English & Literature

Who is Wolf Biermann from The Wall Jumper: A Novel and what is their importance? The_Wall_Jumper:_A_Novel English & Literature Wolf Biermann | The Wall Jumper: A Novel

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A historical figure, Biermann is a controversial German poet/singer of the postwar era. He lives in an apartment on Chausseestrasse in East Berlin until his citizenship in the DDR is revoked and he moves to the West. The Narrator meets him on his first foray into East Berlin and cannot figure out why he chooses to live in the East, since Biermann sings only of its horrors and sees no future. When speaking in Cologne, Biermann had challenged the State rather than outsmarting it, and his colleagues had criticized this risk-taking even while loudly protesting his exile.