Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan

529 Pages·1967·54.325 MB·English

by  John W. Wheeler-Bennett (auth.)

HINDENBURG
THE WOODEN TITAN
By the same author
Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March 1918
Munich: Prologue to Tragedy
The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics, 1918-1945
King George VI: His Life and Reign
John Anderson: Viscount Waverley
A Wreath to Clio
E. Briber, Berlin
PRESIDENT VON HINDENBURG
HINDENBURG
THE WOODEN TITAN
JOHN W. WHEELER-BENNETT
Palgrave Macmillan
This book is copyright in all countries which
are signatorieB of the Berne Convention
~Preface and new Bibliographical Note: John W. Wheeler-Bennett 1967
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1967 978-0-333-04550-3
First published 1936
Reissued with Preface and new Bibliographical Note 1967
ISBN 978-0-333-08269-0 ISBN 978-1-349-15236-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15236-0
MACMILLAN AND COMPANY LIMITED
Little EsBex Street London WC2
also Bombay Calcutta Madras Melbourne
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED
70 Bond Street Toronto 2
ST MARTIN'S PRESS INC
176 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010
Library of CongreBB Catalog Card number:
67-15778
TO
GERALD PALMER
AND TO
HIS MOTHER
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
WITH GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION
CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE REISSUE ix
BmLIOGRAPHICAL NoTE TO THE REISSUE X'V
PART I: TANNENBERG AND PLESS 1
PART II: KREUZNACH AND SPA • 77
PART III: WEIMAR AND NEUDECK 225
INDEX 477
Vll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
President von Hindenburg frontispiece
Jollou·iny pn(Je 270
Hammering Nails into the Wooden Statue
Hindenburg with Wounded Men on his 70th birthday, October
2nd, 1917
The Wooden Statue in the Siegesallee, Berlin
Hindenburg at Spa, June 1918
Hindenburg walking with the Kaiser and Ludendorff at Spa,
April 1918
Hindenburg's Bomb-proof Dug-out at Spa
One of the Three-mark Pieces specially issued for the Tenth
Anniversary of the Weimar Constitution (August 11, 1929)
Loyal Support
PREFACE TO THE REISSUE
WHEN I wrote this book in 1936 the conditions then
prevailing in the Third Reich were such that in writing
of my personal sources of information I was only able
to say:
Out of regard for my many friends whose help has been
invaluable to me, and to whom my gratitude can never be
adequately expressed, I will only say that wherever possible I
have supplemented the written word by personal conversations
with the author, and with many whose memories and recol
lections have not yet been committed to paper.
Now, when the book is being reprinted thirty years
later, one can be more definite and explicit.
By reason of a series of circumstances with which I
need not bore the reader I was in an exceptionally
fortunate position to observe the decline and fall of the
Weimar Republic. I had among my friends and
acquaintances six Reich Chancellors-Stresemann,
Lutl.!Yr, Muller, Bruning, Papen and Schleicher-as well
as various members of their cabinets, and this con
nection gave me something of a ringside seat during my
frequent visits to Germany during this period, since all
of them spoke to me with considerable frankness. It was
however, to Heinrich Bruning and Gottfried Treviranus,
whose friendship I still cherish with sincere a.ffection,
that I owed most of my information concerning the
latter years of the Weimar period and the transition
from constitutional government to the Cabinet of
ix