Hermann Ehrhardt (29 November 1881 – 27 September 1971) was a German Freikorps commander during the period of turmoil in Weimar Republic Germany from 1918 to 1920, he commanded the famous II. Marine Brigade, better known as the Ehrhardt Brigade or Marinebrigade Ehrhardt.

Born in Diersburg, now part of Hohberg, Baden - Württemberg, he later joined the German Imperial Navy and served as a Korvettenkapitän.

A strong opponent of the Treaty of Versailles, he developed strong monarchist views. During the period after the defeat of the German Empire, Ehrhardt formed the II. Marine Brigade.

Holding the rank of Korvettenkapitän, his army equivalent rank was only that of a major, yet he still commanded a force of around 6,000 men. His force fought in north - west Germany, central Germany, Upper Silesia, and Bavaria and participated in the unsuccessful Kapp - Lüttwitz Putsch of 1920. Afterwards he fled Germany, but later returned. In Bavaria, which was ruled by Gustav von Kahr at that time, he formed the Organization Consul, and later the Viking Bund, a secret military society.

During the Beer Hall Putsch, Ehrhardt and his deputy commander Eberhard Kautter refused to have the league help Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. Ehrhardt would later unsuccessfully contest the leadership of the right wing factions with Hitler, but unlike their commander, most of Ehrhardt's men joined the Nazi Party.

Ehrhardt was one of those listed to die during the Night of the Long Knives but he managed to escape to Austria. He was later invited back to Nazi Germany. He died in 1971 in Krems an der Donau.

Born in Hanover to Carl Hugenberg, a royal Hanoverian official who in 1867 entered the Prussian Landtag as a member of the National Liberal Party, he studied law in Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin, as well as economics in Strassburg. In 1891, Hugenberg co-founded, along with Karl Peters, the ultra - nationalist General German League and in 1894 its successor movement the Pan - German League (Alldeutscher Verband). In 1900 Hugenberg married his second cousin, Gertrud Adickes. At the same time he was also involved in a scheme in the Province of Posen where a board of nationalists bought up land from Poles in order to settle ethnic Germans there.

Hugenberg initially took a role organizing agricultural societies before entering the civil service in the Prussian Ministry of Finance in 1903. He left the public sector to pursue a career in business and in 1909 he was appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Krupp Steel and built up a close personal and political relationship with Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. As well as administering Krupps finance (with considerable success) Hugenberg also set about developing personal business interests from 1916 onwards. He remained at Krupp until 1918 when he set out on his own and during the Great Depression he was able to buy up dozens of local newspapers. These became the basis of his publishing firm Scherl House and, after he added controlling interests in Universum Film AG, Ala - Anzeiger AG, Vera Verlag and the Telegraphen Union, he had a near monopoly on the media which he used to agitate against the Weimar Republic amongst Germany's middle classes.

Hugenberg was one of a number of Pan Germans to become involved in the National Liberal Party in the run up to the First World War. During the war he switched his allegiance to the Fatherland Party and became one of its leading members, emphasizing territorial expansion and anti - Semitism as his two main political issues. In 1919 Hugenberg joined the Deutschnationale Volkspartei or DNVP (German National People's Party), which he represented in the National Assembly (that produced the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic). He was elected to the Reichstag in the 1920 elections to the new body. The DNVP suffered heavy losses in the 1928 election, leading to the appointment of Hugenberg as sole chairman on the 21 October that same year.

Hugenberg moved the party in a far more radical direction than it had taken under its previous leader, Kuno Graf von Westarp. He hoped to use radical nationalism to restore the party's fortunes, and eventually, to overthrow the Weimar constitution and install an authoritarian form of government. Up to this point right wing politics outside of the far right was going through a process of reconciliation to the Weimar Republic but this ended under Hugenberg, who renewed earlier DNVP calls for its immediate destruction. Under his direction a new DNVP manifesto appeared in 1931, demonstrating the shift to the right. Amongst its demands were immediate restoration of the Hohenzollern monarchy, a reversal of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, compulsory military conscription, repossession of the German colonial empire, a concerted effort to build up closer links with German people outside Germany (especially in Austria), a dilution of the role of the Reichstag to that of supervisory body to a newly established professional house of appointees reminiscent of Benito Mussolini's corporative state and reduction in the perceived over - representation of Jews in German public life.

Hugenberg also sought to eliminate internal party democracy and instill a führerprinzip within the DNVP, leading to some members breaking away to establish the Conservative People's Party (KVP) in late 1929. More were to follow in June 1930, appaled by Hugenberg's extreme opposition to the cabinet of Heinrich Brüning, a moderate whom some within the DNVP wanted to support.

Under Hugenberg's leadership, the DNVP toned down and later abandoned the monarchism which had characterized the party in its earlier years. Despite Hugenberg's background in industry that constituency gradually deserted the DNVP under his leadership, largely due to a general feeling amongst industrialists that Hugenberg was too inflexible, and soon the party became the main voice of agrarian interest in the Reichstag.

