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Max Hoffmann
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Max Hoffmann
Carl Adolf Maximilian Hoffmann (25 January 1869 – 8 July 1927) was a German military officer and strategist. As a staff officer at the beginning of World War I, he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the 8th Army, soon promoted Chief of Staff. Hoffmann, along with Erich Ludendorff, masterminded the devastating defeat of the Russian armies at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. He then held the position of Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front. At the end of 1917, he negotiated with Russia to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Hoffmann was born in Homberg (Efze) and was the son of a district court judge. From 1879 to 1887, he studied at the gymnasium in the city of Nordhausen. After his graduation, he volunteered for the 72nd Infantry Regiment. One of his comrades affectionately recalled, "He was almost the worst athlete, horseman and swordsman of them all.... he exceeded them in his terrifying appetite". As an ensign, he studied at the Kriegsschule (Officer School) in Neisse from October 1887 to August 1888, graduated with an Imperial commendation and was commissioned second lieutenant. From 1895 to 1898, as a first lieutenant, he attended the Prussian War Academy and then was sent to Russia to study the Russian language. He was on the General Staff from 1899 to 1901 in the First Department (Russia and the Nordic States). In 1901, he was promoted to captain and assigned as a staff officer to V Army Corps. Two years later, he moved to command a company in the 33rd Fusilier Regiment. In 1904 the General Staff sent him to Manchuria as an observer with the Imperial Japanese Army in its war against the Imperial Russian Army. During that time, he is remembered for breaching protocol in the presence of other foreign observers when a Japanese general refused to allow him on to a hill to watch a battle. That led him to respond that the general was "a yellow-skin" and that he was "uncivilized if you don't let me go over that hill".
He returned to the staff twenty months later before he was assigned as the first staff officer of the 1st Division, stationed in Königsberg, East Prussia. In 1911, he became an instructor at the War Academy for two years before he moved to the 112th Infantry Regiment, where he had a field and then a staff position and was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
The German Empire entered World War I on 1 August 1914; Hoffmann became the first general staff officer of the German Eighth Army with the responsibility of defending Germany's eastern border from Russian attack. The bulk of the German Army, carrying out the Schlieffen Plan, massed in the west to gain decisive victory there by knocking France out of the war. The Russian mobilization, secretly begun as early as 25 July 1914, became a general mobilisation on 30 July 1914 (before Germany declared war), and it proceeded much more quickly than Berlin had anticipated: the Russian First Army crossed the eastern frontier of East Prussia on 17 August 1914. The German Eighth Army attacked the invaders unsuccessfully at the Battle of Gumbinnen on 20 August 1914. The Germans learned that the Russian Second Army was approaching the southern frontier of East Prussia in the west. To avoid being cut off, the alarmed Eighth Army commander, Maximilian von Prittwitz, proposed to retreat over the Vistula River and to abandon East Prussia to the invaders. He soon reconsidered and instead decided to move the bulk of his forces to block the Russian Second Army from reaching the Vistula, but on 22 August 1914 he and his chief of staff had already been relieved in favor of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff respectively. (Hoffmann knew Ludendorff well: they had been neighbours in the same building in Berlin for several years.)
The two Russian armies were too far apart to aid each other readily, and the Germans could gauge their lack of co-ordination from intercepted radio-messages. After Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived in the east in their special train on 23 August 1914, they adopted Hoffmann's plan for the Eighth Army to manoeuvre to encircle and annihilate Alexander Samsonov's Russian Second Army. As a result the German forces won the crucial victory of the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914, saving the rest of Germany from invasion. Hoffmann saw the propaganda-value of casting the German victory as long-awaited revenge for a nearby medieval defeat in 1410, and so he suggested naming the engagement "Tannenberg" (though the fighting actually took place much closer to Allenstein). (Ludendorff also claimed credit for the naming, but it was Hindenburg, who had lost an ancestor at the earlier battle, who requested that the Kaiser use it.) Next, the Eighth Army turned east and mauled Paul von Rennenkampf's Russian First Army at the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes in early September 1914 — this freed most of East Prussia.
Then, Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hoffmann led a new Ninth Army in blocking a Russian attempt to invade German Silesia, continuing the campaign after being given command of all of the German forces on the Eastern Front, which were designated as Ober Ost. In the Battle of Łódź they ended the immediate threat by outflanking the Russians and capturing Poland's second city. Hoffmann believed that if given the reinforcements that they requested for the battle, they might have knocked Russia out of the war. During the winter lull in the fighting, Ober Ost struggled unsuccessfully to shift major operations eastward in the coming year and claimed that it could force the Russians out of the war by encircling its armies in the Polish salient.
