Profiles - East Germans Shaping Germany
In celebrating the 20th anniversary of the peaceful revolution that brought down the Wall and paved the way to German unity, we profiled several important East Germans who have shaped beyond all physical borders the cultural, intellectual and political life of postwar Germany and Europe.
Dec 2, 2011
| Federal Foreign Office/Germany.info
Christa Wolf will be remembered as a leading exponent of East German literature, though her voice, resonating in the West as well as the East, helped to bridge that longstanding divide.
Christa Wolf
Dec 22, 2009
| Germany.info
Anna Seghers's life is a reflection of political developments in 20th-century Germany, from the German Empire (1871 to 1918) to the Cold War era. After the war, she returned to Europe and lived in East Berlin from the founding of the GDR in 1949 until her death in 1983. To many, Anna Seghers is the most important female German author of the 20th century.
Anna Seghers - Author and Political Activist
Nov 18, 2009
| Germany.info
Manfred Krug - who turned 75 on February 8, 2012 - is known to millions of German TV viewers for his popular roles as a Berlin attorney on the hit show "Liebling Kreuzberg" (Dear Kreuzberg) and as a Hamburg-based police detective on "Tatort" (Scene of the Crime). Before 1977, he was also a movie star in East Germany.
Manfred Krug
Oct 29, 2009
| Germany.info
Armin Mueller-Stahl is known to international audiences through his performances in films such as David Cronenberg's 'Eastern Promises' - but he had a whole other prior career onstage and in films produced in the former East Germany, where he was an extremely popular actor.
Armin Mueller-Stahl
Oct 9, 2009
| Germany.info
The dissident Jurek Becker was a widely acclaimed author and screenplay writer. His debut novel Jacob the Liar, was translated into more than 20 languages and served as the basis for the only East German film to be nominated for an Oscar.
Jurek Becker
