Date: 09/06/2026

Mood: focused

Listening to: Heroine Iconoclast - Zheani

Paul Landers Early Life & Basic Biography: What the Sources Actually Say

Paul Landers' early biography is often repeated incorrectly or reduced to a few vague lines about East Berlin and Feeling B, and if you're lucky maybe Russia or his marriage. This page compiles a less vague version and I will use more diverse sources than usual. I am keeping this page focused on source supported basics using heavy citations, but I delve into more depth than a surface skim over. Paul acknowledged in 2010 that much of his Wiki pages and bios has been wrong and unbelievable that he scoffed to laugh. I took this as a personal challenge.

Last updated: 12/06/2026

Birth and Berlin origins

Paul Landers was born as Heiko Paul Hiersche, December 9th 1964 in Baumschulenweg, a small district of Berlin in Treptow (modern Alt-Treptow/Treptow-Köpenick). It's slightly southeast of Berlin's center, Mitte. This is a quiet and less than glamorous location to have birthed a world famous rockstar. Flattening it as East Berlin doesn't really put the right mental image at all. Flake described Baumschulenweg as nothing especially notable beyond a tree nursery and a train station. To this date, the area has an elevated amount of designated garden spaces and parks, including nearby Plänterwald forest.

Family background

He has an older sister named Sabine, by about three years. His original middle name, which is the eponymous Paul, came from his maternal uncle, as selected by his mother. Speaking of which, his mother has a Polish background and maiden last name. His father came from a German family that was once connected to the Czech/Bohemian populations of Germans in that region prior to post-war era shifts. Many Germans from that region relocated to Berlin and helps explain how that background later becomes East German. His parents married in 1959.

Both of his parents worked in areas involving Slavic languages as teachers, and his father held a professor status. In the future, both of his parents struggled after reunification because their credentials were not recognized in the West. Which led to employment difficulties despite their educations. He said he has a good relationship with his mother. And that he did consider his father potential for a role model, but wasn't able to imitate his work ethic routines.

His father said of his work in Rammstein,

Guitarist Paul Landers as the son of philosopher and Slavist Anton Hiersche. A 78-year old, the father sat at one of the Rammstein concerts in December [2011] in the Berlin O2-Arena. Then he mailed his son Paul: “By pushing things out beyond the extreme, you take away the offensiveness of it. But behind the grotesque, the notion of something very serious and fundamental is not lost. You aren’t double- but triple floored. In Russian there is a term relating to that kind of art that is very difficult to translate: Sá-um, literally: deeper meaning. You have to consider the presentation along with it in order to get ‘behind the meaning’.”

Childhood in Moscow

As a child, Paul lived in Moscow for around a year between age 7-8. Roughly 1970-1971. He said he studied at the DDR embassy school there and learned more Russian than offered in East Germany. This exposure helped his accent and comfort with spoken Russian according to him, though it didn't mean he was fluent from childhood. To this date, he appears to be unable to read Cyrillic. He stated that in 1997 he had started learning Russian further , and displays reliance on an interpreter in 2001 still. Around 2004, he started feeling comfortable to give half Russian, half German interviews for local Russian TV and radio.

Health, school, & early interests

Health

As a child, Paul struggled with "mysterious" health complications that went unresolved. Around age 5-6 (Grade 1), his symptoms progressed to affect schooling, so he was sent to spend time in a state run children's health rehabilitation program in the Harz mountains. He was taught about health measures and given a changed diet. He picked up the nickname, "regular [patient]" (Kundi) for this. His health problems continued on despite treatment and he mentioned mysterious illnesses is in his anecdotes still around age 10-12. This continued to impact his attendance at school. It was not until he reaches teenage years, does he stop mentioning sicknesses. His clarinet teacher informed him about the cold shower method , known for aiding people with compromised immune systems.

School

As for schooling, Paul speaks on the subject hardly ever. Due to that, I can summarize. His grand takeaway in elementary was the one time his teacher explained he cannot wear sandals and needed to wash his hair better. And a PE teacher that was 2 meters tall and scared other kids. His next stories sound like secondary school where he described skipping classes most often in English due to being at the end of the session day, and instead going sailing. Despite his issues with illnesses impacting attendance, he does strongly describe having friends and being social.

Youthful interests & hobby activities

His youthful anecdotes show a pervasive comfort with being unique from the crowd, which lends itself well to his future punk and Rammstein endeavors. Paul showed a strong interest in outdoor based activity and hands-on physical interests instead of straightforward academic based learning. This may explain his lack of interest in recalling much about school itself but loving to spend time talking about travel via ferries and exact detailed memories about forest cabins.

One of his early interests was hunting. This is reflected in two interconnected anecdotes. First is explaining that he had a phase with wanting his bedroom to be Native American hunter themed. He had a knife, a rabbit pelt (donated from an uncle), and bow on his wall. Second, in the Benzin making of when asked about a childhood dream job, he said a hunter around age 10-11. He has said being outside was the hunting motive, and sailor was his ideal profession.

Electronics and technical curiosity

What I gleaned from looking at the patterns of his childhood was a lifelong thread that leads to indicating Paul is not simply into creating music, but having an interest in the electronics and technical side of guitars and sound. That he is willing to think about technical aspects outside of composition or arrangement alone.

