Out of My Life, in Two Volumes

viii, 267; 296 pp. Red boards. Two volume set. Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (About this soundlisten (help·info)), known generally as Paul von Hindenburg; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934), was a German Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) and statesman who commanded the Imperial German Army during the second half of World War I before later being elected President of the Weimar Republic in 1925. He played a key role in the Nazi "Seizure of Power" in January 1933 when, under pressure from advisers, he appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of a "Government of National Concentration", even though the Nazis were a minority in both the cabinet and the Reichstag. Born to a family of minor Prussian nobility, Paul von Hindenburg joined the Prussian army in 1866 where he thereafter saw combat during the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian conflict. He retired with the rank of General of the Infantry in 1911, but was recalled to military service at the age of 66 following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914. On August 1914, he received nationwide attention as the victor of the Battle of Tannenberg. Upon later being named Chief of the General Staff in 1916,[1] his popularity among the German public exponentially increased to the point of giving rise to an enormous personality cult. As Kaiser Wilhelm II increasingly delegated his power as Supreme Warlord to the Army High Command, Hindenburg and his deputy, General Erich Ludendorff, ultimately established a military dictatorship that controlled Germany for the rest of the war. Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to public life in 1925 to be elected the second President of Germany. In 1932, he was persuaded to run for re-election even though he was 84 years old and in poor health, because he was considered the only candidate who could defeat Hitler. Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff. He was opposed to Hitler and was a major player in the increasing political instability in the Weimar Republic that ended with Hitler's rise to power. He dissolved the Reichstag twice in 1932 and finally agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Hindenburg did this to satisfy Hitler's demands that he should play a part in the Weimar government, for Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party, which had won a plurality in the November 1932 elections (no party achieved a majority). In February he approved the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave Hitler's regime arbitrary powers. Hindenburg died the following year, after which Hitler declared himself Führer und Reichskanzler, or Supreme Leader and Chancellor, which superseded both the President and Chancellor.