Oberstleutnant and commander of the 6th Fallschirm Regiment, Von Der Heydte was the son of a noble, Baron von der Heydte of Munich, Germany and a cousin of Claus von Stauffenberg. He followed his father, joining the Reichswehr in 1927. He joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933, obtaining membership number 2,134,193 and entered the SA the same year. In early 1935 he was assigned to Kavallerie-Regiment Nr.15, a cavalry unit that was transformed to an anti-tank company belonging to Panzerabwehr-Abteilung 6 in late 1935. During 1938-1939, he attended a General Staff Officer's course until he was recalled to his company in preparation for the planned invasion of Poland. He participated in the offensive against France in 1940 as an aide-de-camp of the 246th Infantry Division until he was promoted Captain and transferred to the Luftwaffe where he joined the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Regiment as one of its company commanders. He commanded the 1st battalion of the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Regiment during the Battle of Crete in 1941, for which he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. In 1942 he was sent to Libya as commander of the elite Fallschirm-Lehrbataillon, an integral part of Fallschirmjäger-Brigade Ramcke, that became famous for its daring escape from El Alamein in captured British trucks. In February 1943 he and several other Fallschirmjäger officers were transferred to France to form the nucleus of the newly raised 2nd Fallschirmjäger Division. After the fall of Sicily during the summer of 1943, the division was transferred from France to Rome to counter a feared Italian defection to the Allies. When the Kingdom of Italy decided to break its alliance with Nazi-Germany and join the Allies, the Germans executed "Fall Achse" to disarm and disband all units of the Royal Italian Army, Navy and Air force, and by September 11th all Rome was under German control. The day after, Von der Heydte was sent on a mission and his airplane crashed on Elba where he suffered some severe injuries. After his recovery, he was given command of the newly formed 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment of the 2nd Fallschirmjäger Division and deployed in the Carentan area of the Cotentin Peninsula. On D-Day, about 500 U.S. paratroopers dropped southwest of Carentan and engaged the 3 battalions of the 6th Fallschirmjäger at Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and Sainte-Mère-Église. The 1st battalion was destroyed in a fighting withdrawal towards Carentan with about 300 men surrendering and only 25 reaching Carentan. The 2nd battalion fought until its ammunition ran low and withdrew towards St. Come-du-Mont. After heavy fighting on June 7, the 2nd and 3rd battalions were withdrawn into Carentan where Von der Heydte was ordered by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to defend Carentan to the last man. Starting the night of June 10, US troops entered the outskirts of Carentan, and fierce fighting went from house to house. By dusk on June 11, Von der Heydte withdrew what remained of his men out of Carentan to avoid encirclement. A counter-attack on June 12 failed to retake the town. For their battle at Carentan, the German paratroopers earned the nickname "Lions of Carentan" from the U.S. paratroopers. Von der Heydte's regiment was subsequently involved in the intense hedgerow fighting of the Normandy campaign. On August 6, Von der Heydte's regiment participated in Operation Lüttich, attempting to cut off the Allies' advance at the Avranches bridgehead. In September 1944 his regiment was involved in defending the German lines in the Netherlands against the Allied Forces attacking in Operation Market Garden. Prior to the Ardennes Offensive, the Germans planned Operation Stößer to drop paratroopers behind the American lines to seize a key crossroads leading to Antwerp. The Luftwaffe managed to assemble 112 transport planes, but the pilots were very inexperienced, and only 125 men of the 1300 that took off made it to the correct landing zone and Von der Heydte broke his arm upon landing. By noon, Von der Heydte's unit had scouted the woods and rounded up a total of around 300 troops. Because of the dispersal of the drop, Fallschirmjäger were reported all over the Ardennes, and the Allies believed a division-sized jump had taken place, causing much confusion and convincing them to allocate men to secure the rear instead of facing the main German thrust at the front. Cut off, without supplies and hunted by the U.S. 1st Infantry Division and the U.S. 3rd Armored Division, Von der Heydte ordered his men to break through Allied lines and reach the German front. On December 23, Van der Heydte surrendered to the Allies. He was held as a prisoner of war in England until 1947. After his release, Von der Heydte became a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Mainz, a judge at the Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate, a visiting professor at the University of Saarland, Professor of International Law, General Administrative Law, German and Bavarian State Law and Political Science at the University of Wurzburg, headed the Institute for Military Law at University of Wurzburg, an associate and a later regular member of the Institut de Droit International, and a member of the board of the German Society for International Law. He also continued with a post-war military career with the Bundeswehr at the rank of Colonel. In 1962, he was promoted to Brigadier General in the Reserves of the Bundeswehr, one of only two to receive that rank. His military awards included the Iron Cross 1st & 2nd Class, German Cross in Gold, and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. He died in Aham, Landshut, in 1994 after a long illness.