Hugenberg was vehemently opposed to the Young Plan and he set up a "Reich Committee for the German People's Petition" to oppose it, featuring the likes of Franz Seldte, Heinrich Class, Theodor Duesterberg and Fritz Thyssen. However he recognized that the DNVP and their elite band of allies did not have enough popular support to carry any rejection of the scheme through. As such Hugenberg felt that he needed a nationalist with support amongst the working classes whom he could use to whip up popular sentiment against the Plan. Adolf Hitler was the only realistic candidate and Hugenberg decided that he would use the Nazi Party leader to get his way. As a result the Nazi Party soon became benefactors of Hugenberg's largesse, both in terms of monetary donations and of favorable coverage from the Hugenberg owned press, which had previously been largely ignored Hitler or denounced him as a socialist. Joseph Goebbels, who had a deep hatred of Hugenberg, initially spoke privately of breaking from Hitler over the alliance but he changed his mind when Hugenberg agreed that Goebbels should handle the propaganda for the campaign, giving the Nazi Party access to Hugenberg's media empire. Hitler was able to use Hugenberg to push himself into the political mainstream and once the Young Plan was passed by referendum Hitler promptly ended his links with Hugenberg. Hitler publicly blamed Hugenberg for the failure of the campaign but he retained the links with big business that the Committee had allowed him to cultivate and this began a process of the magnates deserting the DNVP for the Nazis. Hitler's handling of the affair was marred only by one thing and that was premature announcement in the Nazi press of his repudiation of the alliance by the Strasser brothers, whose left wing economics were incompatible with Hugenberg's arch - capitalism.

Despite this episode in February 1931 Hugenberg joined the Nazi Party in leading the DNVP out of the Reichstag altogether as a protest against the Brüning government. By then the two parties were in a very loose federation known as the 'National Opposition'. This was followed in July of the same year by the release of a joint statement with Hitler guaranteeing that the pair would co-operate for the overthrow of the Weimar 'system'. The two presented a united front at Bad Harzburg on 21 October 1931 as part of a wider right wing rally leading to suggestions that a Harzburg Front involving the two parties and the veterans movement Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten had emerged. The two leaders soon clashed however and Hugenberg's refusal to endorse Hitler in the German presidential election, 1932 widened the gap. Indeed rift between the two opened further when Hugenberg, fearing that Hitler might win the Presidency, persuaded Theodor Duesterberg to run as a junker candidate. Although he was eliminated on the first vote, due largely to Nazi allegations regarding his Jewish parentage, Hitler nonetheless failed to secure the Presidency.

Hugenberg's party had experienced a growth in support at the November 1932 election at the expense of the Nazis leading to a secret meeting between the two in which a reconciliation of sorts was agreed. Hugenberg hoped to harness the Nazis for his own ends once again and as such he dropped his attacks on them for the campaign for the March 1933 election.

In early January 1933 Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher had developed plans for an expanded coalition government to include not only Hugenberg but also dissident Nazi Gregor Strasser and Center Party politician Adam Stegerwald. Although Hugenberg had designs on a return to government his hatred of trade union activity meant that he had no intention of working with Stegerwald, the head of the Catholic Trade Union movement. When von Schleicher refused to exclude Stegerwald from his plans Hugenberg broke off negotiations.

Hugenberg's main confidante Reinhold Quaatz had, despite being half - Jewish, pushed for Hugenberg to follow a more völkisch path and work with the Nazi Party and after the collapse of the von Schleicher talks this was the path he followed. Hugenberg and Hitler met on January 17, 1933 and Hugenberg suggested that they both enter the cabinet of Kurt von Schleicher, a proposal rejected by Hitler who would not move from his demands for the Chancellorship. Hitler did agree in principle to allow von Schleicher to serve under him as Defense Minister, although Hugenberg warned the Nazi leader that as long as Paul von Hindenburg was President Hitler would never be Chancellor. A further meeting between the two threatened to derail any alliance after Hugenberg rejected Hitler's demands for Nazi control over the interior ministries of Germany and Prussia but by this time Franz von Papen had come round to the idea of Hitler as Chancellor and he worked hard to persuade the two leaders to come together.

During the negotiations between Franz von Papen and President Paul von Hindenburg, Hindenburg had insisted that Hugenberg be given the ministries of Economics and Agriculture both at national level and in Prussia as a condition of Hitler becoming Chancellor, something of a surprise given the President's well publicized dislike of Hugenberg. Hugenberg, eager for a share of power, agreed to the plan and continued to believe that he could use Hitler for his own ends, telling the Stahlhelm leader Theodor Duesterberg that "we'll box Hitler in". He initially rejected HItler's plans to immediately call a fresh election, fearing that damage such a vote might inflict on his own party but, after being informed by Otto Meißner that the plan had Hindenburg's endorsement and by von Papen that von Schleicher was preparing to launch a military coup, he conceded to Hitler's wishes. Hugenberg vigorously campaigned for the NSDAP - DNVP alliance, although other leading members within his party expressed fears over socialist elements to Nazi rhetoric and instead appealed for a non - party dictatorship, pleas ignored by Hitler.

