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Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, known universally
as Paul von Hindenburg (listen (help·info)) (October 2, 1847 – August 2, 1934) was
a German field marshal and statesman.
Hindenburg enjoyed a long if undistinguished career in the Prussian army,
eventually retiring in 1913. He was recalled at the outbreak of the First World
War, and first came to national attention, at the age of sixty-six, as the victor
at Tannenberg in 1914. As Germany's supreme commander from 1916, he and his chief
of staff, Erich Ludendorff, rose in the German public's esteem until Hindenburg
came to eclipse the Kaiser himself. Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned
to public life one more time in 1925 to be elected as the second President of
Germany.
Though 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg was obliged to run for
re-election in 1932 as the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler, which he
did in a runoff. In his second term as President, he did what he could to oppose
the Nazi Party's rise to power, but was eventually obliged to appoint Hitler as
Chancellor in January 1933. In March he signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave
special powers to Hitler's government. Hindenburg died the next year, after which
Hitler declared the office of President vacant and made himself Head of State.
The famed zeppelin Hindenburg that was destroyed by fire in 1937 had been named in
his honour, as is the causeway joining the island of Sylt to mainland
Schleswig-Holstein, the Hindenburgdamm, built during his time in office.
 German
army
Hindenburg was born in Posen, Prussia (since 1919 Poznań,
Poland) on Podgorna street, the son of Prussian aristocrat Robert von
Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, and his wife, Luise Schwickart, the daughter
of a medical doctor, Karl Ludwig Schwickart, and his wife Julie Moennich.
Hindenburg was embarrassed by his mother’s non-aristocratic background, and
for this reason hardly mentioned her at all in his memoirs. His younger
brothers and sister were Otto, born in Aug 24 1849, Ida, born in Dec 19 1851,
and Bernhard, born in Jan 17 1859. His paternal grandparents were Eleonore von
Brederlow and her husband Otto Ludwig von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, by
whom he was still a remote descendant from the illegitimate daughter of
Heinrich VI, Count of Waldeck. He was also a descendant of Martin Luther.
After his education at the Wahlstatt (now Legnickie Pole) and Berlin cadet schools,
he fought in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War
(1870–1871). Hindenburg remained in the army, eventually being promoted to general
in 1903. Meanwhile, he married Gertrud von Sperling, also an aristocrat, by whom he
had an only daughter, Annemarie. He retired from the army for the first time in
1911, but was recalled on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 by the Chief of the
General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke. Hindenburg was given command of the Eighth Army,
then locked in combat with two Russian armies in East Prussia.
Hindenburg was victorious in the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of the
Masurian Lakes against the Russian armies. Although historians attach much of the
credit to the then little-known staff officer Max Hoffmann, these successes made
Hindenburg a national hero. In November 1914, he was promoted to the rank of field
marshal, and given the position of Supreme Commander East (Ober-Ost).
Hindenburg succeeded Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the General Staff in 1916,
although real power was exercised by his deputy, Erich Ludendorff. From 1916
onwards, Germany became an unofficial military dictatorship, often called the
"Silent dictatorship" by historians.
In September 1918, Ludendorff advised seeking an armistice with the Allies, but in
October, changed his mind and resigned in protest. Ludendorff had expected
Hindenburg to follow him by also resigning, but Hindenburg refused on the grounds
that in this hour of crisis, he could not desert the men under his command.
Ludendorff never forgave Hindenburg for this. Ludendorff was succeeded by Wilhelm
Groener, a staff officer who served as Hindenburg's assistant until 1932. In
November 1918, Hindenburg and Groener played a decisive role in persuading the
Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate for the greater good of Germany.
Hindenburg, who was a firm monarchist throughout his life, always regarded this
episode of his life with considerable embarrassment, and almost from the moment the
Kaiser abdicated, Hindenburg insisted that he had played no role in the abdication
and assigned all of the blame to Groener. Groener for his part loyally went along
with this in order to protect the reputation of his chief.
Aftermath of the
war
At the conclusion of the war Hindenburg retired a second time, and announced his
intention to retire from public life. In 1919, Hindenburg was called before a
Reichstag Commission that was investigating the responsibility for both the
outbreak of war in 1914 and for the defeat in 1918.
Hindenburg had not wanted to appear before the commission, and had been subpoenaed.
