After attending the school at Oels (Oleśnica), he studied philology at the universities of Breslau (Wrocław) and Berlin, and in 1838 received his degree with a dissertation titled De initiis poeseos scenicae apud Germanos[1] (Über die Anfänge der dramatischen Poesie bei den Germanen, English: On the Beginnings of Dramatic Poetry among the Germans).

[3] In 1839, he settled in Breslau, as Privatdozent in German language and literature, but devoted his principal attention to writing for the stage, achieving considerable success with the comedy drama Die Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen (1844).

[1] In 1847, he moved to Berlin, and in the following year took over, in conjunction with Julian Schmidt, the editorship of Die Grenzboten, a weekly journal which, founded in 1841, now became the leading organ of German and Austrian liberalism.

Freytag's literary fame was made universal by the publication in 1855 of his novel, Soll und Haben (Debit and Credit), which was translated into almost all European languages.

[1]Between 1859 and 1867, Freytag published in five volumes Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, a work on popular lines, illustrating the history and manners of Germany.

In 1872, he began a work with a similar patriotic purpose, Die Ahnen, a series of historical romances in which he unfolds the history of a German family from the earliest times to the middle of the 19th century.