Christiane F.

Christiane Felscherinow was born on 20 May 1962 in Hamburg, Germany, but her family moved to West Berlin when she was a child. She became best known as Christiane F (though she has also used Christiane X as an alias) after publishing her autobiographical book Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo (1978) about her heroin addiction and the group of teenage drug-users and sex workers who operated in the area of West Berlin's then-largest railway station Bahnhof Zoo. Her life story became widely known when it was turned into a movie in 1981, with a soundtrack by David Bowie (opens in a new tab). Trying to capitalise on the movie's success, Christiane F released a couple of records shortly after. In the early 1980s, Felscherinow's boyfriend was Alexander Hacke, from the German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, and she collaborated in his project. They also appeared together in the 1983 German film Decoder (opens in a new tab), which also featured William S. Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge. In 2013, Felscherinow published a second autobiographical book titled Mein Zweites Leben in which she writes about the second part of her life after the aforementioned episodes.