German field marshal in World War I and president of the Weimar Republic
Paul von Hindenburg commanded German land forces during World War I and was elected president of the Weimar Republic in 1925, serving until 1934. In the early 1930s he authorized governments lacking parliamentary support to rule through presidential emergency decrees, and on January 30, 1933, appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor. Hitler’s government soon expanded its power through terror and political manipulation.
German field marshal who governed occupied Ukraine in 1918 and was assassinated in Kiev by a Left SR
Prussian field marshal Hermann von Eichhorn became military governor of occupied Ukraine in 1918 and was assassinated in Kiev by Left Socialist-Revolutionary Boris Donskoy, who bombed his carriage.
A Prussian officer who fought in the wars of 1866 and 1870–71 and rose to command the XVIII Army Corps. In the First World War he led the 10th Army from January 1915, taking Kovno and Grodno, and from 1916 also Army Group Eichhorn; he was made field marshal in December 1917. On 3 April 1918 he became commander of Army Group Kiev and military governor of occupied Ukraine. On 30 July 1918 the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Boris Donskoy killed him in Kiev with a bomb thrown at his carriage.
Career timeline
1866–1914Joined the Prussian Army; fought in 1866 and 1870–71; commanded 9th Division (1901–1904) and XVIII Army Corps (1904–1912)
1915–1918Commander, 10th Army; took Kovno and Grodno; Army Group Eichhorn from 1916; field marshal 1917
1918Commander, Army Group Kiev, and military governor of Ukraine; assassinated in Kiev on 30 July
German admiral who built the High Seas Fleet to rival the Royal Navy, set off a naval arms race and urged unrestricted U-boat war
Born in Küstrin in Brandenburg, the son of a lawyer, he was State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office from 1897 to 1916 and turned the modest Imperial Navy into a world-class force that could threaten the Royal Navy. The Fleet Acts of 1898–1912, built on his “risk theory”, gave Germany the second-largest navy in the world, but started a costly naval arms race and pushed Britain closer to France. He saw sea power as a “palliative against” the Social Democrats. When the High Seas Fleet could not break Britain’s blockade, he became an outspoken advocate of unrestricted submarine warfare, and resigned in March 1916. In 1917 he co-founded and chaired the far-right Fatherland Party, which opposed a negotiated peace, and after the war sat in the Reichstag for the German National People’s Party. He died in 1930.
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1897–1916State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office
1898–1912Built the High Seas Fleet through the Fleet Acts
1917Co-founder and chairman of the German Fatherland Party
Last German Emperor, who backed Austria-Hungary in the July Crisis and abdicated and fled in 1918
The son of the Prussian crown prince and Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, he became emperor in 1888 and dismissed Bismarck in 1890. In 1900 he urged the troops sent against the Boxers to fight like Huns, and his naval build-up and Moroccan interventions isolated Germany. In the July Crisis of 1914 he assured Austria-Hungary of military support. In the war he left decisions largely to the Supreme Army Command, leading to the de facto military dictatorship of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. When his abdication was announced on 9 November 1918 he went into exile in the Netherlands, which refused to extradite him as the Treaty of Versailles provided. He died at Doorn in 1941.
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1888German Emperor and King of Prussia
1890Dismissed Bismarck; the “New Course”
1914Guaranteed support to Austria-Hungary in the July Crisis
1918Abdication announced on 9 November; exile in the Netherlands
German Social Democratic and Independent Social Democratic politician who headed Berlin police in 1918
“I got my job from the Revolution, and I shall give it up only to the Revolution.”
A trained mechanic, Eichhorn worked for the Social Democratic Party before joining the Independent Social Democratic Party in 1917. After the November Revolution of 1918, he became Berlin police president and pursued a policing policy favorable to left-wing political groups. On 4 January 1919, the Prussian cabinet tried to dismiss him and replace him with Social Democrat Eugen Ernst. Mass demonstrations and a general strike opposed the move, followed by occupations and armed clashes that became the January uprising.
