Fritz Halbers was born Fritz Josef Halberstaedter in Berlin, Germany, in 1894. He studied at the Max Reinhardt drama school between 1912 and 1914, appearing in some of Reinhardt's productions, and joined the German military in 1915. After World War I, Halbers worked as an actor, director and stage designer in various locations in Germany until 1933 when a stage ban was placed on Jewish actors. He and his wife, Johanna Archenvold, emigrated to La Paz, Bolivia, in 1939, where he worked as a house painter, artist and translator of German philosophical works into Spanish. In 1954, Halbers moved to New York, living near his sister until moving to Cordoba, Argentina in 1970. He died in 1987 in Buenos Aires.