Wolf Biermann is today handing over his archive and diaries to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Ceremony at the Staatsbibliothek Unter den Linden
Press release from 07/13/2021
With the help of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Cultural Foundation of the Federal States, the State Library acquires Wolf Biermann's private and professional archives and personal diaries.
Like no other, the 84-year-old singer-songwriter's work has reflected the turmoil and unification of Germany. The Wolf Biermann Archive will inspire research in a variety of profound ways; it will raise new literary, cultural and socio-political questions. This event is being celebrated today with a ceremony in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin's Unter den Linden building.
Biermann's immense creative power is extraordinary: his oeuvre comprises 24 albums and over 40 publications of poems, translations, rewrites, socially critical essays, sheet music and audio books. The archive, which comes to the Berlin State Library in a very well-organised state, consists of around 100 large boxes with manuscripts, sheet music, extensive correspondence, a large photo collection, a sound archive beginning in the 1960s, a film archive, a poster collection, collections of reviews and historical documents of the political left in East and West and much more. It also contains the estate of Biermann's parents. What is extraordinary is that Biermann kept diaries without interruption from the age of 17, over six decades, and created a chronicle of his time in over 200 books with analytical powers of observation.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation: "With his life and work, Wolf Biermann has shown how strong and momentous the power of words and songs can be. The massive protests against his expatriation in 1976 are seen as the beginning of the end of the GDR. His political essays stimulated important debates in reunified Germany. He epitomises the German-German, but also the reunified history of the country like hardly anyone else. I am delighted that his work has been successfully incorporated into the Staatsbibliothek's important collection."
Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters: "Wolf Biermann's archive is a unique testimony to contemporary German-German history. With his songs and poems, he was a voice of resistance against the SED regime; to this day, he is one of the most important artists and intellectuals in Germany. Preserving his testimonies through the acquisition of his archive in the Berlin State Library is important not only for today's generation, but also for future generations. Wolf Biermann's life and work make visible what it means for artists to live in a dictatorship. They show what great assets freedom of art, freedom of opinion and freedom of speech are - and that it always takes courage to demand them."
Markus Hilgert, Secretary General of the Kulturstiftung der Länder: "On behalf of the 16 federal states, the Kulturstiftung der Länder supports the acquisition and preservation of works of art and cultural artefacts that are of particular importance to society in Germany. The Biermann Archive presented today is one such work. It reflects the enormous creative power of a life that has related and continues to relate to this society in an exceptional way, singing, composing, writing poetry, thinking and, above all, critically. In this respect, it is a library full of contemporary history that will prove valuable to the public and researchers in many respects. I am delighted that we were able to make a contribution to this acquisition."
The Wolf Biermann Archive
The Wolf Biermann Archive is an exceptionally extensive collection of material spanning over 120 years. It covers a wide range of genres and numerous academic disciplines, from musicology to literature and theatre studies, sociology, political science and history. The oldest collection is the estate of the parents, Emma and Dagobert Biermann: political testimonies of the KPD affiliation, correspondence, including the father's letters from political imprisonment, Gestapo files, documents of the Jewish, deported family, as well as an extensive photo collection of the family. In addition, there is the private correspondence with a distinctly political content - as well as the correspondence that Emma Biermann has kept on behalf of Wolf Biermann in the West since the 1960s. The Wolf Biermann archive contains documents from his childhood and youth, his move to the GDR and his school and university years. The archive documents Wolf Biermann's career in its entirety, with the collection also revealing the social conflicts and political currents in East and West. It includes documents on Wolf Biermann's founding of the theatre in 1961, the b.a.t., and Biermann's two years as an assistant at the Berliner Ensemble, as well as Biermann's agitprop and theatre plays, which are largely unpublished.
The archive contains handwritten manuscripts of poems, ballads and songs. In addition, drafts and elaborations of fairy tales, prose texts, essays and lectures, versions of poems, aphorisms, philosophical reflections and drawings. Then there are translations, both of Biermann's works and of works that Biermann brought into German. Also included is a rich collection of handwritten scores of Biermann's compositions.
Biermann's private, professional and political correspondence since the 1950s, including numerous autographs of relevant colleagues and contemporary witnesses, make up a large part of the collection. Biermann's correspondence particularly reflects the political upheavals through which the protagonists moved - in East and West - also through attached documents from the political left in the FRG. Also included are socially relevant, topic-related bundles, such as the debate on the 1991 Gulf War.
Also included is a collection of Biermann's interviews conducted over decades, supplemented by a collection of reviews and newspaper articles about Biermann from the GDR press as well as from the media in the FRG and internationally. The collection of posters of Biermann concerts, beginning in GDR times before the ban in 1965, extends right up to the present day. It is supplemented by programmes, tour schedules, calendars and address books. An extensive photo archive documents Wolf Biermann's private and professional life, including works by important photographers.
Biermann's sound archive, starting as early as 1962, contains many unpublished songs, but also conversations with friends, colleagues and contemporary witnesses, both in the GDR and in the West, as well as numerous concert recordings, readings and radio programmes. The film archive not only contains recordings of Wolf Biermann in interviews, television and documentary films and concerts, but also numerous interviews with his companions. In addition to the estate of Emma and Dagobert Biermann, the archive contains an extensive collection of documents on the expatriation of 1976, as well as testimonies from the underground, such as samizdat copies or illegally produced tapes. There are also numerous testimonies to the peaceful revolution.
Wolf Biermann
Poet and songwriter, born in Hamburg in 1936. He moved to the GDR in 1953. In 1965, he was banned from performing and publishing altogether and became the most radical critic of the GDR's party dictatorship. Biermann was also closely and critically associated with the political left in the West. Biermann was expatriated in 1976. The expatriation triggered an unexpectedly large protest movement in East and West. Biermann's volumes of poetry are among the best-selling in German post-war literature. Wolf Biermann was honoured with major German literary prizes. An honorary citizen of the city of Berlin, he lives with his wife Pamela in Hamburg, but remains closely connected to the city of Berlin.
The archive in the Berlin State Library
The Biermann archive is now housed in one of the world's most important libraries. In addition to its extraordinarily rich holdings of special materials - such as the music autographs of Beet-hoven, Mozart and Bach - it holds extensive world-class special collections of manuscripts, estates, archives, maps, globes and rare prints. The modern book collection is constantly growing and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin currently holds around 32 million different media. The Biermann Archive is thus part of an environment with various direct and indirect links to other archives and estates, such as the archive of the Wagenbach publishing house, the estate of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the archive of the Jewish Mendelssohn family in Berlin.
Further press contact: Jeanette Lamble, spokesperson for the Berlin State Library - Prussian Cultural Heritage, jeanette.lamble@sbb.spk-berlin.de, tel. 030 266 43 1444.