Hans Otto Fromm

Hans Otto Fromm was born in Freiburg im Breisgau in Bavaria as the eleventh son of Emil Fromm, a university professor of chemistry, and his wife Mathilde, née Braun. His originally Jewish father had already converted to Catholicism in 1894, his mother was Protestant and Hans Fromm was baptized and brought up as a Catholic.

Nothing is known about his childhood and youth. After the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the break-up of the dual monarchy and the expulsion of the Habsburgs in 1918, he moved to Vienna, where he became a citizen in 1924. In 1933 he found work at the Vienna employment office. In 1936, he married the Catholic Anna Franziska Gotschal.

On March 12, 1938, Hans Fromm witnessed the demise of free and independent Austria with the march of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation was adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which Hans Fromm was classified as a 'Mischling I. Grades' or 'Half Jew'.

On March 31, 1939, he is dismissed as a civil servant. His marriage to an 'Aryan woman' protected him from further persecution. He then worked as a tax accountant and carpenter until October 1942. He is probably drafted into the German Wehrmacht in October 1942. Their daughter was born in 1943.

In April and May 1945, Hans Fromm witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic. He joins the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.