Schlager music is a style of European popular music that is generally a catchy instrumental accompaniment to vocal pieces of pop music with simple, happy-go-lucky, and often sentimental lyrics.
Brassed Off is a 1996 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Mark Herman and starring Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor.
Popol Vuh were a German musical collective founded by keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Frank Fiedler, Holger Trülzsch (percussion), and Bettina Fricke. Other important members during the next two decades included Djong Yun, Renate Knaup, Conny Veit, Daniel Fichelscher, Klaus Wiese, and Robert Eliscu. The band took its name from the Mayan manuscript containing the mythology of highland Guatemala's K'iche' people.
Sonnenallee is a 1999 German comedy film about life in East Berlin in the late 1970s. The movie was directed by Leander Haußmann. The film was released shortly before the corresponding novel, Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. Both the book and the screenplay were written by Thomas Brussig and while they are based on the same characters and setting, differ in storyline significantly. Both the movie and the book emphasize the importance of pop-art and in particular, pop music, for the youth of East Berlin. The Sonnenallee is an actual street in Berlin that was intersected by the border between East and West during the time of the Berlin Wall, although it bears little resemblance to the film set. Sonnenallee was broadcast in the Czech Republic under the title Eastie Boys.
Gerhard Rüdiger Gundermann, who generally performed as simply Gundermann, was a German singer-songwriter and rock musician. A skilled excavator operator, his musical career began in the former East Germany, where he became known for his clever, often melancholic lyrics imbued with social commentary. After German reunification, he became especially popular among former East Germans who felt alienated and marginalized in the reunited country.
The Council of Ministers was the cabinet and executive branch of the German Democratic Republic from November 1950 until the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Originally formed as a body of 18 members, by 1989 the council consisted of 44 members.
Georg Katzer was a German composer and teacher. The last master student of Hanns Eisler, he composed music in many genres, including works for the stage. Katzer was one of the pioneers of electronic new music in the German Democratic Republic and the founder of the first electronic-music studio in the GDR. He held leading positions in music organisations, first in the East, then in the united Germany, and received many awards, including the Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic, the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German Music Authors' Prize.
Reinhold Brinkmann was a German musicologist.
Lift are a German rock band formed in Dresden in 1973 and remains active at the present day.
Günter Kochan was a German composer. He studied with Boris Blacher and was a master student for composition with Hanns Eisler. From 1967 until his retirement in 1991, he worked as professor for musical composition at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler". He taught master classes in composition at the Academy of Music and the Academy of Arts, Berlin. He was also secretary of the Music Section of the Academy of Arts from 1972 to 1974 and vice-president of the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR from 1977 to 1982. Kochan is one of eleven laureates to have been awarded the National Prize of the GDR four times. In addition, he received composition prizes in the US and Eastern Europe. He became internationally known in particular for his Symphonies as well as the cantata Die Asche von Birkenau (1965) and his Music for Orchestra No. 2 (1987). His versatile oeuvre included orchestral works, chamber music, choral works, mass songs and film music and is situated between socialist realism and avant-garde.
Zersetzung was a psychological warfare technique used by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) to repress political opponents in East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. Zersetzung served to combat alleged and actual dissidents through covert means, using secret methods of abusive control and psychological manipulation to prevent anti-government activities. People were commonly targeted on a pre-emptive and preventative basis, to limit or stop politically incorrect activities that they may have gone on to perform, and not on the basis of crimes they had actually committed. Zersetzung methods were designed to break down, undermine, and paralyze people behind "a facade of social normality" in a form of "silent repression".
William Borm was a German politician, of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). He was a member of the Bundestag from 1965 to 1972, and a member of the FDP National Executive Committee from 1960 to 1982. Several years after his death, it was revealed that since the late 1950s he had been an agent of the Stasi, the State Security Service of the German Democratic Republic.
Hans-Jürgen "Jäcki" Reznicek is a German bassist.
Gerhard Riege was a respected East German law professor.
Ernst-Georg Schwill was a German actor, best known for his performance as Kohle in the 1957 film Berlin, Schoenhauser Corner and as Lutz Weber in Tatort. For several years Schwill was an informant for the Stasi.
Carlernst Ortwein, pseudonym Conny Odd, was a German classical pianist and composer.
Paul-Heinz Dittrich was a German composer and academic teacher. Based in East Berlin, he focused on chamber music, with many works inspired by poetry. His works were performed earlier in the West than in the East. He was an influential composer of contemporary music in Germany who taught internationally, including in the United States, Israel, and Korea.
Eberhard Rebling was a German pianist, musicologist and dance scholar as well as an anti fascist.
Andre Asriel was an Austrian-German composer.
Alexander Scheer is a German actor and musician. He has won several national awards for his performances in film and theater, including one German Film Award for "Best Actor in a Leading Role" and one Bavarian Film Award for "Best Actor", both in the year 2019.
