After taking part in the First World War, Kriege completed his studies in jurisprudence at Berlin, where he obtained his doctorate.
[3] It subsequently emerged that a year after his appointment, on 23/24 April 1941, Kriege was one of several high-profile government lawyers called to a special meeting at Hermann Göring's palatial offices in Berlin at which the participants were informed about Nazi Germany's new and subsequently-controversial Action T4 policy of enforced euthanasia.
[6] However, the planned government never came to power because the 20 July plot failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Germany's incumbent chancellor.
[1] The Second World War ended in May 1945 and what remained of Germany was divided into four occupation zones, each of which administered by one of the four principal victorious Allied poweres.
The new country's chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, was keen to appoint Kriege as his Administrative Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.