Fritz Heinrich Rasp was the thirteenth child of a county surveyor. He was schooled from 1908-1909 at the Theaterschule Otto Königin in Munich where, due to a speech impediment, Rasp developed a Frankish dialect. Rasp debuted on the stage in 1909, as Amandus in Max Halbe's "Skandalstück Jugend" as the Münchner Schauspielhaus.In May 1914, Rasp received a five-year contract in the Reinhardts Deutschem Theater in Berlin, which was interrupted by his military service to Germany from 1916 - 1918.