A highly decorated soldier in World War I, his career in Vienna as a conductor and violinist was truncated with the advent of the Third Reich in 1933.

He was fired from his positions at Radio Wien, the Vienna Symphony, and the Academie für Musik and forced to seek work elsewhere in Europe and emigrate to the United States.

He was accepted at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and studied with the Czech pedagogue Otakar Ševčík and composer Richard Stöhr.

[5][6] Violists Hugo Kauder and Marcel Dick and cellists Richard Krotschak and Hermann Busch were principals with the Wiener Sinfonie-Orchester.

[14] Gottesmann made his solo debut with the Wiener Tonkünstler Orchestra under Czech Conductor Oskar Nedbal on April 8, 1919, at Vienna's Grosser Konzerthaussaal.

[7][16][17] As concertmaster Gottesmann was the soloist for new works by Karol Szymanowski and Pantscho Wladigeroff and important performances of the Missa Solemnis and St. Matthew Passion under Wilhelm Furtwängler.

[11][19] Another high point in his career was his performance of Mozart's Violin Concerto in G-major under conductor Bruno Walter.

[4][22] In 1930, Gottesmann premiered a violin sonata by Josef Matthias Hauer at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Liège, Belgium.

Some of the composers he featured were Hugo Kauder, Julius Chajes, Guido Peters, Karl Weigl, Carl Goldmark, Pantscho Wladigeroff, Ernesta Halffter, Karol Szymanowski, Anton Smareglia, Paul Josef Frankl, Ernest Bloch, Max Reger, Albert Siklos, Karl Rathaus, Christian Sinding, Eugene Goossens, Richard Mandl, Robert Fuchs, Maurice Ramillo Horn, Joseph Marx, Friedrich Wührer, Ludwig Czaczkes, Alfred Freudenhain, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, and Nickolaus Mjaskowsky.

Three days after Radio-Wien began broadcasting, Gottesmann was featured October 4, 1924, with Cellist Hermann Busch and Pianist Otto Schulhof performing Schubert's Piano Trio in B-Dur.

[27] About the same time as his RAVAG appointment, Gottesmann became the permanent Sunday conductor of the Wiener Sinfonie-Orchester at Vienna's Musikverein Golden Hall.

[7][28] In January 1932, he conducted the Wiener Sinfonie-Orchester, the Vienna State Opera chorus and soloists in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the Grosser Konzerthaus-Saal.

[7] Gottesmann was asked to join the faculty of his alma mater, the Akademie für Musik, in 1920, four years after graduation.

On September 21, 1926, his request was denied by a vote of three (Hofmann, Franz Schmidt, Alexander Wunderer) to two (Joseph Marx, Karl Geiringer).

[33] A 1970 news-release from the City of Vienna stated that Gottesmann "was a gifted artist, who was a decisive influence on the musical life in Vienna..."[11] In 1933, Gottesmann was fired from all of his positions: as conductor at Radio-Wien; as professor at the Akademie für Musik; and his lifetime contract as concertmaster and conductor with the Wiener Sinfonie-Orchester.

[34][35] One reason given for this action was the patronage of the Gottesmann Quartet and the Wiener Sinfonie-Orchester by Hugo Breitner, Austria's unpopular Counselor of Finance (1919-1932).

[36] Breitner, known as the architect of Red Vienna, had instituted a progressive luxury tax on the propertied class to provide housing for the poor.

[43] Peter Sparling, leading dancer with Martha Graham and Distinguished Professor at U-M, was another student of Gottemann in Bay View.

[45] Author Tully Potter states that the high quality of Gottesmann's playing can be assessed from the 1949 recording of Brahms' String Quartet No.

During Gottesmann's Fort Wayne tenure, Yehudi Menuhin, Nathan Milstein, Isaac Stern and Rudolf Serkin soloed with the orchestra.

[48] For Gottesmann's debut, Hugo Kauder dedicated to the violinist his Sonate für Violine und Klavier in 1919.