Paul von Hindenburg

Paul von Hindenburg, a German military leader and later president, was born on 2 October 1847 and died on 2 August 1934. He commanded the Imperial German Army in World War I and served as Germany’s president from 1925 until his death. Although he personally opposed Nazism, he enabled its rise by appointing Adolf Hitler chancellor in 1933.

Hindenburg came from minor Prussian nobility in the Grand Duchy of Posen. After cadet training, he joined the Third Regiment of Foot Guards and fought in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. In 1873, he entered the Prussian War College in Berlin, then joined the General Staff Corps. Promoted to major in 1885, he served on the German General Staff, taught at the War Academy, and reached lieutenant general by 1900. He retired from the military in 1911.

Recalled after World War I began in July 1914, Hindenburg gained fame for his victory at the Battle of Tannenberg on the Eastern Front. Made a field marshal on 1 November 1914, he became commander of all German forces in the East. His successes against Russia turned him into a national hero with a large personality cult. By 1916, his popularity led him to replace Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the Great General Staff, effectively commander-in-chief. With his deputy Erich Ludendorff, he used the Kaiser’s broad delegation of authority to create a de facto military dictatorship. Under them, Germany defeated Russia on the Eastern Front and made the largest Western Front advance since the war’s start, but lost after the Second Battle of the Marne and the Allies’ Hundred Days Offensive. After the armistice, Hindenburg stepped down as Chief of the Army General Staff and retired again in 1919.

Returning to public life in 1925, Hindenburg became the Weimar Republic’s second elected president. Despite opposing Hitler and the Nazis, he contributed to political instability. After dissolving the Reichstag twice in 1932, he reluctantly appointed Hitler chancellor in January 1933, in coalition with the German National People’s Party. Following the Reichstag fire in February 1933, Hindenburg approved the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties, and signed the Enabling Act of 1933, granting the Nazi regime emergency powers. After Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler merged the presidency with the chancellery and declared himself Führer, turning Germany into a totalitarian dictatorship.

Hindenburg was born in Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, to Prussian junker Hans Robert Ludwig von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg and his wife Luise Schwickart, daughter of physician Karl Ludwig Schwickart and Julie Moennich. His paternal grandparents were Otto Ludwig Fady von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, a descendant of Count Heinrich VI of Waldeck’s illegitimate daughter, and Eleonore von Brederfady. He had siblings Otto, Ida, and Bernhard. The family were Lutheran Protestants in the Evangelical Church of Prussia. At age 11, he entered the Cadet Corps School at Wahlstatt; at 16, he moved to a Berlin school; at 18, he served as a page to the widow of King Frederick William IV of Prussia. Graduates were presented to King William I, who asked for their father’s name and rank. Hindenburg became a second lieutenant in the Third Regiment of Foot Guards.

During the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Hindenburg wrote to his parents that war was the soldier’s normal state and that falling in battle was an honorable death. At the Battle of Königgrätz, a bullet pierced his helmet and creased his skull, knocking him unconscious; he woke, wrapped his head in a towel, resumed command, and was decorated. In the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), he served as a battalion adjutant. At Saint Privat, his regiment suffered 1,096 casualties under heavy French rifle fire before Prussian artillery broke the lines; he became a regimental adjutant.

The Guards witnessed the Battle of Sedan and then besieged Paris. At 1.98 meters tall with a muscular frame and blue eyes, he was the regiment’s elected representative at Versailles when the German Empire was proclaimed on 18 January 1871. After the French surrender, he observed the suppression of the Paris Commune from a distance.

In 1873, Hindenburg passed the entrance exam for the Kriegsakademie in Berlin. After three years, his grades earned him a General Staff appointment. Promoted to captain in 1878, he was assigned to the II Corps staff. He married Gertrud.