Von Hindenburg

Hindenburg,Paul von

ACHIEVEMENT(S): Field marshal during World War I and second President of the Weimar Republic (1925-34).

NAME: von Beneckendorff und Hindenburg, Paul Ludwig Hans Anton

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: October 2, 1847, Posen, Prussia [now Poznan, Poland]

DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: August 2, 1934, Neudeck, Germany [now in Poland]); Aged 86

DISCIPLINE: Field marshal/Statesman

FIELD: Military/Politics

LANGUAGE: German

PARENTS: Major Robert von Hindenburg; Luise Schwikkart

SIBLINGS: Bernhard

SPOUSE: Gertrud Sperling

CHILDREN: None

EDUCATION: Wahlstadt Cadet Academy, Berlin

MAJOR WORK: "Out of My Life" (memoirs)

LIFE AND TIMES:

In 1873, after the Franco-Prussian War, Hindenburg was sent to the War Academy (Kriegsakademie) in Berlin, where he was an average student. He became a member of the general staff in 1877 and six years later became a military instructor at the War Academy.

After an honorable, though not especially distinguished, military career, Hindenburg retired in 1911, at age 64. With the outbreak of the First World War, he was called back into the army and made commander-in-chief of the Eighth Army, defending Prussia against the invading Russians.

His chief of staff was Ludendorff*, a master strategist. At Marienburg [Malbork] in East Prussia, Hindenburg approved a plan devised by Ludendorff and Colonel Max Hoffmann for a counterattack and encirclement of the Second Russian Army. Hindenburg and Ludendorff won the ensuing Battle of Tannenburg (August 25 to 31, 1914) against a much larger Russian force. The victory won Hindenburg worldwide acclaim.

In August, 1916, in view of the Allied onslaught on both the eastern and western fronts, Kaiser Wilhelm II made Hindenburg Chief of Staff and commander of all German armies, with Ludendorff his co-responsible chief aide. The virtual abdication of responsibility by the Kaiser and the Reichstag (parliament), left Hindenburg and Ludendorff effectively the military dictators of Germany.

Their appointments revived flagging national morale and they found much public support. They extended their domain, intervening in civil affairs, regulating labor, and mobilizing the rest of the economy for total warfare.

In the west, Hindenburg adopted a new strategy, consisting of a system of trenches across northern France. Until October, 1918, the system stemmed the Allied advance, but wware that he was not going to win the war on land, Hindenburg ordered submarine warfare in an attempt to starve Britain into surrender. This action, however, beginning in February, 1917, led not to England's collapse but to the entry of the United States into the war, and to Germany's ultimate defeat.

After the armistice on November 11, 1918, and the Treaty of Versailles in June, 1919, Hindenburg swore an oath of allegiance to the new republican government and for a brief period collaborated with it. He directed the withdrawal of German forces from France and Belgium and had his staff organize the suppression of left-radical risings in Germany. With both tasks accomplished, he retired once more.

In April, 1925, after the death of German President Friedrich Ebert, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for office by a coalition of nationalists and other conservative groups. Despite his professed belief in monarchism, he was elected the republic's second president. His powers were limited, and he stuck to the letter of the republican constitution.

In 1930, with the ruinous effects of the Depression and the ensuing breakup of the government, Hindenburg took measures to increase his power. Chancellor Heinrich Bruning dissolved an uncooperative Reichstag in July, 1930 and governed almost exclusively by decree. Since the president's signature was required on each decree, Hindenburg could veto any government decision.

Now in his 80s, increasingly feeble, moody, and influenced by his military and right-wing counselors, Hindenburg forced the spending of huge amounts on the army and navy at the expense of unemployment relief and other key needs. He also heavily taxed Prussian estates, which made him especially unpopular in Prussia. Unrest, sparked by the Nazis, began to grow.

When Hindenburg's term expired in April, 1932, he ran again for the presidency as the only person who could defeat the Nazi party candidate Hitler*. Hindenburg was re-elected, but mainly through the support of the Center Party and the Social Democrats. He had lost the support of his conservative/ nationalist friends, who now supported Hitler.

Those who did vote for Hindenburg saw him as a bulwark against Nazi lawlessness and brutality. But many of his advisers considered the Nazi party, though unpleasant, a useful group with whom they they could come to terms. They considered Chancellor Bruning, however, an obstacle, and persuaded Hindenburg to dismiss the man who had just helped to reelect him.

In May, 1932, Hindenburg attempted twice to form a government, once with Papen*, a former cavalry officer, as chancellor, and with von Schleicher. But Hitler, who demanded to be chancellor in any government in which his party participated, rejected both of Hindenburg's governments.

After the Reichstag elections of November, 1932, von Papen agreed to let Hitler be chancellor in a new government, with himself as vice-chancellor, assuring Hindenburg that Hitler could be easily controlled.

After Schleicher failed to obtain parliamentary support for his attempt to form a government, in January 1933 Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of a new Cabinet in which only two other Nazis, Wilhelm Frick and Goering*, held office. Von Papen's idea of a pliable Hitler proved disastrously wrong and Hitler (through a combination of political manipulation, propaganda, and campaigns of terror) soon gained complete control of the Reichstag, which voted him dictatorial powers in March, 1933.

Hindenburg became a supporter of Hitler, although he occasionally tried to set himself apart from Hitler and the Nazi Party. At his death at 86 in 1934, he was still a revered, though rather remote, national figure.

ASSESSMENT: He failed to control Hitler.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Foch*?

ONELINER: Von Hindenburg, German President outmaneuvered by Hitler

BIBLIOGRAPHY: EB

Encyclopedia of Military Biography

Wheeler-Bennett, John W., Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967