Nina Hagen

Catharina “Nina” Hagen was born in the Eastern section of Berlin on 11 March 1955 to actress Eva Marie Hagen and writer Hans Hagen. Her parents divorced when she was two, and at the age of six, she began school in East Germany.

In 1965, she joined the Thalmann Pioneers, a Communist youth organisation, and a year later, the dissident poet and songwriter Wolf Biermann became her stepfather.

Hagen joined the FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend), another East German youth movement, in 1968 but was expelled in disgrace a year later for her involvement with Biermann. Foremost was her part in a Biermann protest of the participation of East German troops in the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Leaving school in 1977, Nina travelled to Poland, where she sang for the first time with a band.

She sang four songs each evening and remembers them as one blues song, two by Janis Joplin and a Tina Turner song. It was also in Poland that she first thought of going over to the West.

In 1978, she began at the Studio für Unterhaltungsmusik (Studio for popular music) and left with outstanding honours, and as part of her training, she toured East Germany for two months.

On the tour, she sang two songs, one English blues and Der Hahn (The Rooster) – an East German rock & roll song.

A few more years were spent touring East Germany with the Aldons Wonneberg Orchestra, but tiring of this, Nina decided to start her own band – initially, an outfit called Automobil, and then Fritzens Dampferband (Fred’s Steamboat Band).

When Wolf Biermann was expelled from East Germany in 1976, Hagen decided to exit as well. On 9 December, she arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany and soon had a recording contract.

She flew to London, met up with The Slits and wrote some songs with Ari Up.

Meeting guitarist Bernhard Potschka in West Berlin, she formed The Nina Hagen Band (with Potschka on guitar, Manfred Praeker on bass, Herwig Mitteregger on drums, and Reinhold Heil on piano) and released the single African Reggae.

Their self-titled debut album was released in late 1978 to critical acclaim and was a commercial success, selling over 250,000 copies. The band released one more album, Unbehagen, before their break-up in 1979.

In 1982, Hagen signed a new contract with CBS and released her debut solo album NunSexMonkRock, which became her first record to chart in the US. She followed it with two more albums: Fearless (1983) and Nina Hagen in Ekstasy (1985), before her contract with CBS expired and was not renewed.

In 1989, she was offered a record deal by Mercury Records and released three albums on the label: Nina Hagen (1989), Street (1991), and Revolution Ballroom (1993). However, none of the albums achieved notable commercial success.

Hagen made her musical comeback with the release of her album Return of the Mother (2000).

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