The appearance of Hindenburg before the commission was an eagerly waited public
event. Ludendorff, who had fallen out with Hindenburg over the decision to continue
seeking the armistice in October 1918, was concerned that Hindenburg might reveal
that it was he who had advised seeking an armistice in September 1918. Ludendorff
wrote a letter to Hindenburg, informing him that he was writing his memoirs and
threatened to expose that Hindenburg did not deserve the credit that he had
received for his victories. Ludendorff's letter went on to suggest that how
Hindenburg testified would determine how favorably Ludendorff would present
Hindenburg in his memoirs.
When Hindenburg did appear before the commission, he refused to answer any
questions about the responsibility for the German defeat, and instead read out a
prepared statement that had been reviewed in advance by Ludendorff's lawyer.
Hindenburg testified that the German Army had been on the verge of winning the war
in the fall of 1918, and that the defeat had been precipitated by a Dolchstoß
("stab in the back") by disloyal elements on the home front and by unpatriotic
politicians. Despite being threatened with a contempt citation for refusing to
respond to questions, Hindenburg simply walked out of the hearings after reading
his statement. Hindenburg's status as a war hero provided him with a political
shield and he was never prosecuted.
Hindenburg's testimony was the first use of the Dolchstoßlegende. The field marshal
credited an unnamed British general for first uttering the phrase, and the term was
adopted by nationalist and conservative politicians (including Adolf Hitler) who
sought to blame the socialist founders of the Weimar Republic for the loss of the
war.
Afterwards, Hindenburg had his memoirs entitled Mein Leben (My Life) ghost-written
in 1919-20. Mein Leben was a huge bestseller in Germany, but was dismissed by most
military historians and critics as a boring apologia that skipped over the most
controversial issues in Hindenburg's life. Afterwards, Hindenburg retired from most
public appearances and spent most of his time with his family. A widower,
Hindenburg was very close to his only son, Major Oskar von Hindenburg and his
granddaughters.
Presidency
1925 election
In 1925, Hindenburg had no interest in running for public office. In the first
round of the presidential elections held on 29 March 1925, no candidate had emerged
with a majority and a run-off election had been called. The Social Democratic
candidate, Prime Minister Otto Braun of Prussia, had agreed to drop out of the race
and had endorsed the Catholic Center Party's candidate, Wilhelm Marx. Since Karl
Jarres, the joint candidate of the two conservative parties, the German People's
Party (DVP) and German National People's Party (DNVP) was regarded as too dull, it
seemed likely that Marx would win. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, one of the leaders
of the DNVP, visited Hindenburg and urged him to run.
Hindenburg initially demurred, but under strong pressure from Tirpitz applied over
several meetings, broke down and agreed to run. Though Hindenburg ran during the
second round of the elections as a non-party independent, he was generally regarded
as the conservative candidate. Largely because of his status as Germany's greatest
war hero, Hindenburg won the election in the second round of voting held on 26
April 1925. He was aided by the support of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP), which
switched its support from Marx, and the refusal of the Communist Party of Germany
(KPD) to withdraw its candidate, Ernst Thälmann.
First
term
Hindenburg took office on 1925 May 12. For the first five years after taking
office, Hindenburg fulfilled his duties of office with dignity and decorum. For the
most part, Hindenburg refused to allow himself to be drawn into the maelstrom of
German politics in the period, and sought to play the role of a republican
equivalent of a constitutional monarch. Although often referred to as the
Ersatzkaiser (substitute Emperor), Hindenburg made no effort to restore the
monarchy and took his oath to the Weimar Constitution seriously.
In private, Hindenburg often complained that he missed the quiet of his retirement
and bemoaned that he had allowed himself to be pressured into running for
President. Hindenburg carped that politics was full of issues such as economics
that he did not, and did not want to, understand. He was surrounded, however, by a
coterie of advisers antipathetic to the Weimar constitution. These advisers
included his son, Oskar, Otto Meissner, General Wilhelm Groener, and General Kurt
von Schleicher. This group were known as the Kamarilla. The younger Hindenburg
served as his father's aide-de-camp and controlled politicians' access to the
President.
Schleicher was a close friend of Oskar and came to enjoy privileged access to
Hindenburg. It was he who came up with the idea of Presidential government based on
the so-called "25/48/53 formula". Under a "Presidential" government the head of
government (in this case, the chancellor), is responsible to the head of state, and
not a legislative body. The "25/48/53 formula" referred to the three articles of
the Constitution that could make a "Presidential government" possible:
Article 25 allowed the President to dissolve the Reichstag.
