His uncle was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bamberg, Friedrich Philipp von Abert [de].
His thesis was published in 1905 as Die Wahlkapitulationen der Würzburger Bischöfe bis zum Ende des XVII.
As a member of the Freikorps "Franz Xaver Ritter von Epp" he was involved in the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
Joseph Friedrich Abert lived together with Albrecht Becker (1906-2002) a production designer, photographer, and actor.
In the exhibition of the Imperial War Museum in London on the Holocaust the fate of Joseph Friedrich Abert and Albrecht Becker is shown as an example of Nazi-persecution of homosexuals.