Born in Osterhofen in Lower Bavaria, Franz Drexler trained as a sculptor in Munich, where he eventually settled permanently. He received numerous awards for his work in monumental statuary, as well as commissions in several cities of the German Empire: in particular, the statue of Athena Pallas that stands on the Maximilian Bridge in Munich, in front of the Bavarian Parliament. Drexler was appointed professor in 1918, before the fall of the monarchy in Bavaria. It was probably he who signed the puppet play Kasperl und der Kommunist, an anti-communist pamphlet openly published in the atmosphere of revolutionary unrest in Bavaria after the end of the First World War.