The artist and painting restorer Julius Fargel trained at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt and for twelve years attended lectures by Serafin Maurer (restoration) and Anton Hlavaček (painting) at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna). During the First World War he was a volunteer in a medical unit and received the German, Austrian and Hungarian Red Cross Medals. After the war he made a living restoring artworks. From 1926 to 1928 he worked in the Wiener Röntgentechnische Versuchsanstalt headed by Eduard Petertil on the development of x-ray photography for the deep analysis of paintings. Fargel, a district leader in the Deutschösterreichischer Schutzverein Antisemitenbund, joined the NSDAP on 19 October 1932 and was a block leader in the local Mariahilf section and then from 1936 a Gruppenschulungsleiter (group training leader). After the annexation in 1938 he was recognized as an Alter Kämpfer (old comrade) and claims to have been promoted to deputy head of Kulturamt H.AIX and Vertrauensmann (main contact) in the Mariahilf section. In the same year he started working as a court-sworn expert, assessor for the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office) and Gestapo and assistant in the NSDAP Gau archive for Vienna. In this unpaid position he was commissioned to identify and register material of importance for the history of the NSDAP. On 1 July 1938 he was admitted to the copier and restorer subsection of the painter and graphic artist section of the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts). He also worked as an assessor for the Dorotheum. On 6 July 1939 he was recruited as a painting restorer by the Wiener Städtische Sammlungen. Thanks to his connections to the Gestapo, he was able to find the museum low-priced sources for new acquisitions: as painting assessor for Vugesta and the Möbelverwertungsstelle, he could set low values on Jewish removal goods and then acquire them himself for the museum. In this way he gave or sold over 200 objects to the Städtische Sammlungen. He was proud of being called "museum multiplier" by the director Karl Wagner. After 1945 his role was mentioned in testimony in several Restitution Commission cases before the Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen (Provincial Court for Civil Matters) and he himself had to testify on at least one occasion at the Landesgericht für Strafsachen (Provincial Court for Criminal Matters) but was never himself prosecuted for involvement in the expropriation of the assets of the Viennese Jewish population. According to a report in the Volksstimme, he was still working undisturbed in the early 1950s in the restoration workshop of the Städtische Sammlungen, until he died in Vienna in 1954.

To date three objects sold and donated by Fargel to the Städtische Sammlungen have been restituted to the legal successors of Wilhelm Viktor Krausz.