Background
Gertrud von Hindenburg was the daughter of the Prussian Major General Oskar von Sperling (1814-1872) and his wife Pauline of Klass.
Gertrud von Hindenburg was the daughter of the Prussian Major General Oskar von Sperling (1814-1872) and his wife Pauline of Klass.
She was the wife of Paul von Hindenburg, the Chief of the German Army Command in the second half of the First World War and President of Germany. Her older brother was infantry general Kurt von Sperling (1850-1914). On September 24, 1879, the two married in Szczecin after Hindenburg"s promotion to captain in 1878 had created the material conditions for a marriage.
From the union four children were born: Irmengard Pauline (born November 14, 1880 † 1948), an unnamed still-born son (1881), Oskar Wilhelm (January 31, 1883, † February 12, 1960) and Anne Marie (born November 29, 1891 in Berlin, † April 8, 1978 in Hannover).
In his 1920 autobiography, Paul von Hindenburg praised Gertrud as "a loving wife, who through joy and sorrow faithfully and tirelessly worked with me and took care of medical My best friend and comrade".
As well as being described by family relatives as "living for her family. She had a keen interest in theater, music, and painting, and corresponded with many prominent contemporaries, such as the industrialist and politician Walther Rathenau, whom shortly before her death she urged he accept the post of Foreign Minister.
Upon her husband"s reactivation during World War I and his rise to the highest military functions, Gertrud von Hindenburg took over mainly charitable works, such as personally caring for the war wounded and founding the Gertrud von Hindenburg Foundation for moral strengthening of German youth.
She was initially buried in Hanover until 1927, when, at her husband"s request, she was exhumed and reburied at the East Prussian ancestral home of the von Hindenburgs -- the manor Neudeck in Rosenberg -- which had at that time been returned to the family. Later, to prevent the bodies falling into the hands of Soviet Armed Forces as they approached East Prussia in spring 1945, the coffins were again removed on 12 January 1945 by Hitler"s orders to Königsberg on the cruiser Emden. The two coffins lay in a salt mine in Thuringia until after the war"s end, when they were eventually discovered in summer 1945 by the United States. Armed Forces.