Erich Ludendorff - Soldier, Dictator, Revolutionary Documentary

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the man known to history as eric ludendorff was born on the 9th of april 1865 in the then eastern prussian village of krusenia in modern day poland his mother clara was of noble polish descent and his father auguste ludendorff was a member of the prussian yunka or nobility who historically formed the backbone of the prussian civil service and officer classes [Music] eric was one of six children who together grew up on the family's farm where they were given a basic education by their mother and her extended family in school eric out shone all around him but his academic brilliance was in large part due to him being a loner as he would refuse to play with his classmates through fear they would dirty his shoes instead preferring to study or read however his superb academic performance eventually paid dividends as he was after leaving school accepted into a prestigious military academy in northern germany and again consistently outshone his fellow students as his education progressed indeed eric according to accounts was a strange character and seems to have been a workaholic with few if any friends and would often isolate himself from his colleagues and family members much preferring to work alone in many ways this insular character would prove to be one of his greatest strengths and weaknesses over the coming years as he had an immense capacity for work but on the other hand would seldom listen to advice from his colleagues and his lack of openness would eventually have a detrimental effect on his health he then graduated as a junior officer in 1885 and was steadily promoted over the coming years until he was recommended to the general staff of the german army in 1894 and was later in 1904 promoted to the great general staff in berlin it was during this period that eric fell for a married woman named margaretta schmidt whom he had met during a rainstorm and offered his umbrella the two soon fell for one another resulting in margareta divorcing her husband and marrying eric instead in 1910 she already had three sons and one daughter from her first marriage to whom eric became a devoted stepfather and their respective families soon accepted their union due to his evident affection for them by 1906 eric was a senior officer in the german general staff which was headed by one of the most important military figures at the turn of the century alfred von schlieffen whose strategic planning in the decades before world war one would shape the early stages of the conflict schlieffen is famous today in military circles due to his grand strategy for a possible war with france and russia which is known as the schlieffen plan the details of this plan were essentially to knock france out of the war quickly by delivering a massive knockout blow in the shape of a large-scale advance through belgium and holland which would then surround paris from the north and then attack the french armies in the rear who hopefully would still be pinned down by diversionary attacks in eastern france germany then hoped to turn all of its might against the russians who it was assumed would only be able to mobilize their army slowly due to the long distances they would have to travel and relatively primitive russian rail and road networks the reason for this plan being formed in the first place was that tension had been festering for some 30 years between france and germany since the franco-prussian war in which the germans had crushed the french in a matter of weeks and occupied the border regions of eastern france germany's potential enemies were then added to when it formed a secret alliance with austria against russia in 1879 it was then later joined by italy in 1882 france and russia responded to this by entering their own alliance in 1891 and germany's growing naval might in the early years of the 20th century prompted great britain to join them this meant that by 1910 the central powers of germany austro-hungary and italy were surrounded meaning that if war broke out they would potentially have to fight simultaneously against russia france and britain it was for this reason the schlieffen plan was formed as it became evidently clear that germany and its allies would have to smash either the french or the russians quickly in order to concentrate their forces on as few fighting fronts as possible these alliances effectively banned the major powers of europe together and all that was now needed to light the fire of a massive european war was a spark that spark then came about on the 28th of june 1914 when the heir to the austrian throne archduke franz ferdinand was assassinated in the bosnian capital of sarajevo his assassin a 19 year old bosnian serb named gavrilo princip was a member of a small revolutionary organization called young bosnia which was determined to end austrian rule of the country however the young bosnian group had allegedly been funded and armed by the black hand who were a group of serbian army officers determined to unite the south slavic people in the region austria then blamed the kingdom of serbia for the assassination of franz ferdinand and prepared to declare war and invade the country in revenge for the attack then on the 23rd of july 1914 austria delivered an ultimatum to the royal serbian government and gave them 48 hours to respond the serbian regent alexander then appealed to the tsar nicholas ii of russia the very next day in which he begged for him to intervene against the mounting austrian aggression the reason for this was that the russian empire was seen as the protector of the islamic