Pannach, Fuchs & Kunert – Für uns, die wir noch hoffen (1977, vinyl rip)

Jürgen Fuchs (19 December 1950 – 9 May 1999) was an East German writer and dissident. He was born in Reichenbach (Vogtland) where he also grew up. After his military service he began to study social psychology at the University of Jena in 1971. In 1973, he joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the ruling party of East Germany in order to study the system from inside. At the same time he started publishing dissident poems and prose. This led to his forceful disenrollment from the university shortly before graduation and his expulsion from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1975.

Fuchs married his wife Lieselotte in 1974. His daughter Lili was born in 1975 in Jena. In the summer of 1975 the family moved to Berlin where Fuchs became a social worker in a church charity, one of the few work options for a political dissident. Following his protest against the deprivation of East German citizenship of Wolf Biermann, he was arrested November 19, 1976. Fuchs spent 9 months in prison of the East German secret service “Stasi” in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen (but he was not sentenced until 1982). Following internation protests, Fuchs was released from prison and deported to West Berlin together with his family in August 1977.

After his arrival in West Berlin, he published protocols of his detention and he continued to be a target for the Stasi. In the early 1980s, Fuchs became involved in the peace movement. After the opening of the Berlin wall in 1989 and German unification in 1990, Fuchs was an activist in the clarification of the Stasi crimes.

He died of plasmacytoma, a rare kind of leukemia in 1999 in Berlin. His disease might have been caused by deliberate radioactive contamination by the Stasi during his imprisonment.

Born on June 24th, 1948 Gerulf Pannach became a highly influential German singer-songwriter and lyricist. In the early 1970’s he worked together with the Klaus Renft Combo. Since 1972 he would work as a freelancer. In 1974 he began working together with Christian Kunert, a band member of Klaus Renft Combo too. After they were stage banned they performed occasional unofficially together with the dissident and poet Juergen Fuchs.

Viewing the expatriation of Wolf Biermann as an encroachment on their artistic freedom, twelve GDR writers expressed their solidarity with Biermann in an open letter on November 17, 1976. Among them were Stephan Hermlin, Stefan Heym, and Christa Wolf. Over the next few days, they were joined by over a hundred other artists, including writer Jürgen Fuchs and musicians Gerulf Pannach and Christian Kunert. Pannach and Kunert were members of the “Renft-Combo,” a group that had been banned since September 22, 1975, for writing texts critical of the regime. Fuchs was arrested on November 19, 1976; Pannach and Kunert were arrested on November 21, 1976. The three men were deported to West Berlin nine months later.

This album was released in 1977 by CBS in West Germany. It´s a recording of an unofficial concert with a small circle of friends in Leipzig, October 17, 1976. The Stasi observed the concert, the technical conditions for the recording were more than bad.Tracklist:

1. Überholen ohne einzuholen – Pannach
2. Das Erwachen (Prosa) – Jürgen Fuchs
3. Ballade vom schlechten Schlaf – Pannach
4. Eintragung 14. Februar (Prosa) – Fuchs
5. Zitat I – Fuchs
6. Eintragung 1. Juli I-III (Prosa) – Fuchs
7. Vom Vertrauensmann, der kein Vertrauen hat – Pannach
8. Eintragung 1. Juli, IV – Fuchs
9. Zitat II – Fuchs
10. Glaubensfragen – Kunert
11. Der Frühsport – Fuchs
12. Frage – Fuchs
13. Der Friseur – Fuchs
14. Friedenslied – Pannach
15. Du stehst an der Strasse – Fuchs
16. Vom Rot, das brennt – Pannach
17. Die jenischen Berge – Fuchs
18. Westberlin-Steglitz, Zitat – Fuchs
19. Gegen die Angst – Pannach
20. Der Stuhl – Fuchs
21. Für uns, die wir noch hoffen – Pannach

This photo shows (from left to right) Christian Kunert, Gerulf Pannach, Wolf Biermann, and Jürgen Fuchs in West Berlin in August 1977. Photo by Johanna Guschlbauer.

Pannach, Fuchs & Kunert – Für uns, die wir noch hoffen (1977, vinyl rip)
(192 kbps, cover included)

Bärbel Bohley is dead – R.I.P.

The former East German opposition activist and artist Baerbel Bohley died today of cancer aged 65.

