He studied in the University of Tübingen and was ordained priest in 1848; he then took a course of philology in the University of Munich and became professor in the Gymnasium at Ellwangen.
One year later he was assigned as the chief of staff of the 30th Mechanized Brigade in Ellwangen, where he served from 1985 until 1987.
In November 1938 he volunteered to join the SS and was posted to the 17th Company, SS Deutschland Regiment stationed in Ellwangen.
The last mentions of Zach in contemporary sources indicate that in January 1773 he was at the Wallerstein court, and according to the Frankfurt Kayserliche Reichs-Ober-Post-Amts-Zeitung of 5 June 1773 he died on a journey, at Ellwangen.
He served at the shrine of Our Lady of Schönenberg, near Ellwangen in Swabia, which had been made famous by the Jesuits, and to which Jeningen, through the renown of his holiness, drew pilgrims from near and far.
Ellwangen | Diego Francesco Carlone, ''Savior of the World'', St. Vitus Basilica, Ellwangen |
When King William I (1817) incorporated the University of Ellwangen with the old national University of Tübingen as its Catholic faculty of theology, Drey with his colleagues, Peter Aloys Gratz and Johann Georg Herbst, joined the staff of the new school and founded (1819), together with them and his new colleague, Johann Baptist von Hirscher, the "Theologische Quartalschrift" of Tübingen; he took a prominent part in its publication and wrote for it a number of essays and reviews.
Socially, he presumed familial lineage with the old nobles, the Lords of Thannhausen, residents in their castle at Tannhausen, near Ellwangen and Dinkelsbühl; moreover, the historical Tannhausen castle, is at Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz.