AnNa R.

German singer AnNa R. was best known as a member of the glamorous pop/chanson group Rosenstolz. Born in East Berlin in 1969, she founded the group with Peter Plate in 1991, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The polished sound of albums like Kassengift (2000), Herz (2004) and especially Das große Leben (2006) brought Rosenstolz to the top of the German charts; songs like "Ich bin ich", "Gib mir Sonne" and "Wir sind am Leben" became hit singles. After Rosenstolz went on hiatus in 2012, AnNa performed with her new band Gleis 8, releasing the Top 10 albums Bleibt das immer so (2013) and Endlich (2016). From 2019 to 2022, she joined the East German rock group Silly and appeared on their album Instandbestezt (2021). AnNa's first solo album, König:in, was released in 2023 and reached #8 on the German charts. In March 2025, AnNa R. died unexpectedly at the age of 55, and her second solo effort, Mut zur Liebe, was released posthumously. AnNa R., born in 1969 as Andrea Rosenbaum, grew up in East Berlin, and the restrictions of the German Democratic Republic made it difficult for her to start her career as a musician because of her critical lyrics. She applied to the Friedrichshain music school by singing the Whitney Houston song "Saving All My Love to You", but was rejected. Instead, she worked as a music dealer and managed the rap group Eastside Attacks (which later became Down Town Lyrics). Shortly after the German reunification and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1990, she formed Rosenstolz with pianist Peter Plate. Starting in 1992, the duo released several albums of their blend of pop and chanson, slowly developing their sound into a glamorous, sophisticated pop style. Starting with 1997's fifth album Die Schlampen sind müde, the band began to reach the German charts, and ironically, in 1999, a record called Kassengift (Box Office Poison), was their first #1 success in Germany. After the Top 3 follow-up Macht Liebe (2002), the band scored an even bigger hit with their ninth album Herz (2004), which sold over 600,000 units, and then saw their biggest success with the release of their tenth record Das große Leben (2006), which sold over 1.1 million units and stayed on the charts for 117 weeks. After two more #1 albums – Die Suche geht weiter (2008) and Wir sind am Leben (2011) – AnNa R. and Plate decided to take a break and pursue other projects. While Plate began focusing on soundtrack work, AnNa R. immediately started a new group called Gleis 8 whose pop sound wasn't all too different from the Rosenstolz style. The band released two albums, Bleibt das immer so (2013) and Endlich (2016), which both reached the German Top 10. Then, from 2019 to 2022, AnNa R. joined Silly, a rock band which used to be one of the most popular groups in the GDR back in the 1980s, and recorded the album Instandbesetzt (2021) with them. Starting in 2022, AnNa R. focused on solo work, recording songs for her own album König:in which was released in September 2023. The album was a logical continuation of her work with Rosenstolz and Gleis 8; in fact, several songs were originally under consideration for a third Gleis 8 album. König:in reached #8 on the German charts, and AnNa soon started to write more songs – but she passed away unexpectedly at the age of 55 in March 2025. October of that year saw the posthumous release of her second album Mut zur Liebe, while in February 2026, the renowned Reclam publishing house (best known for their little yellow paperback editions of literary classics, seen in every school and every university) issued a collection of her lyrics, also titled Mut zur Liebe. Christian Genzel