Gayl was born in
Königsberg, capital of the
Prussian province of
East Prussia (today Kaliningrad,
Russia) and studied law at the universities of
Berlin,
Göttingen and
Bonn. In 1909 he became the director of the
Ostpreussische Landgesellschaft, a settlement society for East Prussia . He served throughout the
First World War, initially as an officer on active service, and was decorated with the
Iron Cross first class, but soon joined the administration of
Ober Ost, the supreme command of all German forces in the east. In 1916, he became chief of the department of interior politics and administration of
Ober Ost and, on 1 September 1918,
Landeshauptmann ("state captain") of northern
Lithuania at
Kaunas. In 1919, Gayl was a member of the German delegation at the
Versailles conference and became the
German Commissioner for the throughout the
East Prussian plebiscite in 1920. Gayl was a member of the
Prussian State Council in 1921–33 and was the East Prussian deputy at the
Reichsrat from 1921 to 1932. He sat as a deputy in the provincial parliament of the Province of East Prussia from 1929 to its dissolution in 1933. He was the head of the in 1925–32 and became the chairman of the
Reichsboard of Youth fitness (Reichskuratorium für Jugendertüchtigung) in 1932. On 1 June 1932, Gayl became the Secretary of Interior of
Franz von Papen's "Cabinet of Barons" implemented by President
Paul von Hindenburg according to
Article 48. One of his first actions as a minister was to establish an obligatory program at every
Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft broadcasting company called the "hour of the government". Every day between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. the companies had to provide 30 minutes of transmission time for representatives of the government. Papen used this opportunity eighteen times in the six months of his term in office while he never spoke at the
Weimar German Parliament. Gayl was one of the initiators of the
Preußenschlag against the
Social Democratic government in
Prussia in July 1932 but strongly opposed any cooperation with
Hitler's
Nazi Party.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VTmnnI08cD0C&q=gayl&pg=PA455 After Chancellor Papen had resigned on 17 November, Gayl lost his position with the appointment of
Kurt von Schleicher's cabinet on 3 December 1932. He died in
Potsdam shortly after the end of
World War II. ==Publications==