Career timeline
1893Became a full-time Social Democratic Party official and worked as an editor in Dresden
1903–1911Member of the Reichstag for Baden's 9th constituency
1908–1917Head of the Berlin Social Democratic press office
1917Joined the Independent Social Democratic Party
1918–1919Served as Berlin police president
1919–1920Member of the Weimar National Assembly for Berlin
1920–1925Joined the Communist Party of Germany and served in the Reichstag
General who directed Germany’s war with Hindenburg and later joined Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch
Born to a commoner family in the Province of Posen, he served on the General Staff and won fame at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. In August 1916 he and Hindenburg took over the Supreme Army Command; as First Quartermaster General he directed the war under a de facto military dictatorship and drove the Hindenburg Programme. His spring offensive, opened with Operation Michael in March 1918, failed; in September he demanded an immediate armistice and in October he was dismissed. After the war he spread the stab-in-the-back myth and took part in the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. He sat in the Reichstag for the National Socialist Freedom Movement in 1924–1928 and died in Munich in 1937.
Career timeline
1914Liège and Tannenberg
1916–1918First Quartermaster General
1918Spring offensive (Operation Michael); dismissed in October
SPD politician who proclaimed the republic from a Reichstag window on 9 November 1918 and became Weimar’s first head of government
On 9 November 1918, he proclaimed Germany a republic from a Reichstag window. In June 1919, he resigned as head of government rather than sign the Treaty of Versailles.
A printer from Kassel who became an SPD journalist and Reichstag deputy, he joined Prince Max of Baden’s cabinet in October 1918. On 9 November, hearing that Liebknecht was about to proclaim a socialist republic, he proclaimed a republic first from a Reichstag window, to Ebert’s fury. A People’s Deputy, he became head of government in February 1919 but resigned in June rather than accept the Treaty of Versailles. He was mayor of Kassel in the 1920s, survived a far-right cyanide attack in 1922, went into exile in 1933 and died in Copenhagen.
Career timeline
1903Entered the Reichstag and served in the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary group.
1917Was elected chairman of the SPD.
1918Became vice president of the Reichstag in June and a Social Democratic minister in Max von Baden’s cabinet in October. Proclaimed the republic from a Reichstag window on 9 November and joined the revolutionary provisional government, the Council of the People’s Deputies.
1919Was appointed head of government of the Weimar Republic on 13 February. On 20 June, he refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles and resigned with his cabinet.
Freikorps commander who tried to keep Germany's eastern influence in Finland and the Baltic
White Army quartermaster Hannes Ignatius described him as the "true regent of Finland."
He led the Baltic Sea Division to the aid of the Finnish Whites in 1918, then commanded the German troops and Freikorps in Latvia in 1919, retaking Riga but backing a coup against the Latvian government he saw as an obstacle. Recalled after Cēsis, he led far-right veterans' movements in the Weimar years.
Career timeline
1895Assigned to the Great General Staff
1914Led the 76th Infantry Regiment, wounded at the First Battle of the Marne
1918Commander of the Baltic Sea Division, aided the Finnish Whites, then 'German General in Finland'
1919Commander of the VI Reserve Corps, retook Riga, defeated at Cēsis (Wenden) and recalled
1920Commander in Berlin during the Kapp Putsch
1924–1933Chairman of the United Patriotic Associations of Germany (VVVD)
Journalist who overthrew the Bavarian monarchy in Munich in November 1918, proclaimed the People’s State and was assassinated the next year
He organized the November 1918 Bavarian Revolution, overthrew the monarchy and proclaimed the People’s State; he was assassinated in February 1919 while on his way to resign.
Born to a Jewish merchant family in Berlin, he was a theatre critic and editor of the SPD’s Vorwärts before moving to Munich. He joined the USPD against the war and was jailed for leading the munitions strike of January 1918. On 7 November he led demonstrators from a rally on the Theresienwiese round the barracks, and the next day proclaimed the People’s State of Bavaria and became premier. His publication of documents on German war guilt earned him the right’s hatred. Heavily defeated in the January 1919 election, he was assassinated by Count Arco-Valley on 21 February on his way to resign.