He describes strong interests in doing DIY electronic projects and crafts. One was to build a light organ and had lots of modified projects he worked on. He made the light organ blink faster when someone opened a door and 'other tricks'. He appears to be a child that wants to take things apart to understand them, and then build. Many who take interest in that start with clocks and radios. Paul mentions both being parts of his creations.

Part of his interest in guitars beyond trying once and giving up, stemmed from his electronics interests. He attempted to build his own distortion pedal with resources around him. Because the first time he tried the guitar, he was immediately disappointed to realize it didn't sound like rock music at all. He then built his own pedal to solve this. When this contraption broke one day, he was unsure if he should take it to a clock or radio repairman because he used various parts of both.

Apprenticeship and early jobs

In the DDR, one cannot do music without a "cover job". His first ever work experience was taking a radio telecommunications apprenticeship job which is electronics based like his hobbies. However, Paul claims he took the position due to following someone else's suggestion than his own motive. His next job mentioned is doing a boiler man task for women at a library. He admits to slacking off to do it last minute, but the women never complained. Another known job that Paul retains extensive recollection of is, working at Bärensiegel, a schnaps distillery factory. So much so, he managed to recite the entire production line over a decade later. The factory was torn down around 2014.

He said once in response to this question he, "didn't work at all" which is very peculiar. In terms of illegal money, he has mentioned doing textile clothing sales with someone else. And stealing electronic parts from old factories like armatures and switches. According to him, he tried to navigate state expectations and military service avoidance. He claims to have continued to avoid authorities about military due to his name changes and squatted address.

Of all of these jobs, the only one relevant to his future or having any overlap was the radio telecommunications one because his electronics hobbies and knowledge gained during this job appeared to have benefited him as a guitarist later.

Name change: from Heiko Hiersche to Paul Landers

His birth name was as before, Heiko Paul Hiersche. He disliked his first name and upon arriving in Prenzlauer Berg, swapped himself to Paul Hiersche. After marrying Nikki Landers approximately around 1983-84, he took her surname and that was that.

"My former girlfriend was from Leipzig, Nikki Landers, and that's where I got my name. My name used to be Hiersche, and I thought it was very shitty! My name was Heiko Hiersche, Heiko Paul Hiersche is my formal name. The very first thing I did showing up in Prenzlauer Berg was to switch Paul with Heiko, and then I just dropped the Heiko. So my name was Paul Hiersche, that was half the fight. Then I met Nikki and married her, and immediately took her surname. Now I had a worthy rock star name!"

First marriage

His first wife was named Nikki Landers as shown above. They met in Hiddensee and married when he was approximately 20 years old. His entire marriage ceremony was either two and half minutes or three minutes depending on which spouse you think is the best counter. He was immaturely interested in his ID card having the married status, and he found the divorced status even funnier afterward.

Paul: We didn't have a reception party, a celebration.

Director: How did that come about?

Paul: We got married.

Nikki: We got married in three minutes.

Paul: Two and a half. Is it also a wedding to just be married? Was it "marriage" or just the "reception party"? [appears to check the wording aloud] It's not a wedding in that way.

[…]

Paul: Why? It's difficult to say.

Nikki: I can tell it. So... if I was ever to be married, I wanted to be by 18.

Paul: Same.

Nikki: He wasn't 18 anymore... and I then met Paul and... [stops herself]

Paul: Go on. [unintelligible / translation uncertain]

Nikki: It was crazy. [too shy to continue] And so yeah, we got married quickly.

Paul: At first we wanted to go to Hiddensee. We went to Hiddensee. [unintelligible] Right? We wanted to get married there but it's complicated in the DDR. You have to register three weeks in advance. You can't marry whenever you want. It's insane. It's worse than going abroad. [they pause and laugh] Okay maybe not that bad.

Paul says this is when he moved out from his parent's home as well at age 20. He moved out to unstable housing with her from a squatted address around the Berlin city center near the left of Mitte at Invalidenstraße. He describes numerous issues with entering their home via having to climb a wall, and feeling lucky if things made it over unbroken.

Early 90s & fatherhood

The relationship with Nikki ended around 1987-1988. After this dissolution, he lived in a shared flat with six rooms with Flake and his girlfriend. He said he felt strange like the third wheel in their way where his presence was probably interfering with them. He had another girlfriend around this time he named and his son was born around 1990 or so with her. He said his son was 8 in early 1998 and 11 in early 2001 . He balanced being a father while living with Flake, and stated he felt immature at this point in his life despite his age.

At the fall of the wall, he was in the West playing a Feeling B concert because border security was lax for several months prior to that moment. Post-reunification, he stated he squatted housing and worked at Kunsthaus Tacheles. He worked public government jobs to get money too, alongside still playing in two bands. Until he left Die Firma willingly when given the choice of "Feeling B or Die Firma?" According to him, the band were mostly single by 1994. They were far too busy with Herzeleid and tours for anything stable.

Post-marriage & daughter

Paul met Arielle, a makeup artist, approximately somewhere in 1997. They have one child born autumn 2001, their daughter. Arielle sometimes makes public appearances with him during press photos at select events, and you may recognize her for that. They live together and are still a couple to this day.