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,

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. S ...

, the son of Helene (Calé) and Meyer Emanuel Kempner, who was a wine trader. He had one sister always known as Annchen: she married Siegfried Ollendorf and ultimately left Germany for Palestine. His family was Jewish. Alfred said while still at school that he intended to shorten his name to ''Kerr'', which became official in 1909. He studied literature in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

with Erich Schmidt and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Halle. Alfred Kerr worked as a theatre critic for ''Der Tag'' and later for the Berliner Tageblatt. He wrote weekly Berliner Briefe for the ''Breslauer Zeitung'' from 1895–1900 and for the ''Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung'' from 1897 to 1922. With the publisher

Paul Cassirer Paul Cassirer (21 February 1871, in Görlitz – 7 January 1926, in Berlin) was a German art dealer and editor who played a significant role in the promotion of the work of artists of the Berlin Secession and of French Impressionists and Post- ...

he founded the artistic review '' Pan'' in 1910.

Career

Kerr changed his surname to avoid association with Friederike Kempner. Kerr was noted for his treatment of drama criticism as another branch of

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. ...

. As his fame grew he engaged in polemics, with the critics

Maximilian Harden __NOTOC__ Maximilian Harden (born Felix Ernst Witkowski, 20 October 1861 – 30 October 1927) was an influential German journalist and editor. Biography Born the son of a Jewish merchant in Berlin he attended the '' Französisches Gymnasium'' ...

Herbert Ihering Herbert Ihering (also sometimes Herbert Jhering: 29 February 1888 – 15 January 1977) was a German dramaturge, director and theatre critic. He was seen by many contemporaries as one of the leading theatre critics during and after the Weimar yea ...

and Karl Kraus in particular. In the 1920s he was hostile to

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

, and assailed him with accusations of

plagiarism Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and though ...

Exile

In 1933 Kerr was warned by a policeman that his passport was about to be confiscated. He fled to Prague immediately. His wife Julia and their children followed him to Switzerland later. They then went to Paris and then, after the purchase of a film script by

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)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.

, in her '' Out of the Hitler Time'' trilogy.) His books were amongst those burnt in May 1933 by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

when they came to power; Kerr had attacked the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

publicly very early on and Goebbels said before Hitler came to power that Kerr would be one of the first he would shoot. He lived in penury in London. He was a founder of the ''Freier Deutscher Kulturbund'', and worked for the German

PEN A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity wh ...

club. An old feud with Karl Kraus worked against him at the BBC. Kerr became naturalised as a British subject in 1947. In 1948 he visited

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

at the start of a planned tour of several German cities but suffered a stroke, and then decided to end his own life via an overdose of

Veronal Barbital (or barbitone), marketed under the brand names Veronal for the pure acid and Medinal for the sodium salt, was the first commercially available barbiturate. It was used as a sleeping aid (hypnotic) from 1903 until the mid-1950s. The chemic ...

, procured for him by his wife. He was buried, without references to religion according to his wishes, in Ohlsdorf Cemetery in the position "Z 21-217

and his wife was cremated with her ashes buried at the foot of his grave when she died in 1965. The Alfred-Kerr-Preis für Literaturkritik was established in 1977. His Berliner Briefe for the ''Breslauer Zeitung'' were published as ''Wo liegt Berlin'' in 1997, ''Warum fliesst der Rhein nicht durch Berlin'' and as ''Was ist der Mensch in Berlin'' in 2017. ''Wo liegt Berlin'' was a best-seller and the proceeds were given by Michael and Judith Kerr to the Kerr Foundation in Berlin which awards an annual Kerr Prize for a young actor. An eight volume edition of his works has been published and a biography of 720 pages appeared in 2016.

Family

Alfred Kerr married for the first time when he was over 50, to Ingeborg Thormählen, who was much younger than he, and who shortly afterwards died in the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

while pregnant; the bereavement affected him deeply. His second marriage was to the talented musician, Julia Weismann (1898–1965) in 1920. Julia was the daughter of a Prussian Secretary of State, . The Kerrs' son Michael Kerr became a prominent British lawyer. Their daughter

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.

wrote a three-volume autobiography and the children's books '' The Tiger Who Came To Tea'' and the Mog series; the writer Matthew Kneale is her son with

Nigel Kneale Thomas Nigel Kneale (28 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a Manx screenwriter who wrote professionally for more than 50 years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and was twice nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Scr ...

, the author of ''

Quatermass Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the Brit ...

'' scripts.

Works

*Godwi. Ein Kapitel deutscher Romantik (1898). Dissertation on

Clemens Brentano Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano (also Klemens; pseudonym: Clemens Maria Brentano ; ; 9 September 1778 – 28 July 1842) was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz ...

. *Das neue Drama (1905) *Die Harfe (1917) poems *Ich sage, was zu sagen ist: Theaterkritiken 1893–1919. Werke Band VII, 1. *New York und London, travel *O Spanien!, travel *Caprichos (1926) poems *Buch der Freundschaft (1928) children's literature *So liegt der Fall Theaterkritiken 1919 – 1933 und im Exil *Der Dichter und die Meerschweinchen: Clemens Tecks letztes Experiment *Diktatur des Hausknechts *

Walther Rathenau Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and liberal politician. During the First World War of 1914–1918 he was involved in the organization of the German war economy. After the war, Rathenau s ...

. Erinnerungen eines Freundes *Gruss an Tiere (1955) with Gerhard F. Hering *Theaterkritiken (1971) selected criticism *Ich kam nach England (1979) diary *Mit Schleuder und Harfe (1982) *Wo liegt Berlin? Briefe aus der Reichshauptstadt (1997) *Warum fließt der Rhein nicht durch Berlin? Briefe eines europäischen Flaneurs. 1895 bis 1900 (1999) *Alfred Kerr, Lesebuch zu Leben und Werk (1999) *Mein Berlin (2002) *Sucher und Selige. Literarische Ermittungen Werke Band IV, (2009) *Das war meine Zeit Band V/VI (2013) *Was ist der Mensch in Berlin Aufbau-Verlag (2017) *Berlin wird Berlin Vier Bände Wallstein-Verlag (2021)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kerr, Alfred 1867 births 1948 deaths 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male writers 20th-century German non-fiction writers Jewish atheists German theatre critics Silesian Jews Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom People from the Province of Silesia Writers from Wrocław Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Burials at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery 20th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers

Alfred Alfred may refer to: Arts and entertainment *'' Alfred J. Kwak'', Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series * ''Alfred'' (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne * ''Alfred'' (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák *"Alfred (Interl ...

Jewish German writers