text: Early life Heinrich Maier was born on 16 February 1908 at Großweikersdorf. His father, also named Heinrich Maier, was an official on the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways. His mother Katharina Maier, born Giugno (apparently from the Italian-speaking part of Austria-Hungary), was the daughter of a policeman. His sister was born in 1910 near Gmünd. His sister was educated by his grandmother and his aunt in Moravia. He received strong financial support from his relative Gabriele Maier.
  His early education was at a Volksschule. He then was sent to a Gymnasium in Sankt Pölten between 1918 and 1923. Maier then went to a Gymnasium in Leoben from 1923 to 1926. He did his theological degree at the University of Vienna (1926–1928). Before continuing his studies at Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum (1928–1930) and the University of Vienna. The subject of his dissertation was "The struggle for the correct concept of church in the late Middle Ages. Represented using Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis and Torquemada's Summa de Ecclesia". As part of his dissertation, he dealt with the then explosive topic, the relationship between state and church.
  During his time as an active student he became a member of the K.Ö.St.V. Nibelungia im ÖCV. His student name was "Wolf". It was the only ÖCV student association loyal to the Habsburg Kaiser (Emperor) in the interwar period, whose “patron” was Otto von Habsburg, the last crown prince of Austria-Hungary.
  Maier worked as a priest in Schwarzau, Reichenau, Mödling and later in Gersthof, a part of Währing in Vienna.