[1][2][3] Stephan Krawczyk was born in Weida, a small industrial town in the hilly countryside between Erfurt and Karl-Marx Stadt (as Chmenitz was known at that time).

[1] In 1976, like many ambitious people, Krawczyk became a member of the country's ruling Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED).

In 1978 he embarked on a distance-learning study course with the "Franz Liszt" music academy at Weimar, covering the concert guitar, after which he launched himself as a freelance singer-songwriter.

[5] The Amiga record label issued a Liedehrlich album on which he starred,[6] and which under the conditions operating in the German Democratic Republic was tantamount to recognition as a "national artist".

[7] Over the next twelve months Krawczyk and Klier worked together on a programme of dramatic pieces and prose readings critical of the "socialist" society.

[9] Copies of this letter were widely distributed through the usual informal channels across East Germany and it was also published in the West German media.

It demanded respect for human rights,[1] the reversal of the performance ban that had been served on the two of them,[7] and freedom from state control for the arts and culture sector.

However, at the last minute they learned that other dissident demonstrators had planned to use the event to highlight government refusal to permit them to emigrate to the west, an issue that had never gone away.

It was anticipated that western television teams would attempt to report the demonstration, and in order to avoid the risk of "mixed messaging" Klier and Krawczyk decided to leave their own alternative banners at home.

[7] Weeks in advance, and well informed as ever, the Ministry for State Security had made their own plans to deal with dissident disruption of the 17 January 1988 celebration.

[7] Some dissidents nevertheless did participate in the demonstration, and despite the best endeavours of Ministry for State Security officials, several "unauthorized" banners appears on international television reports.

At the same time, with the eyes of the media pointing towards them, the East German authorities were keen to avoid a high-profile Wolf Biermann-style deportation.

At the same time, the party's national mass-circulation newspaper, Neues Deutschland published reports of his "secret service connections" and work began on a legal case against him involving "Association with enemies of the state" ("Landesverräterische Beziehungen").

"[4] The rest was left to Krawczyki's lawyer, a man called Wolfgang Schnur who enjoyed the full confidence of fellow dissidents in the local evangelical church community.

Although held in isolation, Krawczyk and Klier were able to communicate by passing messages through their lawyer, Wolfgang Schnur, whom they had both known for a long time and in whom they had complete trust.

[16] Having both agreed to deportation, on 2 February 1988 Stephen Krawczyk and Freya Klier were unceremoniously delivered across the border to West Berlin.

[17] Since the 1990s, he has published several books, strongly autobiographical, and dealing in particular with the life-experiences of the generation subjected to East Germany's take on socialism as they were growing up, such as "Das irdische Kind" (loosely: "The worldly/mortal child").

[19] In 2009 Krawczyk was present at a ceremony at the Bellevue Palace at which twelve former East German civil rights activists received the Order of Merit from the president.