Paul Knepler was an Austrian Librettist, composer and publisher.

Paul Knepler was born the forth out of five children (after his brother Hugo) of Moriz and Pauline Knepler. His father worked with pipes, which he also produced for the South American market.

After completing his studies at the Vienna University, he worked as a banker. In 1905 he acquired the bookstore Wallinshausser’sche k.u.k. on Hohen Markt. After 1910 Paul Knepler started his work as a publisher. His publications were very varied. Beside the first medical and literary publications of Wilhelm Stekel, he published works, among others, from Alfons Bolz-Feigl, Friedrich Schreyvogl und Paul Hohenau. At the ends of October 1916, he handed over the bookstore and publishing company to his brother Hugo.

Musically without technical education, he composed with the help of a Ghostwriter two operettas: Josefine Gallmeyer and Wenn der Hollunder blüht.

However, more than anything, Knepler became a very successful and well-known librettist. For Eduard Künneke, he wrote Die lockende Flamme (1933), for Robert Stolz Der verlorene Walzer (1933), for Oscar Straus Drei Walzer (1935), for Emmerich Kálmán Kaiserin Josephine (1936) and for Franz Lehár Paganini (1925) and Giuditta (1934), which was probably his biggest success and with which his name is still known today.

After the Anschluss of Austria on 12 March, 1938, he had to emigrate as a Jew with his wife to Great Britain. In London he became a board member of the Austrian Centres and wrote and composed for the exile cabaret “Laterndl”.

Only in 1955, shortly after his 75th birthday, Knepler returned to Austria.

His son was the musicologist Georg Knepler.