Wolf Biermann - Chausseestraße 131 (1969)

"Singe-Bewegung" and "Oktoberklub" in East Germany, part 11.

A special case: Wolf Biermann

Wolf Biermann, a “government-certified dissident”, was an outlier in the GDR: though barred from performing and publishing his work after mid-1965, he gave private concerts for friends and visitors from East and West in his flat, his records and books were published in the West and circulated illegally in East Germany. He was watched, to be sure, but for fear of international censure the GDR leadership for a long time shrank from taking any further action against him. An artist like Gerhard Schöne, on the other hand, sang at church conventions as well as at the Political Songfest, performing a balancing act between Church and State that former pastor Joachim Gauck likened to “walking a tightrope of dissident thought and conduct just this side of the politically possible”.

In general during the cultural thaw there was an easier access to western pop music and jazz. In this respect the formation of the Hootenanny-Klub in 1966 was the culmination of four years of musical eclecticism in a vibrant scene in East Berlin that also included Wolf Biermann, Eva-Maria Hagen, Manfred Krug and Bettina Wegner.
It was during the political thaw that Biermann made his name with his uniquely critical political songs. His credentials as son of a communist Jew who was murdered in Auschwitz gave him a certain invulnerability that other songwriters did not possess. Moreover, he came from Hamburg in West-Germany, where he had been brought up by his communist mother, and had chosen GDR citizenship at the age of seventeen of his own free will. This, as well as the fact that he was a decade older than many of the other emerging singers, who only had experience of the GDR, gave him a distance and objectivity that the others, again, did not have.

Two of Biermann´s songs abouth the military, one before the building of the Wall and the other after, document his political transformation toward the stance of state critic during this period. The first one, "Soldaten-Lied" from 1960, was already a controversial soldier´s song by GDR standards in that it was by no menas propagandistic in a pro-military sense. As Holger Böning states, the very presentation of the theme of war in the form of a discussion met with resistance from the authorities: "Zu so heiklen Problemen wie diesem war Agitation erwünscht, nicht aber ernsthafte Diskussion."
In the final verse, however, Biermann concludes that war is justifiable if it is necessary to defend the socialist states: "Mein Junge, es gibt Herrn, / die rüsten für den Krieg / gegen den Arbeiterstaat / drum kann ich dir nur raten: / Geh zu unseren Soldaten."
In "Soldat, Soldat" from 1963, on the other hand, there is a marked shift. Here he says there can never be any sense to war: "Soldat, Soldat, wo geht das hin / Soldat, Soldat, wo ist der Sinn / Soldat, Soldat, im nächsten Krieg / Soldat, Soldat, gibt es kein Sieg." The song is reminiscent of Brecht´s "Legende des toten Soldaten" in referring to the facelessness of soldiers in life and in death: "Soldaten sehn sich alle gleich / lebendig und als Leich."
In the same year, 1963, Biermann incurred his first performance ban. He was also controversially thrown out of the Party. The performance ban was lifted, however, and in 1964 he played at the famous "Die Distel" cabaret and also did a tour of West Germany, where he performed with the famous cabarettist Wolfgang Neuss. His subsequent celebrity in the West meant that after his performance and publication ban in the GDR he continued to support himself from his sales of books and records in the West.

In the year 1969, Wolf Biermann recorded the album "Chausseestraße 131" in his home in East Berlin. It was only published in the West. Possessing home-recording charm, one can hear the noises from the streets. The German texts are very sarcastic, ironic, and to the point.
This LP was recorded with a recorder smuggled in from West Germany and the title of the album was his address at the time, letting the political police know exactly who and where he was at the time.

Wolf Biermann - Chausseestraße 131 (1969)
(256 kbps, cover art included)