that Germany’s manpower resources were ex-
hausted and could no longer sustain such at-
trition. Furthermore, to Ludendorff’s com-
plete surprise, the first American contingents
had already arrived in France and fought the
last German advance to a standstill at
Chateau-Thierry on May 30, 1918. Over the
next two months the Allies, battered by Lu-
dendorff’s offensive but never broken,
steadily pressed back their tormentors. Lu-
dendorff, who never had much regard for
tanks, received an abject lesson in armored
warfare when a tank-led British assault upon
Amiens produced 30,000 prisoners—he sub-
sequently pronounced it the “black day of the
German army.” Worse, as greater and greater
numbers of American troops were marshaled
under the inspired leadership of Gen. John J.
Pershing, they conducted several capable of-
fensives on their own at St. Mihiel and Meuse-
Argonne. By October, it was clear that the war
was lost; Ludendorff advised the Kaiser to
make peace and abdicate. He then back-
tracked and unrealistically urged Germans to
fight to the finish, at which point Prince Max
von Baden, head of the provisional govern-
ment, demanded his resignation.
After the war, Ludendorff fled to Sweden,
where he composed his memoirs. He re-
turned to the shattered, postwar Germany to
partake of the growing right-wing political
movements springing up, and he also dabbled
in various Nordic religions. Having embraced
extreme racial and national ideology, the for-
mer general participated inAdolf Hitler’s
ill-fated Kapp Putsch in Berlin and was ar-
rested. Memory of his previous wartime ser-
vice spared Ludendorff from imprisonment,
and in May 1924 he gained election to the
Reichstag (parliament) as head of the new
National Socialist (Nazi) deputation. The fol-
lowing year Ludendorff humiliated himself
by running as the National Socialist candi-
date for the presidency, winning a scant 1
percent of the popular vote. He then broke
with Hitler, accusing him of cowardice and
incompetence, and continued his personal
war against Jews, Jesuits, and Freemasons.
Ludendorff died in Tutzing, Bavaria, on De-
cember 20, 1937. His bizarre embrace of radi-
cal politics notwithstanding, he was one of
the master spirits of World War I, a capable
strategist and a brilliant tactician. Had Russia
been knocked out of the war in 1916 as he en-
visioned, Germany might have decisively pre-
vailed in that conflict.Bibliography
Arnold, Bradley C. “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of
Victory: General Erich Ludendorff and Germany in
the Last Year of World War I.” Unpublished master’s
thesis, James Madison University, 2000; Asprey,
Robert B. German High Command at War: Hinden-
burg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I.New
York: William Morrow, 1991; Buckelew, John D. “Erich
Ludendorff and the German War Effort, 1916–1918: A
Study in the Military Exercise of Power.” Unpublished
master’s thesis, University of California, San Diego,
1974; Drury, Ian. Storm Trooper.Oxford: Osprey,
2000; Dupuy, Trevor N. The Military Lives of Hinden-
burg and Ludendorff.New York: Watts, 1970; Flem-
ing, Thomas. “Day of the Storm Trooper.” Military
History9, no. 3 (1992): 34–41; Greenwood, Paul. The
Second Battle of the Marne.Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife
Publications, 1998; Kitchen, Martin. The Silent Dicta-
torship: The Politics of the German High Command
under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916–1918.
New York: Holmes and Meier, 1976; Ludendorff,
Erich. Ludendorff’s Own Story, August 1917–No-
vember 1918.New York: Harper and Bros, 1919;
Parkinson, Roger. Tormented Warrior: Ludendorff
and the Supreme Command.New York: Stein and
Day, 1979; Samuels, Martin. Doctrine and Dogma:
German and British Infantry Tactics in the First
World War.New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.LUDENDORFF, ERICHVON