Erich Ludendorff quotes

Erich Ludendorff was a German General and military strategist, most famous for his role in World War I. As a leading commander, he played a crucial part in major battles and in shaping Germany's war efforts. He later became involved in right-wing politics and remained an influential, though controversial, figure in German history. Here are 13 of his quotes:

A field marshall is born, not made!

Erich Ludendorff

By the Revolution the Germans have made themselves pariahs among the nations, incapable of winning allies, helots in the service of foreigners and foreign capital, and deprived of all self-respect. In twenty years' time, the German people will curse the parties who now boast of having made the Revolution.

Erich Ludendorff

I reject Christianity because it is Jewish, because it is international, and because, in cowardly fashion, it preaches Peace on Earth.

Erich Ludendorff

The un-Germanness in and about us...lies primarily in a lack of racial sense ... in international, pacifistic and defeatistic thinking and, finally, in the considerable advancement of the Jewish people within our boundaries.

Erich Ludendorff

The fifth act of the great drama in Flanders opened on the 22nd October. Enormous masses of ammunition, such as the human mind had never imagined before the war, were hurled upon the bodies of men who passed a miserable existence scattered about in mud-filled shell-holes. The horror of the shell-hole area of Verdun was surpassed. It was no longer life at all. It was mere unspeakable suffering. And through this world of mud the attackers dragged themselves, slowly, but steadily, and in dense masses. Caught in the advanced zone by our hail of fire they often collapsed, and the lonely man in the shell-hole breathed again. Then the mass came on again. Rifle and machine-gun jammed with the mud. Man fought against man, and only too often the mass was successful.

Erich Ludendorff

There is but one hope, and this hope is embodied in the national groups which desire our recovery.

Erich Ludendorff

Erich Ludendorff was considered the brains of the new German command. He pushed for the resumption of unlimited submarine warfare, which ultimately brought America into the conflict.

Erich Ludendorff

For example, Italy and Soviet Russia, superficially considered, each seem to constitute a united people. But any scrutinising glance will perceive there tensions which will disintegrate the peoples of these two States immediately the outbreak of war permits them to explode.

Erich Ludendorff

We must all understand that only manly discipline-unconditional subordination to selfless leaders guided only by their public spirit, relegation of our own thoughts, and confidence in the Führer-can guarantee that the moral force of the individual shall be aggregated into a power that will effect the re-building of the nation and the Fatherland.

Erich Ludendorff

He is the only man...who has any political sense. Go and listen to him one day.

Erich Ludendorff

He became the perfect regimental commander...the younger officers came to adore him.

Erich Ludendorff