Article 48 allowed the President to sign into law emergency bills without the
consent of the Reichstag. However, the Reichstag could cancel any law passed by
Article 48 by a simple majority within sixty days of its passage.
Article 53 allowed the President to appoint the Chancellor.
Schleicher's idea was to have Hindenburg appoint a man of Schleicher's choosing as
chancellor, who would rule under the provisions of Article 48. If the Reichstag
should threaten to annul any laws so passed, Hindenburg could counter with the
threat of dissolution. Hindenburg was unenthusiastic about these plans, but was
pressured into going along with them by his son along with Meissner, Groener and
Schleicher.
Presidential
government
The first attempt to establish a "presidential government" had occurred in
1926–1927, but foundered for lack of political support. During the winter of
1929–1930, however, Schleicher had more success. After a series of secret meetings
attended by Meissner, Schleicher, and Heinrich Brüning, the parliamentary leader of
the Catholic Center Party (Zentrum), Schleicher and Meissner were able to persuade
Brüning to go along with the plan for "presidential government". How much Brüning
knew of Schleicher's ultimate plans to abolish democratic governance altogether is
unclear. Schleicher then set about making worse a bitter dispute within the "Grand
Coalition" government between the Social Democrats and the German People’s Party
over whether the unemployment insurance rate should be raised by a half a
percentage point or a full percentage point. The end result of these intrigues by
Schleicher was the fall of Müller’s government in March 1930 and Brüning being
named Chancellor by Hindenburg.
Brüning's first act as Chancellor was to introduce a budget calling for steep
spending cuts and sharp tax increases. When the budget was defeated in July 1930,
Brüning had Hindenburg sign the budget into law via Article 48. When the Reichstag
voted to cancel the budget, Brüning had Hindenburg dissolve Reichstag only two
years into its mandate, and had the budget passed again by Article 48. The
September 1930 elections saw the Nazis making an electoral breakthrough, going from
2% of the vote in 1928 to 17% in 1930. Also making striking, though not as dramatic
gains in the 1930 elections was the Communist Party of Germany.
After the 1930 elections, Brüning continued to govern largely through Article 48;
his government was kept afloat by the support of the Social Democrats who voted not
to cancel his Article 48 bills in order not to have another election that could
only benefit the Nazis and the Communists. Hindenburg for his part grew
increasingly annoyed at Brüning, complaining that he was growing tired of using
Article 48 all the time to pass bills. Hindenburg also found the detailed notes
that Brüning submitted explaining the economic necessity of each of his bills to be
incomprehensible. Brüning continued with his policies of raising taxes and cutting
spending in order to deal with the Great Depression; the only areas where
government spending rose was in the area of defense and in the subsidies for
Junkers in the so-called Osthilfe (Eastern Aid) program. Both of these spending
increases reflected Hindenburg's concerns.
In October 1931, Hindenburg and Hitler had their first meeting. The
Hindenburg-Hitler meeting was a disaster as both men took an immediate and immense
dislike to one another. In private, Hindenburg disparagingly referred to Hitler as
"that Austrian corporal", "the Bohemian corporal" and sometimes just simply as "the
corporal". Hitler in turn, often described Hindenburg as "that old fool" and "the
old reactionary". Right up until January 1933, Hindenburg often stated that he
would never appoint Hitler as Chancellor under any circumstances. On 26 January
1933, Hindenburg told a group of his friends: "Gentlemen, I hope you will not hold
me capable of appointing this Austrian corporal to be Reich Chancellor".
January 1932
- January 1933: A year of decisions
Although Hindenburg was now lapsing in and out of senility, he was persuaded to run
for re-election in 1932, as the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler.
Hindenburg had wanted to leave office in 1932, but was urged by the Kamarilla to
run again in order to keep Hitler out of office.
Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to stay in office, but wanted to avoid an election.
The only way this was possible was for the Reichstag to vote to cancel the election
with a two-thirds supermajority. Since the Nazis were the second-largest party,
their co-operation was vital if this was to be done.
Brüning met with Hitler in January 1932 to ask if he would agree to the President's
demand to forgo the election. Hitler stated he would only if Brüning would fulfill
a set of impossible demands.
Brüning rejected Hitler's demands as totally outrageous and unreasonable. By this
time, Schleicher had decided that Brüning had become an obstacle to his plans and
was already plotting Brüning's downfall. Schleicher convinced Hindenburg that the
reason why Hitler had rejected Brüning's offer was because Brüning had deliberately
sabotaged the talks to force the elderly president into a grueling re-election
battle.
