Erich Goeritz was born in Chemnitz Saxony, Eastern Germany, in 1889; son of Sigmund and Telma Goeritz. Goeritz brother was born in 1900, and his family had belonged to a Jewish community and a co-founder of a Zionist youth group. His father ran a textile company which initially produced hosiery and cloth gloves in Chemnitz.

Goeritz began his professional career with a commercial education in a company in (Breslau) Wroclaw, in western Poland, before going back to the family business in 1914. His mother retired in 1916 and took over the management of the company, and later married Senta Steinberger from Munich. Goeritz dad passed away after his son was born in 1920 and soon after the family moved to Berlin in 1921.

Goeritz and his wife were privately interested in music and painting as part of their art collections. Some of the photos were taken in their apartment of Goeritz family home in Berlin and exhibited various works by Lovis Corinth.  In 1922, he donated the portrait of his son Thomas Von Corinth to Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz museum and soon after, the painting was removed in 1937 which is now located at the Berlin National Gallery art collection.

Erich Goeritz family emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1934 and settled in London where he later worked in the textile industry, and soon received his British citizenship. In 1936, he donated the painting Temptation of St. Anthony of Lovis Corinth to the London Tate Gallery. In 1942, he also gave the British Museum seven portfolios with printmaking of Lovis Corinth and two Bauhaus folders with lithographs by Oskar Kokoschka.