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The Tragic Pursuit of Total Victory: Germany’s Unrelenting Offensive That Lost WWIBy William J. Astore | MHQ | one comment | Print This Post | Email This Post The malicious Dolchstoßlegende or “stab-in-the-back” myth promoted by Hindenburg and Ludendorff in 1919 completed the tragedy. Because of this myth, many Germans redirected their animus from military leaders to war profiteers; to socialists who had presciently called for peace negotiations; and to Jews, even though the latter had made war sacrifices proportional to their representation in German society. Remarkably, despite his central role in overseeing Germany’s military collapse, Hindenburg emerged with his reputation intact, even enhanced. For some he came to embody their sense of the war as tragedy, a fact captured by his niece when she wrote after the war that to Germans “he seemed to rise out of an old legend of our forefathers. He incorporated the soul of our nation, without being in the least self-conscious of it. And one felt awed at its tragic presence.” But it was Erich von Falkenhayn who captured a more telling tragedy when he wrote in 1919: “Rhetoric, self-adulation and lies plunged Germany into the deepest abyss, when they stifled the sense of reality in our once strong and good people. The continuance of their rule threatens to make us slaves for ever.” An even deeper tragedy was that in the 1920s the Nazis seized upon the stab-in-the-back myth and took it to heretofore unimaginable extremes. Once the Nazis gained power in 1933, with President Hindenburg overseeing Adolf Hitler’s legal installation as chancellor, the so-called “November criminals” of 1918 were initially judged not worthy to live normal lives. They were among the first to be arrested and displayed in the new Nazi concentration camps. Soon the Nazis judged them unworthy to live at all. As the historian Holger Herwig once provocatively asked, “Is it too far off the mark to suggest that the ‘twisted road to Auschwitz’ began with the Dolchstoßlegende?” The flip side to this myth was Ludendorff’s postwar claim that “the majority of the German people were ready and willing to sacrifice the last of their strength for the army.” Hindenburg and Ludendorff’s refusal to face facts—that, in their blind pursuit of total victory, they had driven their men beyond endurance—paradoxically enabled a horrific new zeal: that of the Freikorps and later of Hitler and the Nazis, bent on murdering those persons and peoples who were allegedly responsible for sapping Aryan warrior spirit. Crafted in the context of their own insecurities, ambitions, and sense of alienation, Hindenburg and Ludendorff’s seductive false promise of total victory was papered over by self-serving lies and delusion. These lies contributed in no small measure to the murderous reality of a second, even more tragically devastating world war. This article was written by William J. Astore and originally published in the Autumn 2007 issue of MHQ Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to MHQ magazine today! Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: World War I
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One Comment to “The Tragic Pursuit of Total Victory: Germany’s Unrelenting Offensive That Lost WWI”
The best commentary on the post Franco-Prussian War Victory of 1870, was the Prussia]n and Imperial German Professors leaderships decision to begin Secret Planning for a War of Imperial German World Conquest. The German Professors, approached Professor Wellhousen in 1878, who then proposed the Infamous Graf-Wellhousen Thesis that “Moses did not write the Five Books of Moses,” but that these were composed by scribes and priests, over hundreds of years. According to Professor Samuel Schultz, author of “The Gospel of Moses.” and “The Old Testament Speaks,” and other important books on the “Old Testament,” there were no Ancient Precedents for this idea, but that Professor Wellhousen, was forced to fabricate “The Graf-Wellhousen Thesis,” out of thin air; an empty idea, with no known Precedents from Ancient Times.” This piece of Imperial German “War of World Conquest ’s” War Propaganda, is taught as True, by 96% of U.S. Seminaries for training “U.S. Clergy”. The purpose, was to remove Imperial Germany’s Judao-Christians’ reluctance to kill fellow Judao-Christians, on Imperial Germany’s Road to a War of World Conquest. For further verification of Imperial Germany’s plans for World Conquest, see the late Professor Ludwig von Mises, the last, and Penultimate Economist of the Austrian Neo-Classical school of Economics, book, “Omnipotent Government.” The Imperial German Kaiser, had an interview, in 1908, with the New York Times’ European Correspondent, during which The Kaiser revealed all of Imperial Germany’s plans for World Conquest. But; Before the Times could publish the Interview; which would have caused a World Sensation, and alerted the World’s Nations to Imperial Germany’s Intents which would have inspired them to prevent Imperial Germany, from ever accumulating sufficient materials and supplies to ever launch its Planned War of World Conquest, the Imperial German Ambassador, begged The New York Times’ owners, Ochs and Sultzberger, to kill the interview, on the grounds, that the Kaiser misspoke himself, carried away by the Grandeur of the Military Exercises of the moment. Just as similarly, US President George Washington speculated, the if he had 50 Thousand Cherokee Warriors, he, George Washington, could conquer the World. This Brazen Lie and Appeal, worked, and The World was deprived of a timely warning by the “German Loving” New York Times; see Halberstam’s book, “The Powers That Be,” for an account of the story. Similarly, though they knew that Adolph Hitler’s views, that he intended to kill all the Jews, Three Powerful Jewish Controlled Organizations:, The New York Times, the Anti-Defamation League, and the ACLU, who could have blocked Adolph Hitler’s coming to Power, had they acted jointly, publicly, and resolutely. The Promise for Salvation, for all Jews and Christians, is in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “The Lord your God, is One God. You shall love the Lord your God, with all you Heart, with all your Soul, and with all your Strength.” These Atheists thought that Adolf Hitler, meant to kill only the Embarrassing Religious, God Following and God Believing Jews, not nice Atheist Jews, like themselves. The mostly impoverished Religious, God Believing and God Following Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, were supporting their Rabbis and Schuls, and other Scholarly Institutions, who were engaged in a Great Project of bringing to completion, a study and a writing of a Great Collection of Laws, that would Solve in advance, all the problems of Human Relations, for all Mankind. The Sheer Enormity and Grandeur of the project, almost boggles the mind; this was what kept the project going, through all the required financial sacrifices, of a Very Great, though Impoverished, God’s People.
By Xeno77777, ST. Petersburg, FL, USA. on Jan 20, 2009 at 9:39 am