 The author Bernard von Brentano (1901–1964) was his elder brother.Upon his "Abitur" degree in 1922, Heinrich von Brentano studied jurisprudence at the University of Munich and took his first and second "Staatsexamen" in 1925 and 1929.He received his doctorate from the University of Giessen and from 1932 worked as a lawyer in Darmstadt, from 1943 until 1945 as a prosecutor in Hanau.