 He subsequently started his voice studies at the age of seventeen in his hometown of Cologne.His teacher, Julius Lenz, originally mistook him for a baritone, but in 1928 Suthaus debuted as a tenor in Aachen in the role of "Walther von Stolzing" in Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg".From 1932 to 1941, he was engaged in Stuttgart, but was fired in 1942 because he would not join the Nazi party.