Career timeline
1890–1895Contributing editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung.
1898Joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
1900–1905Edited Vorwärts.
1907–1910Chief editor of the Fränkische Tagespost in Nuremberg.
1917Joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD).
1918Convicted of treason for inciting a munitions workers’ strike, he was imprisoned at Stadelheim and released in October under a general amnesty.
1918–1919Served as the first republican premier of the People’s State of Bavaria.
Last chancellor of the German Empire, who sought the armistice, announced the emperor’s abdication and handed power to Ebert
On 9 November 1918, as revolutionary demonstrations spread in Berlin, Max von Baden announced the emperor’s abdication and transferred the chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert.
Heir to the grand-ducal house of Baden and a former Prussian army officer, he won moderates’ respect in the war through Red Cross and prisoner-of-war relief work. Chancellor from 3 October 1918, he brought the SPD into government, asked the Allies for an armistice and carried the constitutional amendment that made the Empire a parliamentary monarchy. On 9 November, with Berlin full of demonstrators, he announced the emperor’s abdication without his consent, handed the chancellorship to Ebert and withdrew. In 1920 he founded the Salem boarding school with Kurt Hahn.
Career timeline
1918.10.03Became German Empire chancellor and brought the SPD and other majority-party representatives into the cabinet.
1918.10Sought an armistice from the Allies and advanced constitutional amendments shifting the Empire toward parliamentary government.
1918.11.09Announced the emperor’s abdication and transferred the chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert.
General who struck the 1918 secret pact with Ebert that preserved the officer corps and later served Weimar as defence and interior minister
On 10 November 1918, he made a secret telephone pact with Ebert, pledging army support for the new government while preserving the officer corps’ command.
A Württemberg staff officer and railway transport expert, he ran the War Office in the war, directing munitions production and labour mobilisation. In October 1918 he succeeded Ludendorff as First Quartermaster General and in November told the emperor that the army no longer stood behind him. On the night of 10 November he struck a secret telephone pact with Ebert, trading the army’s support for the preservation of the officer corps’ command. He later served as transport, defence and interior minister and fell in 1932 over his ban on the Nazi SA.
Career timeline
1884Entered the army.
1912Became head of the General Staff’s railway department, overseeing wartime troop movement and supply.
1918In October replaced Ludendorff as first quartermaster general; after the armistice, worked with Ebert on troop repatriation and volunteer units to suppress the uprising.
SPD defence minister who said “someone has to be the bloodhound” and used the Freikorps to crush the left risings of 1919
He directed the suppression of the 1919 Berlin uprising with Freikorps and army forces, then authorized summary executions by military forces in a March order.
A basket-maker from Brandenburg who became an SPD journalist, he entered the Reichstag in 1906 and was known as its military expert. Sent to Kiel as the government’s representative in November 1918, he calmed the mutiny and became governor. After the Christmas crisis he joined the Council of People’s Deputies for military affairs and, saying “someone has to be the bloodhound”, organised the Freikorps that crushed the January rising and the March battles. First defence minister from February 1919, he resigned after the Kapp Putsch of 1920, later governed the province of Hanover and was arrested after the July 1944 plot.
Career timeline
1890sHelped build the social-democratic movement and basket-makers’ union; chaired the Social Democratic Association in Brandenburg.
1906Elected to the Reichstag, where he became known as an expert on naval and army affairs.
1918.11–12Sent to Kiel as government representative, he led the sailors and Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council; on 28 December he became national commissioner for the army and navy.
1919.02–1920Appointed Reichswehr minister, he deployed Freikorps and army forces against the January uprising and March fighting in Berlin; he resigned after the 1920 Kapp Putsch.
1920–1933Served as chief president of the Prussian province of Hanover; dismissed in September 1933 under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.
