Born in
Offenburg,
Grand Duchy of Baden, Hanns Martin Schleyer was the eldest child of Ernst Julius Schleyer (1882–1959) and Helene Luise Elisabeth Schleyer (
née Rheitinger; 1883–1979). His legal name, as shown by his birth certificate, was Hans Martin Schleyer, but Schleyer himself always spelled his first name with two 'n's since childhood. His father was a judge and his great-great uncle was
Johann Martin Schleyer, a renowned
Roman Catholic priest who invented the
Volapük language. Schleyer was raised
Catholic by his paternal family, which went against the wishes of his
irreligious father, who was described as "hot-tempered" and holding
national conservative views. Schleyer finished his
Abitur in
Rastatt and began studying law at the
University of Heidelberg in 1933, where he first joined the
student fraternity Teutonia 1842 zu Rastatt before switching to a year later. In 1939 he obtained a doctorate at the
University of Innsbruck. In the summer of 1935, Schleyer accused his fraternity of lacking "national socialist spirit". He left the fraternity when the , an
umbrella organization, refused to exclude Jewish members. Schleyer became a leader in the national socialist student movement and, in 1937, joined the
NSDAP. At first, he was the president of the student body of the
University of Heidelberg. Later, Scheel sent him to post-
Anschluss Austria where he occupied the same position at the
University of Innsbruck. On 21 October 1939, Schleyer married
Waltrude Ketterer (1916–2008), daughter of the physician, city councillor of Munich and
SA-
Emil Ketterer. They had four sons. Schleyer became an important deputy and adviser to Bernhard Adolf. Schleyer and his wife were given accommodation in houses seized from Jewish residents during their time in Prague. In 1944, they moved to a seized villa estate in
Bubeneč, after the previous inhabitant, SA-
Obersturmführer , had committed suicide in wake of the revelation that
his son had been an orchestrator in the
20 July assassination plot against Hitler. On 5 May 1945, Schleyer and his family escaped from the city shortly after the start of the
Prague uprising. ==Industrial leader in West Germany==