Glauer was born in Hoyerswerda in the Prussian Province of Silesia (present-day Saxony), the son of a locomotive engineer. He appears to have worked as a technician in Egypt between 1897–1900, although according to his own account he spent less than a month there in 1900 after a short career as a merchant sailor. In July of that year he travelled to Turkey, where he settled in 1901 and worked as an engineer on a large estate there.