Julia Kerr (28 August 1898 – 3 October 1965) was a German composer and pianist. As a composer she used the name Julia Kerwey. She also worked as a translator during the Nuremberg trials.

Biography

Kerr was born in

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

on 28 August 1898 as Julia Anna Franziska Weismann to the Prussian prosecutor Robert Weismann and his wife Gertrud, née Reichenheim. Her brother was the violinist Dietrich "Diez" Weismann (1900–1982). She studied music with

Wilhelm Klatte Wilhelm Klatte (13 February 1870 – 25 July 1930) was a German Music theory, music theoretician, pedagogue, journalist and Conducting, conductor. Life Born in Bremen, after studying music in Leipzig, Klatte began his professional career as a ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. Kerr married theater critic

Alfred Kerr Alfred Kerr (''né'' Kempner; 25 December 1867 – 12 October 1948, surname: ) was an influential German theatre critic and essayist of Jewish descent, nicknamed the ''Kulturpapst'' ("Culture Pope"). Biography Youth Kerr was born in Breslau ...

in April 1920. They had

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and

Judith Kerr Anna Judith Gertrud Helene Kerr (surname pronounced ; 14 June 1923 – 22 May 2019) was a German-born British writer and illustrator whose books sold more than 10 million copies around the world.

. The family were Jewish and it became necessary to flee Germany in 1933. Initially they fled to Switzerland and then France before settling in England in 1935. In London, Kerr worked in secretarial jobs until the end of the war. Once the war was over she took roles as an interpreter and secretary in the Nuremberg war crimes trial. Kerr had returned to live in Germany after the war and was living in Berlin when she suffered a heart attack and died. Kerr's first opera was ''Die schoene Lau'' after a fairy tale by

Eduard Mörike Eduard Friedrich Mörike (; 8 September 18044 June 1875) was a German Lutheran pastor who was also a Romantic poet and writer of novellas and novels. Many of his poems were set to music and became established folk songs, while others were used b ...

, first performed in 1928 In 1929 Alfred started to write the libretto for her second opera ''Der Chronoplan'' which was delayed due to her emigration. Kerr also composed songs, often after poems by her husband

References

1898 births 1965 deaths Musicians from Wiesbaden 20th-century German composers Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom {{Composer-stub