![[Logo Auswärtiges Amt]](/images/logo.gif){kind=logo}
Wolf Biermann Performs in Washington, DC
A very special evening took place at the German Ambassador’s Residence on Wednesday, October 15. Ambassador Klaus Scharioth welcomed numerous guests to the Berlin Bar at his residence to hear Wolf Biermann, poet, songwriter, essayist, and critic of the GDR regime, who traveled specially to Washington to perform a concert billed, “He who does not put himself in danger will perish by it,” to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall.
-
- Enlarge image
- Wolf Biermann performed in concert at the Berlin Bar of the German Ambassador's Residence.
- (© German Embassy, Washington, DC; by C. Avril)
Biermann has been living again in Hamburg since reunification and says of his career since his expatriation from the GDR: “I write many new songs and poems that have more to do with the situation in the West. So I did not become a professional dissident, who made a living in the West licking wounds inflicted by the East. Regular concert tours through the Federal Republic were supplemented by concerts in virtually every European country and the US.”
After the wall came down and Honecker’s crown prince Egon Krenz was still hanging on by a thread, dissenters in the GDR organized Biermann’s first concert in the East. It took place at an exhibition hall in Leipzig before 8,000 people and was one of the first all-German events, being simultaneously broadcast by East and West German television networks. Wolf Biermann describes his position on reunification:
“Germany is now reunified. Since the Cold War ended, a war of words has been tearing the Germans apart over what we call “dealing with the past.” I have waded into this unfortunately necessary debate with new songs and increasingly also in clear German prose. I am, despite it all, happy about German unity. Finally, for once, we have new problems instead of always the old ones. And measured against humanity, to which we do, by the way, also still belong, it seems to me, we, fortunately, only indulge in suffering in Germany.”
In November 2008, Wolf Biermann’s book Berlin, du deutsche deutsche Frau (“Berlin, you German, German Woman”), containing his most charming poems about Berlin, was published in Germany.
During his stay in Washington, Biermann also appeared at the Carl Schurz Auditorium of the German Embassy on October 14, where he presented songs, poems, and anecdotes to a packed auditorium and afterwards answered questions and signed books for the audience.
Related Link:
