Photo: Marco Maas/fotografirma.de / CC BY-SA 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Wolf Biermann is someone I respect as much for his courage as his songs. Born in Hamburg in 1936, he became one of East Germany's most pointed dissidents, and his 1976 expatriation turned into a genuine flashpoint in Cold War cultural history. What moves me is that he fought the regime with a guitar and verse rather than slogans, and "Ermutigung" still carries that quiet defiance. The honors stacked up later, the Georg Büchner Prize, honorary citizenship of Berlin, a Humboldt doctorate, but I think the real measure of him is that he kept singing when it cost him everything. That kind of artistic integrity sticks with me.
Overview
Karl Wolf Biermann (German pronunciation: [ˈvɔlf ˈbiːɐ̯ˌman] ; born 15 November 1936) is a German singer-songwriter, poet, and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Wolf Biermann
- Name (Japanese)
- ヴォルフ・ビーアマン
- Reading
- ゔぉるふ・びーあまん
- Born
- November 15, 1936 (age 89)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Scorpio / Rat
- Origin
- Hamburg, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- singer-songwriter / poet / dissident / writer / composer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Private
Awards & achievements
- 2007 honorary citizen of Berlin
- 1991 Georg Büchner Prize
- 2007 Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 2008 Honorary doctor of the Humboldt University of Berlin
- 1969 Fontane-Preis
- 1989 Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis
- 1991 Mörike-Preis der Stadt Fellbach
- 1993 Heinrich Heine Prize
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Singer-songwriter — see all → · Poet — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.