Diether Dehm

Diether Dehm   (Musician, Politician)
Born	Jörg-Diether Wilhelm Dehm 3 April 1950
Alma mater	Goethe University Frankfurt

Diether Dehm is a German singer-songwriter, music producer and left-wing politician. He is currently a member of the Left Party, and has previously been a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the PDS.

On 21 May 2023, Diether Dehm will inaugurate the first "MOATS auf Deutsch" show (German offshoot of George Galloway's Mother Of All Talk Shows).

Background

Dieter Dehm was born in Frankfurt on 3 April 1950. His father Otto Dehm was a mechanic, and played football for FSV Frankfurt, and his mother Inge (née Schulz) was a clerk. He studied remedial education, graduating in 1972, and receiving a doctorate in 1975.

Songwriter and music producer

Dehm performed as a singer-songwriter in the 1960s under the pseudonym Lerryn, a portmanteau of his nickname, Larry, and Lenin. He won an award at the Internationale Essener Songtage [de], a seminal arts festival held in 1968. In 1971, he founded Lieder im Park ('Songs in the Park'), a summer festival showcasing singer-songwriters, and organised Rock gegen rechts ('Rock Against the Right Wing') events.

Dehm produced, wrote and played on Dutch folk rock band Bots's album Aufstehn ('Stand Up'). Included on the album is "Sieben Tage lang", the German version of Bots's best-known song, "Zeven Dagen Lang" ('Seven Days Long'); the translation was done by Dehm and Günter Wallraff. Dehm, using the pseudonym N. Heirell, collaborated with Klaus Lage to write the song "1000 und 1 Nacht (Zoom!)" [de] ('1000 and 1 Night'), which reached number five on the German singles charts in September 1984.

In 1988, Dehm wrote a new party anthem for the SPD, titled "Das weiche Wasser bricht den Stein".

In the 1990s, Dehm wrote the screenplay for the musical film "Die Eisprinzessin", starring Katharina Witt; Dehm had been Witt's manager for a time.

Stasi activities

In 1970–1971, Dieter Dehm was recruited by the East German Stasi secret service, and both he and his wife Christa Desoi became unofficial collaborators (IMs). Dehm used the codename Willy. His most notable work for the Stasi came in 1976, after dissident East German songwriter Wolf Biermann was exiled while in West Germany. Dehm became Biermann's manager, and reported on Biermann's activities. According to Stasi files, Dehm also reported on, among other subjects, activities of the SPD and certain West German artists, and goings-on at the University of Frankfurt. In 1996, a court ruled that it was legal to refer to Dehm as a Stasi informer.

Political career

Dieter Dehm was a member of the SPD from 1966 to 1998, serving as a member of the Bundestag for a short time in 1994. He became a member of the PDS in 1998, and was elected one of its deputy chairs in 1999. He won re-election to that position twice, but lost when he ran for a fourth term in 2003.

From 2004 to 2010, Dehm was state chairman for Lower Saxony in the Left Party. He has been a Left Party member of the Bundestag since 2005. Since 2010, he has chaired the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Linke Unternehmerinnen und Unternehmer, a Left Party group representing entrepreneurs, and has advocated on behalf of business-people.

Controversies

In 2016, it was revealed that Dieter Dehm had hired former Red Army Faction terrorist Christian Klar to perform work on his website. His employment of Klar was disclosed when Dehm attempted to obtain clearance for him to work inside the Bundestag building.

Opinions

“Hannes Hofbauer, a great scientist, historian and publisher in Vienna, says that the new right is the Greens. That is the new system of coordinates to which one should orient oneself. Whoever has national references today, or does not want to let the nation-state decay, is not therefore right-wing; right-wing is whoever wants to destroy trade unions. Right-wingers are those who want to expand NATO. Right-wingers are those who identify with the mountains of corpses that the International Monetary Fund has created in Africa; through catastrophic droughts on which speculations were made. By famines [...] which of course hardly exist in the official speech of the mainstream media. These are mountains of corpses which have been brought about by financial speculation and that is just the same [...] as the murders which are carried out with a scalpel or an axe - only people die of misery. And whoever doesn't recognize this as right-wing, this neoliberalism, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, Soros, many others who speculate on it, also Bill Gates, who has already been caught in some speculations. Rheinmetall, Lockheed, Deutsche Bank, anyone who doesn't recognize them as right-wing, but thinks that because someone is in favor of the nation state, or because someone like me likes to wear a Bavarian traditional costume, they are right-wing, has failed to understand the signs of the time.”
Diether Dehm (March 2, 2023) 

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