Franz Lenner

Lenner as a witness at the Nuremberg trials.

Franz Xaver Lenner (born August 27, 1903 in Herkheim near Nördlingen, † after 1950 ) was a German SS leader and functionary.

Live and act

In his youth, Lenner attended elementary school and the secondary school in Nördlingen. He then completed an apprenticeship at the Bayerische Vereinsbank, from which he was later taken on as a bank clerk.

From 1924 to 1930 Lenner worked as an accountant for various companies. After that he was unemployed until August 1933.

On February 1, 1931, Lenner joined the NSDAP ( membership number 449,332 ). On October 1, 1931, he joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) (membership number 15.840). In 1943 he was accepted into the Waffen SS . While he last held the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer in the regular SS, he made it to the rifle in the Waffen-SS.

From August 1933 to April 1934 Lenner was employed as an assistant at the local health insurance fund in Nördlingen, before he worked as a clerk for the Barmer Ersatzkasse in Munich from 1934 to 1939.

From April 16, 1939 to October 11, 1944, Lenner was employed by Lebensborn , on whose board he had been a member since October 1940. At Lebensborn, he initially headed the health insurance department in the main finance department from April 1939 to the end of 1941, before he was SS-Hauptsturmführer himself in charge of the main finance department from 1942 to October 1944 or - after a reorganization in mid-1942 (separation of the main finance department into main departments Finance and Administration) - was in charge of the Finance Department.

In October 1944, Lenner was drafted into the Waffen SS in Brno. After a serious wound in February 1945, he remained in a hospital until May 1945, after the end of the war. Soon afterwards he was taken prisoner by the Allies. In the following years he was repeatedly questioned as a witness in the context of the Nuremberg trials .

In 1950, Lenner had to answer in the context of denazification before the main court in Munich, which saw him as the main culprit.

literature

• Volker Koop: "Giving the Führer a child". The SS organization Lebensborn e. V. , 2007.