Tribute to Gitta Lindemann, who passed away at age 87

Gitta Lindemann, Till Lindemann's mother, passed away this weekend at the age of 87. According to her family, she died at home in the district of Northwest Mecklenburg, Germany. The news was announced on October 25, 2026 by the public broadcaster NDR, whose cultural department she headed for many years.

A poet, a journalist and an avid reader, Brigitte “Gitta” Lindemann was not just “the Rammstein singer's mother”. Throughout her life, she followed a path entirely her own, between radio, culture and literature.

Gitta Lindemann was born on April 11, 1939 in Dresden. She owed her love of reading largely to her mother's second husband, a teacher who encouraged her from an early age. She used to say with humour that he had “corrupted” her: he took an interest in her and stood up for her whenever her grandmother wanted to send her off to do the dishes instead of reading.

Literature became the great passion of her life. She went on to study journalism in Leipzig.

In her personal life, the first place belonged to the writer Werner Lindemann, who would become one of the best-known authors of the GDR. In 1968, she followed him to the north of the country and started working for East German radio in Neubrandenburg. She then commuted with their two children, Till among them, to the family home in Drispeth, near Schwerin.

The neighbourhood was home to many writers, among them Christa and Gerhard Wolf, Helga Schubert and Daniela Dahn. Gitta Lindemann kept a dazzled memory of those conversations about books, as she told NDR. She said she had never found such an atmosphere again.

Reunification turned everything upside down. Werner Lindemann was no longer published and died in 1993, at the very moment Gitta took over as head of NDR's cultural department in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

There she created the “Literatur-Café”, a programme devoted to contemporary authors, and hosted the Sunday evening “Kunstkaten”, dedicated to the cultural life of the region. Her colleagues remember an inspiring, funny woman, curious about everything. She retired in 2002, without ever losing her interest in music, theatre and literature.

To a young colleague who asked her for advice, she replied: “Stay curious. When curiosity stops, you grow old.”

Gitta Lindemann wrote all her life, but only dared to call herself an author very late. In 2023, she published her memoirs, Meine Fensterplätze (“My Window Seats”). The book gathers many fragments that had long stayed in her drawers, notably from the Drispeth years.

In spring 2026, shortly before turning 87, she presented her poetry collection Lautlos (“Without a Sound”) at the Leipzig Book Fair, where she read, among others, her poem “Himmel” (“Sky”).

Rammstein fans will inevitably hear an echo: like his father Werner, a poet, and like his mother, Till Lindemann has also made poetry an important part of his work.

The whole RammsteinWorld team extends its most sincere condolences to Till Lindemann, his family and all his loved ones. We honour the memory of a free and curious woman of letters, who passed on to her son the love of words.

• Juliane Voigt, “Gitta Lindemann: Literatur war ihre Liebe”, NDR, October 25, 2026.