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| Ernst Lerch |
Ernst Lerch was born in
Klagenfurt (Austria) on
19 November 1914.
He briefly studied at the
Hochschule für Welthandel in
Vienna.
From
1931-34 he worked as a waiter in various hotels in Switzerland, France and Hungary
to learn the hotel trade.
On
1 December 1932 he joined the NSDAP (Party Number 1 327 396), on
1 March 1934 he became member oft the SS (SS Number 309 700).
From
1934 until the
Anschluss (unification of Austria and Germany) in
1938 he was employed in his
father's
Café Lerch in
Klagenfurt. The café became a meeting place for
Carinthian illegal
Nazis.
Globocnik, Classen and
Kaltenbrunner frequented it very often.
Still being in Austria, Lerch was promoted to
SS-Untersturmführer on
9 September 1936 and
SS-Obersturmführer in
1937. In
1938 he
moved to
Berlin, where he
became
SS-Hauptsturmführer in the
Reich Security
Directorate on
12 March 1938.
At his wedding to a
Gestapo employee,
Pohl and
Globocnik acted as witnesses.
In
December 1938, Lerch joined the
Wehrmacht (German Army), and was involved
in the Polish campaign as signals corporal, according to his testimony. From
February 1940 until September 1941 he was
employed at the RSHA in
Berlin. Then he was appointed as
Rasse- und Siedlungsführer
in
Krakow.
From
1941-1943 Lerch served in
Lublin as chief of
Globocnik's personal office and
Stabsführer der Allgemeinen SS.
On
21 July 1942 he was promoted to
SS-Sturmbannführer. Lerch was one
of the most important men of
Aktion Reinhard, responsible for "Jewish affairs", the mass murder of the Jews in the
Generalgouvernement. Amongst that he was responsible for the radio link between the
Aktion Reinhard
headquarters and
Berlin. At the
Worthoff
(former
Gestapo chief in
Lublin) trial after the war, it was mentioned
that Lerch had overseen the liquidation of thousands of Jews from the
Majdan
Tatarski ghetto in
Lublin at the nearby
Krepiec Forest.
When
Aktion Reinhard was finished, Lerch was ordered
to Italy in
September 1943, together
with most of the
SS-men of
Globocnik's staff. In
Trieste
he continued to serve as chief of
Globocnik's personal staff in the OZAK
(
Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland). He was still
Globocnik’s right
hand but had also military-related tasks, and was very much involved in anti-partisan operations. For a
few weeks Lerch was provisional
police commander in
Fiume.
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| Trial in 1971 |
After the German surrender in Italy (
May 1945), he fled to a region he knew very well:
Carinthia (Southern Austria).
There, at an alpine pasture (
Möslacher Alm) near the
Weissensee Lake,
he was captured by a British commando on
31 May 1945, together
with his comrades Globocnik,
Höfle and
Michalsen.
Being imprisoned in
Wolfsberg he was interrogated by the English. He insisted
on having spent just a short time in
Lublin, and had nothing to do neither with
Globocnik nor mass killings of Jews in Poland. Lerch could escape from prison
and lived in hiding from
1947-50.
In
1960 Lerch was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment by a de-Nazification court
in Wiesbaden (8JS 1145/60 StA Wiesbaden).
In
1971 he was accused again of being
involved in the Holocaust. The trial was held in
Klagenfurt. His case was finally dropped on
11 May 1976 because
Lerch denied having done anything in Poland, and because of lack of witnesses (LG Klagenfurt: 25VR 3123/71).
Until 1971 or 1972 he led a café in his home town
Klagenfurt. Lerch died in
1997.
© ARC 2005
