The First Nazi Erich Ludendorff by Brownell

[Curhalios]

I am reading a book called The First Nazi by Will Brownell and Denise Drace-Brownell, published in 2016

 

I wondered if anybody else had read it and might have some comments. It appears to make Ludendorff into a demagogue, fixing him, for example, with direct responsibility for bringing Lenin into the Russian Revolution as well as various other plans and designs. The book style seems be reminiscent of tabloid journalism with lots of absolutes. 

 

I may be simply not appreciating the author's style but I'd be interested in other views on accuracy as much as reliability!

 

Curhalios

[WilliamRev]

I have not read it, and I am not sure that I will bother with it. It is listed on Amazon HERE. I sometimes cynically think that even the worst books get half a dozen kind reviews from friends, and if that is the case here, then the genuine reviews are not positive......

 

William

[Frank_East]

A description of Ludendorff as The First Nazi would be appropriate considering his entry into nationalism arising from the collapse and defeat of Germany.However there were others who would also fit the description.

 

Regarding Lenin.According to Roger Parkinson's Tormented Warrior,Ludendorff was advised by Alexander Helphand a Russian,codename,"Parvus"  employed in the the German Foreign Office,that a return to Russia by Lenin from exile in Zurich would ferment revolution.

 

Ludendorff accepted the advice and allowed Lenin to return to St Petersburg,leaving Zurich on 9 April 1917 and arriving at St Petersburg,his passage through Germany granted by Ludendorff. (By this time Ludendorff had been made aware of the US Congress vote to enter the war on 6 April 1917.Still Ludendorff was optimistic that the U Boat would finalise victory before US land forces would make any difference on the European battlefield)

 

Ludendorff was dismissed from the new government of Prince Max of Baden on 26 October 1918.After the Armistice,He fled to Sweden in disguis and returned to Munich in 1919 after writing his memoirs.He was embittered by Germany's defeat and began to devote himself to right wing nationalist causes.....drawn to Hitler,he was involved in the Kapp Putsch in 1920 and was deeper involved in the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923 for which he stood trial and was acquitted.

 

His pathway to Nazism was truly laid down when he was appointed as a NS representative to the Reichstag in May 1924.It was while serving as a NS Reichstag representative, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency of the Reich as a National Socialist candidate in 1925

 

Ludendorff was greatly influenced by the right wing ideas of his second wife, Dr  Matilda Spiess Ludendorff,a mental specialist. With her support he founded the Tanneburg Bund which was dedicated to the struggle against who the Ludendorffs expressed as "powers above the state"...Jews,Jesuits,Freemasons and Marxists.Both detested Christianity and laid down the ideas of a new German religion venerating the old pagan Nordic gods.

 

Towards the end of his life in December 1937,Ludendorff became increasingly eccentric.He commissioned the manufacture of a money printing machine from a swindler named Tausend from which he thought he could pay off German reparations.He turned to pacifism and argued with Hitler to the extent that his relationship with Hitler became bitter.

 

[Jack Sheldon]

I am sorry to say that, as a key Great War personality, Ludendorff needs a good, accurate, critical biography, but this is not it. It is shot through with inaccuracies and historical howlers. Save your money and wait for a better book to come along.

 

Jack

[AOK4]

1 hour ago, Jack Sheldon said:

I am sorry to say that, as a key Great War personality, Ludendorff needs a good, accurate, critical biography, but this is not it. It is shot through with inaccuracies and historical howlers. Save your money and wait for a better book to come along.

 

Jack

 

I totally agree with you, Jack. There's a need for quite a few good biographies of German high-ranking personalities. Most of them (but definitely not all of them) have a (auto-)biography from the 1920s or 1930s but that's mostly it.

 

I am myself very interested in Flanders during WWI, but none of the important generals has a decent biography (most have none whatsoever). The most important ones which don't have a biography at all are Albrecht von Württemberg, Sixt von Armin and von Dieffenbach.

 

I am now working a bit on Sixt von Armin for an article or something, but it is quite remarkable that what I found up to now contradicts most of the things which have been told about him here.

 

Sorry for being a bit off-topic...

 

Jan

[trajan]

On an allied note to this thread, but something that might interest some of its followers, I have just finished reading A German Officer during the Armenian Genocide: a biography of Max von Scheubner-Richter, H.Kaiser's version of P.Leverkuehn's biography of the man who is sometimes 'credited' with being crucial to the development of AH's anti-semitism as a political method. German consul at Erzurum during WW1, and active also in the Caucausus, he was a very vocal critic of the CUP's 1915 Armenian programme, but went on to become editor of the Volkischer Beobachter before being 'martyred' at Munich in 1923.

[Jack Sheldon]

Jan, Jonathan Boff is well on the way to completing a biography of Crown Prince Rupprecht, which I suspect will be very close to being definitive. As part of his research, he has been right through Rupprecht's original diaries, which are about three times longer than the published version. Rather him than me.  I do not know when it will be ready, but I shall be first in the queue for one.

Jack

[Halder]

The best book I've seen so far on Ludendorff is this by Nebelin. It's not perfect, but it is much better than the Uhle-Wetter tome and makes extensive use of private papers.

