Born in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, Ruth Hohmann (her stage name) as a child took singing and ballet lessons and sang in the school choir.
On 12 November 1961, she made her first appearance as a jazz singer, singing English lyrics, and thereafter made constant appearances at home and abroad with her band the Jazz Optimisten Berlin, until the mid-1960s, when her career stalled because of the ruling politburo's cultural policies.
Walter Ulbricht, East Germany's hardline communist ruler between 1949 and 1971, clamped down on anything he felt had links with American imperialism, and while jazz was not officially banned, Hohmann has recalled that "we stopped getting bookings.
She was featured in the television documentary series Lebensläufe in a 1999 episode entitled "Ruth Hohmann - Ein Leben für den Jazz",[2] and also appeared in the 2005 film NVA.
[3] Now an octogenarian, she continues to give well reviewed performances, as at a festival in 2011: "Ruth Hohmann, Germany's oldest active jazz singer renders 'The Entertainer' in an amazing range of different voices and registers, now straight-faced, now clowning around.