After receiving his maturity certificate in 1915, he joined the army during the war as a volunteer. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1916, was seriously wounded several times, and received both Orders of the Iron Cross. After studying Law in Breslau and Heidelberg between 1919-1921 and clerking in Berlin, he entered service with the foreign office in July 1922. Following stints in the headquarters in Berlin and the embassies in Prague, Constantinople, Ankara, and Katowice, he was posted as the secretary to the German delegation in Warsaw in October, 1932. Although he joined the Nazi party in 1933, he held an increasingly critical opinion of the Nazi regime from at least 1938 onward. He became an informant for Rudolf Herrnstadt, a journalist working for the Soviet secret service. After the war broke out, von Scheliha was assigned the task of "observing and counteracting Polish propaganda" within the newly created information services division of the foreign office. Later, he was appointed head of the country desk for Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe.In this position, he was the recipient of valuable information about German crimes in Poland and the Soviet Union. As a result, he was moved to help certain Poles and Jews with disseminating information abroad regarding the mass murders perpetrated by the Nazi regime, as well as sharing military secrets. It was most likely von Scheliha who informed Carl J. Burckhardt, a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross, about the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in October, 1942. On 29 October, 1942, he was arrested by the Gestapo on the grounds of connections with the Red Orchestra. The Reich court-martial sentenced him to death for treason and spying for the Soviet Union. The sentence was carried out by hanging. Ever since, his legacy has been burdened by the odium of being a "traitor for hire." It has not been until recently that investigations have raised doubts about the image portrayed by the Gestapo and public suspicions. However, it has never been definitively proven whether he was a paid informant or a member of the resistance with idealistic motivations.