Page "Alfred Kerr" Paragraph 3

Kerr was noted for his treatment of drama criticism as another branch of literary criticism.

As his fame grew he engaged in polemics, with the critics Maximilian Harden, Herbert Ihering and Karl Kraus in particular.

In the 1920s he was hostile to Bertolt Brecht, and assailed him with accusations of plagiarism.

In 1933 Kerr and his family fled Germany for France via Czechoslovakia and Switzerland.

They moved on to London in 1935.

These years of exile were described, from a child's perspective, by Kerr's daughter in her books When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and " The Other Way Round ".

His books were amongst those burnt in May 1933 by the Nazis when they came to power ; Kerr had attacked the Nazi Party publicly, and he had already gone into exile with his family.

After visiting Prague, Vienna, Switzerland, and France, he came to London in 1935 where he settled, in penury.

He was a founder of the Freier Deutschen Kulturbund, and worked for the German PEN club.

An old feud with Karl Kraus worked against him at the BBC.