Rudolf Nelson (April 4, 1878—February 5, 1960) was a German composer of hit songs, film music, operetta and vaudeville, as well as the founder/director of the Nelson Revue, a significant cabaret troupe on the 1930s Berlin nightlife scene.

Issued from a poor Prussian Jewish family, and raised in Berlin, his professional turning point came when Nelson discovered the Ueberbrettl, Berlin’s first cabaret founded by Ernst von Wolzogen.

Inspired by the genre, Nelson began his cabaret career at the Potsdamer Straße cabaret Roland, accompanying his own compositions on the piano. In 1904, he joined forces with Paul Schneider-Duncker at the famed Chat Noir Cabaret on Unter den Linden, Berlin’s most fashionable avenue, going on to direct it from 1907 – 1914. There he not only composed his most famous hit song Das Ladenmaedel, as well as from 1908 onwards wrote his famous operatic works, notably Miss Dudelsack…. But also successfully turned elegant urban Berlin cabaret into a destination where the rich and famous would spend their night-time hours to see and to be seen!

In 1920, Nelson married singer Kaethe Erholz, and in the same year opened the Nelson-Theater on Berlin’s famous Kurfuestendamm (associated with the Sans Soucis restaurant). The revues he staged there are legend, presenting numerous top stars of the period, including Josephine Baker, who appeared on January 14 1926, Weintraub’s Syncopators and comic Max Ehrlich. During these years, Nelson also composed revues for Berlin’s famed Metropol-Theater at the Admiralspalast. 

Forced by the Nazis in 1933 to flee Germany - following stage appearances in Vienna and Zurich - Nelson founded a new theater troupe in Amsterdam that went on to become the most important  Exile cabaret revue in the Netherlands, regularly staging performances there from 1934-1942

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