Anna German, Mennonite Superstar?
by Louise Bergen Price

Occasionally, a singer captures the hearts of an entire nation.  Anna German, the ‘Polish Nightingale,’ one of the most loved singers not only in her home country, but the entire Soviet Union, was so popular that Lucia Thijssen describes her as an ‘East-European Lady Di.’  Tickets to her concerts sold out hours after being released.  She was photographed with cosmonauts; an asteroid was named after her.  When she died in 1982, millions mourned.

 Yet despite this popularity, Anna’s past was shrouded in mystery—all that was known was that this ‘blonde angel’ had come to Poland with her grandmother and mother from Uzbekistan in 1946.  Now, twenty-five years after her death, more details begin to emerge.   Over the years, Anna German has been claimed as ‘one of our own’ by the Poles, the Russians, the Dutch, and the Russlanddeutsche.  But what is Anna German’s background; who are her ancestors?

 I first became intrigued by Anna’s story in 2001 through an article from the Dutch paper, NRC. In “Nachtigaal van de Koude Oorlog”, Lucia Thijssen interviewed Anna’s 91 year-old mother and unfolded an all too common and tragic story.

 Anna German’s mother, Irma Martens, was born in 1909 in Wohldemfuerst, Kuban, to Anna Friesen Martens and David Martens. In 1922, David Martens was ‘disappeared,’ and Anna Martens fled with her seven children to the vicinity of Urgench, Uzbekistan.

 Mennonites had lived in Uzbekistan since the Klaas Epp migration to Central Asia in the late ninetieth century, and had established the village of Ak Metchet near the ancient city of Khiva, south of Urgench.

  It was here that Anna Martens’ daughter, Irma, working as a German teacher, met Eugene Hoerman (in  Russian, Yevgeni German). Yevgeni’s father, Fridrich, was pastor of a ‘baptist’ church in Solotarewka, a small town near the Volga.  In 1929 he was arrested as a Kulak and sentenced to five years hard labour, but died of starvation in a work camp in the Urals in 1931.  Son Yevgeni, meanwhile, fled east towards China to the relative safety of Uzbekistan where he met and married Irma Martens.

 But Stalin’s long arm soon reached Uzbekistan and into Irma and Yevgeni’s home.  Little Anna Viktoria German, born in on February 14, 1936, did not grow up knowing her father, for in 1938 he was arrested in the Stalinist purges and later executed as a spy.   Both of Yevgeni’s brothers and one sister were also arrested and sentenced to prison terms; the sister and one brother survived.  Irma’s five brothers fared worse—also arrested in the Great Terror, no word of their fate was ever known.

 With most of the family gone, Anna grew up with the two women who would figure large in the rest of her life, her grandmother Anna Martens, and her Mother Irma.

 In 1945, Irma German fled west with her mother and nine-year-old daughter.  Their trek ended in Warsaw, Poland, where Irma found work as a Russian teacher while her mother ran the household and Anna attended school.

 While studying at the Geological Institute of Wroclaw University, Anna joined the theatre ‘Kalambar’, the first step in her musical career.  In 1964, she won an award at the Festival of Polish songs and soon she was a star, not only in Poland, but in the entire Soviet Union.  The Moscow times reported: ‘For millions of Soviet citizens she was a Polish star who sang melodic Russian love songs while other singers praised of the glory of Communism.’

 When Ann was seriously injured in a car accident in 1969 while touring in Italy, Soviet newspapers headlines called it as a ‘Catastrophe’ It was three years before she made her return to the stage.  She went on to perform in Cannes, as well as in Germany, Belgium, USA, Canada, and Australia.  Toward the end of her life, she composed a number of religious songs.

 In 1980 she was diagnosed with cancer. She died on August 26, 1982, only 46 years old, leaving behind an husband and young son.  Anna’s fans have not forgotten her.  Her recording continue to sell and, more recently, video clips of her concerts have been posted on the internet site, YouTube.  They show a lovely, slender woman who moves with poise, her voice fluid and graceful as her body.

 Irma Martens outlived her daughter by many years.  Together with Anna’s husband, she managed the sale of Anna’s cassettes and music.   In Irma's home, smiling  photos of Anna graced the walls; each day, Anna's voice sang from the cassette player.

 In spite of her many years in Poland, Irma Martens did not feel at home—her foreign accent proclaimed her a stranger.  In her 2001 interview with Lucia Thijssen, she spoke of her happy childhood on the steppes of Kuban and recited an old Mennonite poem:

Soon Farjoa kjemt nich mea tridj
Uck nich de jung Joare
Wo, äwa woone lange Bridj
Met woon Jespaun kaun eena tridj
en siene Jugend foare.

Such a springtime will not return
Neither will the days of youth.
Over which long bridge
And with which team of horses
Can one return to those days?

 Irma died January 30, 2007, and is buried in a Warsaw cemetery near the grave of her daughter.  A tribute to her states that she loved literature, music and languages.   Anna German lives on in the hearts of thousands all over the world who have loved her for years, and in the hearts of many others who have just come to know her.