peoples throughout eastern europe and had supported the emerging kingdoms in the region such as serbia against their mutual rivals but austria was determined to invade serbia regardless of any possible russian intervention and then declared war anyway on the 28th of july 1914 starting world war one tsar nicholas of russia in support of the serbs then mobilized his armies on the austrian frontier over the following days which sparked a chain reaction of mobilization across the continent until within a matter of weeks the central powers of germany and austria were at war against france russia and britain ludendorff in his position as colonel and the german general staff in the lead-up to the war have been responsible for the distribution of orders of the schlieffen plan in the various units of the german army and had even visited fortresses such as liege in belgium to report on the state of the country's defenses but the implementation of the planned invasion of belgium had been hampered in 1912 when the centre-left social democratic party of germany won a majority in the reichstag and refused to sanction more spending of defence ludendorff who was by now renowned for his meticulous planning had calculated that more infantry divisions were needed to carry out the schlieffen plan and took the controversial step of lobbying the german parliament for an increase in the size of the army his efforts were then rewarded as military spending was increased but his meddling cost him his position in the general staff and he was subsequently effectively demoted to command the 39th fusiliers in the lead-up to the war he was then appointed to the deputy chief of staff to the german second army after the start of the war which was tasked with advancing through belgium via liege and then on into northern france lundov's appointment was in large part due to his previous visit to liege and its defenses so that when the german assault on the city started in august of 1914 he was on hand as an observer but during the initial finding the commander of the 14th brigade was killed so ludendorff stepped in and oversaw the successful capture of the city [Music] in one famous incident eric even walked alone up to the city's citadel which was offering particularly stubborn resistance knocked on the gates and politely demanded the surrender of its defenders they agreed and shortly afterwards all the forts in liege fell to the germans meaning they could now advance west towards the french border ludendorff was hailed as a hero after the capture of the city and was on the 22nd of august given germany's highest honor for bravery the poor le merit by kaiser wilhelm however the jubilation was soon cut short by the news that russia had mobilized its army sooner than expected and invaded eastern prussia the schlieffen plan had only allocated a single army the eighth to defend germany's eastern frontier as it assumed the russian armies would only be able to mobilize slowly therefore the news that the tsar's armies had mobilized in strength and were advancing into germany's eastern territories was potentially disastrous to say the least it was now clear by this time that ludendorff was extremely capable organizer and strategist and also that he was wasted in the field therefore the german high command appointed him as chief of staff of the eighth army under a formerly retired general named paul von hindenburg the two men first met on the train that was to carry them east and the german railway network was cleared of all obstacles to allow them to travel as speedily as possible hindenburg although in his 60s was chosen to command the eighth army not only due to his experience but because he radiated calmness and composure which was in short supply in the east as the army's former commanders had panicked in the face of the russian onslaught which had nearly resulted in a full-scale route no one could have imagined however how successful this new double act would prove to be over the coming weeks and months as the cool calm authority of hindenburg was complemented perfectly by ludendorff's workaholic nature a meticulous eye for detail the two men then arrived at the eighth army headquarters and quickly set about putting things in order to steady the front despite the germans being heavily outnumbered ludendorff then after familiarizing himself with the military situation noticed that the two russian armies that were invading eastern prussia had become separated and saw an opportunity to potentially crush one and then turn on the other in the resulting battle named tannenberg ludendor's plan proved to be an amazing success and within four days an entire russian second army had been surrounded and annihilated prompting its commander alexander samsonov to walk into a wood and shoot himself hindenburg was hailed as a hero after the victory even though the plan to attack had been ludendorff's but the triumph of tannenberg was a priceless propaganda coup for the germans who were now starting to get bogged down on the western front indeed even though the schlieffen plan had stipulated that the western allies should be attacked before the tsar's armies ludendorff's success over the next two years partly resulted in the eastern front eventually collapsing first [Music] from 1914 to 1916 the two men inflicted numerous defeats on the russians such as the two battles of the masurian lakes and the galitsitano of offensive but their progress was hampered by the relatively small number of troops that they were assigned and also by the constant failures and reversals of their austro-hungarian allies in the south it was now abundantly clear by 1915 that the schlieffen