Stackelberg became a member of the Nazi Party in 1931 and held the rank of Scharführer (sergeant) in the Schutzstaffel.

Stackelberg was born in Moscow into a Baltic German family of nobility from present-day Estonia.

He graduated in 1930 with a dissertation on cost theory (German: Die Grundlagen einer reinen Kostentheorie), which was published in 1932 in Vienna.

In 1934 he finished his habilitation on market structure and equilibrium (German: Marktform und Gleichgewicht).

In 1944, Stackelberg left Germany for Spain, where he became a visiting professor at the Complutense University of Madrid.

However, his interactions with many German aristocrats opposed to the Nazi regime (some of whom were within his immediate family), led to his increased disillusionment with that movement to the extent that towards the end of his life he no longer supported it.