Colonel (GS) Berthold SANDTNER
Head of Leadership Unit and Senior Lecturer&Reseacher
Institute for Higher Military Leadership
Austrian National Defence Academy
Military career
Colonel Berthold Sandtner began his military career in 1992 with the basic military training.
After completing his officer ́s training at the Theresian Military Academy in 1996, he served at platoon and company level in the Combat Service Support Bataillon 3 and at the Military Command of Lower Austria.
From 2003 to 2006, he completed general staff training at the National Defence Academy, as well as an individual diploma study in "National Defence - Higher Leadership" at the University of Vienna. His diploma thesis was on "The establishment of military sciences as a separate
branch of science in Austria and the consequences for the establishment of a military university".
After his general staff course, he was posted to the Military Master Planning Department in the General Staff followed by a posting at the Austrian Military Representation to the EU and subsequently at the Military Staff of the European Union (EUMS) in Brussels.
Following positions were in the Department of Military Strategy, the office of the Chief of Defence, as well as the Programme Planning and Transformation Departments of the General Staff.
Other functions included an assignment as Chief of Staff of a multinational unit in Kosovo, as well as assignments as Commander of the Reconnaissance and Artillery Battalion 4 and as chief of the General Staff Division 3 of the Joint Logistics Command.
Since April 2019, Colonel Sandtner has been teaching and researching at the Institute for Higher Military Leadership at the National Defence Academy in Vienna.
His research focuses on command and control in networked environments.
Since March 2022 Colonel Sandtner has been member of the Austrian military strategic expert team on the War in Ukraine with regular appearances in national media.