Editing Stab-in-the-back myth (section)

==Development of the myth==
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| footer            = Ludendorff and Hindenburg, supreme commanders of the German Army, were primarily responsible for the creation and popularization of the myth that the army was not defeated on the battlefield, but was betrayed on the German home front.{{sfn|Hett|2018|pages=29–33}}
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According to historian [[Richard Steigmann-Gall]], the stab-in-the-back concept can be traced back to a sermon preached on 3 February 1918, by Protestant Court Chaplain [[Bruno Doehring]], nine months before the war had ended.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall 2003 16">{{cite book |author-link=Richard Steigmann-Gall|last=Steigmann-Gall|first=Richard|title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945|location=New York|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003|page=16|isbn=0521823714}}</ref> German scholar Boris Barth, in contrast to Steigmann-Gall, implies that Doehring did not actually use the term, but spoke only of 'betrayal'. Barth traces the first documented use to a centrist political meeting in the [[Munich]] [[Löwenbräukeller]] on 2 November 1918, in which [[:de:Ernst Müller-Meiningen|Ernst Müller-Meiningen]], a member of the [[Progressive People's Party (Germany)|Progressive People's Party]] in the ''[[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]]'', used the term to exhort his listeners to hold out after [[Kurt Eisner]] of the radical left [[Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany|Independent Social Democratic Party]] had predicted an imminent revolution:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barth |first=Boris |title=Dolchstoßlegenden und politische Desintegration: Das Trauma der deutschen Niederlage im Ersten Weltkrieg 1914–1933 |publisher=Droste |year=2003 |isbn=3770016157 |location=Düsseldorf |pages=148, 167, 340 f |language=de |trans-title=Stab-in-the-back Myths and Political Disintegration: The Trauma of the German Defeat in the First World War 1914–1933}}</ref>

<blockquote>As long as the front holds, we damned well have the duty to hold out in the homeland. We would have to be ashamed of ourselves in front of our children and grandchildren if we attacked the battle front from the rear and gave it a dagger-stab (''wenn wir der Front in den Rücken fielen und ihr den Dolchstoß versetzten'').<ref>{{Cite book |last=Müller (Meiningen) |first=Ernst |title=Aus Bayerns schwersten Tagen |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |year=1924 |location=Berlin and Leipzig |page=27 |language=de |trans-title=From Bavaria's Most Difficult Days}}</ref></blockquote>

However, the widespread dissemination and acceptance of the "stab-in-the-back" myth came about through its use by Germany's highest military echelon. In Spring 1919, [[Max Bauer]] – an army colonel who had been the primary adviser to Ludendorff on politics and economics – published ''Could We Have Avoided, Won, or Broken Off the War?'', in which he wrote that "[The war] was lost only and exclusively through the failure of the homeland."{{sfn|Hett|2018|pages=29–33}} The birth of the specific term "stab-in-the-back" itself can possibly be dated to the autumn of 1919, when Ludendorff was dining with the head of the British Military Mission in Berlin, British general Sir [[Neill Malcolm]]. Malcolm asked Ludendorff why he thought Germany lost the war. Ludendorff replied with his list of excuses, including that the home front failed the army.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00015, Friedrich Ebert (loose crop).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Friedrich Ebert]] contributed to the myth when he told returning veterans that "No enemy has vanquished you."]]

<blockquote>Malcolm asked him: "Do you mean, General, that you were stabbed in the back?" Ludendorff's eyes lit up and he leapt upon the phrase like a dog on a bone. "Stabbed in the back?" he repeated. "Yes, that's it, exactly, we were stabbed in the back". And thus was born a legend which has never entirely perished.<ref name="JWB1938">{{cite journal|last=Wheeler-Bennett|first=John W.|authorlink=John Wheeler-Bennett|title=Ludendorff: The Soldier and the Politician|journal=Virginia Quarterly Review|volume=14|issue=2|pages=187–202|year=1938|url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1938/spring/wheelerbennett-ludendorff-soldier/}}</ref></blockquote>

