Childhood in Armenia

Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas was born on 7 September 1949. His father had emigrated from Germany to Armenia, Colombia in 1928. The family owned Pensión Alemana and ran a small business producing vegetable oils and importing luxury goods. In 1943, the Lehders were investigated due to suspected ideological links with the Nazis based on US intelligence reports. Lehder's parents divorced when he was 15, leading him to emigrate with his mother to New York, United States.

He dropped out of school to read Niccolò Machiavelli and Hermann Hesse, while admiring Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.