Lambert Ehrlich

Early life and education

Ehrlich was born in the hamlet of Camporosso in Valcanale (Slovene: Zabnice) in the town of Tarvisio, then part of the Duchy of Carinthia (now in Italy). He attended secondary school in Klagenfurt and then studied theology in Innsbruck (1897–1902) and in Rome (1903). He was ordained a priest in 1903 and also received a doctorate in Innsbruck that year.

Work

Ehrlich first served as a curate in Villach, and then as a cathedral curate in Klagenfurt (1903–1907), an episcopal secretary (1907–1910), and a professor of theology in Klagenfurt (1910–1919). He was a leading figure in Catholic education in Carinthia.

After World War One, southern Carinthia became a contested region between the Austrian Republic and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; because of his familiarity with the situation in the region and his ethnographic knowledge, Ehrlich was appointed to the Yugoslav delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He continued his studies in ethnology and comparative religion at the Sorbonne and in Oxford in 1920 and 1921. In 1922 he became a full professor of comparative religion at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Ljubljana, a position that he held until his death. He wrote numerous books and articles about the religious customs of the Australian Aborigines and about various ethnological and theological issues.

Ehrlich worked in various church organizations. He was a church representative for the Slovenian High School Students’ Union (Slovene: Slovenska dijaska zveza ), the Academic Union (Akademska zveza), the Straza Catholic students’ club, and the Marian Congregation of Academics. He became the ideologue of the Straza club and edited the club’s magazine Straza v viharju (Sentinel in the Storm).

Second World War

After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, on 24 November that year Ehrlich proposed a political program known as the Slovenian Issue (Slovenski problem) for an independent Slovenian state to the non-communist political parties; however, it was not accepted.

Ehrlich was a staunch anti-communist, and on 1 April 1942 he sent the Italian occupation authorities a memorandum in which he analyzed the current position of the Partisans and offered proposals for how to destroy them. In it, he suggested that the Italians arm the Slovenian police and that the Slovenians establish a semi-autonomous security service under Italian military supervision. He also suggested that the Italian authorities release innocent people held in prisons and camps, assist in rebuilding destroyed villages, and allow greater freedom of the press to promote anti-communist propaganda.

Ehrlich was assassinated by the communist Security and Intelligence Service (Varnostno-obvescevalna sluzba, VOS) on 26 May 1942. He was shot in front of the soup kitchen on Shooting Range Street (Streliska ulica) in Ljubljana by Franc Stadler (a.k.a. Pepe) (1915–2000), who also assassinated Marko Natlacen and was named a Yugoslav People’s Hero. After the war the Communist authorities desecrated Ehrlich’s grave, exhumed his remains, and disposed of them at an unknown location.