Zimmermann, John Tannenberg 1914. Der Erste Weltkrieg in Ostpreußen

Volume 23 of the series "The Age of World Wars". Tannenberg was not only the site of a myth-enshrouded German victory at the end of August 1914. The Battle of Tannenberg at the beginning of the First World War was regarded by many as proof of superior German military leadership and the correctness of the dogma of the battle of annihilation. It gave the commander-in-chief of the 8th Army, Paul von Hindenburg, legendary status, which eventually carried the "saviour of East Prussia" all the way to the presidency of the Weimar Republic.

Contemporary propaganda skilfully staged the comprehensive victory as a successful battle of "Germanicism" against "Slavicism". Even the naming after the place Tannenberg, which was rather on the edge of the action, points in this direction: it was meant to recall the battle of the same name in 1410, in which an army of the Teutonic Order was devastatingly defeated by a Polish-Lithuanian army. John Zimmermann analyses the course and consequences of the battle on a broad source basis. He questions the myth-making and vividly explains why the myth of "Tannenberg" became obsolete after 1945.