He was positioned by Otto Steinhäusl in the police headquarters in Salzburg in 1926, and transferred to the civil service after two years of military and technical training.

In June 1935, he fled to the German Reich because of the Nazi ban in Austria, where he entered the service of the Bavarian Political Police immediately.

In early September 1935, he joined the SS (membership number 275,750) and rose steadily in this Nazi organization.

From July 1942 he was Chief of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police) and SD headquartered in Wiesbaden.

[2] In September 1942 he became, in succession to Franz Walter Stahlecker and Heinz Jost, commander of Einsatzgruppe A, which was responsible for the mass murder of (mostly Jewish) civilians.