Hanns Fischl was born in Brünn / Brno in 1883 and lived from 1893 in Vienna. In 1918 he left the Jewish community and converted to the Evangelical-Lutheran church. In 1927 he married Gertrude Theresia Gatscha, and lived with her in Vienna. They had two children.

Adolf Proksch came from a conservative Catholic background. He studied law and until the First World War he worked for the Vienna Siemens-Schuckert-Werke and thereafter for the Ministry of War.