By anybody’s standards, Hans-Joachim Roedelius has led an extraordinary life. Born in Nazi-era Germany in 1934, he acted in films as a child and was forced to join the Hitler Youth aged 11. His family fled Berlin during the Allied bombings, moving east, where he was eventually pressed into service with the National People’s Army. Arrested by the Stasi after briefly returning home, he spent two years in an East German prison in the mid-50s, before finally making it back to West Berlin in 1960, a year prior to the Wall going up.
Roedelius was many things through the 60s – waiter, cook, roofer, mountain guide, physical therapist, ice-cream seller, flight attendant, nudist-camp worker in Corsica. All of which meant that he came to music comparatively late, at the age…
