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The Week in Germany: Culture

November 16, 2006

Prussian Icarus: Wolf Biermann Receives the Federal Cross of Merit on the 30th Anniversary of his Expulsion from the GDR

On November 15, 1976, the East German singer and poet Wolf Biermann gave a televised performance in Cologne after receiving special permission to go to the West from the government of the GDR. The next day, he learned from news reports on the car radio that he had been stripped of his citizenship in the GDR for a “crude violation of his duties as a citizen of the German Democratic Republic.”

Biermann at the Cologne concert that preceeded his expulsion from the GDR

Federal President Horst Köhler will honor Biermann this week with the Federal Cross of Merit for his achievement as a poet and singer. Köhler’s office also issued a statement calling the Biermann’s Cologne concert the “beginning of the process of cultural erosion of the GDR.”

In a letter congratulating Biermann, who also turned 70 this week, on his birthday, Angela Merkel said that Biermann’s songs contributed to “unmasking the unjust regime of the GDR and showing the impact that art can have on society.”

Biermann had been a provocateur since he began performing his songs and poems in the 1960’s, when his cabaret performances on both sides of the wall earned him a permanent ban on performing. After Biermann’s expulsion from the GDR, leading East German writers including Sarah Kirsch, Christa wolf, Heiner Müller, and Jureck Becker signed a petition protesting the decision. Many of the original signers were also eventually forced to leave the GDR.

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