 Susman was born on October 14, 1872, in Hamburg, Germany to a well-situated, Jewish, middle-class family. In 1882, the family moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where Susman attended primary school and the gymnasium. While her father was supportive of her as a poet, arranging for a private publication of a volume of her poetry on the occasion of her twentieth birthday, he staunchly opposed her wish to study. In 1894, after his death, the family returned to Germany to settle in Hanover. In order to allow Susman to study, her older sister Paula assumed sole responsibility for the care of their ailing mother. After studying painting in Düsseldorf and Paris, Susman began to study philosophy in Munich with Theodor Lipps. She subsequently moved to Berlin, where she studied with Georg Simmel, becoming a regular participant in his after-hours private discussion group. In 1906, Susman married a fellow painter, Eduard von Bendemann. Though initially willing to comply with his parents’ request that, as a condition of their marriage, she convert to Christianity, Susman decided the day before her baptism that it was impossible for her to abandon Judaism. Her parents-in-law accepted her decision. The same year, Georg Simmel published his book Religion as part of Martin Buber’s series Society: Series in Social-Psychological Studies, dedicating it to Susman and Gertrud Kantorowicz.