plan had effectively failed largely because its number one requirement had from the get-go bin speed and success was dependent on the germans penetrating the french and british lines and then outflanking them but the fatal flaw in this was that in the first two decades of the 20th century motor transport was still in its infancy meaning that in most cases the fastest way to travel from a to b was by horse or train despite this most of the german army would still have to march on foot when going through enemy territory therefore the german plan of a lightning attack was certainly optimistic to say the least another factor was that the first world war was also in many ways a conflict in which old technologies and tactics were met and superseded by new ones after all warfare for the past 200 years had largely involved two armies forming up in lines and advancing slowly towards one another and then trying to shoot each other into the dirt but the advent of machine guns now meant that one soldier had the firepower of a thousand riflemen and could mow down hundreds if not thousands of enemy troops in minutes heavy artillery was also now one of the dominant weapons of the age and the germans in particular led the way in designing and producing thousands of heavy caliber guns that could hurl shells for dozens of miles onto enemy positions this massive increase in firepower essentially made the time-honored tactics of thousands of men standing in fields redundant which was at the start of world war one at least not realized by many commanders indeed it had previously been customary for cavalry to be used in battles to outflank an enemy's infantry formations but the advent of machine guns effectively now made war horses obsolete all of these factors then culminated in 1915 in the infantry of both sides having to take cover in dugouts or trenches to give them some hope of survival against the hail of machine gun bullets and shells which now dominated the battlefield this firepower coupled with both sides inability to outflank the other then resulted in opposing armies constructing mirrored networks of trenches which quickly spread from the swiss border in the south to the english channel in the north this network of hundreds of miles of opposing trenches was completely unexpected and had never happened before in the entire history of warfare at least on this scale which now meant that the commanders on both sides were confronted with an unprecedented enemy defense network consisting of millions of mines hundreds of thousands of miles of barbed wire tens of thousands of machine gun nests and the ever-present threat of artillery bombardment it should also be remembered that the military commanders on both sides were now under constant pressure to defeat the enemy from their military and civilian superiors but as they had no experience of an entrenched war on this massive scale would often simply resort to sending tens of thousands of troops against the enemy defenses in the desperate hope of claiming victories indeed we often today have a negative view of the strategies and tactics used in the early stages of the trench warfare on the western front but it should be remembered that the military situation in 1915 was unprecedented meaning that a process of trial and error was inevitable in trying to find a way to break through the deadlock which sadly resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides these large-scale infantry offensives against entrenched enemy positions would become a regular pattern in the middle to late period of the war the most famous of which occurred in 1916 when the chief of the german general staff eric von falkenheim devised a plan to attack the french in a massive assault against the fortress city of verdun in eastern france the coming battle named verdun would last from february to december 1916 and was the largest and longest battle of the entire first world war for the assault the germans amassed some 50 divisions along with 1 200 of their dreaded heavy howitzers and attacked the french defenses in the central to southern section of the western front around verdun initially all seemed to go according to plan but the french knowing full well that a german victory could end the war through everything they had to the front's defenses resulting in a months-long slugging match and unprecedented carnage on both sides indeed the german intention in attacking the french have been to bleed the country's manpower white but in reality the german losses were just as heavy as their enemies then to relieve the pressure the french appealed to the british who were holding the northern section of the allied line to launch a combined offensive in order to relieve the strain in the south they agreed the result of which was the battle of the somme meaning that by the end of the year the allies had pushed the germans back by a mere matter of miles and lost hundreds of thousands of men dead wounded and captured in the process however by the end of 1916 the front had been stabilized for the allies and the germans had lost well over a million men in 11 months with little or no change in the situation leading to falconhein then being sacked by kaiser wilhelm who replaced him with the heroes of the eastern front paul von hindenburg as chief of staff and ludendorff as the first quartermaster general under him both men have been fierce critics of falcon hines failures over the preceding months and were now tasked with trying to win the war for germany but for its limited manpower and resources were worn down it is also important to remember that although germany had a parliament in the reichstag during world