Ernst Lehrs (1894 1979) was born in Berlin. Having fought in World War I, he studied science and graduated with a PhD in 1923. He became a senior teacher at the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany, and in 1935 moved to The Netherlands, where he worked as a teacher, before moving to Britain as a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. In 1952 he returned to Germany and worked as a lecturer at the newly established course in anthroposophic special education in Eckwalden, where he remained until his death.