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 a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

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 theoretician, pedagogue, journalist and conductor. Life Born in Bremen, after studying music in Leipzig, Klatte began his professional career as a musician first at the De ...

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 constitue ...

. 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

Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

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's 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 by ...

, 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 People from Wiesbaden 20th-century German composers Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom {{Composer-stub