Ernst Alexander Alfred Herrmann Freiherr von Falkenhausen
(29.10.1878 - 31.7.1966)
place of birth:  Gut Blumenthal, Schlesien  (Silesia, Poland)
Königreich Preußen:  Major


General von Falkenhausen was a Prussian officer during the First World War and was recognized as resistance fighter against the Nazis during the Second World War. He was one of seven children born to Alexander Freiherr von Falkenhausen and Elisabeth Schuler von Senden.  He was married to Paula von Wedderkop, daughter of the Oldenburg Hausmarschall Julius von Wedderkop.  Alexander's younger brother Hans-Joachim also served as a commander in the German SA.

Young Alexander began his military career when he entered the Kadettanstalt at Wahlstatt at the age of twelve. As a newly- promoted Leutnant in March 1897, he joined the 91st Infantry Regiment at Oldenburg to serve under commander Paul von Hindenburg. His first taste of battle came when his unit was dispatched to China to fight in the Boxer Rebellion. Upon his return to Germany, he spent three years at the Prussian Military Academy and was later assigned to the Great General Staff in Berlin. His linguistic abilities in Japanese led to his transfer to Tokyo to serve as Prussian Military Attaché prior to the outbreak of the Great War.

Von Falkenhausen served on various staffs on both the Western and Eastern Fronts the first couple years of the War. After helping coordinate logistics for the Verdun campaign in 1916, he was sent to Turkey where he served with the Second Army, and then was transferred to function as Chief of Staff of the Turkish Seventh Army. His service in Palestine at the time earned him the order of the Pour le Merite. After the War, he first served in the Weimar Republic's Reichswehr. During the Second World War, General der Infanterie von Falkenhausen was the military commander of Belgium and Northern France. He was sentenced in 1951 to twelve years imprisonment in Brussels for the deportation of about 25,000 Belgian Jews and the execution of hostages, but was then released when it was demonstrated that he had in fact had worked to save the lives of Belgian Jews. General von Falkenhausen died in Nassau in July 1966.

	Major	22.03.1915
	Pour le Mérite	07.08.1918