[1] His father, Karl, was an evangelical pastor and his mother Karoline (née Öhm) was from an Old Frankish family who lived in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

[6] He decided to switch to law and political science in 1895 and started attending the University of Tübingen and studied in Berlin,[7] graduating in 1901 with a doctorate.

[18] He proposed Prussian Privy Councillor Ernst Kübler as State Secretary for his ministry, but it did not go through.

[20] In an attempt to gain supporters, he stressed the government's unemployment relief plan before the Christian trade unions in Düsseldorf in September of 1932.

[9] He was co-editor of the magazine Gesundes Volk, which was sponsored by the Reich Committee for Public Health Service.

[23] He was also in the National Socialist Association of Legal Professionals and the NS Student Council of the RVA.