Graduating from school in 1931, he began his studies at the art academy in Düsseldorf in 1932, attending lectures by Werner Heuser and Heinrich Nauen.
Already during the war, Rauh was working on ink drawings in small formats which drew on a repertoire of phantasmagorical images rich in symbols.
Its imagery – inspired by surrealism and phantasmagorical drawing – depicts the war as an apocalypse that has created a no man's land within which humanist values have been marginalised.
In contrast to Niemandsland the ink drawings in Traumland are coloured throughout and the imagery leans more strongly towards the humorous, idyllic and bizarre.
After a short engagement with abstraction during the fifties, in which he chiefly worked in mixed media, Rauh returned to Fantastic Realism with its potential for humour and revulsion.
His marked preference for the classics of fantastic literature is recognisable in his illustrations of works and productions written by Edgar Allan Poe, Jean Paul and E.T.A.
In addition, Rauh worked as an illustrator of children's books, providing ink drawings for the German edition of three novels in Mary Norton’s series The Borrowers.
Between 1950 and 1955 he wrote 33 short fairy tales which were broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Radio) and published in German daily newspapers.
It was initially in order to provide a financial income for his family that Rauh accepted a number of commissions involving the composition of large-scale glass mosaics for building projects.