Arthur had studied law and in 1911, he worked as a legal aid at the Hanover Municipality.

In 1919, he was elected as a prosecutor for the German-Hanoverian Party and due to the re-elections in 1924, he was nominated as the mayor of Hannover in 1925.

[1] Arthur managed to work as the mayor until 1937 even though the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Nazi Party were both coming in power at the same time.

[2] During the time he was the mayor, the artificial lake, Maschsee was built and the Hermann-Löns-Park and the Herrenhausen Gardens were completed.

With the end of World War II, Arthur was elected as the representative of the newly established party, the "Lower Saxony", but due to an illness he left the bureau in December 1945.