German Eastern Front chief of staff who placed his soldier's boot on the Brest-Litovsk negotiating table
"The General on several occasions put his soldier's boot on the table around which the discussion was taking place": Trotsky, who wrote that 'Hoffmann's boot was the only reality to take seriously'
An outstanding strategic staff officer who, as Chief of Operations of the German Eighth Army, devised the plans that destroyed the Russian armies at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. As Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front from late 1917, he was the driving force behind the German position at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks: on 18 January 1918 he spread a map before the Soviet delegation and demanded the severance of Poland, the Baltic states, and Ukraine from Russia. After Trotsky's 'neither war nor peace' declaration, Hoffmann commanded Operation Faustschlag, an unopposed advance that compelled the Bolsheviks to accept far harsher final terms. He embodied the asymmetry between revolutionary diplomacy and imperial military force, most memorably by placing his soldier's boot on the negotiating table.
Career timeline
1899–1914Served in Russian Section of German General Staff; observer with Japanese army, Russo-Japanese War
1914–1916Operations officer, 8th Army, 9th Army & Ober Ost; architect of Tannenberg & Masurian Lakes
1916–1918Chief of Staff, Eastern Front (Major General); led German side at Brest-Litovsk negotiations
1918.02–03Commanded Operation Faustschlag; imposed final treaty terms on Soviet Russia
1919–1920Brigade commander on Polish border; retired March 1920
1920–1927Campaigned for anti-Soviet coalition intervention (Hoffmann Plan); wrote memoirs
Social Democratic chancellor whose government accepted the Treaty of Versailles under an Allied ultimatum
Born in Darkehmen in the Province of Prussia, he worked as a lawyer’s clerk, co-founded the office employees’ union and was second chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions from 1908 to 1918. Elected to the Reichstag for the SPD in 1912, he became labour secretary in Max von Baden’s cabinet in October 1918. When Scheidemann resigned in protest at the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, Bauer, until then a vocal critic of the treaty, succeeded him and got it through the National Assembly. His government carried out tax reform and extended social insurance, but was forced out in March 1920 over the negotiations conducted with the Kapp putschists. He was later vice-chancellor and treasury minister, and the Barmat corruption scandal cost him his seat in 1925. He died in Berlin in 1944.
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1908–1918Second chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions
A Social Democratic politician of the Weimar Republic who served twice as chancellor.
Müller joined the Social Democratic Party in 1893 and rose to its leadership. As foreign minister from 1919 to 1920, he signed the Treaty of Versailles for Germany. His first chancellorship in 1920 combined the suppression of left-wing uprisings with reforms expanding disability employment, primary education, unemployment benefits and workers’ social protection. He returned as chancellor in 1928 to lead a grand coalition, which collapsed amid the Great Depression and disputes over financing unemployment insurance; he resigned in 1930.
Career timeline
1893Joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
1916Elected to the Reichstag of the German Empire.
1919–1920Served as foreign minister and signed the Treaty of Versailles.
1920Served as chancellor.
1928–1930Served as chancellor of the grand coalition.
Non-party chancellor who answered the Ruhr occupation with passive resistance and fell amid hyperinflation
Born to a civil servant’s family in Suhl, he studied law and, as a Treasury official, helped organise Germany’s food supply early in the First World War. In 1917 he joined the Hamburg America shipping line, which he went on to head. In November 1922 he was appointed chancellor by presidential decree without a Reichstag vote, the first Weimar chancellor who belonged to no party, and formed a “business ministry”. When French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr in January 1923 he called for passive resistance; paying for it, mostly by printing money, began the run-up to hyperinflation. Amid a wave of strikes his cabinet resigned in August in the face of a no-confidence vote initiated by the SPD. In 1932 he joined in advising Hitler on economics, and he died in January 1933.
Wehrmacht field marshal who directed the encirclement of Leningrad
In September 1941 he believed Leningrad was about to fall, but the city did not surrender.