war one it was not nearly as powerful as its british equivalent instead the real power in the country lay in the hands of the kaiser but as the war progressed the german high command and the military gradually took control over virtually every aspect of government until by the later stages of the conflict it was effectively a military dictatorship with lundov at his head in all but name the kaiser did have reservations about appointing the two men and disliked ludendorff thinking him to be nothing more than a glorified sergeant major but given the massive german losses in 1916 and his armed forces failure to bring about a decisive victory wilhelm's authority as monarch was rapidly weakening meaning that he had to act and hope that the double act of hindenburg and ludendorff could rectify their desperate situation this essentially meant that ludendorff was now the most powerful man in germany as hindenburg was far less hands-on than his colleague meaning that the burden of leading the german nation to victory was now firmly on his shoulders as he was the strategic brain and logistical mastermind behind their partnership [Music] one of ludendorff and hindenburg's first decisions in 1917 was to ramp up german u-boat operations in the north atlantic and in the seas surrounding britain in the hope of strangling its supply lines from around the world hindenburg had even advised the kaiser that in his words the war must be brought to an end by whatever means as soon as possible as there was after all no breakthrough in sight on the western front therefore attacking allied shipping was seen as a possible solution this unrestricted submarine warfare proved to be at first a great success as between february and june of 1917 three million tons of allied shipping was sunk with a loss of only nine new boats this resulted in near crisis in britain as the country had only six weeks of supplies left in the spring of 1917 and if things got any worse the country would potentially be forced to sue for peace sinking huge amounts of transatlantic shipping inevitably meant that merchant vessels of neutral countries especially american ships were often sent to the bottom of the ocean indeed there had been numerous incidents involving american shipping and civilians in the early stages of the war the most notable of which being the sinking of the rms lusitania in may of 1915 in which some 1 200 civilians including americans were killed this sinking amongst many others combined with the escalation of german u-boat operations in 1917 eventually resulted in the president of the united states woodrow wilson severing all diplomatic ties with germany culminating in the us congress voting to declare war this was another body blow for the germans as now the world's richest country and largest economy had joined the allies meaning that its enemies would now have millions of tons of fresh supplies and war materials to sustain them not to mention the massive manpower the united states would inevitably bring to bear the german high command could and possibly should have attempted to enter peace negotiations at this time but ludendorff was determined to carry on fighting stating that if the war was ended without germany making territorial gains the allies would be victorious in essence ludendorff was determined to only enter into peace negotiations from a position of strength which now meant that germany would once again have to try and defeat the british and the french on the western front as soon as possible it could also be argued that ludendorff's determination to carry on the struggle was based on the correct calculation that it would take time for the americans to enter the fray but perhaps the most important and encouraging event from the german perspective was that in the east the russian empire was now on the brink of collapse and revolution this was due to the country's economy being gradually worn down since the start of the war and there was now widespread unrest in the civilian population and the army which finally bawled over into a full-scale revolution in february 1917 and tsar nicholas himself was then deposed one month later this revolution was then overturned itself in october of 1917 when the bolsheviks under vladimir lenin seized power and then entered into peace negotiations with germany which concluded in march of 1918 this then in turn freed up hundreds of thousands of german troops for the western front and high command and started preparations to hurl them at the western allies the argument could be made that this surge in manpower could have been used to possibly secure a peace agreement from the allies but the decision was taken to instead gamble germany's last reserves of troops in the hope of defeating the allies conclusively ludendorff who was the main instigator of the forthcoming attack oversaw the plans of the onslaught but was not content to simply send his fresh troops into battle and took the opportunity to overhaul his forces by creating new elite assault divisions comprised of stormtroopers who were armed with weapons such as flamethrowers and light machine guns these troops would spearhead the german attack and would then be followed by the main body of the german infantry who would consolidate and hold its territorial gains in case of allied counter-attacks ludendorff oversaw practically every aspect of the coming offensive in the hope of reducing the chances of its failure but the pressure that was now on him was immense as the failure of this offensive would surely spell doom for germany's hopes of winning the war ludendorff's plan which was named kaiserschlag or the kaiser's battle was to drive a wedge between the british and french armies in northern france and then advanced towards the channel ports to cut off the british supply lines and push them into the sea the attack then came on the 21st of march 1918 on a hundred mile front in northern france between the area around the river some in the north to the city of reims in the south ludendorff who had seldom ventured outside his headquarters during the fighting had little or no conception of the conditions his troops were having to endure and at one point stated that the nature of war was to consume men in essence he was the epitome of a staff officer more used to maps dispatches and meetings than front line command and lived throughout the war in relatively luxurious surroundings indeed throughout his entire career he had settled and bothered to interest himself in the day-to-day lives of those under him and much preferred to spend endless hours working at his headquarters only taking breaks to eat or sleep in march 1918 ludendorff left the luxury of his headquarters and was driven through the devastation of the old song battlefield to a roadside where he was met by several german soldiers they then led him to two graves marked with the customary makeshift crosses upon one of which read the words here lies two german flying officers the covering from one of the bodies was then pulled away revealing the heavily decomposed face of one of ludendorff's beloved stepsons eric he had already lost another of his stepsons a year before but being confronted with the stark reality of war in all its maggot ridden putrid detail seemingly had a massive effect on ludendorff and he stood over the corpse doing his best not to sob but in the distance the crack of shellfire was a constant reminder that his massive offensive was in full swing but perhaps now he had realized at least subconsciously that the decisions he had made in the comfortable surroundings of his headquarters often resulted in the untimely deaths of hundreds of thousands of young men whose bodies would often end up rotting in french fields meanwhile far away to the west on the 26th of march a panicred meeting the allied commanders decided to make a last stand in the hope of halting the german advance it was now literally do or die for both sides as the following confrontations up and down the line would in effect decide the outcome of the entire war however as each day passed the progress of the kaiser's armies became less and less as the further they went westwards the longer their supply lines and the greater their casualties became all this combined soon resulted by july 1918 in the german attack simply fizzling out meaning that ludendorff had lost nearly three-quarters of a million german troops who were killed wounded or captured in return for another strategic failure the allies in turn now bolstered by fresh american divisions counter-attacked in august of 1918 and steadily reversed all the german gains that had been won at such a high cost only months before during these months the gravity of the situation began to dawn on the german high command but lundorf still refused to accept defeat not wanting to contemplate what may lay ahead however discontent was now also on the rise in germany itself as food prices were now sky high because of the failed harvests and the allied trade blockade german troops were also starting to retreat or surrender in their droves and after hearing the reports of mass surrenders ludendorff began to accept that the german war machine was all but spent he would also spend hours brooding at the graveside of his stepson eric who he had been unable to send home to his wife and was clearly showing signs of mental illness concerned by their commander's behavior his staff then called a psychiatrist who advised ludendorff to rest which the shattered general agreed to resulting in him spending a month away on leave he then returned to headquarters refreshed at least to start with but was soon thrown back into the deep end by the news of the relentless allied advances on the 28th of september 1918 the news came that one of germany's last remaining allies bulgaria had sued for peace and summer khan stated that after hearing this news lundo fell to the floor and had a fit whatever the truth he was now in no fit state to continue in his position and the following day both he and hindenburg informed the kaiser that an armistice should be concluded as soon as possible he then despite being a confirmed autocrat advised the kaiser that a civilian government should take control of germany in the hope of obtaining more favorable peace terms on the surface this seemed like an innocent idea but in the coming years ludendorff would in part blame germany's left-leaning politicians for the country's defeat in an effort to divert the blame for germany's demise away from himself a civilian government was then duly formed under the liberal prince maximilian bombarden and ludendorff despite resistance from the new administration continually demanded that a request for peace talks be sent to the american president woodrow wilson as soon as possible he had hoped that the americans would be more lenient with germany but wilson saw prussian militarism as the cause of the war and the greatest threat to any future peace going forward he therefore demanded a total withdrawal of all german forces from occupied territories and further demanded that the kaiser and his generals surrender power ludendorff was appalled and rejected this and then instead lobbied for the fighting to continue but baden's government simply ignored him and continued negotiations regardless this is damning in hindsight as the