Theodor Wolff

Theodor Wolff
A memorial tablet, in Berlin, to Theodor Wolff, with low-level graffiti, carrying the urgent injunction, "Get out and vote!"
Born	2 August 1868 Berlin, Prussia
Died	23 September 1943 Berlin, Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Journalist and critic Dramatist Newspaper editor (Berliner Tageblatt) Writer
Spouse(s)	Marie Louise Charlotte Anna Hickethier
Parent(s)	Adam Wolff Recha Davidsohn/Wolff

Theodor Wolff (2 August 1868 – 23 September 1943) was a German writer who was influential as a journalist, critic and newspaper editor. He was born and died in Berlin. Between 1906 and 1933 he was the chief editor of the politically liberal Berliner Tageblatt (newspaper).

His talent as a writer won praise from an unlikely quarter. In 1939 Joseph Goebbels recommended Propaganda Ministry staff to study Wolff's contributions in back numbers of the newspaper that he had edited. According to Goebels, despite his being Jewish, the quality of Wolff's writing was matched by only very few in Germany.

Theodor Wolff was born in Berlin, second of the four recorded children of a fabric wholesaler from Silesia called Adam Wolff by his marriage to Recha Davidsohn/Wolff. Recha was a doctor's daughter from Danzig. Wolff grew up in a prosperous Jewish family. He rapidly achieved good results at the prestigious in Berlin.

He married in 1902, in Paris, the actress Marie Louise Charlotte Anna Hickethier (known as Änne). She came from a Protestant Prussian family. The couple had three children: Richard Wolff (born Paris 14 June 1906), Rudolf Wolff (born Berlin 9 July 1907) and Lilly Wolff (born Berlin 7 August 1909). The children were baptised as Protestants.

In 1887 Wolff's cousin Rudolf Mosse recruited him to his successful publishing conglomerate. Mosse was 25 years older than Wolff, to whom he provided a thorough commercial and journalistic training across all the departments of his publishing business, "Mosse-Verlag". During these years Wolff also found time to write some early novels, inspired by Theodor Fontane whom he greatly admired, and several plays which were staged in Berlin, though in his memoirs he would later describe these as "not particularly distinguished". In 1889 he was one of the ten co-founders of the Berlin theatre company, .