Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg was a German military officer and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934. He played a key role in the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 through his appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.
Paul von Hindenburg was born to a family of minor Prussian nobility in the Grand Duchy of Posen. Upon completing his education as a cadet, he enlisted in the Third Regiment of Foot Guards. In this unit, Hindenburg saw combat during the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. In 1873, he was admitted to the prestigious Prussian War College in Berlin, where he studied before being appointed to the General Staff Corps. In 1885, he was promoted to major and became a member of the German General Staff. After teaching at the War Academy, Hindenburg rose to the rank of lieutenant general by 1900. In 1911, he retired from the military.
After World War I broke out in July 1914, Hindenburg was recalled and achieved fame on the Eastern Front as the victor of the Battle of Tannenberg. On 1 November 1914, he was promoted to field marshal and named commander of all German forces in the East. Hindenburg's continued success with battling the Russians ultimately made him a national hero and the center of an extensive personality cult. By 1916, his popularity had risen to the point that he replaced General Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the Great General Staff, the commander-in-chief of the German Army. Thereafter, he and his deputy, General Erich Ludendorff, took advantage of Emperor Wilhelm II's immense delegation of authority to the Supreme Army Command to establish a de facto military dictatorship. Under their leadership, the German Empire secured Russia's defeat on the Eastern Front and achieved the largest advance on the Western Front since the early days of the war. However, the country's fortunes were sharply reversed after its forces were decisively defeated in the Second Battle of the Marne and the Allies' Hundred Days Offensive. Following the armistice, Hindenburg stepped down as Chief of the Army General Staff before retiring again from the military in 1919.
In 1925, Hindenburg returned to public life to become the second elected president of the Weimar Republic. Opposed to Hitler and the Nazi Party, Hindenburg nonetheless played a major role in the instability that resulted in their rise to power. After twice dissolving the Reichstag in 1932, Hindenburg agreed in January 1933 to appoint Hitler as chancellor in coalition with the German National People's Party. In response to the February 1933 Reichstag fire, Hindenburg approved the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended various civil liberties. He likewise signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave the Nazi regime emergency powers. After Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler combined the presidency with the chancellery before declaring himself Führer of Germany and transforming the country into a totalitarian dictatorship.
Early life and education
Hindenburg was born in Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, the son of Prussian junker Hans Robert Ludwig von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg and his wife Luise Schwickart, the daughter of physician Karl Ludwig Schwickart and wife Julie Moennich. His paternal grandparents were Otto Ludwig Fady von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, through whom he was remotely descended from the illegitimate daughter of Count Heinrich VI of Waldeck, and his wife Eleonore von Brederfady. Hindenburg's younger brothers and sister were Otto, Ida and Bernhard. His family were all Lutheran Protestants in the Evangelical Church of Prussia, which since 1817 included both Calvinist and Lutheran parishioners.Hindenburg was proud of his family and could trace his ancestors back to 1289. The dual surname was adopted in 1789 to secure an inheritance and appeared in formal documents, but in everyday life, they were von Beneckendorffs. True to family tradition, his father supported his family as an infantry officer; he retired as a major. In the summer, they visited his grandfather at the Hindenburg estate of Neudeck in East Prussia. At age 11, Paul entered the Cadet Corps School at Wahlstatt. At 16, he was transferred to the School in Berlin, and, at 18, he served as a page to the widow of King Frederick William IV of Prussia. Graduates entering the army were presented to King William I, who asked for their father's name and rank. He became a second lieutenant in the Third Regiment of Foot Guards.
In the Prussian Army
Action in two wars
When the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 broke out, Hindenburg wrote to his parents: 'I rejoice in this bright-coloured future. For the soldier war is the normal state of thingsIf I fall, it is the most honorable and beautiful death.' During the decisive Battle of Königgrätz, he was briefly knocked unconscious by a bullet that pierced his helmet and creased the top of his skull. Quickly regaining his senses, he wrapped his head in a towel and resumed leading his detachment, winning a decoration. He was a battalion adjutant when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. After weeks of marching, the Guards attacked the village of Saint Privat. Climbing a gentle slope, they came under heavy fire from the superior French rifles. After four hours the Prussian artillery came up to blast the French lines while the infantry, filled with the "holy lust of battle", swept through the French lines. His regiment suffered 1096 casualties, and he became a regimental adjutant. The Guards were spectators at the Battle of Sedan and for the following months sat in the siege lines surrounding Paris. He was his regiment's elected representative at the Palace of Versailles when the German Empire was proclaimed on 18 January 1871; at 1.98m tall with a muscular frame and striking blue eyes, he was an impressive figure. After the French surrender, he watched from afar the suppression of the Paris Commune.General Staff
In 1873, he passed the highly competitive entrance examination for admission to the Kriegsakademie in Berlin. After three years of study, his grades were high enough for an appointment with the General Staff. He was promoted to captain in 1878 and assigned to the staff of the II Corps. He married the intelligent and accomplished Gertrud von Sperling, daughter of General Oskar von Sperling, in 1879. The couple would have two daughters, Irmengard Pauline and Annemaria, and one son, Oskar. Next, he commanded an infantry company, in which his men were ethnic Poles.He was transferred in 1885 to the General Staff and was promoted to major. His section was led by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, a student of encirclement battles like Cannae, whose Schlieffen Plan proposed to pocket the French Army. For five years Hindenburg also taught tactics at the Kriegsakademie. At the maneuvers of 1885, he met the future Kaiser Wilhelm II; they met again at the next year's war game in which Hindenburg commanded the "Russian army". He learned the topography of the lakes and sand barrens of East Prussia during the annual Great General Staff's ride in 1888. The following year, he moved to the War Ministry, to write the field service regulations on field-engineering and on the use of heavy artillery in field engagements; both were used during the First World War. He became a lieutenant colonel in 1891, and, two years later, was promoted to colonel, commanding an infantry regiment. He became chief of staff of the VIII Corps in 1896.
