Major Franz Grimm

Franz Grimm was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of the painter Franz Grimm and his wife Theresia, née Birchhauser. After elementary school, he attended the lower secondary school and then the infantry cadet school in Vienna-Breitensee, where he graduated.

On August 18, 1908, he joined the Imperial and Royal Army. Army in the k.u.k. Infantry Regiment No. 15 'Freiherr von Georgi'. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1911 and transferred to Tarnopol [today: Ternopil in the Ukraine] in 1912. With the outbreak of the First World War, he took part in the Austrian-Russian battles, was seriously wounded in 1915 and was sent to the Austrian-Italian front in 1916.

In November 1918, Franz Grimm, who had risen to the rank of major, witnessed the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the break-up of the Dual Monarchy and the expulsion of the House of Habsburg. In 1920, he was disarmed from the army and began working as an insurance clerk at the Insurance Institute of the Municipality of Vienna.

From 1934, Franz Grimm became involved in the Vaterländische Front and became the organizational leader of the Unity Party at the Insurance Institute of the Municipality of Vienna. There, he is likely to have campaigned strongly for a free Austria and against National Socialism.

On March 12, 1938, Franz Grimm witnessed the demise of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. Just three days after the occupation of his home country, Franz Grimm was arrested by the Gestapo on March 15, 1938. On March 28, 1938, he was released without notice from the Insurance Institute of the Municipality of Vienna. He remained in custody until June 10, 1938, but had to report to the police regularly thereafter. He is unemployed until the end of September 1938 and finds employment with Ostmärkische Versicherung AG [today: UNIQA Insurance Group AG] on October 1, 1938. In 1940, he married Theophila Těšitelová.

He held the position at Ostmärkische Versicherung AG until August 6, 1943, when he was conscripted as an army volunteer at the substitute rations depot in Vienna. On March 1, 1944, the NSDAP raises an objection to his employment on the grounds of political unreliability, whereupon he is dismissed. On 24 April 1944, he was able to return to work at Ostmärkische Versicherung AG.

In Vienna, Franz Grimm experienced the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic in April and May 1945. He joined the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.