It’s difficult to believe that there remains a major wartime figure from the early half of the 20th century who has yet to be discovered. But when you read the opening of this book you’ll be surprised, and maybe even startled, to understand why you’ve never encountered a full treatment of Erich Ludendorff.
Here’s the man who:
■ Practiced a new method of genocide in Belgium in WW I, involving hostages, forced labor and property confiscations which the Nazis copied in the next war.
■ When World War I reached a stalemate in 1916, and while there was a chance for a compromise peace, he demanded total victory, the so-called “Ludendorff Peace,” thus prolonging the world war years, and the dead by millions. Note that Churchill said that if Germany had called for everyone to return to prewar borders, without annexations or indemnities, then the offer would have been irresistible.
■ Then Ludendorff sent Lenin in a sealed train to Russia in 1917, like a plague germ, to spread the disease of communist Revolution, and take that people out of the war, so as to allow Germany a chance to win the war in the West before Americans could arrive in force. When Russia left the war, Ludendorff forced the Russians to cede a quarter of her territory, population and industry. The misery he inflicted by promoting the Russian Revolution, and by extending the war, was vast. A European war became a world war, with savage results that lasted a century.
■ Meanwhile when the British did not collapse, Ludendorff convinced the German government to launch unrestricted submarine war on the high seas, even against American ships, to starve out the British. This brought the Americans into the War, and prolonged that war beyond measure. When Americans began to train immense armies, Ludendorff assured all Germans that none of these troops would be ready in time, or transported across the ocean against German submarines. “I do not give two hoots for the American Army,” he shouted, promising success.
■ But again he failed. American troops began to arrive at a rate above one hundred thousand per month, troops that were amazingly good. Like a gambler Ludendorff launched a go-for-broke offensive in the spring of 1918, the “Ludendorff Offensive,” to win before more Americans could arrive, using new strategies which Nazis later copied.
■ Contrary to the claims of the best German thinkers, the US was able to train and deliver more than 1.5 million superlative troops, against all the German projections, and against all German torpedoes. Clearly, Ludendorff and the German Army had failed. But instead of accepting this, he blamed the Jews for his multiple errors, and forged his “Stab in the Back” legend against them.
■ He then helped found the Nazi party, and ran as the first Nazi candidate for the Presidency of Germany. When this failed, he sponsored Hitler.
■His work in three wars---World Wars I and II, and the Russian Revolution--- killed millions, and he should be famous and infamous. Yet he is a blank.
Philosophically, he is intriguing – the only man influential in both world wars and the Russian Revolution.
This is a remarkable story and one that fills out the history of World War II in ways surprising and necessary.