Field commands and retirement
Hindenburg became a major-general in 1897, and in 1900 he was promoted to lieutenant general and received command of the 28th Infantry Division. Five years later he was made commander of the IV Corps based in Magdeburg as a General of the Infantry. The annual maneuvers taught him how to maneuver a large force; in 1908 he defeated a corps commanded by the Kaiser. Schlieffen recommended him as Chief of the General Staff in 1909, but he lost out to Helmuth von Moltke. He retired in 1911 "to make way for younger men". He had been in the army for 46 years, including 14 years in General Staff positions. During his career, Hindenburg did not have political ambitions and remained a staunch monarchist.World War I
1914
Assumption of command in East Prussia
When WWI broke out, Hindenburg was living in retirement in Hannover. On 22 August, due to the purge of German command following Russian success in East Prussia, he was selected by the War Cabinet and the German Supreme Army Command to assume command of the German Eighth Army in East Prussia, with General Erich Ludendorff as his chief of staff. After the Eighth Army had been defeated by the Russian 1st Army at Gumbinnen, it had found itself in danger of encirclement as the Russian 2nd Army under General Alexander Samsonov advanced from the south towards the Vistula River. Momentarily panicked, Eighth Army commander Maximilian von Prittwitz notified OHL of his intent to withdraw his forces into Western Prussia. The Chief of the German General Staff, Generaloberst Helmuth von Moltke, responded by relieving Prittwitz and replacing him with Hindenburg.Tannenberg
Upon arriving at Marienburg on 23 August, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were met by members of the 8th Army's staff led by Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffmann, an expert on the Russian army. Hoffman informed them of his plans to shift part of the 8th Army south to attack the exposed left flank of the advancing Russian Second Army. Agreeing with Hoffman's strategy, Hindenburg authorized Ludendorff to transfer most of the 8th Army south while leaving only two cavalry brigades to face the Russian First Army in the north. In Hindenburg's words the line of soldiers defending Germany's border was "thin, but not weak", because the men were defending their homes. If pushed too hard by the Second Army, he believed they would cede ground only gradually as German reinforcements continued to mass on the invading Russians' flanks before ultimately encircling and annihilating them. On the eve of the ensuing battle, Hindenburg reportedly strolled close to the decaying walls of the fortress of the Knights of Prussia, recalling how the Knights of Prussia were defeated by the Slavs in 1410 at nearby Tannenberg.On the night of 25 August, Hindenburg told his staff, "Gentlemen, our preparations are so well in hand that we can sleep soundly tonight". On the day of the battle, Hindenburg reportedly watched from a hilltop as his forces' weak center gradually gave ground until the sudden roar of German guns to his right heralded the surprise attack on the Russians' flanks. Ultimately, the Battle of Tannenberg resulted in the destruction of the Russian 2nd Army, with 92,000 Russians captured together with four hundred guns, while German casualties numbered only 14,000. According to British field marshal Edmund Ironside it was the "greatest defeat suffered by any of the combatants during the war". Recognizing the victory's propaganda value, Hindenburg suggested naming the battle "Tannenberg" as a way of "avenging" the defeat inflicted on the Order of the Teutonic Knights by the Polish and Lithuanian knights in 1410, even though it was fought nowhere near the field of Tannenberg.
After this decisive victory, Hindenburg re-positioned the Eighth Army to face the Russian First Army. Hindenburg's tactics spurned head-on attacks all along the front in favor of schwerpunkte: sharp, localized hammer blows. Two schwerpunkte struck in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes. Two columns drove east from these breakthrough points to pocket the Russians led by General Paul von Rennenkampf, who managed to retreat with heavy losses. In the first six weeks of the war the Russians had lost more than 310,000 men. Eight hundred thousand refugees were able to return to their East Prussian homes, thanks to victories that strikingly contrasted with the bloody deadlock of the Western Front following the failure of the Schlieffen Plan.