Born in Vienna, Austria, Lise Meitner was the third of eight children of Hedwig and Philipp Meitner, a freethinking liberal lawyer of Jewish origin, still remembered as a minor chess master. In later life she recalled their "unusual goodness" and the intellectual atmosphere of their house. With their help and private tuition she became one of the first to take advantage of recent relaxations in Austrian women has no access to further education. She persisted and entered the University of Vienna in 1901, studying physics under Ludwig Boltzmann. In 1905, she obtained her PhD in physics, the first woman to do so at that university. After she obtained her doctorate degree, she went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin in 1907 to study with Max Planck and work with the chemist Otto Hahn.