Fans mourn Dylan of the coal mines, for whom times changed too much

Eastern Germans have been mourning the death last week of Gerhard Gundermann, a singer-songwriter who was known variously as "the Springsteen of the East" and "the Dylan of the coal mines".

A committed socialist who worked in a coal mine until last year, he was persecuted by the East German regime but felt uncomfortable in the new Germany that followed reunification.

Like many who opposed communism in the East, he regarded the tyranny of market forces as no less pernicious and dehumanising than the bureaucratic despotism it replaced.

Easterners loved Gundermann's gentle, sorrowful lyrics which captured the yearning of many ordinary people for a better, freer life. But his fame ended at the border with the West, and he first hit the national headlines three years ago when he admitted that he had once worked as an informer for the Stasi.

Unlike many easterners who spied on their neighbours, it was pure ideological conviction which impelled Gundermann to offer his services to the Stasi when he was 18.

But he soon fell out with his masters and was expelled from an officers' training college when he refused to join fellow cadets in serenading a visiting general with the song, That was our general, that was our comrade general.

He was sent to work as a digger in a coal mine and forbidden to join the other members of his singing club when they performed in the west.

The coal mining job was intended as a punishment but Gundermann soon came to love the rhythm of the work there and developed a profound affection for his workmates. He would perform three-hour concerts for the other miners in between his own shifts, and survived happily on four or five hours of sleep a night.

His band, Brigade Feuerstein, won a huge following in the east but Gundermann never wanted to become a full-time musician.

"Only art or only work is not on for me. I need different perspectives on society," he said.

He formed musical alliances with other former stars from the east and his songs about the difficulties faced by easterners in the new Germany continued to delight his old fans. But he failed to make an impact in the west, where his songs were regarded as too wordy and, perhaps, a little too worthy for an ironic age.

Gundermann's final album, released last year, was called Engel ueber dem Revier (Angel above the coal field). The title song was about angels who sat in heaven with nothing to do because all the miners they once watched over were gone.

Gundermann himself lost his job last year, a blow that some friends believe may have contributed to his early death at the age of 43. There is no doubt that his disappointment with reunification is shared by millions of easterners who were promised freedom and prosperity but instead found unemployment, insecurity and misery.

Many disappointed easterners vote for the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to the communists who governed in the east for 40 years. The party, which was written off as a footnote to history in 1990, now commands a fifth of the votes in the east and is likely to retain its Bundestag seats after September's federal election.

Despite its equivocal attitude to the communist past, the PDS is now a thoroughly democratic party that co-operates with all other groups, including Dr Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats, at local level.

The same cannot be said for the far-right German People's Union (DVU), which took 13 per cent of the vote at a recent election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.

This racist party is now setting its sights on other eastern states, hoping to win support from the desperate and despairing.

For many in the east this week, the loss of Gerhard Gundermann marked the passing of a gentle, subtle form of resistance on the part of the down-trodden. As Germany's economic recovery bypasses the east, where unemployment is twice as common as in the west, the cries of protest are becoming uglier.