Walter Mossmann

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Walter Mossmann , sometimes also Walter Moßmann (born August 31, 1941 in Karlsruhe ; † May 29, 2015 in Breisach ) was a German songwriter and, from the beginning of the 1970s, a protagonist in various campaigns and actions in the context of the left-wing alternative New Social Movements . He also became known as a writer , journalist, and director .

Mossmann began his musical and lyrical career in the mid-1960s with appearances at the folk festivals at Waldeck Castle , which are now legendary , and which, two decades after the end of the Second World War, the socially inappropriately critical songwriting tradition against the then prevailing pop music - mainstream established in West Germany .

He became politically active as a student in the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO) in the 1960s. A few years later, the high point of his commitment was his ongoing commitment to the anti-nuclear power movement . Among other Moss man stepped already in the early phase of this movement in the early 1970s in the public out - first in connection with actions ultimately successful prevention of the South Baden Wyhl planned construction of nuclear power plant Wyhl .

Live and act

Walter Mossmann came to Freiburg im Breisgau at the age of ten . After graduating from high school, he studied German, sociology and political science in Freiburg, Tübingen and Hamburg. He was also involved in the student movement ( 68 movement , APO ). In 1964 he published poems and appeared for the first time with his own chansons .

In 1965 he took part in the Festival Chanson Folklore International at Waldeck Castle . In 1966, after his second participation in the Waldeck Festival, he was a. a. referred to as the most important new discovery. In the same year he took part in the II Folk Festival in Turin. From 1967 to 1969 he was also represented at the Waldeck Festival with songs and workshops as well as contributions to discussions. During this period he also had contact with GDR dissidents and conflicts with the GDR bureaucracy, which ultimately led to an entry ban into the GDR.

Educated literarily and influenced by French chanson, especially by Georges Brassens , Mossmann's first songs were characterized by a haunting visual language. You had to listen carefully to understand allusions, quotes and codes. With increasing politicization, the texts became more direct.

From 1970 Mossmann initially stopped performing songs. Instead, he hosted a critical youth program on Südwestfunk . There were conflicts and separation from the station because Mossmann did not accept rigid rules. He then worked as a freelance author and editor (articles, radio features , cooperation in text collections, in film and theater projects) and as an active person in social movements. He wrote numerous essays dealing with social reality, including nationalism and anti-Semitism, and also brought his skills to bear in the new social movements , especially in the anti-nuclear movement .

Regional resistance, the repressive effects of state power and the overcoming of state borders were important points of reference for Mossmann. In 1973 he traveled to the Causse du Larzac , an agriculturally used region in France, the residents of which strongly opposed the conversion of their homeland into a military test area. After that, together with Freia Hoffmann , he created two one-hour features on the SWF under the title Citizens Become Initiativ , including Larzac and Wyhl . In the resistance against the planned nuclear power plant in Wyhl in his own home region, the Baden-Alsace-Swiss border area ( Dreyeckland ) , he played a major role in the citizens' initiative Weisweil-Wyhl. He was also a co-founder of the initiative group KKW Nein in Freiburg. This commitment motivated him from 1974 to publish and perform new songs. He understood them as "leaflet songs", as an expression of the social and political struggle for the goals shared in the alternative movement against the socially ruling power structures. His texts - some in Alemannic dialect - were now clearer, more radical and also more striking than in the 1960s. They made him popular beyond the scene he addressed and, despite their suppression in the public radio and television stations at the time, developed into a kind of "commons" in the new social movements of the 1970s and 1980s.

Among other songwriters Mossman late 1976 took a critical stance to the expatriation of Wolf Biermann from the GDR . Two concerts with Biermann took place in close proximity to this. From 1977 to 1979 he lived in Bremen .

In May / June 1980, Mossmann took part for a week in a borehole occupation near Gorleben in the Lüchow-Dannenberg district in northeast Lower Saxony . He stayed there until the police evacuated the hut village, which had been proclaimed by the occupiers as the " Republic of Free Wendland " and, in addition to the protest against the nuclear industry, was intended to be an example of alternative lifestyles and grassroots decision-making structures. At that time, the protest against the planned Gorleben nuclear waste storage facility began to spread beyond the Lüchow-Dannenberg region. Mossmann wrote publications and cassettes with an accompanying book (Network Medien-Cooperative) in response to the resistance.

In February 1982 Walter Mossmann was awarded the German Cabaret Prize 1981 . Mossmann's award song Lied for my radical friends was not allowed to be broadcast on WDR , even though it was co-organizer.

