He studied Romance, Oriental, and Classical philology as well as philosophy in Geneva, Hamburg, and Bonn. In 1928, he earned his doctorate under Paul Kahle with a dissertation on Hebrew grammar. In 1929, he passed his teaching certification exam in Hamburg. Starting in 1930, he worked as an assistant at the library of the German Oriental Society in Halle, likely through Kahle’s recommendation; Kahle hired him as an assistant in Bonn in 1932. There, he worked on Kahle’s project for the Masoretic text edition. In the spring of 1933, he was dismissed from his position on racist grounds, and Kahle’s request to continue employing him privately was also rejected. He subsequently accepted a teaching position at the Jewish Reform Gymnasium Jawne in Cologne, where he taught Latin and Hebrew. On July 22, 1935, he took his own life.