Nina Hagen

Her father Hans survived the Holocaust, being held as a prisoner at a prison in Moabit between 1941 and 1945 until the liberation by the Soviet Army.

Her paternal grandfather Hermann Carl Hagen, who was Jewish, was murdered at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 28 May 1942, at age 56.

Hedwig Elise Caroline Staadt, Nina's paternal grandmother, was also murdered at Sachsenhausen.

Nina's maternal grandfather Fritz Buchholz died during World War II.

Her parents divorced when she was two years old.

During her childhood, she saw her father infrequently.

At age four, she began to study ballet, and she was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine.

When Hagen was 11, her mother had a relationship with Wolf Biermann, an anti-establishment singer-songwriter.

Biermann's political views later influenced young Hagen.

Hagen left school at age sixteen and went to Poland, where she began her career.

She later returned to Germany and joined the cover band Fritzens Dampferband ("Fritzen's Steamboat Band"), together with Achim Mentzel and others.

She added songs by Janis Joplin and Tina Turner to the "allowable" set lists during shows.

Catharina "Nina" Hagen (born 11 March 1955) is a German singer, songwriter, and actress.

She is known for her theatrical vocals and rise to prominence during the punk and Neue Deutsche Welle movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

She is known as "The Godmother of German Punk".

Born and raised in the former East Berlin, German Democratic Republic, Hagen began her career as an actress when she appeared in several German films alongside her mother Eva-Maria Hagen.

Around that same time, she joined the band Automobil and released the schlager single "Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen".

From 1972 to 1973, Hagen enrolled in the vocal training performance program at The Central Studio for Light Music in East Berlin (de).

Upon graduating, she joined the band Automobil.

In East Germany, she performed with the band Automobil, becoming one of the country's best-known young stars.

Her most famous song from the early part of her career was "Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film)", with words by Kurt Demmler to music by Michael Heubach, a subtle dig mocking the sterile, gray, Communist state, in 1974.

Hagen performed comic songs like "Hatschi-Waldera" and "Was denn" in Karel Gott´s Czech TV show in Slaný.

After her stepfather Wolf Biermann's East German citizenship was withdrawn in 1976, Hagen followed him to Hamburg.

Shortly afterwards, she was offered a record deal from CBS Records and formed the Nina Hagen Band.

and "Wir tanzen Tango" in 1976.

Her musical career in the DDR was cut short, when she and her mother left the country in 1976, following the expulsion of her stepfather.

The circumstances surrounding the family's emigration were exceptional: Biermann was granted permission by East German authorities to perform a televised concert in Cologne, but denied permission to re-cross the border to his adopted home country.

Hagen submitted an application to leave the country.

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 United States.

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.

She wrote three autobiographies: Ich bin ein Berliner (1988), Nina Hagen: That's Why the Lady Is a Punk (2003), and Bekenntnisse (2010).

She is also noted for her human and animal rights activism.

Nina Hagen was born in what was then East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Oliva-Hagen, a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen (née Buchholz), an actress and singer.

In 1989, she was offered a record deal from Mercury Records.

She 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).

Besides her musical career, Hagen is also a voice-over actress.