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The Week in Germany: Culture

September 14, 2007

Balladeer Wolf Biermann is Feted at Berlin Concert

Singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, once described by a critic as the "troubadour of German disunity," says he intends to live in Berlin again after a 30-year absence. "After two dictatorships, Berlin is once again a wonderfully crazy and lively democracy," says the 70-year-old balladeer who, earlier this year, was made an honorary citizen of the city by the Berlin government in recognition of his artistic achievements. "Berlin is my old love and I would like to return it," the singer said after giving a concert and receiving a triumphant reception Monday night during the city's Literature Festival.

Biermann said he missed the warmth and "chumminess of the Berliners" who liked to engage in conversation in the streets, and said his longing for the city had grown since being made an honorary citizen - something that had, he said, "genuinely delighted me."

The singer moved from West to East Germany in the 1950s Cold War years, and at first was infatuated with communism. After years of struggle with communist censors, who eventually moved to have him expatriated from East Germany in 1976, he formed the opinion that that "all the best and worst Communist bigwigs since the 1917 October Revolution had proven themselves to be, whether intentionally or not, enemies of the people."

Biermann said he regarded his honorary citizenship as political enlightenment. "The document declaring me to be the 115th honorary citizen of the capital city healed an old wound because it was the public righting of a brutal injustice: my expatriation in 1976." (dpa)

"The Ballad of the Prussian Icarus" from Biermann's legendary 1976 Cologne concert.

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Berliner Literature Festival

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