This interpretation, while popular enough, could hardly be said to have contributed directly to the attitudes the Wehrmacht took into Russia in 1941. But its outlines remained. The Tannenberg myth flared one last time in the last months of World War II. As Red Army spearheads drew ever closer to the German frontier, the eastern provinces’ frightened inhabitants comforted themselves with the notion that “last time” the Russians had not only been driven out of East Prussia, but eventually defeated. Somehow, everything would be all right again.14
The end of that dream came in January, 1945, as the Russians broke out of their positions on the Vistula River and drove for the Oder and the Baltic. It was a final, unintentional irony that the Russian attack in the East Prussian sector resembled in outline that of 1914, with the Third White Russian Front performing Rennenkampf’s mission and the Second White Russian Front that of Samsonov. Only this time the pincers bit and closed.
Rape and murder stalked the German east. What remained of the Third Reich’s navy evacuated thousands of refugees from the Baltic ports as the remnants of once-proud divisions held the Russians from their prey. Other civilians trekked west afoot, or in farm wagons. Some escaped. Some were shot, or crushed by T-34’s. Still others were overtaken by the Russian advance and forced to return, awaiting their conqueror’s pleasure in what remained of their homes.
Between 1945 and 1947, East Prussia, already largely depopulated, was partitioned between Poland and Russia. Those Germans not deported to labor camps in the Soviet Union were expelled, making their way as best they might to the new frontiers. A thousand years of history had come to an end.
In January, 1945, as the Red Army drew closer, the coffin of Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was removed from its place in the Tannenberg monument and taken to the port of Königsberg. On a warship packed with refugees, place was made for a symbol. Hindenburg was brought “home to the Reich,” buried first in Marburg, ultimately at Burg Hohenzollern. The monument itself was destroyed by German engineers. Goebbels’ Rundfunk promised it would be rebuilt after the war.
“After the war” the ground over which Tannenberg had been fought became instead part of the People’s Republic of Poland. New families, themselves often refugees from lands now part of the Soviet Union, moved into the empty houses and plowed the deserted fields. They gave the land a new identity. Allenstein is now Olsztyn. Neidenburg became Nidzica. Osterode was renamed Ostroda. In 1960 Poland celebrated the 550th anniversary of the Teutonic Order’s defeat by dedicating its own newly built monument on the site. Aircraft traced red and white smoke patterns in the sky to symbolize the “unity, strength, and readiness of the Polish people.” Anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 people attended the ceremonies, which continued to be held annually at varying levels of pomp. Poland’s victory remained a frequent subject of study in the pre-Solidarity People’s Republic.15 Any celebrations of the Tannenberg of 1914 in either of the German successor states have remained private affairs.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1As in America’s First Battles, ed. C. E. Heller, W. A. Stofft (Lawrence, Kans., 1986).
2Robert E. Doughty, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919–39 (Hamden, Conn., 1985).
3Sven Ekdahl, Die Schlacht bei Tannenberg 1410. Quellenkritischer Untersu-chungen, Vol. I (Berlin, 1982), 12 ff.
4Cf. inter alia and almost at random, James Joll, The Origins of the First World War (New York, 1984), Sean M. Lynn-Jones, “Détente and Deterrence: Anglo-German Relations, 1911—14,” International Security XI (Fall, 1986), 121–150; M. R. Gordon, “Domestic Conflict and the Origins of the First World War: The Brtitish and the German Cases,” Journal of Modern History XLVI (1974), 191–226.
5Patrick Glynn, “The Sarajevo Fallacy,” The National Interest IX (Fall, 1987), 3–32; and Donald O. Kagan, “World War I, World War II, World War III,” Commentary LXXXIII (March, 1987), 21–40, are recent, accessible summaries of the line of argument.
6Paul W. Schroeder, “World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak,” Journal of Modern History XLIV (1972), 319–345.
7Godfather of this thesis remains Fritz Fischer. See most recently, Juli 1914: Wir sind nicht hineingeschlittert (Berlin, 1983), a Streitschrift whose avowed polemical nature highlights Fischer’s essential arguments beyond misunderstanding.
8As in Paul Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London, 1980).
9Holger H. Herwig, “Clio Deceived: Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany After the Great War,” International Security XII (Fall, 1987), 5–44; and Ulrich Heinemann, Die Verdrängte Niederlage: Politische Öffentlichkeit und Kriegsschuld-frage in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen, 1983).
10William C. Wohlforth, “The Perception of Power: Russia in the Pre-1914 Balance,” World Politics XXXIX (1987), 353–381, is an up-to-date survey of this issue. Cf. also Risto Ropponen, Die Kraft Russlands (Helsinki, 1968) for the academic side. W. Bruce Lincoln, Passing through Armageddon: The Russians in War and Revolution, 1914–18 (New York, 1986); and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, August 1914, tr. H. Willetts (New York, 1989), are distinguished popular accounts with the same theme.
11Cf. inter alia and from differing perspectives, John M. Joyce, “The Old Russian Legacy,” Foreign Policy LV (1984), 132–153; Andrew Cockburn, The Threat: Inside the Soviet Military Machine (New York, 1983); and Dimitri K. Simes, “Gorbachev: A New Foreign Policy?” Foreign Affairs LXV (1987), 477–500.
1. THE CIRCUS RIDER OF EUROPE
1Cf. in particular Marc Raeff, “Seventeenth-Century Europe in Eighteenth-Century Russia?” Slavic Review XLIV (1982), 611–619; and The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Changes through Law in the Germanies and Russia, 1660–1800 (New Haven, Conn., 1983). The latter work may be profitably compared to Erich Donnert, Politische Ideologie der russischen Gesellschaft zu Beginn der Regierungszeit Katharinas II (Berlin, 1976), which stresses the role of Germans in transmitting ideas from the west to Russia.
2This process is described by a participant in Friedrich von Schubert, Unter dem Doppeladler. Erinnerungen eines Deutschen in russischem Offiziersdienst 1789–1814, ed. with intro. by E. Ambruger (Stuttgart, 1962), esp. 69 ff.
3The most authoritative interpretations of Western influence on Russian ideas in this period are Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy, tr. H. Andrews-Rusiecka (Oxford, 1975), and, more generally, A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism, tr. H. Andrews-Rusiecka (Stanford, Calif., 1979).
4Peter Jahn, Russophilie und Konservatismus (Stuttgart, 1980).
5See, for example, the report of Guard Corps chief of staff Carl von Reyher on the maneuvers of the Russian Dragoon Corps in 1834 in General der Infanterie Ollech, Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Reyher, Vol. IV (Berlin, 1879), 72 ff.