Walter Mossmann used niches in the cultural industry and alternative media to disseminate his works, but he did not submit to common market mechanisms and never caved in to the mass media. The fact that his songs were rarely heard there and that there were sometimes legal attacks says something about their critical explosiveness.

In 1990 Mossmann received the Reinhold Schneider Prize of the City of Freiburg ( scholarship ) , and the world premiere of The Disruption took place. Around this time Mossmann turned to larger musical forms, including the creation of an opera libretto .

Since the mid-1990s Mossmann could no longer perform as a singer because a throat cancer had destroyed his singing voice. But he continued to be creative. In dealing with Eastern Europe, especially the Ukraine , a new focus was added. He lived temporarily in Lviv (Lemberg), the Ukrainian twin city of Freiburg.

At events on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the first Waldeck Festival, the mood of which was predominantly nostalgic , Mossmann encouraged people to deal with their own history, their own mistakes and contradictions. Also in 2004, Walter Mossmann's life's work was honored with the honorary prize of the German World Music Prize Ruth , the Honorary Ruth :

“The Ruth organizers MDR , Profolk and the Tanz & Folk Festival-Rudolstadt award Walter Mossmann the honorary Ruth 2004 because they want to focus on the special features of his life's work to date. This almost unmanageable body of work can never be seen without his political commitment. Walter Mossmann is a living example of the unity of artistic creation with the criticism of the existing conditions and injustices in this world. He lives this unity to this day and in the midst of his numerous activities has always been one of the most important representatives of the German songwriting scene since its inception . "

In an interview, Wolf Biermann said that Walter Mossmann was one of the German-speaking singer-songwriters he “valued” very much. “He had a beautiful soul, a sharp mind and a good voice. From my point of view that was a single ray of hope. "

Works (selection)

Discography

  • Roller coaster chansons , with Michel Werner, LP, Da Camera Song, 1967
  • Big request , with Michel Werner, LP, Da Camera Song, 1968
  • Die Wacht am Rhein , EP, pseudonym «Jos Fritz», 1974
  • Lieder im Frendschaft Hus , LP, Badisch-Elsässische BI, 1975 (participation)
  • Flyer songs , LP, Trikont, autumn 1975
  • Wyhl 75 , single, Trikont, 1975
  • Concert for Pitter , LP, Edition Venceremos, 1976 (participation)
  • Live, fight, solidarize I , double album, Trikont, 1976 (participation) live recordings
  • Ballads , single with Trikont, 1976
  • Live, fight, solidarize II , double album, Trikont 1977 (participation) Live recordings from the concert in Essen, Grugahalle
  • New leaflet songs , Trikont, 1977
  • Dreyeckland , double album, Trikont, 1977 (participation)
  • Bauer Maas , LP, Moers, 1977 (participation)
  • First support plate for the die taz project , Trikont, 1978 (participation)
  • Cold time , LP, New World, Cologne 1978 (participation)
  • Springtime , double album, Trikont, 1979
  • Are you still hungry? LP, Trikont, 1981
  • Songs for repair occupants , LP live from the Berlin Metropol, Mood records, 1981
  • Unruhiges Requiem , LP, Trikont, 1983 (with Heiner Goebbels, Prize of the German Record Critics, 1st place in the best song list SWF)
  • The ballad of the cheap Jakob and the ghostly Sophie Lapierre, an eerie encounter under the blue pale sky of Paris and above the metro station Strasbourg-St.Denis , LP, chant story, dialogue between voice and piano, 40 minutes with Joschi Krüger, Trikont, 1987 (German Record Critics' Award. 1st place in the best songs list SWF, later: Mossmann meets Sophie Lapierre )
  • Glasbruch 1848 , LP, Trikont, 1985 (Ed. WM and Barbara James. With Liederjan (Hamburg), Folkländer (Leipzig), Folk de la Rue des Dentelles (Strasbourg), Brigitte Foerg, Heribert Möllinger, Grit Mossmann, Mechthild Fuchs, Atai Keller, Rolf Buschmann, Johannes Ehmann (Freiburg), Mischi Steinbrück (Cologne), Uli Klan (Wuppertal), Helen Jäckle (Winterthur), Wolfram Kunkel (Freiburg), German Record Critics' Prize)
  • The disturbance , sound piece for voice & ghetto blaster, 30 minutes, composer: Cornelius Schwehr (published on CD by: verlag die brotsuppe , Emmendingen, 2000)
  • The disorder . Sound piece and texts (text / record); it includes “the disturbance” by WM and Cornelius Schwehr, “The population is wide awake!” (1974/75), "Dreyeckland" (1980), "Textmaterial die stören" (1990) and "Der Pfahl im Löss" (1991), Verlag die brotsuppe, Emmendingen, 2000.
  • CD box: Chansons, leaflet songs, ballads, Cantastorie & Apokrüfen CDs in a slipcase with 4 CDs in a digipak: In each CD a booklet with notes, documents, photos and critical comments by the author; with all the important songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, Trikont, 2004.