Ober Ost began 1915 with a surprise attack in a snowstorm that encircled a Russian army, completed the liberation of East Prussia and obtained a foothold in Russia's Baltic provinces. Hoffmann believed that if it were allowed to continue the incursion, he might have inflicted a major, perhaps mortal, defeat on the Russians. Instead, the Germans were ordered to stop in favour of a major thrust in the south of Poland at Gorlice and Tarnów in which a joint Austro-German army gradually battered the Russians out of Galicia (Austro-Hungarian Poland). To assist, Ober Ost was ordered to mount similar costly head-on attacks in northern Poland. After the Russians had evacuated Poland, Ober Ost was permitted to continue thrusting into Russia's Baltic provinces. By the start of winter, its headquarters were in the Lithuanian city of Kovno. Hoffmann saw to the construction a strong defensive line on the new front and visited all of the units: "I have crawled through all the trenches.... The mud is terrible". Meanwhile, Ludendorff set up an administration for the occupied region.
During the winter, the Russians finally armed their troops adequately. In the spring, masses of Russians attacked the Ober Ost entrenchments. The German line held, except for one segment that was vacated and then recaptured in April. To exploit the successful defence, Ober Ost pleaded for reinforcements to enable it to capture the fortress of Riga and to roll up the Russian armies in the north, but the Supreme Commander focused on his fruitless attacks on Verdun. On 4 June the Russians attacked the Austro-Hungarian lines in the south. In a few days, the defenders lost 200,000 prisoners, and the Russians penetrated through their fortifications. Ober Ost sent reinforcements south and more had to come from the west. To Hoffmann, the Austrian front was "like a mouth full of sensitive teeth". At last, in July, Hindenburg's command was extended further south, including many of the Austro-Hungarians on the front. Therefore, they moved their headquarters south to Brest-Litovsk. When the Russians also renewed their attacks in the north, the German reserves in the east were a single cavalry brigade. In addition to plugging holes along their long front, the staff was busy organizing training for the Austro-Hungarians whom they now commanded and the Russians were still pushing back.
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Max Hoffmann
Carl Adolf Maximilian Hoffmann (25 January 1869 – 8 July 1927) was a German military officer and strategist. As a staff officer at the beginning of World War I, he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the 8th Army, soon promoted Chief of Staff. Hoffmann, along with Erich Ludendorff, masterminded the devastating defeat of the Russian armies at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. He then held the position of Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front. At the end of 1917, he negotiated with Russia to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Hoffmann was born in Homberg (Efze) and was the son of a district court judge. From 1879 to 1887, he studied at the gymnasium in the city of Nordhausen. After his graduation, he volunteered for the 72nd Infantry Regiment. One of his comrades affectionately recalled, "He was almost the worst athlete, horseman and swordsman of them all.... he exceeded them in his terrifying appetite". As an ensign, he studied at the Kriegsschule (Officer School) in Neisse from October 1887 to August 1888, graduated with an Imperial commendation and was commissioned second lieutenant. From 1895 to 1898, as a first lieutenant, he attended the Prussian War Academy and then was sent to Russia to study the Russian language. He was on the General Staff from 1899 to 1901 in the First Department (Russia and the Nordic States). In 1901, he was promoted to captain and assigned as a staff officer to V Army Corps. Two years later, he moved to command a company in the 33rd Fusilier Regiment. In 1904 the General Staff sent him to Manchuria as an observer with the Imperial Japanese Army in its war against the Imperial Russian Army. During that time, he is remembered for breaching protocol in the presence of other foreign observers when a Japanese general refused to allow him on to a hill to watch a battle. That led him to respond that the general was "a yellow-skin" and that he was "uncivilized if you don't let me go over that hill".
