[1][2] Edgar was born in 1877 the Prussian province of Silesia in Breslau to a famous Pomeranian German family.
He was the son of the noted legal scholar Otto von Gierke and Marie Caecilie Elise (Lili) née Loening (1850–1936).
Thus, under the racial laws of German Nazi rule, she was considered to be Jewish as was Edgar, who identified as a Protestant.
[1] von Gierke's views on the Nazi party are poorly understood due to a lack of information.
A few letters that von Gierke signed "Heil Hitler" have been recovered and on a Nazi party-administered political questionnaire he stated that he was a member of the Nazi groups known as the German Labor Front, the Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten (Reich's Union of German Civil Servants), and the National Socialist German Doctors' League, but it is thought by modern history scholars that such membership and actions were a result of political pressure and expectations rather than due to truly sympathizing with the Nazi party.