Berlin festival honours Wolf Biermann 50 years after expatriation

On Friday evening, Wolf Biermann invited guests to a festival of the critical spirit at the newly renovated Kino International in Berlin. The event came 50 years after his expatriation from the GDR and shortly before his 90th birthday. The Tagesspiegel describes it as a triumphant evening of storytelling.

Prominent voices of contemporary and exile literature read poems. Angela Merkel gave a speech. According to the report, everyone present honoured Biermann in the way he likes best: by telling stories.

Biermann himself, encouraged by applause, added one more tale after saying he had "one more word". The article says his stories could each fill a novel, and that together they make up his life, which it calls Jewish-German, wartime-German, North German, East German, West German and reunified German, and still full of hope and courage.

The report praises him as one of the best artists in Germany, because he turns feelings into words and music into feelings. The headline also says he gave East Germans a piece of advice, which the available text does not spell out.