Joachim Witt

One of the rare enduring figures from the new German wave that ruled radio in the early 1980s is the Hamburg-born musician Joachim Witt. After a long period of attempts to recapture the success of his breakthrough single “Goldener Reiter,” he achieved a substantial return in the latter half of the 1990s through the album Bayreuth 1 and the single “Die Flut,” whose fusion of Wagnerian grandeur and heavy guitars aligned with the Neue Deutsche Härte movement led by Rammstein.

Witt entered the world in Hamburg on February 22, 1949. He began working as an actor during the 1970s, training with Hildburg Freese in Hamburg between 1973 and 1975 before appearing on stage at the city’s Thalia Theater from 1975 to 1977. While engaged in those theatrical activities he issued two recordings under the name Julian—“Ich Bin ein Mann” and “Ich Weiß, Ich Komm Zurück”—neither of which gained traction. He subsequently joined the psychedelic rock group Duesenberg and received an Echo Award in 1980.

His debut solo album, Silberblick, arrived in 1981 and contained “Goldener Reiter,” a track that became an enormous hit unmatched by any of his later releases. The follow-up Edelweiß, issued in 1982, yielded the modestly charting singles “Kosmetik” and “Tri Tra Trullala (Herbergsvater),” yet two further albums, Märchenblau in 1983 and Moonlight Nights in 1985, coincided with the decline of the new German wave and a corresponding drop in Witt’s visibility. Even the 1992 release Kapitän der Träume failed to reverse that trend.

In the late 1990s, after the industrial metal of Rammstein had sparked renewed interest in German-language music, Witt issued the comeback album Bayreuth 1. Its blend of Wagnerian pathos and heavy guitars, together with the lead single “Die Flut”—a duet with Wolfsheim vocalist Peter Heppner—matched the often-controversial, occasionally ironic engagement with German history and culture typical of Neue Deutsche Härte acts. The record surpassed 700,000 units sold. Accusations that Witt, like Rammstein and similar bands, conveyed right-wing sentiments through his lyrics arose in part because of his admiration for Wagner and Rammstein’s confrontational stance, yet he rejected the charge outright, describing himself as a “left-wing cosmopolitan.”

A successor album, Bayreuth 2, appeared in 2000 and adopted a reduced guitar presence along with a generally restrained tone. Eisenherz followed in 2002. Witt subsequently established his own imprint, Ventil, and released the album Pop through it in 2004. Between 2005 and 2006 he resumed acting, performing in Muxmäuschenstill at Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater. Bayreuth 3 came out in 2006. The 2007 compilation Auf Ewig gathers material drawn chiefly from the Bayreuth trilogy, presented in freshly recorded versions.