Movies

  • Barrack users , documentary, group work, 1971
  • Two kinds of folk music , documentary, 1977 with Frans van der Meulen and Peter Schleuning
  • Dreyeckland , documentary, 1979, with Jörg Gfrörer
  • S'Weschpenäscht - Die Chronik von Wyhl , partisan documentary, Medienwerkstatt Freiburg 1982
  • Exilio. Refugee camp in Colomoncagua. An outside view , documentary, Medienwerkstatt Freiburg, with Didi Danquart and Rose Gauger, 1984
  • Lemberg: Open City , documentary about post-Soviet conditions in the Galician metropolis, with Didi Danquart, 1993
  • Travelers in Wiwili , documentary about the German support scene in post-revolutionary Nicaragua, the Tonio Pflaum case (see Unruhiges Requiem 1983), with Bertram Rotermund, Freiburg 1997

Books

Theater work

  • You are already an enemy of the constitution . Songs for the play by Peter Schneider at the Stuttgart Theater, era Klaus Peymann, directed by Kirchner
  • Seven variations on the first German national anthem , for 2 voices and 1 piano with Joschi Krüger. World premiere during the Political Song Week in Comedia Colonia on November 11, 1989, one day after the fall of the Berlin Wall
  • Hyenas. Voila! Spectacle on the Égalité scandal , play for the “Freiburg canaille & co theater conspiracy”, idea and text: Walter Mossmann. - Music: Cornelius Schwehr, director: Moc Thyssen, THEATER / VIDEO 1989
  • Undine goes , Kammerspiel by WM based on a text by Ingeborg Bachmann for an actress, 1 one-armed bandit and 1 coded cephalopod. Director: WM, music: Cornelius Schwehr, 1992
  • Der Volks-Malachias , adaptation of the Trahedina NARODNYJ MALACHIJ by Mykola Kulisch , Charkiw 1927. Original: An unpublished translation by Ossyp and Roman Rozdolskyj, 1994
  • A Lemberg evening with Walter Mossmann at the “Nürnberger Bardentreffen”, a German-Ukrainian program, 1995
  • Reflections. Texts and new music , by WM and Lukas Fels (various poets and composers), 1996
  • Homeland. Opera in two acts . In memory of the Baden revolution of 1848/49. Libretto for the opera by Cornelius Schwehr, as well as VISIT TIME - COMPARISON WITHOUT SINGING, speaking piece, simultaneous. World premiere on May 29, 1999, Städtische Bühnen Freiburg, Großes Haus. Director: Gerd Heinz , 1999

