He fought in the First World War and left active service in 1915 after sustaining a serious wound that resulted in the amputation of his leg.

[6] This indeed proved to be the case when, after Schmitt was replaced by Hjalmar Schacht, a new plan for organizing the economy was announced and Goltz's position was abolished on 4 December 1934.

[8] Goltz continued his legal practice and, in March 1938, he represented Generaloberst Werner von Fritsch in his military court of honor during the so-called Blomberg-Fritsch affair.

At the trial, Goltz exposed the star prosecution witness as a blackmailer and a perjurer, proved that the homosexual in question actually was another officer named Achim von Frisch and obtained an acquittal for his client.

In post-war Germany, he worked as a lawyer at the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf, and died in that city in 1976.

Their son, Hans von der Goltz [de], was chairman of the supervisory board of BMW from 1980 to 1993.