Born in Vienna as the son of the advocate Dr. Severin Brezina on 4 May 1848. Although destined for a juridical career, Brezina was interested in natural science from a very early age and became a voluntary collaborator at the Imperial Mineralogical Cabinet already in 1862, during his high school years. Under the guidance of the Assistants Laube, Zittel and Schrauf he devoted himself to geological and crystallographical problems and attended lectures given by Schrauf, Suess and Tschermak at the University of Vienna as a non-regular student. In 1866 he graduated from the academic high school. At the University of Vienna, he began reading mathematics and physics; at the laboratory of the Technical College he worked on chemical problems. In 1868, Brezina went to Berlin and in the same year he became Assistant at the Imperial Mineralogy Cabinet. In 1872, he obtained his PhD at the University of Tübingen. He furthered his studies in chemistry and earth sciences in Vienna and in 1874 he qualified as a lecturer at the University of Vienna for Crystallography and Crystal Physics. In the same year, he became curator of the Imperial Mineralogy Cabinet. In 1878, after G. Tschermak left the staff of the Imperial Mineralogy Cabinet, Brezina assumed the administration of the meteorite collection - objects which had always particularly interested him.