Filbinger had to resign as minister president and party chairman after allegations about his role as a navy lawyer and judge in the Second World War.

While the CDU Baden-Württemberg elected him honorary chairman — a position he held until his death — he remained a controversial figure.

Having earned his doctorate in 1939 with the dissertation "Limits to majority rule in stock and corporation law", he worked as a lecturer at the University of Freiburg.

As this Catholic students' federation with political leanings to the Centre Party opposed their being integrated into the Hitler Youth, it was banned.

On 1 June 1933, Filbinger joined the Sturmabteilung (SA), and later also the National Socialist students federation, but largely remained an inactive member.

Attorney General Brettle advised Filbinger, as he was applying for his first examination in January 1937, that he could not expect to be admitted to the Referendariat, the preparatory service required for future state employees without having cleared himself from these political complaints.

[2] Seeing himself barred from the second examination and hence blocked from any further professional career, Filbinger asked to be admitted to NS party membership in spring.

Filbinger used his periods of leave to return to Freiburg and attend lectures by Reinhold Schneider, a writer critical of the Nazi regime.

[5] In 1946, Filbinger resumed his academic work at the university of Freiburg, subscribing to Walter Eucken's ordoliberalism, and settled down as lawyer.

In 1956, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the modalities and the merger of the states legal but added that the will of the people of Baden had indeed been glossed over by political machinations.

Analysts even deemed him a possible candidate for the presidential elections in 1979, when his career suddenly ended in 1978 due to the Filbinger affaire (see below), an event from which his reputation has never recovered.

On 29 May 1945, Filbinger presided at the trial against artillery man Petzold and sentenced him to six months imprisonment for incitement of discontent, refusal of obedience and resistance.

In an editorial, the Spiegel also claimed that, based on Petzold's memories, Filbinger had referred to Hitler as "our beloved Führer ... who has brought the fatherland back up".

Debaters often twisted or neglected the existing evidence or confused the circumstance, Petzold's anti-Nazi stance in particular, with the actual verdict.

As in the previous case, Filbinger filed a lawsuit against Hochhuth and Die Zeit, seeking to have the claim quoted above banned as libel.

On 13 June 1978 the court decided that Hochhuth's claims about illegal behaviour were indeed a libellous charges and banned the author from repeating them.

In May 1943 several seamen employed in clearing up the scene after an air raid on Kiel were accused of having stolen some petty goods from a drug store.

After the verdict, Filbinger again interrogated the seaman about the incident and afterwards wrote a report putting the condemned man in a positive light.

However, the commander of the fleet denied confirmation, returned the case to the Oslo court martial and ordered the prosecution to demand the death penalty.

As prosecutor in the case against Lieutenant Forstmeier, who had made some remarks about the 20 July Plot, he influenced the witnesses to testimonies, that could be interpreted in the defendant's favour, prolonged the proceedings and obtained a verdict of demotion and imprisonment on parole.

On 17 April 1945, Filbinger chaired the absentia trial against an Oberststeuermann who had taken his boat and fourteen seamen to Sweden and sentenced the senior NCO to death for desertion and undermining morale.

These two death sentences have been explained as an attempt of avoiding a breaking down of military discipline even at the end of the war, especially since the Navy was involved in evacuating two million Germans from East Prussia that was encircled by the Red Army.

According to Veteran FAZ editor Günter Gillessen, who reviewed the case in 2003, the facts paint a picture different from that of a bloodthirsty and unrepentant Nazi judge.

Another issue revolves around the sentence "Was damals rechtens war, kann heute nicht Unrecht sein"[10] ("What was lawful then, cannot be unlawful today.").

The Spiegel interpreted the quote as a justification of Nazi laws, whereas Filbinger had referred to the military penal code of 1872, that was in force throughout the Second World War.

Filbinger complained that his quote had been edited and taken out of context and his then spokesman Gerhard Goll, who had been present during the interview, called the magazine's interpretation "not only untrue but also an infamy".

Filbinger also had to relinquish his offices in the federal party, resigning as deputy chairman in 1978 and giving up his seat on the executive board in 1981.

The last occasion in 2004 caused controversy, as SPD, Greens, PDS, the German PEN and the Central Council of Jews in Germany protested this choice.

On 11 April 2007, Günther Oettinger, at that time the Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, held a controversial eulogy during the memorial service for his predecessor.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted with public admonishment, stating that she would have preferred if "the critical questions" would have been raised.