Karla Alexandra Höcker (1 September 1901 – 15 October 1992) (also used the pseudonym Christiana Rautter) was a German writer and musician.

Biography

Karla Höcker's father

Paul Oskar Höcker Paul Oskar Höcker (17 December 1865 – 6 May 1944) was a German people, German editor and author, who also wrote under the pseudonym ''Heinz Grevenstett''. He was one of the 88 signatories of the 1933 proclamation of loyalty to Adolf Hitler ...

was already a best-selling author when Karla was born, in Charlottenburg. Her grandfather,

Oskar Höcker Oskar Höcker (13 June 1840 – 8 April 1894) was a German author of historical novels for children and a stage actor. Biography Oskar Höcker was born in a suburb of Eilenburg, in the Prussian Province of Saxony, as was his brother, author Gu ...

, and her great-uncle, Gustav Höcker, were likewise writers. Karla was initially trained as a musician; she studied at the Berliner Musikhochschule and became a musical director. Soon, however, she began to work as a writer, especially after her father fell ill and she had to assist him. She worked as a journalist and a writer about music, before becoming a professor of music 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 constitue ...

. She received an honorary degree in 1977. In the 1920s and 1930s, she was a member of the Bornimer Kreis, a circle of architects, musicians, writers, and other artists and intellectuals; the nucleus of the Bornimer Kreis consisted of landscape architects Karl Foerster,

Hermann Mattern Hermann or Herrmann may refer to: * Hermann (name), list of people with this name * Arminius, chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe in the 1st century, known as Hermann in the German language * Éditions Hermann, French publisher * Hermann, Mis ...

, and

Herta Hammerbacher Herta Hammersbacher (2 December 1900 in Nuremberg – 25 May 1985 in Niederpöcking near Starnberg) was a German landscape architect who taught for more than 20 years at the TU Berlin. Life Hammersbacher was the daughter of engineer and eco ...

. Members included pianist and composer

Wilhelm Kempff Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff (25 November 1895 – 23 May 1991) was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertoire included Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well known for his interpretations ...

, conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwängler (whom Höcker later went on tour with), and architects

Otto Bartning Otto Bartning (12 April 1883 in Karlsruhe – 20 February 1959 in Darmstadt) was a Modernist German architect, architectural theorist and teacher. In his early career he developed plans with Walter Gropius for the establishment of the Bauhaus. H ...

and

Hans Poelzig Hans Poelzig (30 April 1869 – 14 June 1936) was a German architect, painter and set designer. Life Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to Countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman. Uncerta ...

. She spent

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in Berlin, and published a war memoir, ''Beschreibung eines Jahres: Berliner Notizen 1945'', in which she noted, with surprise, that the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

did not kill or deport the majority of the civilian population, and, like other authors of the period, spoke of how Berlin in 1945 and 1946 was felt to be in an "in-between" time. After the war, she became friends with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, one of the greatest

Lieder In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French sp ...

performers of the post-war period, and later collaborated with him in his writings.

Works

Höcker wrote novels and biographies of artists and musicians, and did interviews for German radio. She published some of those interviews in ''Gespraeche mit Berliner Kuenstlern'' ("Conversations with Berlin artists").

Books authored (selection)

* ''Erlebnis in Florenz.'' Novel. Velhagen & Klasings

Feldpost ''Feldpost'' is the German military mail service. Its history dates back to the 18th century in the Kingdom of Prussia during the Seven Years' War and War of the Bavarian Succession and has existed ever since in different forms and shapes. Histor ...

-Lesebogen, without Nr., Bielefeld 1943 *''Gespräche mit Berliner Künstlern''. Stapp, 1964 *''Die letzten und die ersten Tage: Berliner Aufzeichnungen 1945''. Hessling, 1966. *''Johannes Brahms: Begegnung mit dem Menschen.'' Mit 79 zeitgenössischen Bildern, Notenbeispielen und Dokumenten. (Introduction by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). Klopp, 1983 *''Beschreibung eines Jahres: Berliner Notizen 1945''. Arani, Berlin 1984. *''Franz Schubert in seiner Welt''. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, München 1984.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hocker, Karla German-language writers Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 1901 births 1992 deaths