Paul von Hindenburg towered over his contemporaries, both literally and figuratively. But his iconic stature in German political life was not an accident of history or personality. It was, as Anna von der Goltz insists in her carefully argued study of the Hindenburg myth and its place in the political culture of the Weimar Republic, a political construct whose origins could be traced back to Hindenburg's celebrated victory at Tannenberg in the first days of World War I and that was carefully nurtured by fellow conservatives who sought to harness the power of this myth in the service of their own political agenda. But Hindenburg himself was very much aware of the politics of memory and sought from the very beginning to construct a version of his victory at Tannenberg that would assure him a prominent place in German history. If in 1914 no one—and certainly not Hindenburg—knew exactly what that history might be, its importance would be increasingly clear as the war dragged on and as Hindenburg, by now the commander in chief of the German armed forces, would become a symbol around which an entire nation would unite in an effort to mobilize its last reserves for a victory that would prove ultimately illusive.

Following the collapse of 1918, Hindenburg and his closest supporters moved quickly to ensure that the myth they had so assiduously constructed during the war would survive into the postwar era, even to the point of rewriting the history of Wilhelm II's flight into exile to conceal the role that Hindenburg had played in the Kaiser's abdication. Hindenburg's 1920 appearance before the Reichstag committee investigating the causes of Germany's collapse and his embrace of the “stab-in-the-back legend” as an explanation for that collapse were all very much a part of the myth, which was now being reinvented so that the hero of Tannenberg could now present himself as the icon around which the forces of Germany's national regeneration might coalesce. In the period from 1920 to 1925, Hindenburg—by now well over seventy years of age—withdrew from the rigors of active political life despite the fact that the leaders of Germany's more conservative political parties such as the German National People's Party and German People's Party and paramilitary organizations, such as the Stahlhelm and Young German Order, still paid homage to his iconic stature. But the full power of the Hindenburg myth came into play once again, when in April 1925 he was rescued from retirement to campaign for the Reich presidency.

Hindenburg's election to the Reich presidency proved just how unpredictable the use of myth as an instrument of political legitimation could be. For whereas his supporters on the German Right rallied behind Hindenburg's candidacy on the assumption that his mythic stature could now be enlisted in the cause of counterrevolution, his vow to exercise the powers of his office according to the provisions of the Weimar Constitution meant that the full force of the Hindenburg myth could now be deployed to legitimize the Weimar Republic and the efforts of politicians such as Gustav Stresemann to stabilize the republic from the Right. With the onset of the Great Depression and the increasing paralysis of Germany's parliamentary institutions, Hindenburg served as a symbol of stability in a time of ever greater uncertainty and apprehension. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Hindenburg's 1932 campaign for reelection against the one man on the German political landscape whose own mythic stature rivaled that of Hindenburg myth, the Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler. The very parties that had opposed Hindenburg's election in 1925, including the Center and the Social Democrats, now embraced the Hindenburg myth in their struggle to preserve what still remained of Germany's democratic institutions from the demagogy of Hitler and the Nazi Party. But for the defenders of Germany's beleaguered democratic order, Hindenburg's victory over Hitler proved a pyrrhic victory. For the outcome of the election left Hindenburg convinced that the destiny of the German Volk now lay in his hands. Hindenburg himself had been seduced by the power of his own myth.

Admittedly, most of this is not new and in many cases reiterates arguments that have been made elsewhere, most notably by Wolfram Pyta in his magisterial biography Hindenburg. Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler (2007) and in the more narrowly focused study by Jesko von Hoegen, Der Held von Tannenberg. Genese und Funktion des Hindenburg-Mythos (2007). Nor is the way in which von der Goltz demonstrates how, following his appointment to the chancellorship in January 1933, Hitler was able to deploy the Hindenburg myth—to be sure, with the full acquiescence of Hindenburg himself—to legitimate his own claim to the leadership of the German nation. This was, after all, the symbolic meaning of the Potsdam demonstration on March 22. Yet while Pyta's biography of Hindenburg is most likely to remain the definitive biography for some time to come, von der Goltz's study of Hindenburg has the virtue of being more tightly focused and demonstrates considerable insight and sensitivity to the nuances and ambiguities of political symbolism. A case in point is her discussion of the way in which the Hindenburg myth was deployed as an instrument of republican stability in the second half of the 1920s despite the explicit hopes of those who had supported his election in 1925. Moreover, von der Goltz writes with full command of the relevant primary sources, including the records of the Reich Chancery and the Bureau of the Reich Presidency; the private papers of the major players such as Wilhelm Groener, August von Cramon, and Hermann Pünder; and numerous placards and films, including Einer für Alle! from the 1932 presidential campaign. The result is an intelligent and carefully argued book that will hold its own alongside Pyta and Hoegen as a major contribution to the existing body of secondary literature on one of the most iconic figures of the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras.