Hermann Karl Josef Wilhelm von Bertrab  
(15.09.1857 - 24.01.1940)
place of birth:  Glatz, Niederschlesien
Königreich Preußen:  Ober-Quartiermeister,  Div-Kdr,  General der Infanterie ch.


Prussian General Hermann von Bertrab was in command of 39. Infanterie-Division for two and a half years during the Great War. Bertrab grew up in Lower Silesia and 1877 moved to Mainz to launch his career as an infantry officer. Upon graduating from the War Academy, he was sent to headquarters of the General Staff of the Army and assigned to the Landesaufnahme, the Imperial General Staff's geographical survey department. There he spent the better part of the next 27 years of peace time, mainly focused on work within the department's trigonometry section. He additionally served as a military instructor at the Prussian War College. In 1911, Bertrab was promoted to Generalmajor and appointed as an Ober-Quartiermeister, one of the Senior Quartermasters with the General Staff of the Army. During this time, he continued oversight of the Geological Survey's trigonometry section.

As German troops invaded Belgium and France in 1914, the General Staff's Geological Survey department was largely dismantled and Generalleutnant von Bertrab was assigned command of 39. Infanterie-Division. Over the following two and a half years, Bertrab led his troops in fighting in the Western Front, chiefly engaged in Flanders and as part of the 1916 engagements at Verdun and along the Somme. In early 1917, the importance of geodetic surveying was reviewed at General Staff headquarters, and Bertrab was returned to Berlin to once again oversee a reestablished Landesaufnahme department. He was brevetted as General der Infanterie just prior to War's end and retired from active duty in May 1919.

	General der Infanterie	18.10.1918  (charakter)