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, Silesia, 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 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 he founded the artistic review Pan in 1910.