Hans Filbinger - Filbinger During The War

Filbinger During The War

In 1940, Filbinger was conscripted into the German Navy. He was promoted to the rank of Oberfähnrich and later to that of lieutenant. In 1943 he was ordered to enter the military legal department - according to his own account, against his will. Two attempts at avoiding this by volunteering for submarine squads didn't succeed. Filbinger served in the legal department until the end of the war in 1945. This period of his life was later raised to prominence in the Filbinger affair.

During that time he was a member of the Freiburg circle, a group of Catholic intellectuals centred around the publisher Karl Färber. Filbinger used his periods of leave to return to Freiburg and attend lectures by Reinhold Schneider, a writer critical of the Nazi regime.

Without his knowledge, two of the conspirators of the July 20 Plot—Karl Sack and Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg—recommended Filbinger for employment after a successful coup, adding that one could always rely on Filbinger's "principled anti-Nazi stance and loyalty".