Franz Gustav von Wandel
(30.1.1858 - 29.12.1921)
place of birth:  Danzig  (Gdansk, Poland)


Imperial German General von Wandel served the first half of the Great War as Deputy Prussian War Minister in Berlin. Wandel began his military career in 1875 as a Fahnenjunker. He was married to Katharina Schulz in 1896. Upon working his way up through the ranks, Wandel was transferred to Alsace where he functioned as XV. Army Corps Chief of Staff from 1904 to 1907. He then returned to Berlin to work as a department chief in General von Einem-Rothmaler's War Ministry. From 1909 to 1913, he simultaneously functioned as von Einem's Deputy War Minister, before seeing a transfer to Cologne as the military governor there.

A few days after German mobilization, von Wandel was called back to Berlin in order to once again serve as Deputy War Minister, this time for Erich von Falkenhayn, whose wartime duties kept usually kept him forward at Main Headquarters. With the daily operations de facto in his hands, General von Wandel proved himself to be an excellent administrator. He was responsible for issuing the decree on "Wartime Officer Supplementation" which eased the previously stringent social requirements governing officer eligibility. When Hindenburg and Ludendorff took the reins at Supreme Army Command in August 1916, however, von Wandel's days at the War Ministry were numbered and he was forced into retirement from active duty.