By Sebastian Bauer
At the start of the exhibition about his life in the German Historical Museum, the singer-songwriter reveals the fate to which he owes his career, which helped bring the GDR to its knees.
Wolf Biermann (86) saw the large exhibition of the German Historical Museum about his life for the first time on Tuesday. He didn’t want to mess with the makers in advance, says the great singer-songwriter in an interview with the BZ
But the poet with the guitar knows his own biography best anyway and is willing and able to provide information with the usual verbal acrobatics. And reveals in advance that he is still undecided on the wishes for the afterlife because he is terribly bored in heaven, but of course he would be terribly tormented in hell.
BZ: Is it a pleasant feeling to see your own life in the German Historical Museum or is it oppressive because you are old enough to be history?
Wolf Bierman: I once wrote a song about my return to East Berlin after the fall of the Wall. Then I sing: “A hero who appears again, oh from the bottom / out of the inferno after the massacres / not even the old dogs bite him anymore / I just survived, pardon me, I’m not dead yet – I’m without a legend Death certificate.” That answers your question. It’s not my fault that I’m still alive. Do you know who I owe this to?
No, tell!
Bierman: I owe that to the goddess of luck. In any case, it is not my merit that I survived the two German dictatorships. During the Nazi era, I was dangerously lucky not to come from a Heil-Hitler family, but from a communist and Jewish family. I was lucky that my mother escaped the inferno of the Hamburg fire by swimming through a canal in 1943 with me, a six-year-old, as a backpack on her back. And it was just as lucky that I got away with these cheeky songs, even though each verse was worth four years in Bautzen.
You are known as an unabashed optimist. Have you ever been really scared by all the threats?
My dear, of course I was scared. I could figure out what was blooming for me. But the question has always been the same – ever since the Stone Age: Am I afraid or is it me? There are always terribly good reasons to be afraid.
How did you manage not to let the fear get to you?
Because I had some advantages. Coincidentally, I wasn’t a Nazi child, so I didn’t have a bad conscience about my Heil Hitler parents, like most children of my generation. Of course, they also felt and suffered the oppression, but did not dare to criticize it radically. I always had my father behind me, who said to me: “Hold on to the argument, after all, it’s not your life that’s at stake, only your good life.” I noticed that and wrote before I was banned , the song (editor’s note: starts singing): “Finally do a big lying fat degreasing cure. Life is not at stake, only your well-being.”
What other benefits did you have?
One of my greatest advantages was that the muses kissed me. If that doesn’t happen, if education doesn’t help, if diligence doesn’t help, then you bungle a weak song. That’s a bad card. In my case, on the other hand, even the depraved old men in the Politburo knew the songs and were annoyed that they liked the song behind their backs.
Is there a singer-songwriter with both political acumen and a talent for rhyming like you today?
I hope so, but I don’t recognize her. “There is a time for everything” says the Bible. In any case, I can no longer play the young hero in this historical drama.
If you were younger, would you still have issues to denounce today?
I just wrote a new song that says, “What You Remember Wasn’t You!” When a dictatorship ends, there are always those who brag about imaginary exploits afterwards. The cowardest pigs then roar like lions. Heroes who are now opening their mouths at the AfD are the ones who kept their mouths shut during the dictatorship. And now that they’re free, and fortunately it doesn’t cost anything anymore, they’re going to slay the dragon. They catch up on the heroic deeds they didn’t dare to do back then.
But why does this also affect people who hardly or never experienced the GDR?
Because we humans all play God: we mold the children in our own image. And so man reproduces not only genetically, but also with his mental body image. Houses and infrastructure can be rebuilt faster than broken people. Even those who fought are damaged, reeking of their enemies. So that applies to me too.
But you haven’t developed any romantic feelings towards the dictatorship, have you?
Not that, but I also carried away my crookedness by having childishly exaggerated expectations of democracy out of anger at the dictatorship. I had to learn a lot after my expatriation in 1976.
That explains the AfD’s successes in the East, but why is it so popular in the West as well?
These developments can also be seen in France and Italy. Democracy is difficult. We have to endure the eternal discourse, keep finding compromises and the hardest thing is the constant responsibility for oneself. Dictatorship is more comfortable, of course only if you keep your mouth shut and do everything with yourself.
When convenience leads to dictatorship, that’s bad news for humanity.
No, it doesn’t have to be like that, because people always have the sting of freedom fresh in them. All the more violent when today everyone can see on the telly what is happening at the other end of the world. Every dictatorship sooner or later strikes the hour of the world clock.