Bärbel Bohley (24 May 1945 – 11 September 2010) was an East German opposition activist and artist. In 1983 she was expelled from the GDR artists federation (VBK) and was banned from travelling abroad or exhibiting her work in East Germany. She was accused of having contacts to the West German Green Party.

In 1985 she was one of the co-founders of the “Initiative for Peace and Human Rights”. In 1988 she was arrested during a demonstration and was given a six month visa to the United Kingdom. She later returned to East Germany. In 1989 she was one of the founders of New Forum. It became the most prominent opposition group in the final phase of the GDR. The group advocated free elections, greater openness in East German society and a free press. East Germany opened its heavily fortified border on Nov. 9, 1989 after mounting peaceful protests helped undermine the communist government. New Forum’s importance faded as Germany headed toward reunification in 1990.

Still, Bohley and other activists that year occupied the archives of the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police — ultimately helping ensure that the public would be granted access to them.

After the unification of Germany in 1990 she was involved in several court trials because she publicly proclaimed Gregor Gysi to have been a Stasi informer, and actually spent several days in prison because she would not take the statement back publicly or pay a fine. In November, 1990, she supported the squatter movement in East Berlin and tried to prevent forcefully eviction of hundreds of squatters from houses in Mainzer Strasse by police acting in orders of the Senate of the recently united city.

In 1996, Bohley said that what had been achieved in Germany since reunification was “less than what we dreamed.” – “But it is far more than what we had before,” she said.

One of her later projects was a group help project near Sarajevo, where she put great effort into building homes in order to enable refugees to return after the armed conflicts in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

During the 1980s, the Gethsemane Church in East Berlin was an important meeting place for members of the opposition and the East German peace movement. After the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, a central meeting of the New Forum took place there on November 10 and 11. The New Forum was the first nationwide opposition movement that tried to create a platform for the public discussion of East Germany’s manifold problems. Second from left: Rolf Henrich, Jens Reich, and Bärbel Bohley (with microphone). Photo: Volker Döring

In memory of Bärbel Bohley we will post some albums of dissident East German artists in the next days.

Bärbel Bohley is dead – R.I.P.

The former East German opposition activist and artist Baerbel Bohley died today of cancer aged 65.

Bärbel Bohley (24 May 1945 – 11 September 2010) was an East German opposition activist and artist. In 1983 she was expelled from the GDR artists federation (VBK) and was banned from travelling abroad or exhibiting her work in East Germany. She was accused of having contacts to the West German Green Party.

In 1985 she was one of the co-founders of the “Initiative for Peace and Human Rights”. In 1988 she was arrested during a demonstration and was given a six month visa to the United Kingdom. She later returned to East Germany. In 1989 she was one of the founders of New Forum. It became the most prominent opposition group in the final phase of the GDR. The group advocated free elections, greater openness in East German society and a free press. East Germany opened its heavily fortified border on Nov. 9, 1989 after mounting peaceful protests helped undermine the communist government. New Forum’s importance faded as Germany headed toward reunification in 1990.

Still, Bohley and other activists that year occupied the archives of the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police — ultimately helping ensure that the public would be granted access to them.

After the unification of Germany in 1990 she was involved in several court trials because she publicly proclaimed Gregor Gysi to have been a Stasi informer, and actually spent several days in prison because she would not take the statement back publicly or pay a fine. In November, 1990, she supported the squatter movement in East Berlin and tried to prevent forcefully eviction of hundreds of squatters from houses in Mainzer Strasse by police acting in orders of the Senate of the recently united city.

In 1996, Bohley said that what had been achieved in Germany since reunification was “less than what we dreamed.” – “But it is far more than what we had before,” she said.

One of her later projects was a group help project near Sarajevo, where she put great effort into building homes in order to enable refugees to return after the armed conflicts in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

During the 1980s, the Gethsemane Church in East Berlin was an important meeting place for members of the opposition and the East German peace movement. After the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, a central meeting of the New Forum took place there on November 10 and 11. The New Forum was the first nationwide opposition movement that tried to create a platform for the public discussion of East Germany’s manifold problems. Second from left: Rolf Henrich, Jens Reich, and Bärbel Bohley (with microphone). Photo: Volker Döring

In memory of Bärbel Bohley we will post some albums of dissident East German artists in the next days.