Especially after the death of her brother, Gisela was deeply involved in a variety of social and political issues and founded charities to support the poor, blind and deaf people where she took an active role herself. During World War I she ran a military hospital in her Palais while her husband was a field marshal on the eastern front. When the Revolution broke out in 1918, the rest of her family fled the city, but Gisela remained and took part in the 1919 elections for the Weimar National Assembly where women above the age of 20 were allowed to vote for the first time.