Jean Sandherr

Colonel Nicolas Jean Robert Conrad Auguste Sandherr (6 June 1846 – 24 May 1897) was a French military officer involved in the Dreyfus Affair.

Sandherr was born in Mulhouse, in Alsace, then a part of France and also the hometown of the Dreyfus family. The son of a notary at the Mulhouse commercial court, Sandherr joined the French infantry via the military academy of Saint-Cyr. He was promoted successively to sub-lieutenant in the light infantry in 1866, lieutenant in 1870, and captain in 1873. His high potential gained him admission in the first class of students at the École supérieure de Guerre and he left the academy breveted as a major.

Wounded in combat at the start of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Sandherr was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor in September of that year. He served as captain of the 2nd Regiment of Algerian Tirailleurs (skirmishers) in Tunisia at the time that it was annexed as a protectorate. He was charged with classifying Tunisian tribes by their hostility to the French presence.

Named commandant in 1885, he joined the “Statistical Section” of the army general staff, the harmless name used to disguise the French military's counter-espionage service. In 1887, he took command of Section. Promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1891, he was placed under the direct orders of General Gonse, at the start of the Dreyfus Affair.

Sandherr was assisted by Commandant Henry, an officer who had the total confidence of General Gonse. In September 1894 the Statistical Section intercepted a handwritten note found in the wastepaper basket of the German ambassador in Paris, thanks to a household servant in the embassy. The document established that French military secrets had been handed over to the Germans, then considered a national enemy. Sandherr gathered a secret commission of inquiry that hastily decided on Captain Alfred Dreyfus as the perpetrator. Very quickly, Dreyfus was arrested and condemned.

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