Mendler, Albert (Abraham)

Albert, son of Frieda and Isaac, was born on April 3, 1929, in Linz, Austria. At the end of January 1948 Albert was sent to a training course for class commanders and was among the five outstanding students of the course. As a squad commander in the Orbach Battalion, Albert took part in Operation Nachshon, which lasted about ten days. At the end of the operation, the regiment was reorganized as Battalion 54 of the Givati ​​Brigade. Company B, in which Albert served, became the famous Shimshon Fox Company. In 1949 he was sent to a course for platoon commanders and was appointed commander of Shimshon Foxes. Already as a young commander he was characterized by the qualities that characterized him as a commander throughout his life: serious, worried about his soldiers and equipment, meticulous in discipline, strict, terrifying and meticulous in carrying out orders, ignoring his private views. Albert was discharged from military service in the second half of 1949, but a few months later Yosef Geva, his commander, approached him and suggested that he return to military service. After consulting his mother, Albert returned to military service and was assigned the role of Operations Officer in Battalion 52. This time he tied his fate to the fate of the IDF forever. In 1952 he was appointed commander of a reconnaissance company in the Givati ​​Brigade. Two years later, the commander of the infantry brigade was appointed to a major-level infantry school. Here a new aspect was discovered in his personality, which has not been expressed so far. Albert was a first-rate teacher and educator. Thanks to his special qualities he became an admired figure, many of whom imitated her. Since then he has been a commander of the 52nd Battalion and a year later he was appointed as commander of the Armored Corps, and in 1960 he was already trained in armor, to the point that he was appointed Commander of the Armored Corps course. Although he was a man of infantry, and although he later joined the Armored Corps, he soon became one of the major experts in the field of armor, and in 1962 he was appointed 7th Brigade CommanderIn 1968 he was appointed deputy commander of the Military Intelligence Corps, and in 1972 he served as the commander of a division with the rank of major general. She married Shula to the home of Dr. Jacobson of Petah Tikva. Two years later, their eldest daughter Anat was born, and in 1968 her second daughter Sigal was born. In the Yom Kippur War, Albert was the commander of a division in the Sinai. During the most difficult times of the braking battles and in the terrible moments of the surrender of the “pier post”, Albert was like a rock: quiet, firm, and reassuring; A commanding officer that all pinned his hopes on, with full faith in his ability to lead them to victory. On the day that the “pier post” was set for October 17, 1973, Albert went on a tour of the front positions of his forces in the southern sector of the Suez Canal. At 11:35 PM, the APC was hit and the enemy was killed and he was brought to eternal rest in the Kiryat Shaul cemetery, leaving behind a wife and two daughters, a mother and brother.