Hellmut Stern was born in Berlin into a Jewish family. His father, Dittmar Stern, was a voice teacher, and his mother, Ilse Rose Stern, was a pianist. His mother taught him to play the piano from age five. He attended a Jewish school in Wilmersdorf, where a patron donated a violin to the most gifted pupil, which he received at age nine. The family tried to emigrate beginning in 1933. After the November Pogrom in 1938, they escaped from Berlin to Harbin, now in China, where his mother had received a fictitious contract as a pianist. In exile, Stern helped the family income as a pianist and violinist, playing in bars, nightclubs and hotels. In 1948, the family immigrated to Israel. As a bar pianist at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1951, he met Isaac Stern, who arranged for him audition for the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv. He won his first orchestral post as a second violinist.