Lemmer, Ernst

Lemmer came from a Lutheran family, studied at a real gymnasium in Remscheid, where he received a matriculation certificate in 1914. In 1914, the 16-year-old Lemmer volunteered for the army. Member of the First World War , received high awards and retired with the rank of lieutenant. After the war, he studied theology, history and political economy at the University of Marburg and Frankfurt . Since 1919, Ernst Lemmer actively participated in the work of the youth organization of the German Democratic Party and was one of the founders of the Reichsbanner . Since the early 1920s, Lemmer was on the party board. From 1922 until the dissolution of the trade unions in 1933, Lemmer served as Secretary General of the trade union association of workers, employees and officials of Germany. Until 1945, Lemmer worked as a correspondent for several foreign newspapers in Berlin.

As a correspondent for Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Lemmer often attended meetings in Switzerland. In Berlin, he maintained regular contact with the Swiss military attache Burkhardt. In one of the CIA reports , Lemmer is listed as the main informant of Georges Blaine and thus a member of the Red Three intelligence network. Lemmer transmitted information about the Holocaust outside of Germany.

After World War II, Lemmer was appointed the third chairman of the Association of Free German Trade Unions , but was removed from office with Jacob Kaiser already in 1947 for rejecting the idea of ​​the German People's Congress .

On the advice of Ulrich Bill, Lemmer left the Soviet occupation zone in 1949 and settled in West Berlin , where he was appointed editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Der Kurier. Ernst Lemmer actively participated in the establishment of the German-Israeli society and in 1966 became a member of his first board of trustees. In 1950-1956, Lemmer served as deputy CDU in Berlin, until 1961 he was chairman of the CDU in Berlin. In 1967-1970, Lemmer served as Lutheran chairman of the Berlin Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation.

After the elections to the Reichstag of 1924 and until November 1932 and in March-July 1933, Lemmer was a deputy of the Reichstag . On March 23, 1933, together with four other members of the Reichstag from the German State Party, he voted for the so-called Extraordinary Powers Act . In 1946-1949, Lemmer was a deputy of the Brandenburg Landtag in the Soviet zone of occupation, in 1950-1969 - a deputy of the West Berlin parliament, where until 1956 he was chairman of the CDU faction. He was a member of the Bundestag on February 1, 1952.

From November 15, 1956 to October 29, 1957, Ernst Lemmer held the post of Minister of Post and Communications in the government of Konrad Adenauer , and then until December 11, 1962 - Minister for General German Affairs. From February 19, 1964 to October 26, 1965, Lemmer served as Minister for Displaced and Refugee Affairs in the government of Ludwig Erhard . In 1966-1969, Lemmer was Commissioner for Berlin of Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger .

Ernst Lemmer was buried in the Zelendorf Forest Cemetery . His name is the streets of Berlin, Dusseldorf and Marburg. Lemmer's nephew Gerd Ludwig in 1961-1963 was the mayor of Remscheid and in 1962-1966 the Minister for Federal Affairs in the government of North Rhine-Westphalia . Ernst Lemmer's daughter Ingeborg, a physician by profession, married television journalist Gerhard Lowenthal in 1948.

• Berlin am Kreuzweg Europas, am Kreuzweg der Welt. Verlag Haupt & Puttkammer, Berlin 1957.
• Der ungewollte Staat. Warum die Weimarer Republik scheiterte. In: Die politische Meinung , 12/1967, S. 46-53.
• Manches war doch anders. Erinnerungen eines deutschen Demokraten. Heinrich Scheffler Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1968
• Skat-Taktik. Erfahrungen und Gedanken eines passionierten Skatspielers. Ass-Verlag, Leinfelden bei Stuttgart 1969.

• Biography (German)
• Der spiegel