Silberbauer began working as a police officer in 1935. After the “Anschluss” he joined the Gestapo and then the SS in 1943. As part of the German Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police), he was posted to Amsterdam in the occupied Netherlands. In August 1944 he was one of the police officers who arrested Anne Frank and other people living in hiding.
In 1945 he returned to Vienna where, in 1946, he was initially suspended from active police duty. A prosecution in 1952 on the basis of his SS membership ended in acquittal. In 1954 Silberbauer rejoined the police force in Vienna.