From October 1, 1912, Brodowski underwent further training at the Prussian Military Academy, which he left upon the outbreak of the First World War in July 1914.

After mobilization, Brodowski served first as a squadron officer and then, from August 6, 1914, as an aide-de-camp on the staff of the 3rd and 1st Cavalry Brigades.

Brodowski was wounded on September 30, 1918, during the defensive battles on the Western Front near Cambrai and Saint-Quentin, and spent the remaining weeks of the war in hospital.

Elements of the regiment became Freikorps formations and Brodowski on February 1, 1919, was appointed as the leader of a volunteer squadron.

With the transition of the Reichswehr into the Wehrmacht, on April 13, 1935, Brodowski was appointed inspector of military recruitment at Ulm.

In May 1944, General von Brodowski, worried about concentrations of the maquis in Cantal, a sparsely populated area of 65,000 square kilometers,[1] asked the Kommandant Heeresgebiet Südfrankreich (KHS), the military command of the Army area in Southern France, to transfer to Lyon troop units to combat the resistance.

[1] These units wiped out the population of the town of Oradour-sur-Glane in June 1944, shortly after the Allied landings in Normandy, and Brodowski was therefore seen by the French as one of those responsible.

[1] Brodowski's death was announced on November 8, 1944, by the French channel Radio Londres and the Swiss News Agency on the following day.

Adolf Hitler then ordered the randomly chosen murder of a French general, Maurice Mesny, as a reprisal.