civilian government headed by barden had been formed in large part of ludendorff's insistence but now the peace negotiations were not unfolding as he wished he tried to backtrack and continue the war but his erratic decision-making had by now reduced his authority and the kaiser had also lost patience with him lundorff then seeing the writing was on the wall tended his resignation which was duly accepted on the 26th of october 1918. by this time there was widespread unrest throughout germany as numerous far-left groups had now started violent incursions demanding the kaiser's application which then came on the 9th of november 1918 and two days later the four years of carnage finally came to an end with an armistice ludendorff had fled the country to sweden in disguise through fear of being attacked in the upheaval but whilst there he started to write articles and books in which he laid the blame for germany's defeat at the hands of the kaiser and the far left in order to deflect the blame from himself he then returned to berlin in 1919 and continued to agitate against the leftist government until in 1920 he was involved in a failed push or coup in berlin instigated by the far right who hoped to return germany to autocratic rule this coup failed however and lundorf then fled the capital for munich where in 1923 he held a meeting with a former first world war corporal named adolf hitler who was the leader of the obscure national socialist german workers party at the meeting hitler convinced lunendorf to join his beer hall putch to take control of the bavarian government in the push hitler and his followers took the minister president of bavaria gustav von kaar hostage while he was attending a meeting in the berger brow caliber hall in munich hitler initially attempted a brown beat car into backing him but he refused and then ludendorff arrived resulting in the gathered crowds and car accepting hitler's terms the fuhrer then left the hall leaving carr in ludendorff's custody who were then released after the minister president complained he was worried about his wife hitler was outraged by the former general stupidity and the next day ludendorff and the gathered nazis marched on the bavarian defense ministry but were blocked by some 150 soldiers who opened fire killing a number of nazis in the process ludendorff was arrested at the scene and hitler was also apprehended in the coming days leading to the two men amongst others being put on trial from february to april of 1924 at the end of which ludendorff was acquitted but hitler and a number of his followers including rudolf hess was sent to prison over the coming years ludendorff would increasingly become more and more obscure and extreme in his political views writing endlessly about his hatred of the jews and christianity who he now blamed for all the world's ills [Music] he had for a time been an arden nazi and according to some accounts visited hitler several times whilst he was in prison but as time went by he was sidelined by the fuhrer and upon hearing he had come to power in 1933 stated i solemnly prophesied that this accursed man will cast our reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery he continued to write military textbooks in his final years but in 1937 contracted liver cancer and died on the 20th of december and was then against his wishes given a state funeral by the nazi regime eric ludendorff is today seen in a largely negative light by the majority of historians many see his failures in his tenure as quartermaster general of the german army as being one of the most important factors in germany's eventual capitulation as instead of trying to secure peace terms from a position of strength in the winter of 1917 to 1918 lunendorf decided to gamble germany's last reserves of men in order to claim victory he is also criticized for essentially being an armchair general who cared little for the conditions his troops were living under and seldom venturing outside of his headquarters to see the situation at the front in person it is also fair to say that ludendorff shifted the blame for germany's defeat in world war one away from himself and instead blamed the country's defeat on radical elements in the german population such as the jews and communists this is ironic and in many ways damning as the myth of the enemy within that ludendorff did more than most to spread eventually resulted in the rise of the nationalist far right in germany and was in essence the root cause of adolf hitler's nazi party coming to power indeed the ultimate irony is that hitler who fell for ludendors claims that the german war effort had been weakened by the enemy within eventually formed a close friendship with the very man who was more than anyone responsible for germany's humiliating defeat for these reasons it is difficult to say that eric ludendorff's life and career had anything but a negative effect on both german and european history as the total defeat he did so much to bring about and his support of the nazi party helped to instigate the second world war for all his brilliance and the logistical and tactical know-how eric ludendorff was still a deeply flawed and tragic man in many ways but his life should be remembered and studied as the decisions he made shape the history of the 20th century and thusly the lives of everyone on planet earth today you

Channel: The People Profiles

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Keywords: Biography, History, Historical, Educational, The People Profiles, Biography channel, the biography channel

Id: nMZofVx40As

Length: 39min 9sec (2349 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 10 2019