1. Carl Adolf Maximilian Hoffmann was a German military officer and strategist.
23 Facts About Max Hoffmann
1. 2.
Max Hoffmann then held the position of Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front.
3.
Max Hoffmann was born in Homberg and was the son of a district court judge.
4.
Max Hoffmann was on the General Staff from 1899 to 1901 in the First Department.
5.
Max Hoffmann returned to the staff twenty months later before he was assigned as the first staff officer of the 1st Division, stationed in Konigsberg, East Prussia.
6.
At the outbreak of World War I Max Hoffmann became the first general staff officer of the German Eighth Army and was responsible for defending their eastern border from a Russian attack.
7.
Max Hoffmann soon reconsidered and instead decided to move the bulk of his forces to block the Russian Second Army from reaching the Vistula, but he and his chief of staff had already been relieved in favor of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff.
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Erich Ludendorff 8.
Max Hoffmann knew Ludendorff well because they had been neighbours in the same building in Berlin for several years.
9.
Max Hoffmann saw the propaganda value of casting the German victory as long-awaited revenge for a nearby medieval defeat and so he suggested the engagement be named Tannenberg, though it actually took place much closer to Allenstein.
10.
Max Hoffmann believed that if given the reinforcements that they requested for the battle, they might have knocked Russia out of the war.
11.
Max Hoffmann believed that if it were allowed to continue the incursion, he might have inflicted a major, perhaps mortal, defeat on the Russians.
12.
Max Hoffmann had a two-hour conversation in which the young emperor "gave his opinion on military matters by which he displayed his great want of understanding in all he said".
13.
Max Hoffmann wanted to attack, but only a single division was given to him to reduce a Russian bridgehead.
14.
Max Hoffmann had anticipated the attack and was eager to launch his countermove.
15.
Max Hoffmann was rewarded with the Oak Leaves for his Pour le Merite.
16.
Max Hoffmann took Riga, but most of the defenders had slipped out.
17.
Max Hoffmann assisted Foreign Secretary Richard von Kuhlmann during the negotiations for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk since his fluent Russian was an asset.
18.
Max Hoffmann favoured taking from Poland a modest defensive strip to acquire as few new Slavic subjects as possible.
19.
Max Hoffmann anticipated that the Crimea would become the German Riviera.
20.
Max Hoffmann argued unsuccessfully that to counter the Bolsheviks, they should denounce the treaty and forcibly establish a new government in Russia.
21.
Max Hoffmann was retired in March 1920 and settled back in Berlin, where he reconciled with Hindenburg at a personal meeting.
22.
Max Hoffmann published his wartime memoirs and evaluations, his views on Russia, and his version of Tannenberg.
23.
Max Hoffmann was rated by some historians "as perhaps the most brilliant staff officer of his generation" and was used as a model at the United States Army Command and General Staff College.