"The Stab in the Back" Myth

On 18 November 1919, the two leading generals of Germany in World War I, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, appeared in front of a special parliamentary investigation committee studying the reasons for the German defeat in 1918. Defying the admonitions of the chairman to avoid personal judgments and not to read out long statements, Hindenburg read a bitter accusatory note that he had drafted together with Ludendorff and with former Minister of the Interior Karl Helfferich. Arguing that the numerical inferiority of Germany and its allies had made it essential to maintain domestic cohesion and a united will to victory in order to win the war, Hindenburg accused the civilian authorities of Germany of having failed to support the war effort with the necessary determination and to ruthlessly repress the defeatist political agitation in the army, the navy, and the factories. Referring to a statement by an unnamed “English general,” Hindenburg concluded that the German army had been stabbed in the back.