In the elections Hugenberg's DNVP captured 52 seats in the Reichstag, although any hope that these seats could ensure influence for the party evaporated with the passing of the Enabling Act of 1933 soon after the vote. Nevertheless Hugenberg was Minister of Economy in the new government and was also appointed Minister of Agriculture in the Nazi cabinet, largely due to the support his party enjoyed amongst the north German landowners. As Minister Hugenberg declared a temporary moratorium on foreclosures, cancelled some debts and placed tariffs on some widely produced agricultural goods in order to stimulate the sector. As a move to protect dairy farming he also placed limits on margarine production, although this move saw a rapid increase in the price of butter and margarine and made Hugenberg an unpopular figure outside of the farming community, hastening the inevitable departure of this non - Nazi from the cabinet. Meanwhile In June 1933, Hitler was forced to disavow Hugenberg who while attending the London World Economic Conference put forth a program of German colonial expansion in both Africa and Eastern Europe as the best way of ending the Great Depression, which created a major storm abroad. Hugenberg's fate was sealed when State Secretary Fritz Reinhardt, ostensibly a subordinate to Hugenberg as Minister of Economy, presented a work creation plan to the cabinet. The policy was supported by every member except Hugenberg, who was strongly opposed to the levels of government intervention in the economy that the scheme required.

An increasingly isolated figure, Hugenberg was finally forced to resign from the cabinet after a campaign of harassment and arrest was launched by Hitler against his DNVP coalition partners. The Sturmabteilung were also turned against the DNVP, with youth movements loyal to Hugenberg becoming the focus of attacks. He announced his formal resignation on 29 June 1933 and he was replaced by Kurt Schmitt in the Economy Ministry and Richard Walther Darré in the Agriculture Ministry. A 'Friendship Agreement' was signed between the Nazis and the DNVP immediately afterwards, the terms of which effectively dissolved the Nationalists with a few members whose loyalty could be guaranteed absorbed into the Nazi Party. Indeed the German National Front, as the DNVP had officially been called since May 1933, had officially dissolved on 27 June.

Although driven from his cabinet post Hugenberg was, along with von Papen and other former DNVP and Zentrum members, included on the list of candidates for the November 1933 election as a concession to middle class voters. However his stock with the Nazis had fallen so much that in December 1933 the Telegraph Union, the news agency owned by Hugenberg, was taken over by the Propaganda Ministry and merged into a new German News Office. Hugenberg was allowed to remain in the Reichstag until 1945 as one of 22 so-called "guest" members, who were officially designated as non - party representatives. Given that they shared the assembly with 639 Nazi deputies they had no influence.

Although Hugenberg had lost the Telegraph Union early on he was allowed to retain most of his media interests until 1943 when the Nazi controlled Eher Verlag took control of his Scherl House. Hugenberg did not let them go cheaply however as he negotiated a large portfolio of shares in the Rhenish - Westphalian industries in return for his co-operation.

Hugenberg was initially detained after the war but in 1949 a Denazification court at Detmold adjudged him a "fellow traveler" rather than a Nazi, meaning that he was allowed to keep his property and business interests. He died on 12 March 1951 in Kükenbruch (present day Extertal) near Detmold.

Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (known universally as Paul von Hindenburg; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a Prussian - German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934.

Hindenburg enjoyed a long career in the Prussian Army, retiring in 1911. He was recalled at the outbreak of World War I, and first came to national attention, at the age of 66, as the victor at Tannenberg in 1914. As Germany's Chief of the General Staff from 1916, he and his deputy, Erich Ludendorff, rose in the German public's esteem until Hindenburg came to eclipse the Kaiser himself. Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to public life one more time in 1925 to be elected as the second President of Germany.

Though 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for re-election in 1932, as he was considered the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff. Although he was opposing Hitler, the deteriorating political stability of the Weimar Republic let him play an important role in the Nazi Party's rise to power. He dissolved the parliament twice in 1932 and eventually appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933. In February, he issued the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act, in which the parliament gave Hitler's administration legislative powers. Hindenburg died the following year, after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant and, as "Führer und Reichskanzler", made himself head of state.

The famed zeppelin Hindenburg that was destroyed by fire in 1937 was named in his honor, as was the Hindenburgdamm, a causeway joining the island of Sylt to mainland Schleswig - Holstein that was built during his time in office. The previously German Upper Silesian town of Zabrze (German: Hindenburg O.S.) was also renamed for him in 1915. SMS Hindenburg, a battlecruiser commissioned in the Imperial German Navy in 1917 and the last capital ship to enter service in the Imperial Navy, was also named for him.

Paul von Hindenburg was born in Posen, Prussia (Polish: Poznań; until 1793 and since 1919 part of Poland) on Podgórna street, the son of Prussian aristocrat Robert von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (1816 – 1902) and wife Luise Schwickart (1825 – 1893), the daughter of medical doctor Karl Ludwig Schwickart and wife Julie Moennich, cousin of Vincent Couling. Hindenburg was embarrassed by his mother's non - aristocratic background, and hardly mentioned her at all in his memoirs. His paternal lineage was considered highly distinguished. His paternal grandparents were Otto Ludwig von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (1778 – 18 July 1855), through whom he was remotely descended from the illegitimate daughter of Count Heinrich VI of Waldeck, and wife Eleonore von Brederlow (d. 18 February 1863). Hindenburg was also a direct descendant of Martin Luther and wife Katharina von Bora, through their daughter Margareta Luther. Hindenburg's younger brothers and sister were Otto, born 24 August 1849, Ida, born 19 December 1851 and Bernhard, born 17 January 1859.

