On 5 September 1940, Flugkapitän Wendel, while performing a series of diving trials on Me 210 V2, Werknummer 0002, WL-ABEO, lost the starboard tailplane in the final dive and bailed out, the twin-engined fighter crashing at Siebentíschwald, Germany.
Wendel worked for Messerschmitt until the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945.