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Dietrich Eckart was born in 1868 in Neumarkt, about 32km southeast of Nuremberg. Eckart initially studied law at Erlangen, later medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Like many students he spent his time drinking. Fencing was also a popular pastime. In 1891 he dropped out of university to became a writer. Around this time, he became a drug addict with a morphine problem which lasted for the rest of his life. In 1895, his father died also, leaving him a considerable amount of money that Eckart soon spent on alcohol, drugs and women. He moved to Berlin in 1899, by this time almost penniless. In the capital, Eckart became the protégé of the artistic director of the Prussian Royal Theatre, Count Georg von Hülsen-Haeseler (1858–1922). The Count put his plays on the stage and thus Eckart had a steady income. One such play was the 1912 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt which ran for more than 600 performances in Berlin alone.
