Like his brothers, he was carefully educated and inclined toward literature, but eventually took up a military career. In 1926, he joined the family's traditional regiment, the (17th Cavalry Regiment) in Bamberg. It was around this time that the three brothers were introduced by Albrecht von Blumenthal to the poet Stefan George's influential circle, "Georgekreis", from which many notable members of the German resistance later emerged. George dedicated "Das neue Reich" ("the new Empire") in 1928, including the "Geheimes Deutschland" ("secret Germany") written in 1922, to Berthold.