During the election campaign of 1932, Brüning had campaigned hard for Hindenburg's
re-election. As Hindenburg was in bad health and a poor speaker anyhow, the task of
travelling the country and delivering speeches for Hindenburg had fallen upon
Brüning. Hindenburg’s campaign appearances usually consisted simply of appearing
before the crowd and waving to them without speaking.
In the first round of the election held in March 1932, Hindenburg emerged as the
frontrunner, but failed to gain a majority. In the runoff election of April 1932,
Hindenburg defeated Hitler for the Presidency.
After the presidential elections had ended, Schleicher held a series of secret
meetings with Hitler in May 1932, and thought that he had obtained a "gentleman's
agreement" in which Hitler had agreed to support the new "presidential government"
that Schleicher was building. At the same time, Schleicher, with Hindenburg's
complicit consent, had set about undermining Brüning's government.
The first blow occurred in May 1932, when Schleicher had Hindenburg sack Groener as
Defense Minister in a way that was designed to humiliate both Groener and Brüning.
On 31 May 1932, Hindenburg sacked Brüning as Chancellor and replaced him with the
man that Schleicher had suggested, Franz von Papen.
"The Government of Barons" as von Papen's government was known, openly had as its
objective the destruction of German democracy. Like Brüning's government, von
Papen's government was a "presidential government" that governed through the use of
Article 48.
Unlike Brüning, von Papen ingratiated himself to Hindenburg and his son through the
use of the most oleaginous flattery. Von Papen's easy charm and his sense of humour
made him Hindenburg's favorite Chancellor. Much to von Schleicher's annoyance, von
Papen quickly replaced him as Hindenburg's favorite advisor.
The French Ambassador André François-Poncet reported to his superiors in Paris that
"It's he who is the preferred one, the favorite of the Marshal; he diverts the old
man through his vivacity, his playfulness; he flatters him by showing him respect
and devotion; he beguiles him with his daring; he is in eyes the perfect
gentleman"".
In accordance with Schleicher's "gentleman's agreement", Hindenburg dissolved the
Reichstag and set new elections for July 1932. Schleicher and von Papen both
believed that the Nazis would win the majority of the seats and would support von
Papen's government. Hitler staged an electoral comeback, with his Nazi party
winning a solid plurality of seats in the Reichstag.
Following the Nazi electoral triumph in the Reichstag elections held on 31 July
1932, there were widespread expectations that Hitler would soon be appointed
Chancellor. Moreover, Hitler repudiated the "gentleman's agreement" and declared
that he wanted the Chancellorship for himself. In a meeting between Hindenburg and
Hitler held on 13 August 1932, in Berlin, Hindenburg firmly rejected Hitler's
demands for the Chancellorship.
The minutes of the meeting were kept by Otto Meißner, the Chief of the Presidential
Chancellery. According to the minutes:
"Herr Hitler declared that, for reasons which he had explained in detail to the
Reich President that morning, his taking any part in cooperation with the existing
government was out of the question. Considering the importance of the National
Socialist movement, he must demand the full and complete leadership of the
government and state for himself and his party.
The Reich President in reply said firmly that he must answer this demand with a
clear, unyielding No. He could not justify before God, before his conscience, or
before the Fatherland the transfer of the whole authority of government to a single
party, especially to a party that was biased against people who had different views
from their own. There were a number of other reasons against it, upon which he did
not wish to enlarge in detail, such as fear of increased unrest, the effect on
foreign countries, etc.
Herr Hitler repeated that any other solution was unacceptable to him.
To this the Reich President replied: "So you will go into opposition?"
Hitler: "I have now no alternative".
After refusing Hitler’s demands for the Chancellorship, Hindenburg had a press
release issued of his meeting with Hitler that implied that Hitler had demanded
absolute power and had his knuckles rapped by the President for making such a
demand. Hitler was enraged by this press release.
However, given Hitler’s determination to take power legally, Hindenburg’s refusal
to appoint him Chancellor was an impassable quandary for Hitler.
When the Reichstag convened in September 1932, its first and only act was to pass a
massive vote of no-confidence in von Papen’s government. In response, von Papen had
Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag for elections in November 1932.
