Born in Breslau, Tulatz became a bank clerk, also joining the Social Democratic Party and becoming active in the trade union movement.
In 1936, he was arrested by the Gestapo, and spent the next 3+1⁄2 years in prisons and labour camps.
On release, he found work with a publishing house, but in 1942 was then conscripted into the 999th Light Afrika Division, a penal battalion.
He was captured by the American forces in Tunisia in 1943 and spent 2+1⁄2 years as a prisoner-of-war.
In 1961, he began working for the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, as its Assistant General Secretary, with responsibility for education.