denburg to keep the forces he had, Falkenhayn stripped
him of divisions and moved them to the west. Falken-
hayn’s offensive at Verdun in 1916 was a dismal failure,
and Romania declared war on Germany and Austria.
Due to the German losses at Verdun, Kaiser Wilhelm
removed Falkenhayn as chief of the German General
Staff on 27 August 1916 and named Hindenburg as his
replacement. Hindenburg thereupon appointed Luden-
dorff as first quartermaster general and German army
chief of staff. Although some historians claim that Hin-
denburg improved the German army and raised morale,
others point out that his reinstitution of unrestricted
submarine warfare against neutral shipping in February
1917 brought about the enmity of the United States and
the entry of American forces into the war on the Allied
side that year.
The Russian Revolution in February 1917, the role
of the Germans (particularly Ludendorff ) in getting
Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin through East-
ern Europe into Russia (April 1917), and the Lenin-led
overthrow of the government by Bolshevik forces that
November resulted in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3
March 1918 and the removal of Russia from the war.
Though Hindenburg was able to move forces in the
east to support the western front however, by the time
these troops arrived, American troops had joined the Al-
lied armies, giving the Allies stimulus to fight harder.
In March 1918, Hindenburg attempted to end the war
once and for all with an offensive against the British
sector. But the American support of British defenses
and a counteroffensive by French marshal Ferdinand
foch led to extensive German losses. On 8 August,
which Hindenburg later called “the black day of the
German army,” the British attacked German forces near
Amiens, forcing them to flee and leading to the capture
of thousands of German soldiers. By September, Hin-
denburg and Ludendorff had realized that the end was
near, and they made this clear to the kaiser. Appealing
to U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, Hindenburg asked
for peace terms, but, angered at the response (which
included the kaiser’s abdication), he ordered all of his
forces to fight to the end. Ludendorff resigned and was
replaced by General Wilhelm Groener. On 9 Novem-
ber, Kaiser Wilhelm went into exile in Holland, and two
days later the war ended. Defeated, Hindenburg retired
to his home in Hanover.
In retirement, Hindenburg wrote his memoirs,
published as Out of My Life (1920), in which he alleged
that the German army had not been beaten on the field
of battle but had been “betrayed” by unknown forces
in Germany. Historians believe that his accusations
led Adolf Hitler to blame the Jews of Germany as the
“betrayers.”
When German president Friedrich Ebert died in
February 1925, German nationalists convinced Hin-
denburg to run for the German presidency. He was
elected over the Socialist candidate Wilhelm Marx and
served as president of Germany during its period of hy-
perinflation and Weimar politics. Historian Timothy
Lupfer writes: “He entered politics from a genuine sense
of patriotic duty, but his lack of political experience and
his old age did not serve him well in the treacherous po-
litical climate of Germany during the interwar years.”
By the late 1920s, Hindenburg was overshadowed by
the growing presence of the National Socialist Workers’
politician Adolf Hitler, whose putsch, or rebellion, in
Munich in 1923 had brought him to national promi-
nence. In 1933, in an attempt to capitalize on Hitler’s
popularity, Hindenburg named him chancellor of Ger-
many, a move he did not live to regret. Hindenburg
died on 2 August 1934 at age 86 and was laid to rest as
a national hero. Within five years, Germany would be
at war again.
In Paul von Hindenburg’s lifetime, the way of fight-
ing wars changed from cavalry on horses to trench war-
fare and airplanes. His impact on the First World War is
incalculable. Historians still argue over what might have
happened if he had not been frustrated by Falkenhayn
and had been given a freer hand to fight Germany’s bat-
tles in 1914 and 1915.References: Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John, Hindenburg:
The Wooden Titan (London: Macmillan, 1967); Lupfer,
Timothy T., “Hindenburg, Paul von,” in Brassey’s Encyclo-
pedia of Military History and Biography, edited by Frank-
lin D. Margiotta (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994),
427–431; Hindenburg, Gert von, Hindenburg, 1847–
1934: Soldier and Statesman, translated by Gerald Grif-
fin (London: Hutchinson, 1935); Asprey, Robert B., The
German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Luden-
dorff Conduct World War I (New York: William Morrow,
1991); Kitchen, Martin, The Silent Dictatorship: The Poli-
tics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and
Ludendorff, 1916–1918 (London: Croom Helm, 1976);
Dorpalen, Andreas, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964).hinDenbuRg, pAul luDwig hAnS von beneckenDoRF unD von