The second Reichstag elections saw the Nazi vote drop from 37% to 32%, though the
Nazis once again remained the largest party in the Reichstag. After the November
elections, there ensued another round of fruitless talks between Hindenburg, von
Papen, von Schleicher on the one hand and Hitler and the other Nazi leaders on the
other.
The President and the Chancellor wanted Nazi support for the "Government of the
President's Friends"; at most they were prepared to offer Hitler the meaningless
office of Vice-Chancellor. On 24 November 1932, during the course of another
Hitler-Hindenburg meeting, Hindenburg stated his fears that " ... a presidential
cabinet led by Hitler would necessarily develop into a party dictatorship with all
its consequences for an extreme aggravation of the conflicts within the German
people".
Hitler for his part, remained adamant that Hindenburg give him the Chancellorship
and nothing else. These demands were incompatible and unacceptable to both sides
and the stalemate continued. To break the political stalemate, von Papen proposed
that Hindenburg declare martial law and do away with democracy via a presidential
putsch.
von Papen won over Oscar Hindenburg with this idea and the two persuaded Hindenburg
for once to forgo his oath to the Constitution and go along with this plan.
Schleicher, who had come to see von Papen as a threat, blocked the martial law move
by unveiling the results of a war games exercise that showed if martial law was
declared, the Nazi SA and the Communist Red Front Fighters would rise up, the Poles
would invade and the Reichswehr would be unable to cope.
Whether this was the honest result of a war games exercise or just a fabrication by
von Schleicher to force von Papen out of office is a matter of some historical
debate. The opinion of most leans towards the latter, for in January 1933 von
Schleicher would tell Hindenburg that new war games had shown the Reichswehr would
crush both the SA and Red Front Fighters and defend the eastern borders from a
Polish invasion.
The results of the war games forced von Papen to resign in December 1932 in favor
of von Schleicher. Hindenburg was most upset at losing his favorite Chancellor, and
suspecting that the war games were faked to force von Papen out, came to bear a
grudge against Schleicher.
Von Papen for his part, was determined to get back into office and on 4 January
1933, von Papen met with Hitler to discuss how they could bring down von
Schleicher’s government, though the talks were inconclusive largely because von
Papen and Hitler each coveted the Chancellorship for himself.
However, von Papen and Hitler agreed to keep talking. Ultimately, von Papen came to
believe that he could control Hitler from behind the scenes and decided to support
him for Chancellor. von Papen then persuaded Meissner and the younger Hindenburg of
the merits of his plan, and the three then spent the second half of January
pressuring Hindenburg into naming Hitler as Chancellor. Hindenburg was most loath
to consider Hitler as Chancellor and preferred that von Papen hold that office
instead.
However, the pressure from Meißner, von Papen and the younger Hindenburg was
relentless and by the end of January, the President had decided to appoint Hitler
Chancellor. On the morning of 30 January 1933, Hindenburg swore Hitler in as
Chancellor at the Presidential Palace.
The
Machtergreifung
Hindenburg played a supporting but key role in the Nazi Machtergreifung (Seizure of
Power) in 1933. In the "Government of National Concentration" headed by Hitler, the
Nazis were in the minority. Besides Hitler, the only other Nazi ministers were
Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick.
Most of the other ministers were hold-overs from the von Papen and von Schleicher
governments, and the ones who were not, such as Alfred Hugenberg of the D.N.V.P.,
were not Nazis.
This had the effect of assuring Hindenburg that the room for radical moves on the
part of the Nazis was limited. Moreover, Hindenburg's favorite politician, von
Papen, was the Vice-Chancellor and the Reich Commissioner for Prussia.
Hitler's first act as Chancellor was to ask Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag so
that the Nazis and D.N.V.P. could increase their number of seats and pass the
Enabling Act. Hindenburg agreed to this request.
In early February 1933, von Papen asked for and received an Article 48 bill signed
into law that sharply limited the freedom of press. After the Reichstag fire,
Hindenburg signed into law the Reichstag Fire Decree.
At the opening of the new Reichstag on 21 March 1933, at the Kroll Opera House, the
Nazis staged an elaborate ceremony, in which Hindenburg played the leading part,
that was meant to mark the continuity between the Prussian-German tradition and the
new Nazi state.
The ceremony at the Kroll Opera House had the effect of reassuring many Germans,
especially conservative Germans, that life would be fine under the new regime. On
23 March 1933, Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act into law.
Though Hindenburg was in increasingly bad health, the Nazis made sure that whenever
Hindenburg did appear in public it was in Hitler’s company. During these
appearances, Hitler always made a point of showing the utmost respect and reverence
for the President.