The phrase was to Ludendorff's liking, and he let it be known among the general staff that this was the "official" version, which led to it being spread throughout German society. It was picked up by right-wing political factions, and was even used by Kaiser Wilhelm II in the memoirs he wrote in the 1920s.{{sfn|Evans|2003|page=61}} Right-wing groups used it as a form of attack against the early Weimar Republic government, led by the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic Party]] (SPD), which had come to power with the abdication of the Kaiser. However, even the SPD had a part in furthering the myth when ''[[President of Germany (1919–1945)|Reichspräsident]]'' [[Friedrich Ebert]], the party leader, told troops returning to Berlin on 10 November 1918 that "No enemy has vanquished you," (''kein Feind hat euch überwunden!''){{sfn|Evans|2003|page=61}} and "they returned undefeated from the battlefield" (''sie sind vom Schlachtfeld unbesiegt zurückgekehrt''). The latter quote was shortened to ''im Felde unbesiegt'' (undefeated on the battlefield) as a semi-official slogan of the ''[[Reichswehr]]''. Ebert had meant these sayings as a tribute to the German soldier, but it only contributed to the prevailing feeling.

Further "proof" of the myth's validity was found in British general [[Frederick Maurice (military historian)|Frederick Barton Maurice]]'s book ''The Last Four Months'', published in 1919. German reviews of the book misrepresented it as proving that the German Army had been betrayed on the home front by being "dagger-stabbed from behind by the civilian populace" (''von der Zivilbevölkerung von hinten erdolcht''), an interpretation that Maurice disavowed in the German press, to no effect. According to [[William L. Shirer]], Ludendorff used the reviews of the book to convince Hindenburg about the validity of the myth.<ref name="William L. Shirer 1960 p. 31">[[William L. Shirer|Shirer, William L.]], ''[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]]'', Simon and Schuster (1960) p.31fn</ref>

On 18 November 1919, Ludendorff and Hindenburg appeared before the [[Reichstag inquiry into guilt for World War I|Committee of Inquiry into Guilt for World War I]] ({{Lang|de|Untersuchungsausschuss für Schuldfragen des Weltkrieges}}) of the newly elected [[Weimar National Assembly]], which was investigating the causes of the war and Germany's defeat. The two generals appeared in civilian clothing, explaining publicly that to wear their uniforms would show too much respect to the commission. Hindenburg refused to answer questions from the chairman, and instead read a statement that had been written by Ludendorff. In his testimony he cited what Maurice was purported to have written, which provided his testimony's most memorable part.{{sfn|Hett|2018|pages=29–33}} Hindenburg declared at the end of his – or Ludendorff's – speech: "As an English general has very truly said, the German Army was 'stabbed in the back'".<ref name="William L. Shirer 1960 p. 31" />

Furthering, the specifics of the stab-in-the-back myth are mentioned briefly by Kaiser Wilhelm II in his memoir:<blockquote>I immediately summoned Field Marshal von Hindenburg and the Quartermaster General, General Groener. General Groener again announced that the army could fight no longer and wished rest above all else, and that, therefore, any sort of armistice must be unconditionally accepted; that the armistice must be concluded as soon as possible, since the army had supplies for only six to eight days more and was cut off from all further supplies by the rebels, who had occupied all the supply storehouses and Rhine bridges; that, for some unexplained reason, the armistice commission sent to France–consisting of Erzberger, [[Alfred von Oberndorff|Ambassador Count Oberndorff]], and General von Winterfeldt–which had crossed the French lines two evenings before, had sent no report as to the nature of the conditions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wilhelm |first=Kaiser |title=The Kaiser's Memoirs |publisher=Good Press |year=1992 |pages=285–286}}</ref></blockquote>Hindenburg, Chief of the [[German General Staff]] at the time of the Ludendorff Offensive, also mentioned this event in a statement explaining the Kaiser's abdication:<blockquote>The conclusion of the armistice was directly impending. At moment of the highest military tension revolution broke out in Germany, the insurgents seized the Rhine bridges, important arsenals, and traffic centres in the rear of the army, thereby endangering the supply of ammunition and provisions, while the supplies in the hands of the troops were only enough to last for a few days. The troops on the lines of communication and the reserves disbanded themselves, and unfavourable reports arrived concerning the reliability of the field army proper.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hindenburg |first=Paul |title=Records of the Great Wars |publisher=Charles F. Horne |year=1993 |volume=VI |location=National Alumni}}</ref></blockquote>It was particularly this testimony of Hindenburg that led to the widespread acceptance of the ''Dolchstoßlegende'' in post-World War I Germany.