Hindenburg: Power, Myth, and the Rise of the Nazis

The distinctive visage of Paul von Hindenburg hovered over Weimar Germany like a dour Cheshire Cat. The old soldier's vaguely melancholy image—dewlapped, mustachioed, solemn—gazed out from newspapers, magazines, political posters, advertisements and more. He was ubiquitous, but also inscrutable. Just what did Hindenburg mean? That, this insightful study would suggest, depends upon whom you asked, and when the question was posed, but it meant something important to nearly everyone. Major biographies have reinterpreted Hindenburg in nearly every decade since his death in 1934, but it is the original contribution of Anna von der Goltz's work to be the first to explore in detail the ways in which contending political and cultural groups shaped and exploited the image of Hindenburg, the impact of the various renderings of Hindenburg, and the Field Marshall's own role in the evolution of his myth.

Hindenburg emerged from the wreckage of the World War as Germany's most popular soldier, the unflappable ‘saviour’ of Tannenberg and a heroic symbol of resolute patriotic stoicism in the face of German misfortune. According to Goltz, over the next fifteen years the Hindenburg myth—a term defined here as an ‘order of images with a metaphysical claim’—became the most important single unifying set of symbols operating against the powerful centrifugal forces that fractured Weimar's short life (cited, p. 6). This set of images was particularly potent both because Hindenburg seemed to embody continuity with earlier meaningful German symbols, such as Hermann the Cherusker, Bismarck and Barbarossa, and because the erroneous idea that he was above politics permitted Hindenburg to be seen ‘both as a saviour from Weimar and saviour of Weimar within the space of a few years’ (p. 214). From the presidential election of 1925, in which Hindenburg was cast as the paladin of the Republic's authoritarian adversaries on the right, to the election of 1932, when the roles reversed and Hindenburg became the ‘rock’ of the Republic against its Nazi adversaries, Hindenburg's image had a unique flexibility and utility across nearly the entirety of the political spectrum. Indeed, as Goltz indicates, even those who opposed him, from the Right or the Left, found it expedient to emphasize their unqualified admiration for Germany's greatest hero so as not to risk electoral repercussions from his idolatrous following among German voters. Hindenburg's was an image in a constant process of renegotiation, and one, Goltz contends, which had pervasive appeal for all except Weimar's Communists and the far left of Social Democracy. ‘This very polyvalence, in fact, made the Hindenburg myth a more plastic and potent phenomenon than one trapped in the tight corset of Weimar's right-wing political sphere could ever have been’ (p. 214).

This is a creative and insightful investigation, which makes a valuable contribution to the study of Weimar political culture and, as the title suggests, to our understanding of the role of political imagery in the rise of the Nazis. It is in every technical respect an exemplary monograph: Written with clarity, organized with elegance, thoroughly researched in a broad range of the relevant primary and secondary sources, and equipped with a complete scholarly apparatus. As might be anticipated, Goltz devotes most of this study to analysis of the political impact of the Hindenburg myth, and she is justly harsh in her appraisal of Hindenburg's acquiescence in the use of his image to legitimate subversion of the Weimar constitution after 1930. But the most groundbreaking contribution made by this work may be its careful attention to the use of Hindenburg's image in Weimar film and advertisement, where it appears to have exerted a powerful, and profitable, allure over middle-class German consumers.

Not everyone will entirely agree with the tone and interpretation of the book. Hindenburg is clearly not an object of the author's sympathy, and his actions and decisions are frequently interpreted with an antipathetic scepticism that may not do justice to the man. For example, Goltz is harshly critical of Hindenburg's visit to Koenigsberg in the summer of 1922, where his appearance sparked nationalist demonstrations and a left-wing response that resulted in violent rioting, an episode also discussed in Wheeler-Bennett and other standard biographies. Contemporaries noted Hindenburg's subdued demeanour in the wake of these disturbances, and biographers have claimed he displayed dismay and remorse long after, but this response does not figure in Goltz's discussion of the incident and its aftermath. It is also questionable whether the Hindenburg myth was, as the author contends, the most important integrative political myth of the era. The myth of the ‘war-guilt lie’, explored by Ulrich Heinemann and others, arguably enjoyed an appeal that was as widespread, and a political flexibility and utility as great, as the Hindenburg myth. And there is an occasional tendency to seek nationalist subterfuge where the evidence may not sustain such an interpretation. The choice of the name ‘Tannenberg’ for Hindenburg's signal victory, for example, a choice for which he was not responsible but of which he approved, is cast as a ‘clever’ act of shrewd mythmaking, but it was as reasonable as any of the other possibilities, connecting as it did with widely-known precedents in German history. Even Wellington, after all, showed care that his great victory would be remembered as ‘Waterloo’, infinitely more appealing to the Anglophone than Quatre Bras, Ligny, Charleroi or any of several other possibilities. But these are matters of judgment not, perhaps, susceptible of any final resolution. Goltz has provided us with a stimulating, well-crafted and useful addition to historical comprehension of the era, and her book will be read with great benefit by students and scholars of Weimar, of myth and political propaganda, and of the sociopolitical background to the rise of Hitler's movement.