Born in Berlin in 1868, Theodor Wolff grew up with three siblings in a bourgeois household. His father was a draper, but with his mother, Theodor shared his creative interests in art, literature, and theater. The Wolffs were Jewish, but not particularly religious, only visiting the synagogue for the most important festivals.

Theodor Wolff embarked upon a commercial apprenticeship at his cousin Rudolf Mosse’s newspaper publishing company in 1887. His passion, however, was for theater. He was co-founder of the "Freie Bühne" society, which caused scandals with its performances of modern, naturalistic dramas and revolutionary theater. Wolff tried his own hand at playwriting, though the critiques of his efforts were not enthusiastic. He had more success as a journalist with theater reviews and accounts of journeys, which took him to such far-off lands former Constantinople and North Africa.

In 1894, the period began which Theodor Wolff later described as "my happiest years." Rudolf Mosse sent the 26-year-old Wolff to Paris as a correspondent. He stayed there 12 years, reporting not only on art and culture, but increasingly on politics. His renown began with his keen and critical analysis of the Dreyfus Affair which shook France. In 1902, he married the actress Marie Louise Anna Hickethier, a German protestant who was living in Paris at that time. Richard, the first of their three children, was also born there.

Rudolf Mosse offered Theodor Wolff the post of chief editor of the "Berliner Tageblatt" in 1906. Though leaving Paris was hard, Wolff accepted the offer and made the newspaper a flagship of liberal journalism with his smart staffing policy. The political experience gained in the French capital prepared him for his new post in Berlin, where he soon became established as a harsh critic of Wilhelminian militarism and war politics, from 1914 increasingly hindered by censorship and bans.

Theodor Wolff saw many of his political ideals realized in the Weimar Republic and made every endeavor to support the young, always-threatened democracy – not just as a publicist but also as co.founder of the liberal "Deutsche Demokratische Partei" (German Democratic Party). At the same time, the feature pages of the "Berliner Tageblatt" prospered with eloquent essayists such as Alfred Kerr, Kurt Tucholsky, and Joseph Roth. But the end was on the horizon, and the Rudolf Mosse Publishing House was forced to declare bankruptcy and was sold in 1932. Meanwhile, events on the political front were escalating. Wolff tried vehemently to shake sense into the Germans, but the Nazis were ever gaining in strength. He himself received death threats from right-wing extremists.

Theodor Wolff fled Germany just a few weeks after Hitler’s rise to power. He settled with his family in Nice following a stopover in Switzerland. Robbed of his post, he turned to writing and reflected on historical themes and his own Jewish origins for the first time. In May 1943, he was arrested, handed-over to the Gestapo and eventually taken to the camp at Sachsenhausen outside Berlin. Weakened by internment and transportation, he died at the Jewish Hospital on 23 September 1943. He is buried at the Jewish graveyard in Berlin’s district of Weißensee.