He returned to the staff twenty months later before he was assigned as the first staff officer of the 1st Division, stationed in Königsberg, East Prussia. In 1911, he became an instructor at the War Academy for two years before he moved to the 112th Infantry Regiment, where he had a field and then a staff position and was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
The German Empire entered World War I on 1 August 1914; Hoffmann became the first general staff officer of the German Eighth Army with the responsibility of defending Germany's eastern border from Russian attack. The bulk of the German Army, carrying out the Schlieffen Plan, massed in the west to gain decisive victory there by knocking France out of the war. The Russian mobilization, secretly begun as early as 25 July 1914, became a general mobilisation on 30 July 1914 (before Germany declared war), and it proceeded much more quickly than Berlin had anticipated: the Russian First Army crossed the eastern frontier of East Prussia on 17 August 1914. The German Eighth Army attacked the invaders unsuccessfully at the Battle of Gumbinnen on 20 August 1914. The Germans learned that the Russian Second Army was approaching the southern frontier of East Prussia in the west. To avoid being cut off, the alarmed Eighth Army commander, Maximilian von Prittwitz, proposed to retreat over the Vistula River and to abandon East Prussia to the invaders. He soon reconsidered and instead decided to move the bulk of his forces to block the Russian Second Army from reaching the Vistula, but on 22 August 1914 he and his chief of staff had already been relieved in favor of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff respectively. (Hoffmann knew Ludendorff well: they had been neighbours in the same building in Berlin for several years.)
The two Russian armies were too far apart to aid each other readily, and the Germans could gauge their lack of co-ordination from intercepted radio-messages. After Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived in the east in their special train on 23 August 1914, they adopted Hoffmann's plan for the Eighth Army to manoeuvre to encircle and annihilate Alexander Samsonov's Russian Second Army. As a result the German forces won the crucial victory of the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914, saving the rest of Germany from invasion. Hoffmann saw the propaganda-value of casting the German victory as long-awaited revenge for a nearby medieval defeat in 1410, and so he suggested naming the engagement "Tannenberg" (though the fighting actually took place much closer to Allenstein). (Ludendorff also claimed credit for the naming, but it was Hindenburg, who had lost an ancestor at the earlier battle, who requested that the Kaiser use it.) Next, the Eighth Army turned east and mauled Paul von Rennenkampf's Russian First Army at the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes in early September 1914 — this freed most of East Prussia.
Then, Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hoffmann led a new Ninth Army in blocking a Russian attempt to invade German Silesia, continuing the campaign after being given command of all of the German forces on the Eastern Front, which were designated as Ober Ost. In the Battle of Łódź they ended the immediate threat by outflanking the Russians and capturing Poland's second city. Hoffmann believed that if given the reinforcements that they requested for the battle, they might have knocked Russia out of the war. During the winter lull in the fighting, Ober Ost struggled unsuccessfully to shift major operations eastward in the coming year and claimed that it could force the Russians out of the war by encircling its armies in the Polish salient.
Ober Ost began 1915 with a surprise attack in a snowstorm that encircled a Russian army, completed the liberation of East Prussia and obtained a foothold in Russia's Baltic provinces. Hoffmann believed that if it were allowed to continue the incursion, he might have inflicted a major, perhaps mortal, defeat on the Russians. Instead, the Germans were ordered to stop in favour of a major thrust in the south of Poland at Gorlice and Tarnów in which a joint Austro-German army gradually battered the Russians out of Galicia (Austro-Hungarian Poland). To assist, Ober Ost was ordered to mount similar costly head-on attacks in northern Poland. After the Russians had evacuated Poland, Ober Ost was permitted to continue thrusting into Russia's Baltic provinces. By the start of winter, its headquarters were in the Lithuanian city of Kovno. Hoffmann saw to the construction a strong defensive line on the new front and visited all of the units: "I have crawled through all the trenches.... The mud is terrible". Meanwhile, Ludendorff set up an administration for the occupied region.
During the winter, the Russians finally armed their troops adequately. In the spring, masses of Russians attacked the Ober Ost entrenchments. The German line held, except for one segment that was vacated and then recaptured in April. To exploit the successful defence, Ober Ost pleaded for reinforcements to enable it to capture the fortress of Riga and to roll up the Russian armies in the north, but the Supreme Commander focused on his fruitless attacks on Verdun. On 4 June the Russians attacked the Austro-Hungarian lines in the south. In a few days, the defenders lost 200,000 prisoners, and the Russians penetrated through their fortifications. Ober Ost sent reinforcements south and more had to come from the west. To Hoffmann, the Austrian front was "like a mouth full of sensitive teeth". At last, in July, Hindenburg's command was extended further south, including many of the Austro-Hungarians on the front. Therefore, they moved their headquarters south to Brest-Litovsk. When the Russians also renewed their attacks in the north, the German reserves in the east were a single cavalry brigade. In addition to plugging holes along their long front, the staff was busy organizing training for the Austro-Hungarians whom they now commanded and the Russians were still pushing back.
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