German Military and the Weimar Republic

Karen Schaefer

März 2020 · Pen and Sword Military

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This military biography examines the man who sought to rebuild the Germany Army after WWI—and the rival who stoked the rise of Nazism.

After Germany’s devastating defeat in the First World War, General Hans von Seekt became Chief of the Army Command at the Reichewehr Ministry of the Weimar Republic. His job was to rebuild the shattered German army and repair the nation’s standing on the world stage. The punitive terms of the post-war settlement made these ambitious goals nearly impossible, but the most significant challenges von Seekt faced came from within Germany.

Von Seekt aimed to build a modern and efficient military with a main strategy of peaceful defense purposes. This original and far-sighted policy was opposed by his rival, General Erich Ludendorff, who led a nationalistic movement seeking revenge for Germany’s defeat. Ludendorff proposed to rebuild the once-mighty German imperial army as a major international force. The failure of von Seekt's experiment was tragically mirrored by the fall of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Autoren-Profil

Karen Schaefer is an historian specialising in German military history during and after the First World War. She is leading librarian and archivist for the Bundeswehr - Federal Germany Army - and obtained her PhD at the University of Potsdam. Her thesis, which forms the basis of the book, was supervised by Professor Beatrice Heuser of the University of Glasgow who also advised on the revision to book form.