Karlrobert Kreiten

Karlrobert Kreiten (26 June 1916, Bonn, Rhine Province – 7 September 1943) was a German pianist, albeit holding Dutch citizenship his entire life due to his Dutch father.

Biography He was regarded by Claudio Arrau and others to be one of the most talented young pianists in Germany. The Kreiten family originated in the area of the Lower Rhineland, near the current Dutch-German border.

His debut at the age of eleven in the Düsseldorf planetarium was also a live broadcast. Once a student of the famous pianist Claudio Arrau, Karlrobert Kreiten had influential friends. But even the intervention of the equally famous conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler couldn't prevent his arrest and execution. Stolperstein for Karlrobert Kreiten in the Rochusstraße, Düsseldorf-Pempelfort. Today in Berlin, a memorial of the life and death of Kreiten exists along the "Topography of Terror" outdoor exhibit, which deals with the terror inflicted by the German SS and the Gestapo. The very prison cells that held him and others arrested by the Gestapo have been unearthed and remain laid bare for all to see. Streets in Düsseldorf, Bonn, and Cologne have been named in his honor.

In September 2003 the Dutch composer Rudi Martinus van Dijk had his work Kreiten's Passion for baritone, full choir and symphony orchestra premiered in Düsseldorf by the Düsseldorf Symfoniker in memoriam of Karlrobert Kreiten.