The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I [Paperback]

Robert Asprey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2005

During the first two years of World War I a German general called from obscure retirement, Paul Von Hindenburg, aided by his deputy, Erich Ludendorff, won imperial fame from his successful campaigns on the eastern front. In 1916 Kaiser Wilhelm named Hindenburg to head the all-powerful Great German Staff with Ludendorff his deputy. At first all went well. But as food and other resources including replacements diminished, and as America entered the war, the top command increasingly panicked. In the summer of 1918 German armies in the west opened an all-out defensive. This failed and German surrender followed—as did the fall of the German empire.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Former U.S. Marine captain and accomplished military historian Robert Asprey tells the story of the First World War from the point of view of the German general staff in The German High Command at War. Focusing on the celebrated partnership between general Erich Ludendorff and field marshal Paul von Hindenburg, Asprey recounts the duo's career from their early triumphs over the Russians at Tannenberg to the defeat of their military dictatorship in 1918.

Responding to historians who tend to lionize Hindenburg and Ludendorff, this book argues that their exemplary reputations were the result of a self-serving public-relations campaign during and after the war. Through Asprey's capable analysis, Ludendorff emerges as a fat, ruthless martinet, while Hindenburg looms as a passive, scheming narcissist. Their successes on the eastern front are portrayed as lucky breaks, the result of intercepted Russian radio transmissions. However, there were no respites on the western front, and Asprey explains how the generals' desperation, arrogance, and lack of strategic insight ultimately exhausted the German empire. Readers will find a comprehensive and lively treatment of Hindenburg and Ludendorff's military decisions and political intrigues, but this book is more than a history. Asprey's trenchant exploration of the dynamics of power and personality make The German High Command at War a warning for what can happen if militaristic imperatives dominate a government's capacity for principled leadership. --James Highfill --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg is considered Germany's great military hero of WW I. Asprey ( War in the Shadows ) here confirms the theory that his chief of staff, Gen. Erich Ludendorff, was the brains behind Hindenburg's victories and largely responsible for German military policy in the war's latter years. The Duo, as the author calls them, became increasingly involved in political affairs, replacing imperial chancellor Theobald Hedwig (whom they regarded as a defeatist) with the unknown politician Georg Michaelis (whom they counted on to do their bidding) and imposing the harsh treaty of Brest-Litovsk on the Russians. Ludendorff later fled, in disguise, to Sweden, while Hindenburg led his troops home after the 1918 armistice, declaring that the German army had not been beaten but betrayed--the origin of the "stab in the back" concept that became Adolf Hitler's rallying cry. The double biography sheds new light on Germany's conduct in WW I and on the character of the legendary General Staff. Most interestingly, Asprey seeks to explain Germany's disastrous defeat as a result of "expanded military egos unchecked by civil authority." Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 586 pages
• Publisher: Backinprint.com (November 9, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595365655
• ISBN-13: 978-0595365654
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,555,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wagnerian Tragedy, January 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I (Paperback)

I would definitely recommend this book. I have read many books on the Great War, and none have given Hindenburg and, more importantly, Ludendorff (because he was really the one who pulled the strings) such detailed attention. I think the author portrayed the ideological background that so often drives Germany and its people to seek glory in conquest or transcendence through hardship and hero worship (in this case, of the book's namesakes), and that is good because too many historians forget this all too important, almost racial, Wagnerian ideological aspect to Germany's quest for world hegemony. Indeed, the author quotes one German general as comparing Ludendorff being stabbed in the back by a weak home front and politicians with Siegfried in Wagner's Gotterdamerung. However, the author lambasts Hindenburg and Ludendorff so mercilessly, without quarter, that he sometimes appears biased and as if he had an agenda to destroy the myth of the Iron Duo. This may very well be the actual case, as I think he even admitted in the preface, but still, I don't think you can blame two men for a society and political structure that allowed, even encouraged authoritarianism, and the eventual rule of such a strong man. Moreover, Ludendorff was singlehandedly controlling the entire nation, and while obviously in hindsight he made a general mess of it, he did do some remarkable things and was a master of tactics and of recognizing military skill and promoting it, if not grand strategy. The author emphasizes his failures (after all, Germany did lose), but never seems to credit the military insights of Ludendorff. These are simply stated as fact but not really anaylzed, or they are given a negative slant. Overall, however, this was an extremely informative and deatiled anaylsis of these two men, what they meant to Germany, and their place in history.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great look at the truth ofr German dictatorship in WWI, September 30, 2009

By 

S. J. Snyder "De gustibus non disputandum" (Various, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I (Paperback)

First, this is a relatively unbiased book. Asprey doesn't ding Germany for dictatorial tendencies, contrary to what some may think; rather he ding the dictator, Quartermaster-General Ludendorff, who executed a bloodless coup against Kaiser Wilhelm II.

That is, in essence what started in 1916, and was complete by the time German relaunched unlimited submarine warfare in early 1917.

That said, Ludendorff had plenty of fellow-traveler idiots in both the German military and in Wilhelmm's cabinet. A stupid Grand Admiral, Tirpitz, who clamored for the naval expenditures that antagonized the UK, then was afraid to use his toy in war. A series of spineless chancellors and ministers, emasculated by Wilhelm and afraid of Ludendorff when he sought to push them aside.

And, in front of him? A puppet figure concerned to the nth degree about image, Field Marshal Hindenburg -- the man who did NOT win Tannenburg (neither did Ludendorff, of course), but rode that combination of myth and manipulation by Ludendorff to head the German Army.

Ludendorff deserves his military hacking down to size, too. The one positive thing, on the tactical side, was his development of stormtroopers. Otherwise, his rejection of the tank was idiocy in both tactics and larger strategy. His "Kaiser's offensive" was little better than the attrition warfare of two years earlier.

The real hero in Germany? The common soldier and common civilian, even more than in World War II, under a dictatorship in some ways as restrictive as Hitler's Germany, and with even tighter restraints on food and raw materials.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book with the ring of truth, August 30, 1999

By 

Robert Fliss (Cape Coral, Fla.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I (Paperback)

I agree with the previous reviewers. I would give this five stars, save for the fact that I would have liked to see more detail on some points. Still, this book changed my thinking about the Great War for all time. Study of the 1914-18 war is an exercise in frustration -- so many "what ifs," such an unsatisfactory conclusion. I suspect I will go to my grave still debating Haig's generalship -- at times I tend to agree with John Terraine et. al. that we at least have to credit Haig with sound strategic sense in realizing that the war was going to be won or lost on the Western Front and sideshows like Salonika and the Middle East were a waste of effort. Then I look at the operational blunders in 1916 and 1917 and wonder whether he wasn't a bloody fool who was saved by having good subordinates like Plumer, Monash, Currie, Maxse, et al. I raise this point to illustrate that at least here there remains room for debate. I defy anyone to read Asprey's book without coming to the conclusion that Hindenburg and Ludendorff weren't criminally incompetent, waging aggressive war until they had bled their own country white. The British at least had the excuse that this was the first -- indeed only -- time in history that their army had to take on the main force of a preeminent land power (see Terraine's writings on this point). In other words, they had to fight a war they weren't ready for in 1914. By 1918, against all odds, they won. The Germans, on the other hand, squandered every advantage.