Kerr was born in
Wiesbaden on 28 August 1898 as Julia Anna Franziska Weismann to the Prussian prosecutor and his wife Gertrud, née Reichenheim. Her brother was the violinist Dietrich "Diez" Weismann (1900–1982). She studied music with
Wilhelm Klatte in
Berlin. Kerr married theater critic
Alfred Kerr in April 1920. They had
Michael and
Judith Kerr. 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, 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==