Marius Müller-Westernhagen

Marius Müller-Westernhagen
Müller-Westernhagen in 2014
Background information
Born
Marius Hubertus Hans Müller-Westernhagen

(1948-12-06) 6 December 1948
Düsseldorf, Germany
GenresRock
OccupationsSinger, actor
Years active1970s–present
Websitewww.westernhagen.de

Marius Hubertus Hans Müller-Westernhagen (born 6 December 1948) is a German musician and actor. He has been a feature in German rock music since the mid-1970s. Müller-Westernhagen is known for his energetic public concerts, and his fans know his anthem-like songs by heart. Though written a few years earlier, his song "Freiheit" ("Freedom") is widely considered as an anthem of the German Reunification. Since the late 1980s, he has also been known mononymously as Westernhagen.

While keeping away from the merely fashionable, Müller-Westernhagen has nevertheless managed to reinvent himself every few years, and is popular with multiple generations of Germans. As a result of his singing which almost exclusively in German language in a country where pop and rock are primarily performed in English, Westernhagen originally seemed destined for obscurity, but has managed to use this to his advantage, defining himself as a durable alternative to the perceivably manufactured English-language hits of the US and UK.

Müller-Westernhagen has also acted in films and in radio.