Erich Ludendorff

Who was Erich Ludendorff?

Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg. From August 1916 his appointment as Quartermaster general made him joint head, and chief engineer behind the management of Germany's effort in World War I until his resignation in October 1918.

After the war, Ludendorff became a prominent nationalist leader, and a promoter of the stab-in-the-back legend, convinced that the German Army had been betrayed by Marxists and Republicans in the Versailles Treaty. He took part in the unsuccessful coups d’état of Wolfgang Kapp in 1920 and the Beer Hall Putsch of Adolf Hitler in 1923, and in 1925 he ran for president against his former colleague, Paul von Hindenburg, whom he claimed had taken credit for Ludendorff's victories against Russia. From 1924 to 1928 he represented the German Völkisch Freedom Party in the German Parliament.