Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
When Paul Robeson visited East Germany for the first time in 1960, he said, “I have seen the real Germany, the human Germany, humane Germany. Those who are inheritors, yes, of Beethoven’s ‘Alle Menschen werden Brüder’.” He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Humboldt University (1960), and the German Peace Medal of the German Peace Council (1960) and widely cherished for his music and his political activism. After his health broke down, he sought treatment in East Berlin, where a street was later named for him. The talk considers the relationship between Paul Robeson and the German Democratic Republic, and the place he held in the East German public discourse.
When Paul Robeson visited East Germany for the first time in 1960, he said, “I have seen the real Germany, the human Germany, humane Germany. Those who are inheritors, yes, of Beethoven’s ‘Alle Menschen werden Brüder’.” He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Humboldt University (1960), and the German Peace Medal of the German Peace Council (1960) and widely cherished for his music and his political activism. After his health broke down, he sought treatment in East Berlin, where a street was later named for him. The talk considers the relationship between Paul Robeson and the German Democratic Republic, and the place he held in the East German public discourse.
