Tannenbergbund

During Germany's early Weimar period, Ludendorff had joined the chauvinist Aufbau Vereinigung and met with Adolf Hitler through the agency of Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter.

While Ludendorff apparently despised Hitler,[citation needed] he nevertheless backed the National Socialist Freedom Movement and ran for the Nazi Party in the 1925 Presidential election against his former Oberste Heeresleitung colleague Paul von Hindenburg.

Hitler feared the possibility of Ludendorff as a potential leadership rival and rejoiced in the General's derisory election result, telling Hermann Esser "now we've finally finished him".

Field Marshal August von Mackensen, who had commanded an army corps at Tannenberg, wrote that "der Mann ist krank" (the man is sick).

[12] Given its composition of more junior officers loyal to Ludendorff, the Tannenbergbund failed to win over the support of the masses, and before long it lost a number of members to the Nazi Party.