From the spring of 1919, he was a member of the Freikorps and participated in the fight against the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 and the suppression of the Ruhr Uprising in 1920.

Wendler, who founded the local NSDAP group in Deggendorf in 1927, joined the Nazi Party (membership number 93,116) and the SA on July 1, 1928.

He was classified as a "Mitläufer" (Group 4 – Follower) by pardon of Bavarian Minister-President Wilhelm Hoegner on 28 October 1955, and thereby was able to again obtain admission to the bar in Munich in 1955.

However, if Poles or other non-Jews were spotted purchasing goods from the Jewish vendors, policemen were ordered to remove them, and sometimes would even steal the merchandise for themselves.

[11] Prior to Operation Barbarossa, the General Government was divided into four districts, one of which was named after the Polish urban center of Kraków.

From its inception until January the 31st, 1942, the Kraków District was overseen by Otto Wächter, who reported to Governor-General Hans Frank.

[13] This, in addition to his formal education in jurisprudence and political science and his experience as a lawyer and mayor made him an unsurprising choice for Governor of the district.

Like his predecessor, Wendler reported to Hans Frank and aided in fulfilling the Governor-General's intentions, which primarily focused on the implementation of Aryanization policies.

[12] The SSPF, and naturally, the Security Police and Gestapo, were Wendler's primary instruments of enforcement in the ghettos of the Kraków District.

Gentz was notorious for his infamously harsh anti-Jewish policy and visible drive to make his Kreis free of Jews ahead of any of his contemporaries.

The primary surge of these deportation-based Aktions in the Kraków District occurred between June 1 and mid-September 1942, all of which had the final destination of the Belzec extermination center.

[17] After these deportations by Governor Wendler's men, the remaining majority of the District's Jewish population was removed Kreis (equivalent to a county; 12 originally in the District) by Kreis, in the following order: Reichshof and Debica (July); Jaroslau, Krosno, Jaslo, Neu-Sandez, Neumarkt, and Krakau-Land (August); Miechow, Sanok, and Tarnow (September).

[17] An additional large-scale deportation Aktion by the SSPF and his cohorts took place in October of that year, and the remaining small ghettos were cleared the following month.

[18] According to the Korherr Report, as a result of the Aktions carried out by Wendler's underlings, as of December the 31st, 1942, only about 37,000 of the previously conservative estimate of 200,000 Jews remained in the Kraków District.