Erich Ludendorff was born near Poznan, in present-day Poland, but then a part of Prussia, the third child but eldest son of a Prussian railway official. He attended military school and was commissioned in 1882 as an infantry officer. Through severe application he worked his way up through the notoriously aristocratic German Army structure and in 1914 was a Major-General. He later commanded the Eastern Front and then became virtual co-dictator of Germany with Hindenburg in 1917. He died in 1937 in Munich. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
John W. Wheeler-Bennett. "Ludendorff: The Soldier and the Politician," The Virginia Quarterly Review 14 (Spring 1938): 187–188.
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