Russia and revolution
Stab-in-the-back myth
The post-war myth that the German army, undefeated in the field, had been betrayed by politicians, socialists and revolutionaries at home. Hindenburg and Ludendorff spread it, and the far right exploited it.
At the end of September 1918 it was the Supreme Army Command that, judging that the army could not fight on, demanded that the government seek an armistice; Ludendorff said the politicians must now "eat the soup they have cooked for us". When civilians signed the armistice and the army marched home in good order, it was easy to shift the blame to the home front. The image of an army betrayed by strikes, the Reichstag peace resolution and the November Revolution appeared in the press within weeks of the war's end.
On 18 November 1919 Hindenburg told the National Assembly's committee of inquiry that the army had been "stabbed in the back", citing the words of an English general. The legend became a staple of right-wing propaganda against the Weimar Republic and the "November criminals" such as Erzberger, and in time took on an antisemitic character. The Nazis adopted it. Historians reject it: the defeat was decided by exhausted reserves, the collapse of Germany's allies and the Entente's superiority.
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