He may have inadvertently saved Adolf Hitler's life, at the cost of his own, by moving the bomb planted by Claus von Stauffenberg during the 20 July plot.

In 1936 he was a member of the gold medal-winning German show jumping team in the equestrian event at the Berlin Summer Olympics, on his horse Alchemy.

Generalmajor Henning von Tresckow instructed Lieutenant Fabian von Schlabrendorff to ask Brandt to carry a package containing bottles of what he claimed was Cointreau onto Hitler's Condor plane for delivery to Oberst Helmuth Stieff as payment for a lost bet.

On 20 July 1944, Brandt arrived at the Wolf's Lair headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia for a situation conference attended by Hitler.

[2] He died the next day[2][3] after surgery in the Wolf's Lair hospital[4] and was posthumously promoted to Generalmajor by Hitler.