ABSTRACT
Otto Brahm, the son of a small merchant called Abrahamsohn, was born in Hamburg on 5 February 1856. After leaving school he spent those three years in the bank to which Schlenther later made wry reference, experience that taught him a business sense that was later very valuable to him as a man of the theatre. The life of a student followed, in Berlin, Heidelberg, Berlin again, Strassburg and Jena. At Strassburg he formed his lifelong friendship with Professor Erich Schmidt, and at Jena in 1879 he gained his doctorate with a dissertation on a specialised aspect of eighteenth-century German drama. The firm literary foundation of his later theatrical career was laid. Returning to Berlin he dedicated himself to writing, especially on theatre, and became critic on the National-Zeitung and the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. Because of the current antisemitism Abrahamsohn wrote at first under the pen-name Otto Anders but later altered his name to Otto Brahm. Soon after, he became critic for private theatres on the Vossische Zeitung. The paper’s critic for the ‘Royal’ theatres was Theodor Fontane, and the two critics became friends. Finally he became critic of the free-thinking weekly, Die Nation, remaining with it until 1889.
