Fallada was born in Greifswald, Germany, the child of a magistrate on his way to becoming a supreme court judge and a mother from a middle-class background, both of whom shared an enthusiasm for music, and to a lesser extent, literature.
In 1911 he made a pact with a friend, Hanns Dietrich von Necker, to stage a duel to mask their suicides, feeling that the duel would be seen as more honorable.