In private, Hitler continued to detest Hindenburg, and expressed the hope that "the
old reactionary" would die as soon as possible, so that Hitler could merge the
offices of Chancellor and President into one.
Hitler was always very conscious of the fact that the President was the Supreme
Commander-In-Chief of the German armed forces, and that given that Hindenburg was a
revered figure in the German Army, that if the President decided to sack Hitler as
Chancellor, there was little doubt that the Reichswehr would side with Hindenburg.
Thus, as long as Hindenburg lived, Hitler was always very careful to avoid
offending him.
The only time Hindenburg ever objected to a Nazi bill occurred in early April 1933.
The Reichstag had passed a Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil
Service that called for the immediate sacking of all Jewish civil servants at the
Reich, Land, and municipal levels.
Hindenburg refused to sign this bill into law until it had been amended to exclude
all Jewish veterans of World War I, Jewish civil servants who served in the civil
service during the war and those Jewish civil servants whose fathers were veterans.
Hitler, who believed that the Jews had actually sought to undermine Germany during
the Great War, amended the bill to meet Hindenburg’s objections.
Hindenburg remained in office until his death at the age of 86 from lung cancer at
his home in Neudeck, East Prussia on 2 August 1934 (exactly two months short of his
87th birthday).
One day before Hindenburg's death, Hitler flew to Neudeck and visited him.
Hindenburg, old and senile, thought he was meeting Kaiser Wilhelm II, and called
Hitler "Your Majesty".
He would be Germany's last president until 1945, when Karl Dönitz was appointed
president per Hitler's last testament upon the dictator's suicide, as following
Hindenburg's death, Hitler declared the office of President to be permanently
vacant, effectively merging it with the office of Chancellor under the title of
Leader and Chancellor (Führer und Reichskanzler), making himself Germany's Head of
State and Head of government, thereby completing the progress of
Gleichschaltung.
Weimar's Constitution implied that in case of a president's death or inability to
hold office, the chancellor would replace him until new presidential elections
could be held. Hitler, though, with the Enabling Act in force, never asked for
them.
Instead, Hitler had a plebiscite held on 19 August 1934, in which the German people
were asked if they approved of Hitler merging the two offices. The Ja (Yes) vote
amounted to 90% of the vote.
Hindenburg himself was said to be a monarchist who favored a restoration of the
German monarchy. Though he hoped one of the Prussian princes would be appointed to
succeed him as Head of State, he did not attempt to use his powers in favour of
such a restoration, as he considered himself bound by the oath he had sworn on the
Weimar Constitution.
It has been alleged that Hindenburg’s will asked for Hitler to restore the
monarchy. However, the truth of this story cannot be established as Oskar von
Hindenburg destroyed the portions of his father’s will relating to politics.
It has been argued that the political testament of Hindenburg’s will that was made
public in 1934, in which Hindenburg expresses the greatest thanks for Hitler was
forged by Oskar von Hindenburg as a way of ingratiating himself with Hitler.
Burial
Hindenburg was buried in the Tannenberg memorial near Tannenberg, East Prussia
(today: Stębark, Poland) against the wishes he had expressed during his life.
Hindenburg always said he wanted to be buried next to his beloved wife. In 1945,
German troops removed his and his wife's coffins, to save them from the approaching
Soviets, to Marburg an der Lahn in western Germany (Hindenburg was an Honorary
Citizen of this town). The caskets of Hindenburg and his wife were found in an
abandoned salt mine on 27 April 1945 by U.S. Army Ordnance troops. Later that
month, he and his wife were interred anew in the famous Elisabeth Church in the
North Tower Chapel.
He still rests there, although the church chapter recently voted to keep the lights
switched off at his tomb. Will Lang Jr., correspondent of Life, wrote an article (6
March, 1950) about how the United States Army Ordnance troops found the coffins.
His tombstone simply states "Paul von Hindenburg 1847-1934".
Evaluation
Although he was widely esteemed in his time, his biographers John Wheeler-Bennett
and Andreas Dorpalen have argued that beneath Hindenburg's façade of strength and
power was a weak-willed and not particularly intelligent man who, while
well-meaning, was highly dependent upon the advice of others to make decisions.
In Wheeler-Bennett's phrase, Hindenburg was the "Wooden Titan"; a man who looked
impressive on the outside but who was hollow and empty on the inside.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
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