The life of East Germany’s most prominent dissident singer-songwriter, Wolf Biermann, is being celebrated for the first time in a major exhibition that examines his pivotal role in the country’s divided postwar history.
Biermann’s banishment from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1976 by communist authorities – who were unable to tolerate his outspoken criticism – not only fuelled his own popularity but helped spread his lyrical, incisive ballads, songs and poems to a far wider audience. It also spawned a mass protest movement, leading to the exodus of some of the GDR’s most popular artists and actors and the imprisonment of scores of freedom of speech campaigners.
