Ermutigung

Wolf Biermann wrote "Ermutigung", Encouragement, for his friend Peter Huchel. Huchel had edited the respected literary journal Sinn und Form from its founding in 1949 until he was forced out in 1962, and he then spent nine years in his house in Wilhelmshorst under Stasi surveillance, cut off from almost everyone. Biermann himself had been banned from performing and publishing in the GDR since 1965, a state he called being an officially recognised enemy of the state. He later said he wrote the song for himself too, at a time when he was in danger of hardening. The poem first appeared in 1968 in a collection published by Klaus Wagenbach, who also released the sung version on a single that year. Its verses urge a listener not to let the hard times make them hard, bitter, frightened or worn out, because giving up early is exactly what those in power want. The last verse turns from you to we, calls for an end to the silence and closes with an image of coming spring. Biermann said it would not exist without Brecht, whose poem "Gegen Verführung" gave him the rhyme scheme and metre. The historian Stefan Wolle wrote that in East Germany it became almost a folk song, and some called it the GDR's secret national anthem. Biermann said it was the most popular song in East German prisons, sung by inmates who often did not know who wrote it. In the West it was sung at church gatherings and peace events. It remains a song about holding on.