Lehár was born in the northern part of Komárom, Kingdom of Hungary (now Komárno, Slovakia),[nb 1] the eldest son of Franz Lehar Sr. (1838–1898),[1] an Austrian bandmaster in the Infantry Regiment No.

[4] Further, although Lehár was Roman Catholic, his wife, Sophie (née Paschkis) had been Jewish before her conversion to Catholicism upon marriage, and this was sufficient to generate hostility towards them personally and towards his work.

It is alleged that he tried personally to secure Hitler's guarantee of the safety of one of his librettists, Fritz Löhner-Beda, but he was not able to prevent the murder of Beda in Auschwitz-III.

[citation needed] On 12 January 1939 and 30 April 1940, Lehár personally received awards from Hitler in Berlin and Vienna, including the Goethe Medal.

[8] On Hitler's birthday in 1938, Lehár had given him as a special gift a red Morocco leather volume in commemoration of the 50th performance of The Merry Widow.

In 1908, the German branch of The Gramophone Company Ltd (afterwards HMV) issued twelve extracts (mostly ensembles) from Lehár's latest operetta, Der Mann mit den drei Frauen, with the composer conducting.

[12] In 1929 and 1934, Lehár had conducted for Odeon Records The Land of Smiles and Giuditta, starring Richard Tauber, Vera Schwarz and Jarmila Novotná.

A 1942 Vienna broadcast of his operetta Paganini conducted by the composer has survived, starring soprano, Esther Réthy and tenor, Karl Friedrich.

Gustav Mahler and his young wife Alma went to see Lehár's The Merry Widow in Vienna and loved it so much that they danced to its tunes as soon as they were home.

The next day they went to Vienna's main music shop Doblinger [de], but hesitated to admit that they were looking for the score of what would be considered a "popular" operetta.