Hindenburg, Paul von Beneckendorff und von (1847-1934)
German army officer and Statesman; President of Germany
Born in Posen (present-day Poznan), Hindenburg attended officers' school and served in the German army until 1911, retiring with the rank of general. At the outbreak of World War I, he was recalled to the army and appointed commander in chief of the eastern front, where his decisive victory over the Russians in the battle of Tannenberg earned him great fame. In 1916 he became chief of staff of the German army, with the rank of Generalfeldmarschall (General of the Army), his principal aide being Gen. Erich Ludendorff, who made the real decisions. Under the leadership of these two men the German high command put its stamp on all the internal political moves made by Imperial Germany in the final stages of the war, foiling all efforts to bring the war to an end by a compromise peace. Nevertheless, Hindenburg remained a war hero in the eyes of many Germans, and this, in 1925, helped him to be elected the second president of the Weimar Republic, as the candidate of the right-wing parties. In the early part of his term of office, Hindenburg acted in strict compliance with the Weimar Constitution, which restricted presidential powers. From 1930, however, as a result of the economic crisis and the growing unemployment, democracy in Germany was shaken to the core and was no longer able to function properly. Hindenburg's first term ended in 1932. Despite his age (he was eighty-five at the time), he decided to run again, this time as the candidate of the moderate left-wing and Centre parties (except for the Communists), who all gave their support to the Chancellor, Heinrich Bruening. But as soon as he was re-elected, Hindenburg abandoned his supporters, dismissing Chancellor Bruening in May 1932 and appointing Franz von Papen in his place; Papen, who had bolted the Centre party, had only the support of the right-wing parties (excluding the Nazis). In the July 1932 elections, the Nazis gained the largest number of votes. Hindenburg, however, was not prepared to entrust Adolf Hitler with forming a cabinet, and used his powers to dissolve the Reichstag. The new elections, held in November 1932, did not change the political constellation in the Reichstag to any appreciable extent; the Nazis suffered some losses but remained the largest political party. Again Hindenburg refused to appoint Hitler chancellor, nominating Gen. Kurt von Schleicher to the post in December. When Schleicher failed in his efforts to create a broad popular base of support for his cabinet, Hindenburg finally gave in to the urgings of his close confidants and appointed Hitler the new chancellor, but not before extracting the agreement that the new cabinet would retain the moderate conservative-national character of its predecessor by giving its non-Nazi members a decisive majority. However, as soon as Hitler was installed, on January 30, 1933, he took complete control of the regime. The staged Reichstag fire persuaded the old president, on February 28, to sign a decree "for the protection of the people and the state" that put an end to the regime of the Weimar Republic and abolished basic civil rights as they had been in force in Germany. Thereafter, Hindenburg no longer played any real role in the political life of the country. He died on August 2, 1934, at the age of eighty-seven.
