He attended the Volksschule up to the 7th class. After commercial training, he completed military service from 1908 to 1910 and then worked as a salesman at the Maschinenfabrik Esslingen. During the First World War he served on all fronts, advanced to the rank of Vize-Feldwebel (Sergeant 1st Class) and spent the end of the war in 1918 injured in a military hospital in Cottbus.