Stephan Krawczyk

Stephan Krawczyk (born 31 December 1955) is a German writer and songwriter.

Krawczyk passed his school final exams ("Abitur") in 1974 which would normally open the way to a university level education.

Before that, however, between 1974 and 1976 he undertook his national/military service.

He then worked variously as a concierge and as an administrative assistant at an arts institution.

In 1976, like many ambitious people, Krawczyk became a member of the country's ruling Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED).

The party would play a central part in his life during the next ten years.

In 1978 he embarked on a distance-learning study course with the "Franz Liszt" music academy at Weimar, covering the concert guitar, after which he launched himself as a freelance singer-songwriter.

Between 1978 and 1983 he built a significant reputation within East Germany as a member of the Gera-based folk group Liedehrlich.

Liedehrlich had been launched as a folk trio in 1978.

In 1981 the Minister for Culture and the Arts awarded him first prize in the National Chanson Contest ("Chansontage der DDR").

The Amiga record label issued a Liedehrlich album on which he starred, and which under the conditions operating in the German Democratic Republic was tantamount to recognition as a "national artist".

At the end of 1982 it became a duo when Stephan Krawczyk withdrew from it.

In or before 1984 he relocated to Berlin where he became part of the arts scene in the city's Prenzlauer Berg quarter.

Many of those whom he met were involved in the underground but increasingly resolute and sometimes outspoken East German opposition movement.

He took an increasing interest in abuses of power by government authorities, environmental degradation, individual rights and the lack of choices.

In February 1984 he met the stage-director Freya Klier: during the next few months the two became life-partners.

In April 1985 he resigned his party membership and the party reacted by expelling him.

He was also served with a performance ban.

From now on if he and his partner wished to perform music on a public stage they could do so only in a church.

Far from being silenced, because of the reputation he had established with Liedehrlich, he became overnight one of the most high-profile opposition figures in East Germany.

The authorities responded by identifying him as an "enemy of the nation" ("Staatsfeind") or even as "the new Wolf Biermann".

Over the next twelve months Krawczyk and Klier worked together on a programme of dramatic pieces and prose readings critical of the "socialist" society.

These received supportive responses from audiences of church groups and in community halls.

The authorities responded by pressuring the church authorities to block their appearances.

But as matters turned out there were more and more churches and community groups that continued to provide them with venues for their presentations.

Klier and Krawczyk (who married in 1986) also found themselves deluged with official fines, ordinances and injunctions.

Krawczyk found himself subjected to a sustained programme of Stasi surveillance and harassment.

Early in November 1987 Krawczyk and Klier jointly sent a letter - which quickly became an "open letter" - to the party's top ideologist, Kurt Hager.

Copies of this letter were widely distributed through the usual informal channels across East Germany and it was also published in the West German media.

It was read out at a church concert on 9 November 1987.

The letter criticised social conditions in East Germany and called for extensive reforms.

It demanded respect for human rights, the reversal of the performance ban that had been served on the two of them, and freedom from state control for the arts and culture sector.

Freya Klier believes that the authorities made several attempts on their lives.

Krawczyk was deprived of his driving permit for a trifling offence and their car, driven by Klier, was tampered with.

On one occasion the brake connections were cut.

On another occasion they presumably suffered a nerve gas attack by the car door as a result of which Klier, at the wheel, suffered delusions and narrowly avoided crashing into a tree.

Before 1989 he was a noted East German dissident.

Stephan Krawczyk was born in Weida, a small industrial town in the hilly countryside between Erfurt and Karl-Marx Stadt (as Chmenitz was known at that time).

His father, a miner, was employed in the uranium mines to the east and died while he was still a child.

His mother worked for the postal service.