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb was a German field marshal and one of the Wehrmacht's senior operational commanders in the Second World War. In 1941 he led Army Group North through the Baltic states toward Leningrad, completing the land encirclement and directing the operational pressure that sustained it. Forces under his command committed crimes against civilians and cooperated with the SS in the murder of Jews. Convicted after the war in the High Command Trial for transmitting the Barbarossa Decree and its criminal application by subordinate units, he was sentenced to time served and released.
Career timeline
1895Entered the Bavarian Army
1914–1918Served on the Eastern Front and in the Serbian campaign during the First World War
1930–1933Commander of the 7th Division
1939–1941Commander of Army Group C
1941.06–1942.01Commander of Army Group North, directing the attack and encirclement of Leningrad
1948Convicted in the High Command Trial and released after a sentence of time served
A Nazi German naval commander who pursued a grand surface fleet
In the 1940 planning for Operation Sea Lion, control of the English Channel and the vulnerability of invasion transport exposed the German navy’s fundamental weakness.
Erich Raeder was an admiral who rose through the Imperial German Navy and went on to command the navies of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. He pursued a battleship-centered ocean fleet combined with commerce raiding, although Germany’s navy was unready to confront the Royal Navy when the Second World War began. Raeder was skeptical of Operation Sea Lion in 1940, pointing to German weakness in controlling the English Channel and the vulnerability of an invasion transport, and those naval limits constrained the plan’s feasibility. At the postwar International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, he was convicted of conspiracy, crimes against peace, and war crimes, sentenced to life imprisonment, and released in 1955.
Career timeline
1894Entered the Imperial German Navy
1912–1918Senior naval staff officer; served in the First World War
1928–1935Chief of the Naval Command, Reichsmarine
1935–1939Commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine; Generaladmiral
1939–1943Grand Admiral and commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine
1943Resigned as commander-in-chief and retired
1946–1955Convicted at Nuremberg and served a life sentence
The chancellor who made provisional statehood durable
As president of the Parliamentary Council, Adenauer helped present the Basic Law as a provisional settlement rather than a final constitution for a divided Germany.
Konrad Adenauer was a Catholic conservative statesman who helped shape the Federal Republic after the collapse of Nazism and the division of Germany. As president of the Parliamentary Council, he supported a provisional Basic Law rather than a permanent constitution, leaving open the possibility of reunification while establishing democratic institutions in the western zones. As the first Federal Chancellor, he pursued Westbindung, European integration, and a socially regulated market economy, while his anti-communist policy hardened the political division of the Cold War. His career thus joined parliamentary reconstruction with the consolidation of a state whose provisional founding became durable.
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1906–1909Deputy mayor of Cologne
1917–1933Lord Mayor of Cologne
1921–1933President of the Prussian State Council
1948–1949President of the Parliamentary Council
1949–1963First Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
1951–1955Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs
1950–1966Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union
Weimar chancellor who ended passive resistance in 1923 and, as foreign minister, concluded the Locarno treaties
Born in Berlin, he entered the Reichstag for the National Liberals in 1907 and during the war backed annexations and unrestricted submarine warfare. After the defeat he founded the German People’s Party and came to accept the republic. Chancellor and foreign minister from August 1923, he ended passive resistance in the Ruhr, used the army to remove the Saxon and Thuringian governments that included Communists, and halted hyperinflation with the Rentenmark. Ousted by a no-confidence vote in November, he remained foreign minister until his death, shaping the Dawes Plan, the Locarno treaties and entry into the League of Nations, and shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. He died of a stroke in 1929.
Weimar finance minister who founded the CDU in the Soviet zone in 1945 and was deposed for opposing the land reform
The son of a Cologne railway worker, he studied agriculture and from 1911 worked at the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome. A member of the Catholic Centre Party, he became Minister of Food in 1920 and was Minister of Finance from 1922 until the Cuno cabinet resigned in August 1923. Arrested after the Nazis took power, he later served as an economic adviser to the government of Colombia. Back in Germany he joined the resistance around Goerdeler, was arrested after 20 July 1944 and sentenced to death in January 1945, but his wife delayed the execution until the Red Army took Berlin. On 26 June 1945 he became the first chairman of the CDU of Berlin and the Soviet zone; because he refused to agree to the land reform without compensation, SMAD deposed him in December. In the West he founded the German Farmers’ Association and argued for reunification.