After his education at Wahlstatt (now Legnickie Pole) and Berlin cadet schools, he fought in the Austro - Prussian War (1866) and the Franco - Prussian War (1870 – 1871). Hindenburg was selected for prestigious duties: serving the widow of King Frederick William IV of Prussia, being present – as one of a group of young officers decorated for bravery in battle, who had been chosen to represent their regiments – in the Palace of Versailles when the German Empire was proclaimed on 18 January 1871, and as Honor Guard prior to the Military funeral of Emperor William I in 1888. Hindenburg remained in the army, eventually commanding a corps and being promoted to General of Infantry (equivalent to a British or US lieutenant - general; the German equivalent to four - star rank was Colonel - General) in 1903. Meanwhile, he married Gertrud von Sperling (1860 – 1921), also an aristocrat, by whom he had two daughters, Irmengard Pauline (1880) and Annemaria (1891) and one son, Oskar (1883).

Hindenburg retired from the army for the first time in 1911, but was recalled shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 by the Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke. Hindenburg was given command of the Eighth Army, then locked in combat with the First and Second Russian armies in East Prussia; after defeat by the Russian First Army at Gumbinnen, Hindenburg's predecessor Maximilian von Prittwitz had been planning to abandon East Prussia and retreat behind the River Vistula.

Hindenburg's Eighth Army was victorious in the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of the Masurian Lakes against the Russian armies. Although historians attach much of the credit to Erich Ludendorff and to the then little known staff officer Max Hoffmann, these successes made Hindenburg a national hero.

At the start of November 1914 Hindenburg was given the position of Supreme Commander East (Ober - Ost) – although at this stage his authority only extended over the German, not the Austro - Hungarian, portion of the front – and units were transferred from East Prussia to form a new Ninth Army in south - western Poland. Later in November 1914, after the Battle of Lodz, Hindenburg was promoted to the rank of field marshal. A further battle was fought by the Eighth and newly formed Tenth Armies in Masuria that winter. Ober - Ost eventually consisted of the German Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Armies, plus other assorted corps.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff felt that more effort should be made on the Eastern Front in order to defeat Russia, although ironically the most spectacular victory of 1915, the Gorlice – Tarnów Offensive, was won by Mackensen's German Eleventh Army fighting on the Austro - Hungarian sector rather than as part of Hindenburg's command. By contrast Erich von Falkenhayn, the Chief of the General Staff, felt that it was impossible for Germany to win a decisive victory, hoped that Russia might be encouraged to drop out of the war if not pressed too hard, and in 1916 unleashed an offensive at Verdun designed to "bleed France white" and encourage her to make peace. Hindenburg desired to conquer the Baltic region from the Russian Empire; not only as he put it "the maneuvering of my left wing in the next war" but as colonial possessions as well, from which the native population would be removed and the region repopulated with "physically and mentally healthy beings".

Though Hindenburg was only average in terms of military ability, he had a team of talented and able subordinates who won him a series of great victories on the Eastern Front between 1914 – 1916. These victories transformed Hindenburg into Germany's most popular man. During the war, Hindenburg was the subject of an enormous personality cult. He was seen as the perfect embodiment of German manly honor, rectitude, decency and strength. The appeal of the Hindenburg cult cut across ideological, religious, class and regional lines, but the group that idolized Hindenburg the most were the German right who saw him as an ideal representative of the Prussian ethos and of Lutheran, Junker values. During the war, there were wooden statues of Hindenburg built all over Germany, onto which people nailed money and cheques for war bonds. It was a measure of Hindenburg's public appeal that when the Government launched an all - out program of industrial mobilization in 1916, the program was named the Hindenburg Program. Before 1914, any such program would have been named the Kaiser Wilhelm Program.

By the summer of 1916 Erich von Falkenhayn had been discredited by the bogging down of the Verdun Offensive and the near collapse of the Austro - Hungarian Army caused by the Brusilov Offensive and the entry of Romania into the war on the Allied side. In August Hindenburg succeeded him as Chief of the General Staff, although real power was exercised by his deputy, Erich Ludendorff. Hindenburg in many ways served as the real commander - in - chief of the German armed forces instead of the Kaiser who had been reduced to a mere figurehead while Ludendorff served as the de facto general chief of staff. From 1916 onwards, Germany became an unofficial military dictatorship, often called the "Silent dictatorship" by historians.

In September 1918, Ludendorff advised seeking an armistice with the Allies, but in October, changed his mind and resigned in protest. Ludendorff had expected Hindenburg to follow him by also resigning, but Hindenburg refused on the grounds that in this hour of crisis, he could not desert the men under his command. Ludendorff never forgave Hindenburg for this. Ludendorff was succeeded by Wilhelm Groener, a staff officer who served as Hindenburg's assistant until 1932. In November 1918, Hindenburg and Groener played a decisive role in persuading the Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate for the greater good of Germany.

Hindenburg, who was a firm monarchist throughout his life, always regarded this episode with considerable embarrassment, and almost from the moment the Kaiser abdicated, Hindenburg insisted that he had played no role in the abdication and assigned all of the blame to Groener. Groener, for his part, went along in order to protect Hindenburg's reputation.

At the conclusion of the war, Hindenburg retired a second time, and announced his intention to retire from public life. In 1919, Hindenburg was called before a Reichstag Commission that was investigating the responsibility for both the outbreak of war in 1914 and for the defeat in 1918.

Hindenburg had not wanted to appear before the commission, and had been subpoenaed. The appearance of Hindenburg before the commission was an eagerly awaited public event. Ludendorff, who had fallen out with Hindenburg over the decision to continue seeking the armistice in October 1918, was concerned that Hindenburg might reveal that it was he who had advised seeking an armistice in September 1918. Ludendorff wrote a letter to Hindenburg, informing him that he was writing his memoirs and threatened to expose the fact that Hindenburg did not deserve the credit that he had received for his victories. Ludendorff's letter went on to suggest that how Hindenburg testified would determine how favorably Ludendorff would present Hindenburg in his memoirs.

