Friedrich M. Welz was born on November 2, 1903, the fourth of five children in Salzburg (parents Friedrich and Karoline Welz). After attending secondary school, he began training in electrical engineering. In 1918 he broke off his training and went to Vienna to learn carpentry and gilding, the manual tools for his father’s frame business, as an apprentice in the cabinet maker Friedrich Otto Schmidt. In 1920 he finished his apprenticeship with the journeyman’s examination, he passed the master craftsman examination in 1936 in Salzburg.