author
Erich Ludendorff
1865–1937
A powerful and deeply controversial figure, he helped shape Germany’s war strategy during World War I and later became entangled in the radical politics of the Weimar years. His life links battlefield command, political upheaval, and the darker currents of early 20th-century Europe.
1 Audiobook
Sotamuistelmani 1914-1918
by Erich Ludendorff
About the author
Born in 1865 in what was then Prussian Poland, Erich Ludendorff rose through the German army to become one of the best-known commanders of World War I. He gained early fame for his role in the 1914 campaigns, especially at Liège and Tannenberg, and soon became closely associated with Paul von Hindenburg.
As First Quartermaster General from 1916, Ludendorff exercised enormous influence over Germany’s military strategy and, in practice, much of its wartime government. He was a central architect of Germany’s later war effort, including the major offensives of 1918, and his name became closely tied to both the country’s battlefield successes and its final defeat.
After the war, he moved into politics and became involved with extreme nationalist movements. He took part in Adolf Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, later broke with Hitler, and spent his remaining years writing and promoting his own fiercely nationalist and conspiratorial views. He died in 1937.