“Only he who changes remains true to himself.” With this verse Wolf Biermann justified his rejection of communism.

But the same is not true for his songs. On his 88th birthday, a new album is released with 22 classics, but also lesser known songs performed by younger artists, such as Annette Louisan, Ina Müller, Meret Becker, Lina Mali and Alligator. Title of “Wolf Biermann re:imagined – Lieder für jetzt!” (“Songs for now!”). The second disc of the cassette is dedicated to the song “Ermutigung” (“Encouragement”), perhaps the best-known song of the German songwriter and former anti-regime in the German Democratic Republic (DDR).

“If a song is good, the poetry strong and the music beautiful, then there is no reason why it should not be sung 100 years later, even if the times have changed radically,” says Wolf Biermann in an interview with the German News Agency (dpa). . He adds that the human essence of hope, relief and despair, love and hate amidst the strife of the world is somewhat… older. I remember exactly how it was in…. stone age”, he declares as if winking mentally.

Rapper Alligator performs the song “Der Hugenottenfriedhof” (The Huguenot Cemetery), in which Wolf Biermann describes a walk with his beloved in Berlin’s Dorotheenstadt Cemetery. The lyrics refer to celebrities who have their final resting place in the historic cemetery, such as the poet Bertolt Brecht, the composer Hans Eisler, and the founders of the German Communist Party, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxenburg. “How near to us are some dead and how dead are some living,” goes the refrain.

Good friends, loyal enemies

“And I will soon meet these personalities again when I am dead,” adds Wolf Biermann to dpa. “I have already rented a “double” in this cemetery for me and my wife Pamela. However, several more years may pass by then. “Some certainly hope that it will be soon because in the strife of this fatal world I made not only good friends but also loyal enemies.”

“You see, there I will be surrounded by interesting people. And I have to be creative so I’m not bored to death when that day comes.” Besides, he will have 20 to 30 years to wait for his wife Pamela, he says. “If you make the mistake of marrying a much younger woman, then you will have to wait a long time for her to come to you.”

The German-Polish singer Balbina performs the song “Soldat Soldat” (“Soldier, soldier”) on the new album. How does this anthem of anti-militarism from 1965 fit in with the soldiers defending Ukraine or Israel today? “The Jews are defending themselves against the inhumane Hamas. They are of the opinion that they do not want to be exterminated. Hitler already tried it, and they think that somehow it’s enough.”

“The earth will turn red anyway”

For many years, the Jewish-born songwriter saw himself as a true communist. “Either way the earth will turn red,” he sang 48 years ago in Cologne at the invitation of the IG Metall union in 1976. Shortly after the concert, which was broadcast on West German Television, the former East German communist regime stripped him of his East German passport. On the record, Annett Louisan, who was born in the German Democratic Republic, sings in her delicate voice, but without a trace of agitation, the lyrics “So it must be, so it will be.”

As much as his views have changed, Wolf Biermann remains true to himself as an artist. In the celebratory album he recounts how the song “Ermutigung” (“Encouragement”) came about. And then he picks up the guitar and sings. At the end he holds the last note for 45 seconds.

Two days before his 88th birthday, on November 13, he appears at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, together with the younger artists involved in the new tribute album to his songs. Then we will see if the new generation has endurance, like the leading, unique and for decades unrecognized in Germany, songwriter.

Editor: Stefanos Georgakopoulos