Background
Max Hoffmann was born on January 25, 1869 in Homberg (Efze).
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book
War Diaries And Other Papers Vol. I
(Racy two-volume military memoirs of the brilliant mind t...)
Racy two-volume military memoirs of the brilliant mind that conceived the operational plan for Tannenberg, Germanys triumph on the eastern front in 1914. Hoffmann was the strong man in the east for the rest of the war. Max Hoffmann was Chief of Staff to Von Prittwitz, the aristocratic General charged with defending Germanys East Prussian heartland at the outbreak of the Great War. Prittwitz was as inept as his name suggests, and when the Russians steamrollered west far faster than the Germans had expected, he panicked and sought permission to retreat behind the River Vistula. But Hoffman kept his head and conceived a bold scheme to attack and annihilate the Russian advance. This was the operational plan that was already being put into effect when the dynamic duo of Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived in the east to take over from the disgraced Prittwitz in late August 1914. The result was the total triumph of Tannenberg, soon followed by the twin victory at the Masurian Lakes. Hindenburg and Ludendorff got the credit for Tannenberg rather than its real author, the brilliant Hoffmann, who continued to be a tower of strength on the Eastern front, being part of the German delegation which negotiated the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litvosk which eliminated Russia from the war early in 1918. These two volumes of memoirs comprise (Vol 1) Hoffmanns War Diaries and (Vol II) his reflections which are summed up in his title The War of Lost Opportunities. Hoffmannn believed that the Great War could have been won by Germany in the east in 1914-15, and that Falkenhayn made a major mistake by concentrating on the west. Hoffmanns frank and rather salty comments on Falkenhayn and his other brother officers - including Ludendorff of whom he was a critical admirer - are valuable and revealing, coming as they do from one of the brightest minds among Germanys supreme commanders.-N&M Print Version.
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Max Hoffmann
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also known as
Carl Adolf Maximilian Hoffmann
Education
He attended the Kriegsschule and the Kriegsakademie at Torgau.
Career
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).
Achievements
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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.
Works
book
-
War Diaries And Other Papers Vol. I
(Racy two-volume military memoirs of the brilliant mind t...)
-
War Diaries And Other Papers Vol. I
References
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Born
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Died
July 8, 1927 (aged 58) -
Nationality
German -
Ethnicity