text: Carl Auer was born in Vienna on 1 September 1858 to Alois Auer and his wife, Therese Neuditschka. He was the youngest of four children, his elder siblings being Leopoldine, Alois and Amalie. His father, ennobled in 1860 (as Alois Ritter Auer von Welsbach), was director of the Imperial printing office (K.-k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei) in the days of the Austrian Empire.
  Carl went to high schools in Mariahilf and Josefstadt. He attended the Realschule Josefstadt from 1873 to 1877, matriculating on July 16, 1877.
  Next, he joined the Austro-Hungarian Army for one year of voluntary military service. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. He joined on October 1, 1877, and received his patent as a lieutenant on December 15, 1878.
  In 1878, Auer entered the University of Vienna, studying mathematics, general chemistry, engineering physics, and thermodynamics. He then moved to the University of Heidelberg in 1880, where he continued his studies in spectroscopy under the direction of Robert Bunsen, (inventor of the Bunsen burner). In 1882, he received his Ph.D. degree and returned to Vienna to work as an unpaid assistant in Professor Adolf Lieben's laboratory, working with chemical separation methods for investigations on rare-earth elements.