Rüdiger Schleicher was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism.
Education
Schleicher studied law in Tübingen and graduated with a doctorate in 1923 with a dissertation on "International Air Travel Law." After working in the Württemberg government service and the German-American Arbitration Committee at the Foreign Office, he became an official in the Reich Transport Ministry in 1927.
Career
Born in Stuttgart, Schleicher was married to Ursula Bonhoeffer (1902 – 1983), Karl Bonhoeffer"s daughter and Dietrich and Klaus Bonhoeffer"s sister. In 1933, he was posted to the newly established Reich Air Travel Ministry. There, beginning in 1935, he headed the legal department as a ministerial adviser.
On 14 August 1939, less than three weeks before the war broke out, Schleicher was removed as leader of the legal department and given a job as a consultant in the General Air Office.
His advocacy, in publications and presentations, of international law, the war renunciation pact (Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928), and the Hague Conventions did not sit well with the government. In 1939, as an added responsibility, Schleicher took on the leadership of the Institute for Air Law at the University of Berlin and the publication of the magazine "Archiv für Luftrecht." The Institute was later used for conspiratorial resistance meetings
After the plot to assassinate the Führer at the Wolf"s Lair in East Prussia failed, Schleicher explained during interrogation that he opposed the Nazi régime. To bring about reconciliation with Western war opponents, he said, Hitler had to step down.
On 2 February 1945, Schleicher was sentenced to death by the "People"s Court" (Volksgerichtshof), whose presiding judge was Roland Freisler.
Schleicher"s work on the commentary for an air traffic law (1 Aufl 1933, 2 Aufl 1937) was continued after his death (Schleicher/Reymann/Abraham, Das Recht der Luftfahrt, 3 Aufl 1960/1966).