Herbert Grönemeyer (1956- )

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The talented Mr. Grönemeyer

Herbert Grönemeyer was born in Göttingen on April 12, 1956. He grew up in Bochum in Germany’s industrial Ruhr region. Germany’s best-known singer and musician has been living and working in London since 1998.

Herbert Grönemeyer

It may be hard to believe now, but Grönemeyer, today possibly the most successful German musician of all time, with the two top-selling CDs ever in the German market, was not an overnight success. His first five albums (1978-1983) were only modest successes, and Grönemeyer had to cancel planned tours. It was not until the release of his “Bochum” album in 1984 that Grönemeyer was finally able to reach the top of the German music charts with the hit singles “Männer” (“Men”) and “Flugzeuge im Bauch” (“Airplanes in my stomach”). Named for his hometown, “Bochum” finally put Grönemeyer on the pop music map in German-speaking Europe. To this day, that album’s title song is Grönemeyer’s anthem at any live concert.

While he was recording his first several albums and having trouble achieving his musical breakthrough, “Herbie” (as he is known to his fans) was also acting in films and TV series. In the English-speaking world, Grönemeyer is probably best known as the wet-behind-the-ears reporter Leutnant Werner aboard the U-boat in the classic German anti-war movie Das Boot (The Boat, 1981), directed by Wolfgang Petersen, who later went to Hollywood.

By 1992, Grönemeyer had reached a level of success and popularity that earned him Germany’s top entertainment honor, the Echo Award for Best National Artist. Two years later, in 1994, he received the same award again. That same year he became the first non-English-speaking artist to be invited by MTV to perform an unplugged concert.

In 1993, after they had already had two children together, Grönemeyer married the actress Anna Henkel, whom he had met during filming for a German TV series.

Herbert Grönemeyer's “Mensch” album (2002) remains the best-selling album of all time in the German market.

Although he recorded his first English-language album in 1991 (“Luxus”) and has produced several since then, Grönemeyer is virtually unknown outside of the German-speaking market. Despite his MTV appearance, the bulk of Grönemeyer’s work has been in German. His attempts to break into the English-language music market have never been very successful. A tour of Canada following the release of his “What’s All This?” album (1988) failed to ignite any sparks in the US. A planned 2007 concert in New York City was cancelled, but he did give a concert in London’s Royal Albert Hall in September 2007, as part of the success of the album “12.”

His 2002 “Mensch” album, considered by most fans and critics to be his musical masterpiece, arose out of tragedy.

During the four years prior to “Mensch,” Grönemeyer was also pretty much unknown even in Germany. He recorded no new albums or songs, and gave only one concert (with the NDR Hanover Pops Orchestra at the EXPO on June 7 and 8, 2000, released as the CD/DVD "Stand der Dinge").

The explanation for this is simple: 1998. By any definition, 1998 was an annus horribilis for Grönemeyer. He lost both his brother Wilhelm and his wife Anna to cancer within three days of each other. The tragic double loss made Grönemeyer withdraw almost entirely from public life and recording. He took a timeout and moved to London with his son Felix and daughter Marie.

London has proved to be a creative reservoir for Grönemeyer. In the British capital he has been working with British producer Alex Silva. The result has been three of Grönemeyer’s best albums: “Bleibt alles anders,” “Zwölf” (“12”) and, most notably, “Mensch.”

A poster advertising THE AMERICAN, with music by Herbert Grönemeyer. PHOTO: Focus Features

More recently, Grönemeyer appeared in the 2007 British film Control, helmed by the Dutch director Anton Corbijn. It was that association that led to Grönemeyer composing the music for Corbijn’s “Hollywood” film, The American (2010), starring George Clooney, Violante Placido and Thekla Reuten. (Corbijn has also staged some of Grönemeyer’s recent live concerts.)

Composing and working in more classical music genres is nothing new for Grönemeyer, who actually began his artistic career as a musical director and actor on the stage at Bochum’s Schauspielhaus theater. He later worked with noted German stage directors in Hamburg, Stuttgart and Cologne before moving into jazz and rock with a band known as Ocean in 1978. In 2003 he composed the music for Robert Wilson’s stage production of Georg Büchner’s “Leonce und Lena,” successfully produced in Berlin. Before that (in 1978, 1983 and 1986) he had composed scores for three German made-for-TV movies.

For the FIFA World Cup games in Germany in 2006, Grönemeyer composed and recorded the official anthem “Celebrate the Day” (“Zeit, dass sich was dreht”). Earlier, for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, he had done the same with the anthem “Everlasting.”

In 1998 Grönemeyer founded his own recording label, Grönland, a play on the German word for Greenland (Grönland) and his own surname. Since then he has been supporting promising new artists, including Kira, Half Cousin, Merz and Petra Jean Phillipson. His recent albums include “12,” which won an Echo award for Best Album of the Year, and the retrospective “Was muss muss.” He also re-released albums by the German electronic pioneers Neu! In 2011 Grönemeyer released his newest album, “Schiffsverkehr” (“ship traffic”). At least two of its tracks, “Lass es uns nicht regnen” (“Don’t let it rain on us”) and “Fernweh” (“Wanderlust”), became hit singles in Germany. In November 2011 Grönemeyer toured with British musician Jools Holland in England and performed once again at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Grönemeyer, a longtime social activist, is a board member of Deine Stimme gegen Armut (Your Voice Against Poverty).

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CONTENTS > FAMOUS PEOPLE > HERBERT GRÖNEMEYER

Related Pages

• Famous Germans, Austrians and Swiss
• The German-Hollywood Connection
• Famous Graves - The graves and cemeteries of the famous

Herbert Grönemeyer on the Web

• Herbert Grönemeyer in the German Classroom - with song lyrics and information about his albums (About.com)
• The American (movie) - with music by Herbert Grönemeyer
• www.groenemeyer.de - Official site

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