During the closing months of the Second World War, he commanded the Volkssturm forces during the siege of Breslau and died there when the city fell to the Red Army in May 1945.

From 1 May to 30 September 1919, Herzog was part of the Freikorps led by Franz Ritter von Epp, and was involved in the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

He was also a member of the military association Bund Reichskriegsflagge (Imperial War Flag League) that was headed by Ernst Röhm, and participated with it in Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, for which he would later be awarded the Blood Order.

In May 1931, he was elected to the Oldenburg Landtag and was the chairman of the Nazi Party parliamentary group in that body, serving until its dissolution in October 1933.

On 10 July 1934, Herzog was assigned the leadership of the SA-Gruppe Schlesien (Silesia), headquartered in Breslau, as the successor to Edmund Heines, who was murdered in the Night of the Long Knives.

[3] On the outbreak of the Second World War, Herzog volunteered for service with the German army and was assigned to Infanterie Regiment 49 as an Unteroffizier of reserves.

Some reports say that he shot himself, others that he tried to escape the fortress and was killed when his car struck a mine [per Andreas Schulz, on the Schießwerderbrücke, together with SA-Gruppenführer Aster].

"[8][9] The historian Werner Vahlenkamp characterizes Herzog as a former Freikorps fighter who belonged to "the group of particularly brutal and fanatical National Socialists" and was "throughout his life, uncritically affiliated with the party".