Viewing the expatriation of Wolf Biermann as an encroachment on their artistic freedom, twelve GDR writers expressed their solidarity with Biermann in an open letter on November 17, 1976. Among them were Stephan Hermlin, Stefan Heym, and Christa Wolf. Over the next few days, they were joined by over a hundred other artists, including writer Jürgen Fuchs and musicians Gerulf Pannach and Christian Kunert. Pannach and Kunert were members of the “Renft-Combo,” a group that had been banned since September 22, 1975, for writing texts critical of the regime. Fuchs was arrested on November 19, 1976; Pannach and Kunert were arrested on November 21, 1976. The three men were deported to West Berlin nine months later. This photo shows (from left to right) Christian Kunert, Gerulf Pannach, Wolf Biermann, and Jürgen Fuchs in West Berlin in August 1977.