As a child, Saucken attended the Collegium Fridericianum, a prestigious gymnasium in Königsberg, present-day Kaliningrad, where he graduated with his Abitur (university-preparatory high school diploma) in 1910.

As a student, Saucken showed aptitude as an artist, a talent supported by his mother and the director of the Fridericianum, Georg Ellendt.

[1] Following graduation, Saucken joined the Prussian Army on 1 October 1910 as a Fahnenjunker (Cadet) in Grenadier-Regiment König Friedrich Wilhelm I.

With the division, Saucken fought in the battles of Stallupönen, Gumbinnen, and Tannenberg and earned the Iron Cross 2nd Class in October 1914.

In 1918, he also served with the Baltic Sea Division under the command of General Rüdiger von der Goltz which fought in the Finnish Civil War (27 January – 15 May 1918).

Saucken took part in Battle of France, Balkan Campaign, Operation Barbarossa as commander of a motorised brigade of the 4th Panzer Division.

During the Soviet Minsk Offensive, it temporarily maintained an escape route across the Berezina River for retreating German soldiers.

He led the corps until February 1945, when he was removed from his position and placed in the Führerreserve by Heinz Guderian, the Chief of Staff of the Army at the OKH.

A cavalry officer who regularly wore both a sword and a monocle, Saucken personified the archetypal aristocratic Prussian conservative who despised the braune Bande ("brown mob") of Nazis.

When he was ordered to take command of the Second Army on 12 March 1945, he came to Hitler's headquarters with his left hand resting casually on his cavalry sabre, his monocle in his eye, .

General Von Saucken was considered a loyal commander to whom this behavior certainly did not fit (he received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds on 8 May).

In addition, the fact that he would not have addressed Hitler with 'Mein Führer' and with the flat hand on the chart table, Linge describes as completely unbelievable.