Rudolf Nelson

Rudolf Nelson ( born April 8, 1878 in Berlin, † February 5, 1960 ibid; actually Rudolf Lewysohn ) was a now famous in Berlin in the 1920s, comedian, pianist, composer and theater director with the specialty of the "small " art.

Life and work

Nelson gave up his job as a clerk and also broke his musical education in order to devote himself entirely to the work on small stages. With Paul Schneider- Duncker he opened the 1904 Roland von Berlin on Potsdamer Straße and after the separation of Schneider- Duncker (1907 ), the Chat Noir Unter den Linden ( 1908-1914 ), where he became a literary- musical cabaret offered an upper-class audience.

Nelson also wrote the music for revues, which were listed at the Metropolitan Theatre, and composed several operettas. In 1919 he founded the Nelson artist's game, which he renamed in Nelson Theater 1920. In the same year he married the chansonette Käthe Erlholz which was previously married to Conrad Veidt and Emil Jannings.

For his theater in the house Kurfürstendamm 217, the later cinema " Astor " he wrote around 30 revues in the 1920s. The sumptuous, yet apolitical Nelson revues were a part of the Golden Twenties in Berlin. One of his most famous compositions, the Schlager Tamerlane.

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933 Nelson dodged with his revue to Vienna, but even there the dismissal was enforced. Nelson went to Switzerland and during a guest performance in Zurich in 1934, he was hired to Amsterdam.

Here he led the exile cabaret La Gaite (about: " The gaiety " ), touring during the summer months in Scheveningen. By 1940, Nelson created nearly 100 programs in 14 - day exchange. After the invasion of the Wehrmacht he escaped in a hiding deportation. When the war ended he returned to Berlin and wrote here in 1949 his last Revue Berlin woe woe. In 1959 he was awarded the Paul- Lincke- ring. His son Herbert Nelson (1910-1988) was an author and administrator of the Cabaret German cabaret in the USA.

Rudolf Nelson was buried in the forest cemetery Dahlem. The tomb is one of the graves honor the State of Berlin.

The extensive Rudolf Nelson archive is in the archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.