Massmann was born in Berlin, Margraviate of Brandenburg, where he also studied. He served in the War of Liberation, was a member of the Jena "Burschenschaft", and was present at the Wartburg festival of 1817, where he participated in the book burning. In Berlin, he had been a friend and a pupil of Jahn. His radical ideas and "demagogue" sympathies brought him into difficulties with the authorities.