Maurice and Elisabeth La Kerr papers

Maurice Alwyn La Kerr (1912-1991) was born in San Diego, California on 15 November 1912 to Raymond Milton and Virda May Sims. His early career was in the entertainment business as an actor. In 1942, he became a junior fingerprint technician with the California Bureau of Identification and Investigation. In 1945 he joined the United States Army as a fingerprint classifier for the Public Safety division in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His division was responsible for assisting the German police on how to fingerprint German citizens. After the project ended, he was transferred in early 1946 to the American Graves Registration Command as a fingerprint analyst identifying deceased American soldiers. He was transferred back to Frankfurt am Main later in the year with the Office of the Provost Marshall. He was a fingerprint analyst during the Buchenwald Trial held at the Dachau concentration camp in April 1947. He returned to the United States in July 1947 where he continued to work as a fingerprint analyst. Maurice met Elisabeth Büttenbender while in Frankfurt am Main in 1945. They married in Germany in May 1947 and returned to the United States later that year, settling in Sacramento, California. Elisabeth La Kerr (born Anna Alma Elisabeth Büttenbender, 1924-2016) was born in Frankfurt am Main on 9 January 1924 to Anna (née Held, d. 1944?) and Wilhelm Büttenbender. She had one sister, Annie. Her father was a mail carrier and her mother was a homemaker. During World War II, Elisabeth worked in an I.G. Farben factory. Her father was conscripted into the German army in 1944 and survived the war in Norway. Her sister Annie and her husband were sent to Russia where he was shot but survived. Elisabeth’s uncle, Fritz Büttenbender, was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp prior to the war for refusing to perform manual labor on the autobahn. He survived the war in the camp, but died shortly after liberation. The collection documents Maurice La Kerr’s post-war experiences in Germany and France as a fingerprint analyst with the United States Army. Maurice worked in several capacities including fingerprinting German citizens, identifying the identities of deceased American soldiers, and fingerprinting defendants during the Buchenwald trial in 1947. Included is military paperwork, identification papers, programs, ration cards, booklets, and clippings. Also included is the marriage paperwork for Maurice and Elisabeth Büttenbender along with her immigration and naturalization papers. The photographs depict military life in Germany and France, but also include copies of photographs of the execution of Benito Mussolini in 1945, and the Dachau concentration camp during the Buchenwald Trial in 1947.