Charles L. Gerlach

Charles Lewis Gerlach was an American businessman and politician who served five terms as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania from 1939 until his death in 1947.

Biography

Gerlach was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on September 14, 1895. In 1914, he moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he became the organizer, and later president, of a fuel and heating supply company.

Congress

A Republican State committeeman in 1936 and 1937, he was elected to the 76th Congress in 1938, and served until his 1947 death in Allentown.
A confidential 1943 analysis of the House Foreign Affairs Committee by Isaiah Berlin for the British Foreign Office described Gerlach as:

Death and burial

On May 5, 1947, while still serving in Congress, Gerlach died in Allentown, Pennsylvania, at age 51. He was interred in Greenwood Cemetery in Allentown.