Heinrich Klapsia studied art history, history and archaeology at the University of Vienna. After his thesis on "The early years of Lorenzo Lotto" (1930) and parallel to the completion of a work for the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute of Austrian Historical Research) on the administrative history of the Habsburg art collections (1931), he worked as an assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna during the installation of the Figdor collection in the Neue Burg, in the weapons collection and the Collection of Sculpture, Arts and Crafts. In 1934 he was appointed as temporary research assistant, obtaining a permanent position in 1937. A supporter of National Socialism even before 1938, he was promoted to the ranks of senior civil servants and was involved in the installation of the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments in Palais Pallavicini. He was a member of the Reichskolonialbund (Reich Colonial League) and, alongside Rudolf Noll, representative in the museum of the Reichsbund Deutscher Beamter (Reich Association of German Civil Servants). In Klosterneuburg he catalogued goldsmiths' works and was responsible for the reorganization of the abbey's collections, which from June 1941 were supervised by the Kunsthistorisches Museum. From autumn 1942 he was the senior officer, together with the administrative official Johann Waldum, in charge of the art and cultural objects stored in the abbey. After being exempted from military service several times, Klapsia applied for admission to the Waffen-SS, but was rejected on health grounds. In 1943 he became temporary director and in 1944 permanent director of the Collection of Sculpture, Arts and Crafts. In late August 1944 he was finally conscripted into the German Wehrmacht. He died three weeks before the end of the war in Gerersdorf.