Ehrler, Friedrich (called Fritz)

Trade unionist, politician

Born: 06.03.1871 in Ingolstadt

died: 19.10.19044 in Wiesbaden

Ehrler trained as a mechanic at Krauss-Maffei (Munich) in Ingolstadt. He joined the trade union and the SPD early on. In 1898, he became editor of the social democratic "Thüringer Volksblatt" in Mühlhausen in Thuringia. He moved to the Rhine-Main region and became head of the Frankfurt am Main district of the German Metalworkers' Association in 1901. During the First World War, he took part in the Russian campaign as a Landsturmmann in 1915-18. After the revolution, he became police chief of Frankfurt on November 17, 1919. He succeeded in transforming the police force into a democratic institution.

In 1925, the Prussian Minister of the Interior Carl Severing appointed him to succeed Konrad Haehnisch as District President in Wiesbaden. After the National Socialists seized power, he was removed from office on February 11, 1933 by the new Prussian Minister President Hermann Göring. The "Frankfurter Zeitung" then described him as one of those men who, thanks to their energy and abilities, had succeeded in rising from metalworker to high political office.

The Ehrler couple were killed in an air raid on Wiesbaden in Rüdesheimer Straße in 1944.