The rehearsals lasted six months, and, by the time they were finished, the German Democratic Republic was history: The play “Hamlet/Maschine“ [Hamletmaschine], directed by Heiner Müller, premiered in Berlin at the Deutsches Theater on 24th March 1990. During an eight-hour, what is now considered, legendary performance, the dramatist and poet let his Hamlet (played by Ulrich Mühe) perish in “the breach of two eras”, as Müller described it during an interview with the intellectual Alexander Kluge a few months after the premiere had taken place.
When Müller spoke at the largest non-state organised demonstration for freedom of expression, press and assembly and against the government on 4th November 1989 at Alexanderplatz in East Berlin, he saw the end of the GDR coming. Yet he did not believe it actually would happen, since, despite his temporary expulsion from the Writer’s Association, which resulted in an occupational ban, and further sanctions imposed upon him in the 1960’s and 1970’s, Müller always held on to his values and ideas of socialism.
Before the end of the GDR, his status as a literarily adept and internationally renowned theatre maker had granted him access to numerous privileges – such as the permanent visa he obtained in 1983, which made it possible for him to travel to West Germany, Brazil and the USA.
Who was this man who became a legend in his lifetime, first in the East Berlin theatre scene and then worldwide, and who is now considered one of the most important German dramatists of the 20th century since Bertolt Brecht?
Influence at a young age
“Should I talk about myself? I, of whom I am talking about when I am meant to talk about myself? I? Who is that?”, wrote Heiner Müller in 1981 in his dramatic text “Verkommenes Ufer Medeamaterial Landschaft mit Argonauten“ [Waterfront wasteland Medea material, landscape with Argonauts ].He posed the “I” question in his autobiography “Krieg ohne Schlacht. Leben in zwei Diktaturen“ [A war without a battle. Living in two dictatorships]
And that was no coincidence: The search for the contextualisation of the “I” was something that he devoted himself to his entire life.
Born on 9th January 1929 in Eppendorf, Saxony, Müller, the son of a civil servant and Social Democratic Party politician, learned what it meant to live in a totalitarian regime from a young age: When the Nazis came to power in 1933, his father was interned in a camp. He would later process this traumatic family event through various plays and prose.
His anti-fascist upbringing and interest in Friedrich Schiller, Ernst Jünger and Bertolt Brecht paved the way for his image of humanity and his political attitude from an early age. In 1944, when he was just fifteen years old, Müller was drafted into the Reich Labour Service and then the Volkssturm. In 1945, he was taken prisoner by the US, from which he was able to flee soon after. Müller was caught by Soviet Army soldiers and then released. In the early post-war years, he obtained his high school diploma.
Müller joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) when he was eighteen. Then he worked as an assistant as part of his voluntary service in a library in Frankenberg (Saxony), took a writing course in Radebeul near Dresden and worked as a literary critic for the “Sonntag” journal and later on for the “Neue deutsche Literatur” [new German literature] magazine. Müller then moved to East Berlin, where he worked as a research assistant for the German Writers’ Union.
His plan to work for Bertolt Brecht, his role model and artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble at the time, didn’t come to fruition: twice he went to the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, and twice he was turned down. But Müller did not give up: His first play was staged at the Berlin Volksbühne in 1957. It was the beginning of his theatrical and writing career, which was marked by scandals and controversies.
Under a pseudonym
Müller got a job as a research assistant at the Maxim-Gorki-Theater and began his work as a freelance writer. His first plays casting a critical eye on the GDR were written: This is how the then 26-year-old Müller described the issues surrounding the establishment of socialism and the discrepancies between the interests of the workers and the interests of the SED party leadership in his play “Die Lohndrücker” [The Scab] (1958). His research was based on a visit to a large construction site in Saxony with his second wife and co-author Inge Müller. The author was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize by the Berlin Academy of Arts in the GDR.
However, no more than two years later, a scandal broke out: Müller’s comedy “Die Umsiedlerin oder das Leben auf dem Lande” [The Resettled Woman (or Living in the country)], inspired by Anna Seghers’ story “Die Umsiedlerin” [The Resettled Woman], which was staged under the direction of B.K. Tragelehn the same year the Berlin Wall was built, was banned after its premiere. It openly described the problems people faced under socialism and collectivization, which was a thorn in the SED regime’s side. As a result, Müller was expelled from the Writers’ Association, resulting in an occupational ban. On the other hand, Tragelehn, the director of the play, was sentenced to hard labour at a coal production facility. Müller was able to make a living writing crime novels under the pseudonym Max Messer. Throughout his life, however, Müller was dependent on the financial support of friends and acquaintances.
Success outside the GDR
Nine years later, Müller was working in the theatre again. Namely, as a dramatist at the establishment which had turned him down twice in the past: the Berliner Ensemble. His play “Mauser“, which was inspired by Brecht’s “Maßnahme“ [The Decision], was banned in the GDR. It was only performed until 1980, in Cologne. Müller worked for the Berliner Ensemble until 1976, after which he got a position at the Volksbühne. That’s where the directorial team, consisting of Manfred Karge and Matthias Langhoff, first encountered a compelling theatre expression for Müller’s texts, which were riddled with montages and fragments: “Die Schlacht” [The Battle], which was a sequence of scenes, premiered on 30th October 1975.
Müller was politically active, despite his troubled relationship with the GDR regime. He was one of the signatories of the petition against the expatriation of the singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann from the GDR. Although Müller continued to cause a furore with his critical, stylistically outstanding and literary challenging pieces, which simultaneously triggered a wave of excitement among many GDR citizens, the 1980’s were marked by numerous successful performances in West Germany and in non-European countries. That was something the GDR government was willing to tolerate. Müller became a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1984 and received further awards. He was readmitted into the Writers’ Association in 1988.
After the GDR
The Fall of the Berlin Wall didn’t affect Müller’s success whatsoever. In the years following German re-unification, Müller was elected president of the East Berlin Academy of Arts. He married photographer Brigitte Maria Mayer, his fourth wife. Mayer would later stand by his side during his fight against cancer, which she also documented in photographs. In 1992, Müller became director of the Berliner Ensemble. His final production in 1995, “Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui” [The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui] with Martin Wuttke, was a theatrical success for decades to come. Müller gave countless interviews, which contemporary literary researchers now consider to be part of the author’s artistic repertoire. In his final years, Müller increasingly devoted himself to poetry. He did not live to see the premier of his play “Germania 3: Gespenster am toten Mann” [Germania 3: Ghosts at Dead Man].Heiner Müller died of cancer on 30th December 1995 at the age of 66. He is buried in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery in Berlin.
Theatrical collection
The Stadtmuseum Berlin’s theatrical collection, which consists of over thirty thousand objects and two million photo negatives, includes numerous photographs of Heiner Müller, as well as a collection of programmes, posters, designs, costumes, masks and props that were created and used in his productions and under his direction .