General Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) was appointed Field Marshal after the military victory of the 8th Army under his command over the Russian army in East Prussia (Battle of Tannenberg). In August 1916, Hindenburg and his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff jointly took over the Supreme Army Command (OHL). Under their leadership the OHL gained enormous political influence and effectively determined not just Germany’s military strategy, but also its economic and domestic policy. When, on July 19, 1917, faced with a drawn-out war, strikes, and continuing food shortages, the Reichstag passed a resolution (on the initiative of the SPD, the Center Party, and the Progressive Party) calling for a peace settlement, this was met with vehement rejection by the OHL, who continued to claim that they could still achieve their expansionist war aims. Meanwhile, labor strikes had been spreading in the arms industry since 1916, and in August 1917, the first peace demonstrations and mutinies among German sailors against the senseless continuation of the war took place. As the war dragged on, Hindenburg’s role as the “Hero of Tannenberg” increasingly consisted of maintaining the morale of the war-weary and hunger-stricken home front. Here you can hear an excerpt from a speech by Hindenburg on the war situation, recorded on October 17, 1917, at the Army High Command headquarters located in Bad Kreuznach at the time. The recording was made for the collection of the audio department of the Prussian State Library. In this speech, Hindenburg not only repeats the official propaganda of a successful defensive war, but also claims that the increasing unrest and protests were incited by enemy influence – a claim resembling the “stab-in-the-back myth” with which Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and the rest of the military leadership later attempted to evade responsibility for the defeat.