Kriminaloberinspektor Hugo Leopold Lehrer

Photo by Hugo Lehrer — Hugo Lehrer
Image: WStLA

Personalia

Born:

December 3, 1896, Vienna

Died:

May 9, 1990, Vienna

Profession:

Police officer

Persecution:

Imprisonment March 13, 1938 – April 2, 1938,
Dachau Concentration Camp April 2, 1938 – March 13, 1938,
Release March 1938

KZ Number:

13866

Memberships

Curriculum Vitae

Hugo Leopold Lehrer was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of Accounting Corporal Hugo Lehrer and his wife Ana Amalie, née Kaufmann. After elementary school, he attended high school, where he graduated in 1914. He then enlisted as a one-year volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment No. 24 “Ritter von Kummer” and served as an ensign in World War I, during which he was taken prisoner of war.

Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the collapse of the dual monarchy, and the expulsion of the Habsburgs, Hugo Lehrer was discharged from military service as an officer and returned to Vienna. In 1921, he joined the Vienna Security Guard, married Auguste Kaufmann, and became the father of a daughter. He rose through the ranks of the Vienna police and became a detective in the political affairs division of Vienna’s 1st municipal district. His initially socialist views likely gave way to an Austrian-patriotic outlook in the 1930s. He was particularly opposed to National Socialism.

Hugo Leopold Lehrer was taken into protective custody on March 13, 1938, and admitted to the Dachau concentration camp on April 1, 1938.
The basis for this lay in his extremely radical and personally hostile attitude toward everything associated with the NSDAP and the movement. After being recruited into the police force in the early postwar years, the individual in question initially made no secret of his radical socialist views but, over time, became increasingly cautious in his statements. Nevertheless, Lehrer remained a fanatical opponent of our worldview and therefore enjoyed the special trust of Court Councilor Weiser of the former Austrian State Police and Court Councilor Krechler of the State Police Office of the former Federal Chancellery, from whom he was repeatedly entrusted with special assignments to combat the NSDAP in Vienna and the provinces. In his malice and his frenzied ambition to achieve success at all costs, the aforementioned individual did not shy away from using underhanded methods. Among other things, in 1937, on the orders of Court Councilor Dr. Weiser, he traveled to Burgenland as an “agent provocateur” to uncover the illegal movement and an illegal printing press there. He was provided with forged documents for this purpose and posed as a retired cavalry captain and landowner. As a pretext for his appearance in Burgenland, Hugo Lehrer announced his intention to purchase an estate there. In doing so, the aforementioned individual revealed his overtly National Socialist views and declared that he would employ only National Socialists on this estate. Since his demeanor and conduct appeared extremely trustworthy, he succeeded in deceiving the local population and in getting to know the officials of the illegal district leadership, etc.
After staying for about two weeks, Lehrer was forced to flee Burgenland, as his true position and the real purpose of his visit had since become known. However, the information he had obtained in this way was sufficient to arrest the entire political leadership of the Burgenland district leadership.
[…]

The Gau Personnel Office to the Gestapo on April 21, 1943

As a detective, he conducted undercover investigations against illegal National Socialists and reported police officers who opposed the Austrian federal government or expressed disapproval of it.

On March 12, 1938, Hugo Lehrer witnessed the downfall of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. On March 13, 1938, he was arrested by the Gestapo, dismissed from the police force, and deported to the Dachau concentration camp on April 2, 1938, as part of the so-called “Prominententransport.” He was released from there on March 13, 1939. He subsequently found employment at the sugar factory in Bruck an der Leitha.

As an employee of the sugar factory in Bruck an der Leitha, Hugo Lehrer witnessed the liberation of Austria and the restoration of the Republic in April and May 1945. He was immediately reinstated to the police force.

Hugo Lehrer retired as a police officer. After his wife’s death in 1959, he married Angela Reisner (née Mayerhofer) in 1960. He died in Vienna at the age of 93 and was laid to rest at the cemetery in Vienna-Baumgarten.

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