Polizeibezirksinspektor Karl Göttlicher

Karl Göttlicher is born in Hansdorf in Moravia [today: Hanušovice in the Czech Republic] as the legitimate son of Adolf Göttlicher and his wife Emilie, née Hetmanek. He only completed elementary school and then became an unskilled worker. In 1903, he joined the Imperial and Royal Army. Army in infantry regiment no. 93. He served there until 1906, when he joined the Vienna Security Guard on September 13, 1906. In 1912, he married Emma Silber, who came from Polish Ostrava in Silesia [today: Slezská Ostrava in the Czech Republic]. However, the marriage remained childless.

As an officer of the Vienna Security Guard, the devout Catholic was not drafted into the First World War. World War I. After the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the break-up of the dual monarchy and the expulsion of the Habsburgs in 1918, he remained with the Vienna Security Guard. In February 1934, Karl Göttlicher was involved in the suppression of the socialist February Uprising. The staunchly patriotic Austrian was also strictly opposed to National Socialism.

Karl and Emma Göttllicher lived on a small pension during the Second World War. In April and May 1945, Karl Göttlicher witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic. On May 1, 1945, he was rehabilitated and accepted into the Vienna police service. He joins the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.