Amtsrat Ernest Albert Herzfeld

Ernest Albert Herzfeld was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of the clerk Abraham Josef Franz Herzfeld and his wife Maria, née Halmschlag. His father had converted from Judaism to Catholicism, and after leaving school he joined the Vienna Provincial Court for Civil Matters in 1907, first as a trainee and from 1908 as an administrative clerk. He married Theresia Vock in 1909, but the marriage remained childless.

Ernest Herzfeld was not drafted into the First World War and experienced the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the break-up of the dual monarchy and the expulsion of the House of Habsburg in Vienna. Even in the First Republic of Austria, he remained in the service of the Vienna Regional Court for Civil Matters. He was not politically active in the 1920s and 1930s.

On March 12, 1938, Ernest Herzfeld witnessed the demise of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation was adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which Ernest Herzfeld was considered a 'Mischling I. degree'. On December 31, 1938, he was forced to retire for 'racial reasons'. His wife Theresia Herzfeld died in 1939.

Single and with a small pension, Ernest Herzfeld continued to live in Vienna and experienced the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic in April and May 1945. He was rehabilitated on July 3, 1945 and returned to work at the Vienna Regional Court for Civil Matters. He joins the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich. In 1949, he married Franziska Zampach and retired at the end of the year.