Ernst Lerch

At his wedding to a "Secret State Police" (Gestapo) employee, Oswald Pohl and Globočnik acted as witnesses.

From February 1940 until September 1941, Lerch was employed at the "Reich Security Main Office" (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA) in Berlin.

From 1941 to 1943, Lerch served in Lublin as chief of Globočnik's personal office and Stabsführer der Allgemeine SS, responsible for the radio link between the Aktion Reinhard headquarters and Berlin.

In Trieste, Lerch continued to serve as chief of Globočnik's personal staff in the OZAK (Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland).

After the German surrender in Italy (1 May 1945), Lerch fled to Carinthia in southern Austria, a region he knew well.

There, at an alpine pasture (Möslacher Alm) near the Weissensee Lake, he was captured by a British commando on 31 May 1945.

He insisted on having spent just a short time in Lublin, and had nothing to do either with Globočnik or the mass killings of Jews in Poland.

Neither assassinations were carried out since the new Mossad chief, Yitzhak Hofi, feared that attacks on Austrian soil would endanger relations.