Texts

  • Large inquiry , collection of texts, planned as Volume II in the series STANDPUNKTE, Hoffmann & Campe 1969, but will not be delivered after the judiciary's intervention because of "Unglimpf, insulting the Persian Shah, insulting Kiesinger" etc.
  • Freinet pedagogy: Combining learning and life , in: School life - opportunity or alibi? Schroedel Verlag, 1979. With Freia Hoffmann
  • We are fed up with old and new political songs , origins and uses, lyrics and sheet music. 415 pages, Rowohlt 1978. 2nd edition: 1980. With Peter Schleuning.
  • "An aspirin the size of the sun" - first German adaptations by Roque Dalton, then published in INFO SUBVERSIV, Freiburg January 1970 (there: "About headaches", "Sprüche", "OEA"), reprinted in 1981 by Stroemfeld / Roter Stern
  • Hey cop! - Letter to a policeman from Walsrode , in: Too much pacifism? Eds. Duve, Böll, Staeck, Rowohlt 1981
  • Declaration of the 21 citizens' initiatives to the people of Baden-Alsace . Together with Freia Hoffmann, Balthasar Ehret, Jean Jacques Rettig, Gabi Walterspiel. Often reprinted in the FRG, z. T. adapted to the respective conditions
  • Inversion. Polish Winter - Nebel in Wyhl , in: Wyhlbuch II, published by the Badisch-Elsässische Bürgerinitiativen im Dreisamverlag, Freiburg, 1982, editor Gernot Erler
  • "The population is wide awake!", Berlin, Kursbuch 39, 1975. Reprinted many times. (2004 on the website of the German Historical Institute in Washington DC, "German historical key documents" in German and English)
  • Broken glass in 1848 . Flyer songs and documents of a broken revolution, with Barbara James, Luchterhand 1983
  • "The adult education center for the people", in the magazine: "concerns: education". 1975
  • The so-called Biermann with the so-called professional ban in the so-called GDR one among many , in: Wolf Biermann, songwriter and socialist, ed. by Thomas Rothschild, Rowohlt, 1976
  • “In Alsace and Baden…” , in: Wyhlbuch I, Dreisamverlag, Freiburg, 1976, editor Gernot Erler
  • Please be assured, Minister, that the Wyhl NPP will not be built! . Open letter to Minister Matthöfer, in: specifically 10/76
  • The Long March from Wyhl to Elsewhere , Course Book 50, 1977
  • A little encouragement for several Lower Saxony public servants in: NOT HEIMLICH AND NOT KÜHL (for Peter Brückner), Heiner Boehncke and Dieter Richter , Verlag Ästhetik und Kommunikation, first edition, October 1977
  • Volkshochschule Wyhlerwald , in: Freedom to learn. Alternatives to lifelong schooling. The unity of life, learning, working , hrg. by Heinrich Dauber, Etienne Verne, Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1976, pp. 156–172
  • Resistance at all levels , speech manuscript for the demonstration of 150,000 opponents of nuclear power plants in Bonn in October 1979
  • “Do isch Radio Verte Fessene…” , in: Yearbook for Teachers, Rowohlt 1979
  • Leaflet songs. Policies , Red Book 1980. Therein u. a. the prose text DREYECKLAND, reprinted several times
  • Hamburg Curtain Sermon , in: Texts & Contexts, Exegetical Journal in Alektor-Verlag Berlin 1981, reprint: taz February 18, 1981, pardon 5/81, record booklet WM: "Are you still hungry?"
  • «Songs and texts on justice» (together with the 3 tornados) on cassette: Heidelberg 1982
  • Help for Hugo Riveros! , in: «concrete» February 1981
  • Some questions to my fellow citizens , Offtext for a squatter video from the media workshop in Freiburg, 1981
  • "Picked up" - Hugo Riveros murdered , in: Frankfurter Rundschau, July 16, 1981
  • Letters from Wiwili 1980–1983 , a documentation with texts from letters from Tonio Pflaum from Nicaragua, Badische Zeitung, May 5, 1984
  • Maybe the dose was too small, maybe . Chernobyl speech, printed a. a. in Frankfurt's «Pflasterstrand» on May 31, 1986
  • “I distance myself” , Cammer-Sümpf in four movements (“open”, “narrow”, “open”, “very narrow”) for 1 voice and 1 piano, with Joschi Krüger, Freiburg 1987
  • The Boiling Frog Principle , Moritat in E minor and chatter for 1 voice and 1 piano, with Joschi Krüger, Freiburg 1987
  • Conversation with Alfred Sauvy about the term TIERS MONDE, which he coined . SOUND CASSETTE, 1988
  • A stake in loess , about the tradition of anti-Semitism at the Kaiserstuhl. First published in the Badische Zeitung in 1991, reprinted several times
  • Conversations with Jurko , first published in: A.Foitzik / A.Marvakis (eds.), Tarzan - what now? International solidarity in the jungle of contradictions, ISBN 3-922611-67-2 ., Publishing House Libertarian Association 1997, reprinted several times
  • Journal «Ï» 20, Ukra ¥ na EU border 2000 +? In four languages ​​(Ukrainian, German, Polish, French) with texts by various authors. Editing: Walter Mossmann and Sofia Onufriw, Lviv 2001
  • Finds from Drohobycz , also under: The painter and his murderers. About the wall paintings by Bruno Schulz found in Drohobycz (Ukraine). First published in the Badische Zeitung on June 8, 2002, reprinted many times
  • The great narrative, polyphonic, essay on the revolutionary tradition in Baden , in: Badens Mitgift, Ed. Stadtarchiv Freiburg 2002
  • One last time Filbinger… . Speech manuscript for the event “What was wrong must not be right” on September 14, 2003 in the Kaisersaal of the historic department store in Freiburg. Occasion: The celebrations for the 90th birthday of Hans Karl Filbinger

Awards

Web links

Songs and texts by Mossmann
more links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.folker.de/200405/05ruth.htm
  2. ↑ Laudation at the award ceremony for the honorary Ruth  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.trikont.de  
  3. ↑ http://www.lvz.de/Nachrichten/Kultur/Kultur-Regional/Wolf-Biermann-im-Interview-am-Donnerstag-erscheint-sein-neues-Buch-Barbara


personal data
SURNAME Mossmann, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moßmann, Walter (alternative spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German songwriter and activist
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 2015
Place of death Breisach