During World War I, Groener organized the transportation of the German army’s troops. After Erich Ludendorff was dismissed in October 1918, he became Quartermaster general, which made him the head of the OHL for all intents and purposes. In this role, he organized the withdrawal of the millions of German troops in the field. At the same time, he tried to promote the military’s interests by influencing political developments. On 10 November 1918, he offered Friedrich Ebert his support. He subsequently managed to defend the officer corps’ standing. In contrast to other military officers, he promoted the view that the Reichswehr’s (Imperial Army’s) proper role was to protect the republic. After resigning from the army, he was appointed cabinet member several times. When he took strong measures against the Nazi Party in 1932, Kurt von Schleicher dismissed him.

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During World War I, Hans von Seeckt first served on the Western Front, then as a military advisor for Austria-Hungary and the de facto Chief of Staff of the Ottoman Army. In 1920, he became the head of the Truppenamt (general staff) of the Reichswehr (Imperial Army). In this function, he refused to send in the Reichswehr to combat the troops of the Kapp Putsch (“Troops do not shoot at other troops”). He stayed in office despite this and in the midst of the crises of 1923, Friedrich Ebert granted him executive power over the Reich. Seeckt developed the concept of an apolitical Reichswehr as a “state within a state”. In 1930, he became a DVP member of the Reichstag. Later on, he worked as a military advisor in China.

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Georg Maercker joined the army in 1885. He fought the Herero people in a brutal war in German South West Africa. During World War I, he fought on multiple fronts and was injured several times. Shortly after November Revolution, he decided that Freikorps units should be founded. The OHL supported him in this endeavor. He put his Landesjägerkorps (Volunteer Rifles) unit under the command of Friedrich Ebert’s government. It was then used to put down the Spartacist Uprising in Berlin and to provide security for the National Assembly in Weimar. From March to summer 1919, Maercker’s Freikorps units attacked the councils in Thuringia, Halle, Magdeburg, and Braunschweig, putting down their uprisings in bloody clashes. During the Kapp Putsch, Maercker first stood back to wait and see. He then decided to not help the putsch leaders.

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Erich Ludendorff was already climbing the career ladder quickly as a military officer before World War I; during the war, his career truly took off. In 1916, he managed to oust Chief of General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, taking control of the OHL together with Paul von Hindenburg. This put him basically at the top of the military dictatorship, with the Kaiser’s and the Reichskanzler’s (Chancellor’s) power paling in comparison. With his Hindenburg Program, he mobilized Germany’s last reserves for the war. Despite this, he had to admit in September 1918 that the war was lost. Yet he shifted the blame for the defeat to politicians. After resigning, he became active in nationalist, völkisch circles, spreading the stab-in-the-back myth. In November 1923, he participated in the Beer Hall Putsch. Afterwards, Ludendorff’s close ties with Hitler broke off and he turned to crude conspiracy theories and left public affairs to tend to his private life.

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Paul von Hindenburg was already retired when World War I broke out. He was called back to active duty because the Russian army was advancing on the Eastern Front. With the victory of Tannenberg, he saved the Eastern Front and the Hindenburg myth was born. In 1916, he was appointed head of the OHL, with practically dictatorial power. In line with this, he fiercely opposed the revolution and the new republic. Knowing it was not true, he claimed that the German army had not been defeated by the enemy; instead, its ability to fight on had been destroyed by the unrest within Germany (“stab-in-the-back myth”). In the presidential elections’ second round of voting, he was nominated by the right-wing parties - and won by a slim majority. This led to a paradox: an open opponent of the republic becoming its head of state. At first, Hindenburg respected the legal framework and laws of the republic. Yet with the crises starting at the end of the 1920s, he weakening the democracy more and more via emergency decrees and dictatorial presidential cabinets. Finally, at the beginning of 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor, plunging Germany into a dark dictatorship.

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Schleicher was born into an aristocratic Prussian family in Brandenburg in 1882. His father Hermann von Schleicher was an officer in the Prussian army. Like his father, he pursued a career in the Prussian military. Following his mentor Wilhelm Groener, he was appointed to the Kriegsamt (German War Office). In 1917, he was sent to the Galician Front. Thanks to his close ties with Groener and Groener’s pact with Friedrich Ebert, Schleicher successfully adapted to the new order after the November Revolution. In 1919, Schleicher was transferred to the Reich’s Ministry of Defense, where he became one of Hans von Seeckt’s closest staff members. When his department was transformed into a ministerial office, Schleicher became a civil servant with the rank of state secretary - a promotion. In 1932, he used his connections in the president’s office to have first Papen then himself appointed chancellor. Yet his attempts to convince the Nazis to join the government coalition failed. After secret talks between Hindenburg, Papen, and Hitler to have Hitler appointed chancellor, Schleicher stepped down at the end of January 1933, recommending Hitler as the new chancellor.

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Tirpitz was and is known in Germany first and foremost for his role in building up the German navy’s fleet under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Together with the Kaiser, he pushed through the armament of the fleet from the turn of the century, alienating the United Kingdom more and more. In the end, he resigned in 1916 because he, the Kaiser, and the Chancellor could not find common ground regarding unrestricted submarine warfare. Together with Wolfgang Kapp, he founded the nationalist and völkisch German Fatherland Party in 1917, reacting to the Reichstag’s peace resolution. After the war, he founded the DNVP with other conservatives. From 1924 to 1928, he was a DNVP member of the Reichstag.

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In 1859, Walther von Lüttwitz was born into an aristocratic family in Bodland, Silesia. He joined the military, reaching the rank of lieutenant general by the time World War I started. In March 1918, he served as the commanding general of the 3rd Army Corps during the German army’s Spring Offensive, which failed in the end. After the war, the Council of People’s Representatives appointed him commander of the troops in Berlin and vicinity in December 1918. In this function, he was in charge of maintaining order in the Reich’s capital and ending unrest. In January 1919, he headed the suppression of the Spartacist Uprising, during which Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered. After the Treaty of Versailles took effect, he spoke out against the plans to disband the Freikorps and reduce the army to 100,000 men. The government rejected Lüttwitz’s requests and withdrew his authority as commander of the troops in Berlin. At that, he joined forces with Wolfgang Kapp and his fellow conspirators. Together, they attempted a putsch in March 1920, with Lüttwitz’s troops occupying Berlin and Kapp becoming the new chancellor. The attempt failed after just a few days and Lüttwitz flew to Hungary. In 1924, he returned to Germany, having been granted amnesty.

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Reinhardt’s father was an officer of the Army of Württemberg. Like his father, Reinhardt started his military career there. Reinhardt reached high-level ranks during the war, serving in a number of its theaters. Just before the end of the war, at the beginning of November 1918, he was transferred to the Prussian Ministry of War to serve as a department head. After the revolution started, Reinhardt served as Prussia’s last minister of war, from January to September 1919. With the army’s reorganization and Gustav Noske appointed the Reich’s Minister of Defense, the Ministry of War was dissolved. However, Reinhardt still managed to consolidate his standing, taking the helm of the new Reichswehr (Imperial Army). He worked to bolster the Reichswehr’s respect for the republic, whereas his competitor Hans von Seeckt, the head of the Truppenamt (general staff), was hostile towards the democratic state. Accordingly, in contrast to Seeckt, Reinhardt promoted the use of the Reichswehr to put down the Kapp Putsch. Due to the events surrounding the Kapp Putsch, Noske and Reinhardt resigned. Reinhardt’s successor was - of all people - the republic’s enemy Hans von Seeckt.

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