 

https://www.amazon.de/Ludendorff-Diktator-im-Ersten-Weltkrieg/dp/388680965X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493407392&sr=8-1&keywords=ludendorff

[Guest]

The challenge here is that the comments on Amazon which are negative are primarily by non-historians.  Several of the positive ones are from serious critics.  Some of the negative comments are just howlers, such as the North Sea is not part of the Atlantic, bombs only refer to explosive devices which drop from airplanes, definitions taken off the internet instead of scholarly history texts.  Then these inaccurate reviews are accepted by all reviewers.  Were Amazon the NY Times, there would be grounds for libel.  The NY Times would print retractions.   I fear serious authors will stop writing serious books.  There were publisher typos in the US edition.  The US edition will be removed from publication in the US on July 1 at the request of the authors.

[Jervis]

On 07/04/2017 at 14:06, Curhalios said:

I am reading a book called The First Nazi by Will Brownell and Denise Drace-Brownell, published in 2016

 

I wondered if anybody else had read it and might have some comments. It appears to make Ludendorff into a demagogue, fixing him, for example, with direct responsibility for bringing Lenin into the Russian Revolution as well as various other plans and designs. The book style seems be reminiscent of tabloid journalism with lots of absolutes. 

 

I may be simply not appreciating the author's style but I'd be interested in other views on accuracy as much as reliability!

 

Curhalios

This book is truly awful;it was so bad I just could not put it down! It was wonderful entertainment.

 

Some of the "gems" I recall reading include:  

 

The Ludendorff offensives started on March 10 1918. 
The British army in 1918 was mostly made up of underage conscripts. 
Post WW1. -  Churchill was "the rising star of the Military". 
Hitler made a living selling painting in Berlin. 
There was 1 million killed at Verdun. 
Franz Ferdinand was killed in Serbia. 

 

The Authors (plural) lack professional competence or pride. They also clearly had a superficial understanding of their chosen subject to the point of being ignorant of key aspects. Despite being incompetent and ignorant, they did not hold back in their forthright views: 

E.g. 
"Did any person do more harm in the 20th Century? (than Ludendorff). If so we do not know his name."  They accuse him of genocide (their words) being responsible for all the horrors of the Great War (included the use of gas at Ypres in 1915 when he did not have responsibility for Western front), the unleashing of communism on the world, the Second World War, the holocaust and the most bizarre of them - the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. He was variably referred to as evil/monster/irrational and insane. At one point they say were it not for Ludendorff "Hitler may have ended up a high school art teacher". Hitler was probably "brain damaged" in WW1, Douglas Haig was a "fool", etc. etc. 

 

On the other hand the Americans are the real heroes in this book. I'll finish off my rant with my favourite "insight" from this book:

 

Ludendorff rarely laughed. The times he did laugh were when he talked about how American soldiers were worthless mongrels....it was a pity for Germany ..none of their.. leaders studied how George Washington attacked German mercenaries in 1776...it showed what Americans could do against Germans and suggested how thoroughly the Germans might want to respect the US Army. 

 

An Incompetent, ignorant and childish book. 

 

Edited 29 May , 2018 by Jervis

[Moonraker]

H-Net review

 

I wonder why the authors asked that it be removed from sale in the States?

 

Moonraker

[David Filsell]

In reviewing books on the Great War for some 15 years this is quite the worst that i have encountered. Herewith my review for the forthcoming edition of Stand To!

 

The cover of Doctor Will Brownell and Denise Drace-Brownells’ biography - inaccurately titled The First Nazi: Erich Ludendorff  the Man who made Hitler Possible - boasts flattering reviews, a blood red backcloth and Hitler writ large. It lacks the full hand of trusty military book marketing ploys by failing to deploy   the swastika. (Here we see the less compelling Imperial German Cross.)

The words of reviewers on cover are fulsome, flattering and flatulent. Not least they claim it: ‘… chilling, well researched,’ (Kirkus Reviews); a work for ‘… experts and novices alike,’ (Dr J Furman Daniel) and ‘…important and compelling history,’ (Colonel Jay M Parker PhD).

It is none of these things. Ill written and edited, ill referenced and far reaching in many of its conceits, it is quite the most inept military biography I have ever had the misfortune to review – or read.

*Also available on the internet are: D.J. Goodspeed, Ludendorff (1966); Roger Parkinson, Tormented Warrior: Ludendorff and the Supreme Command (1978); Robert B. Asprey, The German High Command at War: How Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I (1991).

 

[Kath]

H-Net review. . .

 

Ouch!

[charlie962]

1 hour ago, David Filsell said:

It lacks the full hand of trusty military book marketing ploys by failing to deploy   the swastika.

They even do that for those who wish!

        

[AOK4]

1 hour ago, David Filsell said:

(Here we see the less compelling Imperial German Cross.)

 

There is no such thing as an Imperial Germann Cross. It is an Iron Cross, originally used as a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia and later in the German Empire and the Third Third Reich. Even the Bundeswehr today uses a symbol with strong resemblance to the Iron Cross.

[David Filsell]

Picky picky. But I stand half corrected.  Paperback had the cross not the Swastika -  Imperial or Iron.

ps The book's still crap!

 

 

[keithmroberts]

I don't think David was impressed by the book at all. I shall refrain from making a purchase.

 

Keith

[David Filsell]

Keith,

it is actually bad enough to read for sheer displeasure as one's incredibility is further and further stretched. In places it triggers lol moments of disbelief. In my humble opinion it is a brilliant exemplar of poor historical research, judgement and inept writing by an 'author' building on preconceived notions, limited knowledge, research and ability.

Regards

david