The high command under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff increasingly controlled the Reich as they gambled on one last offensive in spring 1918 ( before the Americans could arrive in force ).

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.

In 1918 Wilhelmshöhe became the seat of the German Army High Command ( OHL ): it was there that the military commanders Hindenburg and Ludendorff prepared the German capitulation.

On 18 November 1914 he claimed a diplomatic solution, but Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff disagreed.

They were replaced by Paul von Hindenburg, called out of retirement, with Erich Ludendorff as his chief of staff.

When Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived on 23 August, they immediately stopped the retreat and put Hoffmann's plan into action.

Ludendorff sent the official dispatch from Tannenberg, and the battle was named Battle of Tannenberg at the direct request of Hindenburg.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff were both hailed as heroes, although Hoffmann was generally ignored by the press.

On 29 August the German Chief of the General Staff, Erich Falkenhayn, was replaced by General Paul von Hindenburg, with General Erich Ludendorff as his deputy, but in effect the operational commander.

Despite being promoted to Field-Marshal, Rupprecht infuriated the new German High Command ( Hindenburg and Ludendorff ) by advising them to make peace.

Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff in September 1916.

General Erich Ludendorff, Generalquartiermeister and joint head ( with von Hindenburg ) of Germany's war effort, stated that Russian communist elements working against the Tsar had betrayed Kitchener's travel plans to Germany.

After Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff replaced the more ineffectual Erich von Falkenhayn at the General Staff in the summer of 1916, his hopes for American President Woodrow Wilson's mediation at the end of 1916 came to nothing, and, over Bethmann Hollweg's objections, Hindenburg and Ludendorff forced the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare in March 1917, which led to the United States's entry into the war the next month.

It proposed both Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff as ' people's emperors ' of a military state whose legitimacy was based upon war and war aims instead of parliamentary government of the empire.

Internally there were calls for a coup against the state, to be led by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, even against the Emperor if necessary.

Ludendorff ( right ) and Paul von Hindenburg | Hindenburg.

Hindenburg, emperor Wilhelm II of Germany | Wilhelm II, and Ludendorff in January, 1917

Paul von Hindenburg | Hindenburg and Ludendorff 1917

Propaganda for Paul von Hindenburg ( left ) and Erich Ludendorff

Heinz Pernet, Johann Aigner and Scheubner-Richter were dispatched to pick up Ludendorff, whose personal prestige was being harnessed to give the Nazis credibility.

" However, it should be noted that when a consignment of papers relating to Landsberg prison, including the visitor book, were later sold at auction it was noted that Ludendorff had visited Hitler a number of times.

Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch on 9 November 1923, Röhm, Hitler, General Erich Ludendorff, Lt-Colonel Kriebel and six others were tried in February 1924 on charges of treason.

With the country paralysed, and with the leading generals of the army — with the exception of Ludendorff — having at the same time informed Lüttwitz that his position and action were entirely irregular and that he must resign in the interests of the country, the putsch collapsed ; Kapp and Lüttwitz, unable to govern, fled to Sweden.

Ludendorff was convinced that his prospects in the military were nil but took up his mildly important position.

Paul von Hindenburg took his place ; Ludendorff declined to be known as " Second Chief of the General Staff " and instead insisted on the title First Generalquartiermeister, on condition that all orders were sent out jointly from the two men.

After the bloody battles of 1916 and 1917, the British army facing the Ludendorff Offensive of 1918 were mainly conscripted youths, most of them under 20 years of age, although there were also some men in their late thirties or older.

The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen was found intact, and was seized by elements of the 9th Armored minutes before demolition charges were set to explode on 7 March 1945.

Ludendorff cannot be a fool, at any rate, at his own trade ; for his military measures were often very effective.

In enemy countries, his enterprises were sequestrated, and his firm at Rotterdam placed on the Allies ' “ black list ,” but he was richly compensated, apart from the regular indemnification paid by the German government, when he was called in by Erich Ludendorff as the most competent expert to give advice, to organize the coal and the industrial production of occupied Belgium and to help to set in motion the gigantic production of war material which the German general headquarters demanded.

