Wolfgang Haubrichs was born in Saarbrücken, Germany on 22 December 1942.
Haubrichs earned his doctorate under the supervision of Hans Eggers in 1967 with a thesis on Otfrid of Weissenburg.
He subsequently spent two years researching Old High German literature with funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
He habilitated in 1975 with a dissertation on the Georgslied, and was subsequently appointed Professor of Medieval Studies and Old German Philology at the University of Saarbrücken.
Haubrichs retired from this position in 2007, but continued to teach at Saarbrücken from 2011 to 2015.