When Hindenburg did appear before the commission, he refused to answer any questions about the responsibility for the German defeat, and instead read out a prepared statement that had been reviewed in advance by Ludendorff's lawyer. Hindenburg testified that the German Army had been on the verge of winning the war in the autumn of 1918, and that the defeat had been precipitated by a Dolchstoß ("stab in the back") by disloyal elements on the home front and by unpatriotic politicians. Despite being threatened with a contempt citation for refusing to respond to questions, Hindenburg simply walked out of the hearings after reading his statement. Hindenburg's status as a war hero provided him with a political shield and he was never prosecuted.

Hindenburg's testimony was the first use of the Dolchstoß legende. The field marshal credited an unnamed British general for first uttering the phrase, and the term was adopted by nationalist and conservative politicians who sought to blame the socialist founders of the Weimar Republic for the loss of the war.

Afterwards, Hindenburg had his memoirs entitled Mein Leben (My Life) ghost written in 1919 – 20. Mein Leben was a huge bestseller in Germany, but was dismissed by most military historians and critics as a boring apologia that skipped over the most controversial issues in Hindenburg's life. Afterwards, Hindenburg retired from most public appearances and spent most of his time with his family. A widower, Hindenburg was very close to his only son, Major Oskar von Hindenburg and his granddaughters.

In 1925, Hindenburg had no interest in running for public office. In the first round of the presidential election held on 29 March 1925, no candidate had emerged with a majority and a run - off election had been called. The Social Democratic candidate, Prime Minister Otto Braun of Prussia, had agreed to drop out of the race and had endorsed the Catholic Center Party's candidate, Wilhelm Marx. Since Karl Jarres, the joint candidate of the two conservative parties, the German People's Party (DVP) and the German National People's Party (DNVP), was regarded as too dull, it seemed likely that Marx would win. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, one of the leaders of the DNVP, visited Hindenburg and urged him to run.

Hindenburg initially demurred, but under strong pressure from Tirpitz applied over several meetings, broke down and agreed to run. Though Hindenburg ran during the second round of the elections as a non - party independent, he was generally regarded as the conservative candidate. Largely because of his status as Germany's greatest war hero, Hindenburg won the election in the second round of voting held on 26 April 1925. He was aided by the support of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP), which switched from supporting Marx, and the refusal of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) to withdraw its candidate, Ernst Thälmann (if either had supported Marx he would have won).

Hindenburg took office on 12 May 1925. For the first five years after taking office, he fulfilled his duties of office with dignity and decorum. For the most part, Hindenburg refused to allow himself to be drawn into the maelstrom of German politics in the period, and sought to play the role of a republican equivalent of a constitutional monarch. Although often referred to as the Ersatzkaiser (substitute Emperor), Hindenburg made no effort to restore the monarchy and took his oath to the Weimar Constitution seriously. In 1927 he shocked the international opinion by his statements defending Germany's actions and entry in World War I, when he declared that it entered the war as "the means of self - assertion against a world full of enemies. Pure in heart we set off to the defense of the fatherland and with clean hands the German army carried the sword."

In private, Hindenburg often complained that he missed the quiet of his retirement and bemoaned that he had allowed himself to be pressured into running for President. Hindenburg carped that politics was full of issues such as economics that he did not, and did not want to, understand. He was surrounded, however, by a coterie of advisers antipathetic to the Weimar constitution. These advisers included his son, Oskar, Otto Meißner, General Wilhelm Groener, and General Kurt von Schleicher. This group were known as the Kamarilla. The younger Hindenburg served as his father's aide - de - camp and controlled politicians' access to the President.

Schleicher was a close friend of Oskar and came to enjoy privileged access to Hindenburg. It was he who came up with the idea of Presidential government based on the so called "25 / 48 / 53 formula". Under a "Presidential" government the head of government (in this case, the chancellor), is responsible to the head of state, and not a legislative body. The "25 / 48 / 53 formula" referred to the three articles of the Constitution that could make a "Presidential government" possible:

• Article 25 allowed the President to dissolve the Reichstag.
• Article 48 allowed the President to sign into law emergency bills without the consent of the Reichstag. However, the Reichstag could cancel any law passed by Article 48 by a simple majority within sixty days of its passage.
• Article 53 allowed the President to appoint the Chancellor.

Schleicher's idea was to have Hindenburg appoint a man of Schleicher's choosing as chancellor, who would rule under the provisions of Article 48. If the Reichstag should threaten to annul any laws so passed, Hindenburg could counter with the threat of dissolution. Hindenburg was unenthusiastic about these plans, but was pressured into going along with them by his son along with Meißner, Groener and Schleicher.

The first attempt to establish a "presidential government" had occurred in 1926 – 1927, but foundered for lack of political support. During the winter of 1929 – 1930, however, Schleicher had more success. After a series of secret meetings attended by Meißner, Schleicher, and  Brüning, the parliamentary leader of the Catholic Center Party (Zentrum), Schleicher and Meißner were able to persuade Brüning to go along with the scheme for "presidential government". How much Brüning knew of Schleicher's ultimate objective of dispensing with democratic governance is unclear. Schleicher maneuvered to exacerbate a bitter dispute within the "Grand Coalition" government of the Social Democrats and the German People's Party over whether the unemployment insurance rate should be raised by a half percentage point or a full percentage point. The upshot of these intrigues was the fall of Müller’s government in March 1930 and Hindenburg's appointment of Brüning as Chancellor.

Brüning's first official act was to introduce a budget calling for steep spending cuts and steep tax increases. When the budget was defeated in July 1930, Brüning arranged for Hindenburg to sign the budget into law by invoking Article 48. When the Reichstag voted to repeal the budget, Brüning had Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag, just two years into its mandate, and reapprove the budget through the Article 48 mechanism. In the September 1930 elections the Nazis achieved an electoral breakthrough, gaining 17 percent of the vote, up from 2 percent in 1928. The Communist Party of Germany also made striking gains, albeit not so great.

After the 1930 elections, Brüning continued to govern largely through Article 48; his government was kept afloat by the support of the Social Democrats who voted not to cancel his Article 48 bills in order not to have another election that could only benefit the Nazis and the Communists. Hindenburg for his part grew increasingly annoyed at Brüning, complaining that he was growing tired of using Article 48 all the time to pass bills. Hindenburg found the detailed notes that Brüning submitted explaining the economic necessity of each of his bills to be incomprehensible. Brüning continued with his policies of raising taxes and cutting spending to address the onset of the Great Depression; the only areas in which government spending increased were the military budget and the subsidies for Junkers in the so-called Osthilfe (Eastern Aid) program. Both of these spending increases reflected Hindenburg's concerns.

In October 1931, Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler had their first meeting over the German Nationalist Party's politics. Both men took an immediate dislike to each other. In private, Hindenburg disparagingly referred to Hitler as "that Austrian corporal", or "that Bohemian corporal" or sometimes just simply as "the corporal", while Hitler often disparagingly referred to Hindenburg as "that old fool" or "that old reactionary". Until January 1933, Hindenburg often stated that he would never appoint Hitler as Chancellor under any circumstances. On 26 January 1933, Hindenburg privately told a group of his friends: "Gentlemen, I hope you will not hold me capable of appointing this Austrian corporal to be Reich Chancellor".

By January 1932, at 84 years old, Hindenburg was now lapsing in and out of senility and wanted to leave office as soon as his seven year presidential term was over, but he was persuaded to run for re-election in 1932 by the Kamarilla, as well as by the Center and the liberals, and by the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The SPD regarded Hindenburg as the only man who could defeat Hitler and the Nazi party from winning the elections (and they said so throughout the campaign), and expected him to keep Brüning in office. Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to stay in office, but wanted to avoid an election. The only way this was possible was for the Reichstag to vote to cancel the election with a two - thirds supermajority. Since the Nazis were the second largest political party, their co-operation was vital if this was to be done. Brüning met with Hitler in January 1932 to ask if he would agree to the President Hindenburg's demand to forgo the election. Surprisingly, Hitler supported the measure, but with one major condition: dissolve the Reichstag and hold new elections.

Brüning rejected Hitler's demands as totally outrageous and unreasonable. By this time, Schleicher had decided that Brüning had become an obstacle to his plans and was already plotting Brüning's downfall. Schleicher convinced Hindenburg that the reason why Hitler had rejected Brüning's offer was because Brüning had deliberately sabotaged the talks to force the elderly president into a grueling re-election battle. During the election campaign of 1932, Brüning had campaigned hard for Hindenburg's re-election. As Hindenburg was in bad health and a poor speaker in any case, the task of traveling the country and delivering speeches for Hindenburg had fallen upon Brüning. Hindenburg’s campaign appearances usually consisted simply of appearing before the crowd and waving to them without speaking.

In the first round of the election held in March 1932, Hindenburg emerged as the frontrunner, but failed to gain a majority. In the runoff election of April 1932, Hindenburg defeated Hitler for the Presidency thus securing his re-election. After the presidential elections had ended, Schleicher held a series of secret meetings with Hitler in May 1932, and thought that he had obtained a "gentleman's agreement" in which Hitler had agreed to support the new "presidential government" that Schleicher was building. At the same time, Schleicher, with Hindenburg's complicit consent, had set about undermining Brüning's government.

The first blow occurred in May 1932, when Schleicher had Hindenburg dismiss Groener as Defense Minister in a way that was designed to humiliate both Groener and Brüning. On 31 May 1932, Hindenburg dismissed Brüning as Chancellor and replaced him with the man that Schleicher had suggested, Franz von Papen. "The Government of Barons", as Papen's government was known, openly had as its objective the destruction of German democracy. Like Brüning's government, Papen's government was a "presidential government" that governed through the use of Article 48.

Unlike Brüning, Papen ingratiated himself to Hindenburg and his son through flattery. Much to Schleicher's annoyance, Papen quickly replaced him as Hindenburg's favorite advisor. The French Ambassador André François - Poncet reported to his superiors in Paris that "It's he [Papen] who is the preferred one, the favorite of the Marshal; he diverts the old man through his vivacity, his playfulness; he flatters him by showing him respect and devotion; he beguiles him with his daring; he is in [Hindenburg's] eyes the perfect gentleman."

In accordance with Schleicher's "gentleman's agreement", Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag and set new elections for July 1932. Schleicher and Papen both believed that the Nazis would win the majority of the seats and would support Papen's government. Hitler staged an electoral comeback, with his Nazi party winning a solid plurality of seats in the Reichstag. Following the Nazi electoral triumph in the Reichstag elections held on 31 July 1932, there were widespread expectations that Hitler would soon be appointed Chancellor. Moreover, Hitler repudiated the "gentleman's agreement" and declared that he wanted the Chancellorship for himself. In a meeting between Hindenburg and Hitler held on 13 August 1932, in Berlin, Hindenburg firmly rejected Hitler's demands for the Chancellorship.

The minutes of the meeting were kept by Otto Meißner, the Chief of the Presidential Chancellery. According to the minutes:

After refusing Hitler’s demands for the Chancellorship, Hindenburg had a press release issued of his meeting with Hitler that implied that Hitler had demanded absolute power and had his knuckles rapped by the President for making such a demand. Hitler was enraged by this press release. However, given Hitler’s determination to take power legally, Hindenburg’s refusal to appoint him Chancellor was an impassable quandary for Hitler.

When the Reichstag convened in September 1932, its first and only act was to pass a massive vote of no - confidence in Papen’s government. In response, Papen had Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag for elections in November 1932. The second Reichstag elections saw the Nazi vote drop from 37 percent to 32 percent, though the Nazis once again remained the largest party in the Reichstag. After the November elections, there ensued another round of fruitless talks between Hindenburg, Papen, Schleicher on the one hand and Hitler and the other Nazi leaders on the other.

The President and the Chancellor wanted Nazi support for the "Government of the President's Friends"; at most they were prepared to offer Hitler the meaningless office of Vice - Chancellor. On 24 November 1932, during the course of another Hitler - Hindenburg meeting, Hindenburg stated his fears that " ... a presidential cabinet led by Hitler would necessarily develop into a party dictatorship with all its consequences for an extreme aggravation of the conflicts within the German people".

Hitler for his part, remained adamant that Hindenburg give him the Chancellorship and nothing else. These demands were incompatible and unacceptable to both sides and the stalemate continued. To break the political stalemate, Papen proposed that Hindenburg declare martial law and do away with democracy via a presidential coup. Papen won over Oskar Hindenburg with this idea and the two persuaded Hindenburg for once to forgo his oath to the Constitution and go along with this plan. Schleicher, who had come to see Papen as a threat, blocked the martial law move by unveiling the results of a war games exercise that showed if martial law was declared, the Nazi SA and the Communist Red Front Fighters would rise up, the Poles would invade and the Reichswehr would be unable to cope.

Whether this was the honest result of a war games exercise or just a fabrication by Schleicher to force Papen out of office is a matter of some historical debate. The opinion of most leans towards the latter, for in January 1933 Schleicher would tell Hindenburg that new war games had shown the Reichswehr would crush both the SA and Red Front Fighters and defend the eastern borders from a Polish invasion. The results of the war games forced Papen to resign in December 1932 in favor of Schleicher. Hindenburg was most upset at losing his favorite Chancellor, and suspecting that the war games were faked to force Papen out, came to bear a grudge against Schleicher.

Papen for his part, was determined to get back into office and on 4 January 1933, Papen met with Hitler to discuss how they could bring down Schleicher’s government, though the talks were inconclusive largely because Papen and Hitler each coveted the Chancellorship for himself. However, Papen and Hitler agreed to keep talking. Ultimately, Papen came to believe that he could control Hitler from behind the scenes and decided to support him for Chancellor. Papen then persuaded Meißner and the younger Hindenburg of the merits of his plan, and the three then spent the second half of January pressuring Hindenburg into naming Hitler as Chancellor. Hindenburg was most loath to consider Hitler as Chancellor and preferred that Papen hold that office instead.

However, the pressure from Meißner, Papen and the younger Hindenburg was relentless and by the end of January, the President had decided to appoint Hitler Chancellor. On the morning of 30 January 1933, Hindenburg swore Hitler in as Chancellor at the Presidential Palace.

Hindenburg played a supporting but key role in the Nazi Machtergreifung (Seizure of Power) in 1933. In the "Government of National Concentration" headed by Hitler, the Nazis were in the minority. Besides Hitler, the only other Nazi ministers were Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick. Frick held the then powerless Interior Ministry, while Göring was given no portfolio. Most of the other ministers were hold - overs from the Papen and Schleicher governments, and the ones who were not, such as Alfred Hugenberg of the DNVP, were not Nazis. This had the effect of assuring Hindenburg that the room for radical moves on the part of the Nazis was limited. Moreover, Hindenburg's favorite politician, Papen, was Vice Chancellor of the Reich and Minister - President of Prussia.

Hitler's first act as Chancellor was to ask Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag so that the Nazis and DNVP could increase their number of seats and pass the Enabling Act. Hindenburg agreed to this request. In early February 1933, Papen asked for and received an Article 48 bill signed into law that sharply limited freedom of the press. After the Reichstag fire, Hindenburg, at Hitler's urging, signed into law the Reichstag Fire Decree. This decree suspended all civil liberties in Germany.

