Shlomo (Wilhelm) Wolbe was born in Berlin to Eugen and Rosa Wolbe. He was raised in a secular Jewish home and received his education at the University of Berlin (1930–1933). During his university studies he became a baal teshuva through the efforts of the Orthodox Students Union V.A.D. ("Vereinigung jüdischer Akademiker in Deutschland"). After university he attended the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary. He continued to study at Rabbi Boczko's yeshiva in Montreux, Switzerland. He then attended the Mir yeshiva in Poland, where he became a student of the "mashgiach ruchani", Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz, and, to a lesser extent of Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein.