Bettina Wegner

In 1966 she began to study drama at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin and was also the co-founder of the East-Berlin Hootenanny-Klub.

This freedom didn't last long: within one year this principle was abandoned, the Hootenanny-Klub was named OktoberKlub and was incorporated into the official youth organization in the German Democratic Republic, East Germany.

After writing and spreading pamphlets against the intervention of the Warsaw Pact States in Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring) in 1968, she was exmatriculated and arrested because of anti-state activities.

The experience of censorship and of custody (her first child from Thomas Brasch had been recently born) influenced her conduct and most of all the lyrics of her songs.

After the „probation in the production" (which in the former GDR meant obligatory work in a factory), she visited nightschool, finishing the A level, and in 1972 completing her training as a singer at the 'Zentrales Studio für Unterhaltungskunst'.

Events (like "Eintopp" and "Kramladen") together with her husband Klaus Schlesinger (journalist), to whom she was married from 1970 till 1982, were forbidden by the GDR government agencies.

Although her own country placed an employment ban on her, they permitted her to travel to concerts in West-Germany, Austria and Belgium, because she was a foreign currency earner for the GDR.

Of course I have my price (...) I like to stop here, singer ain't my profession anymore ... even when I will sing now and then for benefit or special occasions for example (...)"[3] Bettina Wegner has three children.