Christiane F.
May 20, 1962
Also known as: Christiane F.
Christiane F., full name Vera Christiane Felscherinow is a German writer, singer and also a central character in my own book, My Children, from the ZOO station and later the film of the same name. With the book's wide spread and successful film treatment, it became a symbolic figure in the youth culture of the 1970s and 1980s, which was influenced by drugs. In the early 1980s, she lived in a shared apartment for artists on Hamburg's Reeperbahn and was active as a musician and actress, but remained commercially unsuccessful. In 2013, she published her autobiography, Christiane F. - My second life.
Vera Christiane Felscherinow was born in Hamburg, the daughter of Klaus-Dieter Felscherinow and his wife Ursula. She grew up in a family marked by her father's alcoholism. Her family was split in two. When she was six years old, the family moved to West Berlin to a high-rise on Joachim-Gottschalk-Weg street in Gropiusstadt, Neukölln. even after her parents' divorce, her social situation improved only to a limited extent. She started using drugs at the age of 12. At the age of 14, she was addicted to heroin and prostituted in the street of child prostitution at kurfürstenstraße and berlin zoologischer garten. Her mother didn't notice her daughter's double life until two years later.
In 1978, at the age of sixteen, Christiane F. testified in a trial as a witness. Her testimony caught the eye of two reporters from the well-known Stern magazine, and they invited her to talk for two hours. Two hours became two months, and then an autobiographical work, which, in a sense, reversed The West German society's views at the time of teenagers who were addicted to drugs. The magazine series became a book, which was later filmed. Christiane was interested in this book because, like all addicts, she wished that the silence about adolescent drug addiction had finally been broken. All the members of the drug-fuelled party who are still alive have supported this book.
Christane, at the age of 14, was sent from Berlin to a village close to Hamburg to relatives, where she met her future boyfriend Alexander, who she then lived with in Germany for a few years - after which he left her. Then she stayed in Greece for about 6 years with another friend she met here. He left her, too. After several turbulent years in the US, she returned to Germany. Here she lived in Cologne and today she is back in Berlin.
In 1996, she gave birth to a son named Jan-Niklas Philip. By about 1996, her heroin "disease" was still recurring, and she had received several treatments before she became pregnant.
In 2008, she fell back into drugs, and her 11-year-old son was taken from her. On October 10, 2013, her autobiography, Christiane F., was published. - My second life, in which she confirmed that she had repeatedly relapsed in her next life. The "fan edition" of the book, which could be purchased ten days earlier, includes other drawings, photos and videos. Part of the proceeds from the sale were used to support the Christiane F. Foundation, founded by the author and publisher, which aims to support and raise awareness of the children of addictive parents. The autobiography remained on Der Spiegel's bestseller list for almost a year.
Christiane Felscherinow commented on her financial situation on n24 in November 2013:"I'm certainly rich in the sense that, standing at the meat counter, I don't have to think about whether I might not be able to afford a schnitzel today. That doesn't exist right now. I can at least go shopping without knowing I only have ten euros today. Most of my friends have to count like that, I'm actually the only one with a little more money. I only spent all my money on my personal life. I don't have a house, I don't have a car." In January 2014, Felscherinow announced on her blog that she had temporarily withdrawn from the public eye, a major reason she said was her ill health and fear of falling victim to an online campaign:"I'm very afraid of anonymous critics who will judge me online"According to one of the group's former members, Felscherinow was part of a group of homeless heroin addicts in Hermann Square, Berlin, around 2013. In 2016, her partner Detlef, who was also part of the group, died as a result of heroin use. Felscherinow then cut off contact with the group and moved to a homeless shelter. In May 2023, she moved away again with a plan to live out the rest of her life as a small-time farmer and drug-free.Detlef (her closest friend at the time of most addiction) also lived in Berlin with his girlfriend and works as a bus driver. In one interview, he claimed he had never loved Christiane.