Von Rabenau was arrested in the aftermath of the plot which culminated in the attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944. On 15 April 1945, without having been charged or tried, General von Rabenau, one of the last inmates remaining in the Flossenbürg concentration camp, was shot on Himmler's specific orders. The execution order was issued by Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller with additional orders to report his death as resulting from a low-flying allied air attack. The Flossenburg Memorial erroneously gives von Rabenau's date of judicial murder as 9 April 1945. He was survived by his wife Eva Kautz and their two daughters.