Who was Robert Stolz?

Robert Stolz was born into a musical family on August 25, 1880, in Graz, Austria-Hungary. His father was the composer and music director Jakob Stolz and his mother the pianist and music teacher Ida Stolz-Bondy. He completed his musical education in Vienna under Robert Fuchs and Engelbert Humperdinck and conducted his first performances at the “Theater an der Wien”. He composed nearly forty operettas and made his film debut as a composer already in 1913 for the movie "Der Millionenonkel".

He served in the Austrian Army in World War I but left Berlin in 1933 after the national socialists came to power and he helped Jewish refugees to flee while based in Vienna. For his engagement for the Jews during World War II he was awarded the "Jerusalem" medal in 1971. After Austria's Anschluss to Germany in 1938, Stolz migrated to the USA. He was denaturalized from the German Reich in 1942 and his property confiscated. He wrote the music for German and Austrian productions. He worked in New York and Hollywood and wrote the score for two movies - "Spring Parade" (1940) and "It Happened Tomorrow" (1944) - and was nominated for an Oscar for both movies.

In 1970, to mark his 90th birthday, he was made an Honorary Citizen of Vienna. He was awarded Vienna's Grand Medal of Honour. Stolz died on June 27, 1975, in West Berlin, West Germany. He received the honor of lying-in-state in the foyer of the Vienna State Opera House. He was buried in Vienna's Zentralfriedhof.