Germany
Paul von Hindenburg
1847–1934 Commander of the Eighth Army and then of the German forces in the East
Born into the Prussian officer class, Hindenburg had fought at Königgrätz in 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War, and retired in 1911 as a general. On 22 August 1914, at the age of 66, he was recalled to take command of the Eighth Army in East Prussia, where his calm, his bulk and his patriotic sense of duty made him an ideal partner for the nervous Ludendorff. Tannenberg turned him into a national icon, and he was made a field marshal in November. In 1916 he became chief of the general staff; in 1925 he was elected president of Germany, and in January 1933 he appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor.