Background
Max Hoffmann was born in Homberg near Kassel on January 25, 1869, the son of a county court judge.
Max Hoffmann was born in Homberg near Kassel on January 25, 1869, the son of a county court judge.
He studied at the Prussian Military Academy and joined the Prussian Army in 1887 as part of the 4th Thuringian Infantry Regiment.
Hoffmann entered the army in 1887, attended the War Academy, and served in the General Staff, where in 1899 he settled into the Russian department. Thereafter, Hoffmann was firmly established as the General Staff's eastern expert, and in 1904/1905 he accompanied the Japanese army as military observer in the war against Russia. In 1905 at the railway station in Mukden Captain Hoffmann witnessed two Russian officers, A. V. Samsonov and P. K. Rennenkampf, blaming each other for the Russian debacle, rolling on the ground in front of the troops, and vowing never to aid one another; Hoffmann was to remember the incident in August 1914. After the Russo-Japanese War, Hoffmann returned to the General Staff and was then given command of the 112th Infantry Regiment as well as promotion to lieutenant colonel in January 1914.
In August 1914, Hoffmann was appointed first staff officer to the Eighth Army under General Max von Prittwitz und Gaffron in East Prussia. Hoffmann bitterly opposed his commander's decision on August 20, after the costly battle of Gumbinnen, to withdraw behind the Vistula River and to abandon East Prussia to the Russians, but in his memoirs he credited Prittwitz with revoking the order shortly after he had given it. Unfortunately, German headquarters at Koblenz had already replaced Prittwitz with Generals Paul von Hindenburg, whom Hoffmann dubbed a "pathetic figure," and Erich Ludendorff; Hoffmann remained at his post as first staff officer. On August 29, 1914, the Germans, using Hoffmann's plans, encircled the Russian Second Army under Samsonov at Tannenberg and inflicted over 200,000 casualties upon the enemy; next, reinforced by two army corps from the western front, the Germans turned north and at the Masurian Lakes inflicted a severe defeat on Rennenkampf's First Army in September. The legends of Hindenburg and Ludendorff had been created. The two Russian commanders, personal foes since Mukden in 1905, had refused to join forces and to coordinate their efforts. While Hindenburg does not even mention Hoffmann's name in his bulky memoirs, the Hessian staff officer later stated that "if the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, that battle of Tannenberg was lost on the railway platform at Mukden." Indeed, Hoffmann's physical appearance belied his intellect: behind the stocky figure and the great shaven head reposed one of the most brilliant minds of the General Staff; patience and nerves of steel further enhanced his qualifications for high military office.
Hoffmann planned the winter battle of the Masurian Lakes in February 1915 in which about 100,000 Russians were captured in the Augustov forest, and throughout the summer and fall of 1916 he worked to secure the German position in Poland against heavy Russian attacks. Hoffmann was pro¬moted colonel in August 1916, and when Hindenburg and Ludendorff assumed direction of the Third Army Supreme Command, Hoffmann became chief of staff to the new commander in the east, Field Marshal Prince Leopold of Bavaria, with whom he enjoyed amicable relations. After halting the massive offensive by General Aleksei Brusilov in July 1917, Hoffmann counterattacked in Galicia and defeated the Russians near Zloczov; on September 1 he orchestrated the attack on Riga and supervised the seizure of the Baltic islands Moon, Osel, and Dago in October, at which time he was promoted major general.
Hoffmann concluded an armistice with the Bolsheviks in December 1917 and represented Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the peace talks in Brest-Litovsk. It was not an enviable task for this bluff and direct officer as he constantly had to balance the grandiose and unrealistic expansionist plans, especially Ludendorff's, against German capabilities as well as against the wishes of the state secretary of the Foreign Office, Richard von Kiihlmann. In time, Hoffmann was accused by Ludendorff's toadies of being influenced by "Semitic circles," and when, in January 1918, this capable officer dared to suggest to the kaiser modified demands for Polish territory, he was vilified in army and right-wing circles. In truth, Hoffmann had brusquely informed the Russians, in December 1917, that they would have to cede Courland, Lithuania, and parts of Poland to Germany, and after Leon Trotsky announced his famous "no war, no peace" resolution and demobilized the Russian army, Hoffmann had termed this tack "disgraceful." On February 18, 1918, he hurled fifty-two divisions against a disorganized Russian army. Diinaburg fell the first day, Pskov within five days, and Kiev by March 1, forcing the Bolsheviks to agree to German terms at Brest-Litovsk. Hoffmann brought much of the German army in the east home after November 1918, and retired from active service on March 31,1920.
Hoffmann sharply criticized Hindenburg and Ludendorff in his postwar writings. He also favored in 1922 a cooperative effort by the victorious Allies designed to tumble the Bolsheviks in Russia from power. Hoffmann died at Bad Reichenhall on July 8, 1927, of heart trouble.