Ludendorff later commented: " no doubt exceedingly important strategic objects lay behind the British attack, but I have never been able to discover what they were ".

The crossing of the Rhine was achieved at four points: One was an opportunity taken by U. S. forces when the Germans failed to blow up the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, one crossing was a hasty assault, and two crossings were planned.

However, the First and Second Armies were stopped by the German Eighth Army, led by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his Chief of Staff, General Erich Ludendorff.

Despite the example provided by Ludendorff and his circle, for Hillgruber, the changes in German foreign policy introduced by National Socialist Ostpolitik ( Eastern Policy ) were so radical as to be almost differences of kind rather than degree.

Among these were the wartime General Erich Ludendorff and also the Nazi ( NSDAP ) group, led by Adolf Hitler.

Through his courage and personal example he earned the respect of the troops and the senior Bulgarian and German commanders, even that of the Generalquartiermeister of the German Army Erich Ludendorff, who preferred dealing personally with Boris and described him as excellently trained, a thoroughly soldierly person and mature beyond his years.

), tactics ( combined arms, improved artillery handling ), and training ( ironically much of which was adapted from Hutier's earlier successes ) meant that the Germans had lost the edge they had, and even the talent of Hutier, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff could not save the situation.

Ludendorff quickly organized Ober Ost so that it was a self sustaining region, growing all its own food and even exporting surpluses to Berlin.

The theme of stab-in-the-back was articulated in 1919 most prominently by General Erich Ludendorff, one of the two top German commanders.

Ludendorff wrote, " On the left bank, close to the Meuse, one division had failed ... and yet both here and in Flanders everything possible had been done to avoid failure ....

General Erich Ludendorff, a disciple of Schlieffen who applied his teachings of encirclement in the Battle of Tannenberg, once famously christened Schlieffen as " one of the greatest soldiers ever.

* Erich Ludendorff, German general of World War I ; awarded the Pour le Mérite in August 1914, one of the earliest World War I awards, for the siege of Liege, Belgium ; received the oak leaves in February 1915.

In the video game Call of Duty: Finest Hour the player helps to liberate the Ludendorff Bridge in one level.

Ludendorff privately conceded that Germany could no longer win a war of attrition, yet he was not ready to give up the German gains in the West and East and was one of the main obstacles to the German government's attempts to reach a settlement with the Western Allies.

* That General Erich Ludendorff had launched the Kaiserschlacht in March 1918, which led directly to Germany's defeat in November 1918, yet most people in Germany still considered Ludendorff one of Germany's greatest heroes.

* That General Erich Ludendorff had launched the Kaiserschlacht in March 1918, which led directly to Germany's defeat in November 1918, yet most people in Germany still considered Ludendorff one of Germany's greatest heroes.

According to the assessment of British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Brusilov was one of the seven outstanding fighting commanders of World War I, the others being Falkenhayn, Ludendorff, Mustapha Kemal, Plumer, Monash and Allenby.

He was one of a number of prominent figures of the right, including General Ludendorff and Waldemar Pabst, who set up in August 1919 the Nationale Vereinigung ( National Union ), a right-wing think-tank which campaigned for a counter-revolution to install a form of conservative militaristic government.

He was also attached to the 9th Armored Division when one of its infantry-tank task forces captured the Ludendorff Bridge spanning the Rhine river at Remagen, Germany.

The first issue of the decoration, struck in 99 % pure silver, was awarded to 1500 participants in the putsch who had also been members of the party or one of its formations before January 1932 ( continuous service ), or had been cadets from the Munich Infantry School who marched in support of Ludendorff.

The largest resource was one that Ludendorff was unable to exploit without difficulty.

It was named for the German World War I general Erich Ludendorff, one of the bridge's proponents.