Background
Max Hoffmann was born on January 25, 1869 in Homberg (Efze).
Max Hoffmann was born on January 25, 1869 in Homberg (Efze).
He attended the Kriegsschule and the Kriegsakademie at Torgau.
In World War I he shared with Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff credit for the crushing defeat of Alexander Samsonov's army at Tannenberg, Aug. 26-27, 1914, and for the German victory at the Masurian Lakes.
In July 1917 an attack against Tarnopol rolled back the whole Russian front in Galicia.
On September 1 the German Eighth Army under Oskar von Hutier successfully attacked Riga.
In 1918 Hoffmann held the front from the Baltic to the Ukraine with only 12 divisions.
He concluded a peace treaty with the Russians at Brest-Litovsk in December 1917.
Hoffman was remarkable for his daring, originality, and shrewdness.
He wrote Der Krieg der versä umtenversaumten Gelegenheiten ("The War of Missed Opportunities, " 1923), An allen Enden Moskau ("All Roads Lead to Moscow, " 1925), Tannenberg wie es wirklich war ("Tannenberg as It Really Was, " 1927), and Die Aufzeichnungen des General-majors Max Hoffmann ("The Papers of Major General Max Hoffmann, " 1929).
As a staff officer at the beginning of World War I, he was Chief of Staff of the 8th Army. Hoffmann, along with Hindenburg and 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. In 1922, he tried to set up an anti-Soviet coalition without success.
(Racy two-volume military memoirs of the brilliant mind t...)