Career timeline
1911–1914Department director at the International Institute of Agriculture, Rome
1920Reich Minister of Food
1922–1923Reich Minister of Finance
1945Sentenced to death by a Nazi court
1945Chairman of the CDU in the Soviet zone; deposed in December
Freikorps officer who ordered the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in January 1919 and joined the Kapp Putsch
As a staff officer, he ordered the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in January 1919. He organised the 1920 Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch and became a leading Heimwehr organiser in Austria.
As staff officer of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division, the largest Freikorps unit, he had Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht interrogated after their capture in January 1919 and ordered them killed, later boasting “I had them executed”. A leading figure in the Kapp Putsch of 1920, he went to Austria to help organise the right-wing Heimwehr and was deported. In Nazi Germany he faded from public life, only loosely tied to the party. In a 1962 interview and his memoirs he claimed Noske and Ebert had approved the killings, which was never confirmed. Never punished, he died in Düsseldorf in 1970.
Career timeline
1911–1913Served as a first lieutenant in the Prussian General Staff.
1914–1918Served on the Western Front in the First World War as a captain and staff officer.
1918–1919As first general staff officer of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division, took part in suppressing the revolution in Berlin. After Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were captured and briefly interrogated on 15 January 1919, he ordered their murder.
1919–1920As managing director of the nationalist National Association, organised the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch; he fled to Austria after its failure.
1921–1930Became chief of staff of the Tyrolean Heimwehr, then federal chief of staff in 1928. Arrested and expelled from Austria in 1930.
1930–1943Headed the arms department at Rheinmetall-Borsig in Berlin and acquired his own business in 1938. In 1943 he remained in Switzerland and received political asylum.
1955–1970Returned to Germany in 1955. He took no further part in politics after the war and died in Düsseldorf in 1970.
German field marshal who commanded the Stalingrad offensive
In May 1941, days after Yugoslavia's surrender, he ordered reprisals killing one hundred Serbs for every German soldier wounded.
Maximilian von Weichs was a German professional officer shaped by the Bavarian and Reichswehr staff traditions who commanded corps and armies in Nazi Germany's wars of aggression. In 1942 he became commander of the newly formed Army Group B, placing the Sixth Army and Axis allies within the command structure of the southern offensive toward Stalingrad, where he advocated withdrawal after the encirclement but could not overcome Hitler's orders. He later commanded Army Group F and the German forces in the Balkans, where responsibility for reprisals against civilians and other war crimes was raised, and proceedings against him in the Hostages Trial were halted because of his failing health.
Career timeline
1900Joined the Bavarian Army's 2nd Heavy Cavalry Regiment
1935Commanded the 1st Panzer Division
1937–1939Commander of XIII Army Corps and Military District XIII
1939–1942Commander of the 2nd Army
1942–1943Commander of Army Group B during the offensive toward Stalingrad
1943–1945Commander of Army Group F and OB Southeast
1947Released from the Hostages Trial proceedings on medical grounds
German general who headed the Wehrmacht High Command and was complicit in Nazi war crimes.
As head of the Wehrmacht High Command, he signed criminal orders and bore responsibility for Nazi mass murder and the conduct of the war.
Keitel became head of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) in 1938 and served under Hitler's supreme command as an executor of policy. He signed orders and decrees that violated international law, including one shielding German crimes in the East from prosecution, the Commissar Order requiring the summary execution of Soviet political officers, and the Night and Fog Decree. As OKW chief, he was also responsible for cooperation between the Einsatzgruppen and the military in mass murder of civilians in the Soviet Union, and for the brutal treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg convicted him on all four counts; he was hanged in 1946.
Career timeline
1901Joined the Prussian army as an artillery officer.
1938Appointed head of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW).
1945Signed the German surrender document in May.
1946Convicted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and hanged.
