" (LP, 1974)


  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ Gedenkbuch Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945. ("Victims of Jewish Persecution under Nazi Dictatorship in Germany, 1933–1945") National German Archive, Koblenz (1986) ISBN 3-89192-003-2 (German)
  6. ^ http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/BiermannWolf/
  8. ^ a b Wolf Biermann erhält den Ehrendoktor der Humboldt-Universität – und endlich auch sein Diplom. Berliner Zeitung, 8 November 2008
  9. ^ Das Schlimmste war die Entmündigung. Der Spiegel, 13 November 2006.
  10. ^ Wolf Biermann, Eva-Maria Hagen, Nina Hagen, Oliver Schwarzkopf (ed.): Ausgebürgert. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89602-060-9, p. 82.
  11. ^ Dirk von Nayhauss: Heimatkunde at the Wayback Machine (archived December 12, 2010). Cicero, November 2006.
  12. ^ Article in "Der Spiegel": Brachiale Friedensliebe
Some of this article is translated from the German article of 21 January 2006.

External links[edit]