 He grew up under poor circumstances in Vienna, but because he received excellent grades in primary and secondary school he was later admitted as an officer candidate in the Austrian army in 1934.In his years as a cadet, he met his wife Christl Kukula, the daughter of a Jewish Vienniese industrialist.After the Anschluss in 1938, he had to end his relationship with Kukula because of the Nuremberg laws that forbade romantic involvement with Jews.