Agnes Gahbauer was born in Salzburg, the eldest daughter of Heinrich and Agnes Gahbauer. She attended junior school and then the so-called in the city. In 1938, she married Dr. Hans Muthspiel, a junior judge. He was killed just three years while serving as a soldier on the Russian front. During the war years she received instruction at the cathedral presbytery, possibly in anticipation of entering a religious order. Later she was forced to relocate to Hanover. After the war she spent two terms studying Ethics and Logic as a Philosophy student at the University Theology faculty, back in Salzburg. There is no indication that she ever became a nun or completed her degree course, however.