Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hitler: Germany’s Generals and the Rise of the Nazis,Alexander Clifford

-About this book

They are two of twentieth-century history’s most significant figures, yet today they are largely forgotten – Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, Germany’s First World War leaders. Although defeat in 1918 brought an end to their ‘silent dictatorship’, both generals played a key role in the turbulent politics of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis.
Alexander Clifford, in this perceptive reassessment of their political careers, questions the popular image of these generals in the English-speaking world as honorable ‘Good Germans’. For they were intensely political men, whose ideas and actions shaped the new Germany and ultimately led to Hitler’s dictatorship.
Their poisonous wartime legacy was the infamous stab-in-the-back myth. According to the generals, the true cause of the disastrous defeat in the First World War was the betrayal of the army by politicians, leftists and Jews on the home front. This toxic conspiracy theory polluted Weimar politics and has been labeled the beginning of ‘the twisted road to Auschwitz’.
Hindenburg and Ludendorff’s political fortunes after the war were markedly different. Ludendorff inhabited the far-right fringes and engaged in plots, assassinations and conspiracies, playing a leading role in failed uprisings such as Hitler’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Meanwhile Hindenburg was a vastly more successful politician, winning two presidential elections and serving as head of state for nine years. Arguably he bore even more responsibility for the destruction of democracy, for he and the nationalist right he led sought, through Hitler, to remold the Weimar system towards authoritarianism.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii

List of Illustrations viii

Glossary xiii

Political Parties of Weimar Germany xv

Cast of Characters xx

Prologue The Double Act: The Emergence of Hindenburg and

Ludendorff xxii

Contrasting backgrounds xxiv

The Great War xxvi

The new Germany xxxiii

Chapter 1 The Stab in the Back: Hindenburg and Ludendorf as Liars-in-Chief 1

Origins 1

Ludendorff as architect: The excuses of a broken man 8

Hindenburg as cheerleader: The myth becomes

mainstream 14

Chapter 2 Conspirator: Ludendorf as Public Enemy Number One 28

Paramilitary politics 28

The Kapp Putsch 33

Munich – the far right’s playground 53

1923: Year of crisis 64

The Beer Hall Putsch 71

Chapter 3 Figureheads: Hindenburg and Ludendorff as Leadership Contenders 87

On trial 87

The struggle for control 97

The 1925 presidential election 106

Chapter 4 Constitutionalism and Conspiracy Theories: Hindenburg
Ascends, Ludendorff Fades 119
Hindenburg: Father of the nation 119
Ludendorff’s withdrawal 128
Hindenburg and the Grand Coalition 134
Chapter 5 The Hindenburg Republic: Hindenburg as the Arbiter of German Politics 143
Presidential government 143
The president looks to the right 154
The field marshal versus the lance corporal 164
A cabinet of ‘my friends’ 177
Hindenburg digs Weimar’s grave 196
Epilogue The One-Man Show: Hindenburg and Ludendorf in Eclipse 222
Hindenburg: Willing collaborator 222
Ludendorff’s final retreat 233
Hindenburg, Ludendorff and German history 238
Appendix I Elections in the Weimar Republic 242
Appendix II Governments of Hindenburg’s Presidency 245
Appendix III Hindenburg’s Cabinets 246
Notes 252
Further Reading and Bibliography 281
Index 285

-Caractéristiques

Date de parutioin:26 novembre 2021

Éditeur ‏ : ‎ Pen & Sword Military

Langue ‏ : ‎ Anglais

NB.de pages‏ : ‎ 368 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1526783339

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1526783332

Poids de l’article ‏ : ‎ 788