At the opening of the new Reichstag on 21 March 1933, at the Kroll Opera House, the Nazis staged an elaborate ceremony, in which Hindenburg played the leading part, appearing alongside Hitler during the event, that was meant to mark the continuity between the old Prussian - German tradition and the new Nazi state. The ceremony at the Kroll Opera House had the effect of reassuring many Germans, especially conservative Germans, that life would be fine under the new regime. On 23 March 1933, Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act of 1933 into law, which gave decrees issued by the cabinet (in effect, Hitler) the force of law.

Though Hindenburg was in increasingly bad health, the Nazis made sure that whenever Hindenburg did appear in public it was in Hitler’s company. During these appearances, Hitler always made a point of showing the utmost respect and reverence for the President. However in private, Hitler continued to detest Hindenburg, and expressed the hope that "the old reactionary" would hurry up and die as soon as possible, so that Hitler could merge the offices of Chancellor and President into one.

During 1933 and 1934, Chancellor Hitler, as the Head of government, was very aware of the fact that President Hindenburg was his only superior being the Head of state as well as the Supreme Commander - In - Chief of the German armed forces, and given that Hindenburg was still a popular war hero a revered figure in the German Army, that if the President decided to remove Hitler as Chancellor, there was little doubt that the Reichswehr would side with Hindenburg. Thus, as long as Hindenburg was alive, Hitler was always very careful to avoid offending him.

The only time Hindenburg ever objected to a Nazi bill occurred in early April 1933 when the Reichstag had passed a Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service that called for the immediate dismissal of all Jewish civil servants at the Reich, Land, and municipal levels. Hindenburg refused to sign this bill into law until it had been amended to exclude all Jewish veterans of World War I, Jewish civil servants who served in the civil service during the war and those Jewish civil servants whose fathers were veterans. Hitler amended the bill to meet Hindenburg’s objections, and was later to be surprised at the number of Jews whose jobs were protected by the amendments.

Hindenburg remained in office until his death at the age of 86 from lung cancer at his home in Neudeck, East Prussia, on 2 August 1934.

The day before Hindenburg's death, Hitler flew to Neudeck and visited him. Hindenburg, old and senile as well as bedridden from being very sick, thought he was meeting Kaiser Wilhelm II, and he called Hitler "Your Majesty" when Hitler first walked into the room.

Following Hindenburg's death, Hitler merged the presidency with the office of Chancellor under the title of Leader and Chancellor (Führer und Reichskanzler), making himself Germany's Head of State and Head of government, thereby completing the progress of Gleichschaltung. This action effectively removed the last remedy by which Hitler could be legally removed from office — and with it, all institutional checks and balances on his power.

Hitler had a plebiscite held on 19 August 1934, in which the German people were asked if they approved of Hitler merging the two offices. The Ja (Yes) vote amounted to 90% of the vote.

In taking over the president's powers for himself without calling for a new election, Hitler technically violated the provisions of the Enabling Act. While the Enabling Act allowed Hitler to pass laws that contravened the Weimar Constitution, it specifically forbade him from interfering with the powers of the president. Moreover, the Weimar Constitution had been amended in 1932 to make the president of the High Court of Justice, not the chancellor, acting president pending new elections. However, Hitler had become law unto himself by this time, and no one dared object.

Hindenburg himself was said to be a monarchist who favored a restoration of the German monarchy. Though he hoped one of the Prussian princes would be appointed to succeed him as Head of State, he did not attempt to use his powers in favour of such a restoration, as he considered himself bound by the oath he had sworn on the Weimar Constitution.

It has been alleged that Hindenburg’s will asked for Hitler to restore the monarchy. However, the truth of this story cannot be established as Oskar von Hindenburg destroyed the portions of his father’s will relating to politics.

Hindenburg's remains were moved no fewer than six times in the 12 years following his initial interrment.

Hindenburg was originally buried in the yard of the castle - like Tannenberg Memorial near Tannenberg, East Prussia (today: Stębark, Poland), on 7 August 1934 during a large state funeral, five days after his death. This was against the wishes he had expressed during his life – to be buried in his family plot in Hanover, Germany, next to his wife Gertrud who had died in 1921.

The following year, Hindenburg was temporarily disinterred, along with the 20 German unknown soldiers buried at the Tannenberg Memorial, to allow the building of his new crypt there (which required lowering the entire plaza 8 feet). Hindenburg's bronze coffin was placed in the crypt on 2 October 1935 (the anniversary of his birthday), along with the coffin bearing his wife, which was moved from the family plot.

In January 1945, as Soviet forces advanced into East Prussia, Hitler ordered both coffins to be disinterred for their safety. They were first moved to a bunker just outside Berlin, then to a salt mine at the village of Bernterode, Germany, along with the remains of both Wilhelm I, German Emperor and Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great). The four coffins were hastily marked of their contents using red crayon, and interred behind a 6 foot thick (1.8 m) masonry wall in a deep recess of the 14 mile mine complex, 1,800 feet underground. Three weeks later, on 27 April 1945, the coffins were discovered by U.S. Army Ordnance troops after tunneling through the wall. All were subsequently moved to the basement of the heavily guarded Marburg Castle in Marburg an der Lahn, Germany, a collection point for recovered Nazi plunder.

The U.S. Army, in a secret project dubbed "Operation Bodysnatch", had many difficulties in determining the final resting places for the four famous Germans. 16 months after the salt mine discovery, in August 1946, the remains of Hindenburg and his wife were finally laid to rest by the American army at St. Elizabeth's, the church of his Teutonic ancestors in Marburg, where they remain today.