Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism

Description

With his victory over the Russian army at the battle of Tannenberg in August 1914, Paul von Hindenburg became a war hero. By 1916 he had parlayed an exaggerated reputation for decisive victory into near dictatorial powers. After Germany's defeat at Verdun and War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn's dismissal in late 1916, Hindenburg, along with his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff, took over strategic direction of the war. The eponymous Hindenburg Program attempted with some success to mobilize Germany's economy for war. He also oversaw many of Germany's most important wartime decisions, including the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, Bethmann Hollweg's dismissal as chancellor, Russia's defeat and negotiation of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the "Ludendorff Offensives" of 1918, which sought decisive victory on the Western Front but ended in Germany's catastrophic defeat. After the war, Hindenburg played a crucial role in creating the Dolchstosslegende (the myth that the German Army had been "stabbed in the back" by a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy on the homefront), in leading Germany as president of the Weimar Republic, and, most tragically, in acquiescing to Adolf Hitler's rise to power.

Dennis E. Showalter, Ph.D., has taught history at Colorado College since 1969 and is a former president of the Society for Military History. He has also served as distinguished visiting professor at both the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy, as well as the H.L. Oppenheimer Professor at the Marine Corps University. His books include Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, winner of the American Historical Association's prestigious Birdsall Prize in 1992, and The Wars of Frederick the Great. He lives in Colorado Springs. William J. Astore, D.Phil., read modern history at Oxford and taught military history at the United States Air Force Academy. He is currently serving as associate provost and dean of students at the Defense Language Institute's Foreign Language Center. He lives in Monterey, California.