The First Nazi: Erich Ludendorff, The Man Who Made Hitler Possible

General Erich Ludendorff was one of the most important military individuals of the last century, yet today, one of the least known. One of the top two German generals of World War I, Ludendorff dominated not only his superior—General Paul von Hindenburg—but also Germany’s head of state, Kaiser Wilhelm II. For years, Ludendorff was the military dictator of Germany.

Ludendorff not only dictated all aspects of World War I, he refused all opportunities to make peace; he antagonized the Americans until they declared war; he sent Lenin into Russia to forge a revolution in order to shut down the Russian front; and then he pushed for total military victory in 1918, in a rabid slaughter known as “The Ludendorff Offensive.”

Shortly after losing the War in 1918, Ludendorff created the murderous legend that Germany had lost this war only because Jews had conspired on the home front. He soon forged an alliance with Hitler, endorsed the Nazis, and wrote maniacally about how Germans needed a new world war, to redeem the Fatherland. This savage man had staggering designs to build a gigantic state that would dwarf even the British Empire. Simply stated, he wanted the world.