Bettina Wegner (*November 4, 1947 in West Berlin) is a German song-writer and poet. After the creation of East Germany (GDR), her Communist family moved to East Berlin, hence Bettina grew up in the GDR where she became a librarian and studied acting. After writing and spreading pamphlets against the intervention of the Warsaw Pact States in Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring) in 1968, she was exmatriculated and arrested because of anti-state activities. After her jail-time she studied singing.
In 1978, she also became known in West-Germany via a television broadcast named “Kennzeichen D” of Dirk Sager. It provided the opportunity for her to publish her first long-playing record (at CBS), which was an audio recording of a concert in the artist’s residence Bethanien. This opened up a lot of new perspectives, which would never have been possible in the GDR.
In 1983 the GDR instituted proceedings against Bettina Wegner because of the suspicion of “forging currency and duty misdemeanours”. The GDR gave her the choice of going to jail or consenting to a deprivation. She left the GDR for West Berlin, where she worked as a songwriter.
Her most famous song is “Kinder”, which she wrote in 1979.