PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE XXXIV
Wilhelm Groener
Wilhelm Groener was born in Ludwigsburg in the Kingdom of Württemberg on November 22, 1867. After attending gymnasium at Ulm and Ludwigsburg (where his father had been stationed), Groener entered the 3. Württembergische Infanterie Regiment Nummer 2 of the Württemberg Army in 1884. Six years later, he was promoted to Bataillonsadjutant.
From 1893 to 1896, Groener attended the War Academy at Berlin, where he finished top of his class. As a captain, he won appointment to the General Staff in 1899 and was attached to the railway section, where he would stay for the next seventeen years.
However, there were brief interruptions due to assignments to other locations. From 1902 to 1904, Groener was Kompaniechef of Infantry Regiment 98 at Metz, He was also with the XIII Army Corps from 1908 to 1910, and he soon became a battalion commander in Infantry Regiment 125 at Stuttgart. In 1912 (now a lieutenant-colonel), Groener became head of the railway section at the General Staff. His plans for the extension of the railway network and for deployment routes were based on the sole war plan developed by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, former Chief of the General Staff.
When war finally came, the deployment of millions of troops to the frontier by rail boosted Groener’s reputation and he promptly received numerous decorations. In June 1915, he was promoted to Generalmajor. Three months later (September 11, 1915), Groener was decorated with the coveted “Blue Max”, the Pour le Mérite.
Due to his organizational skills, Groener was put in charge of food deliveries from Romania at year’s end. In May 1916, he joined the leadership of the newly created Kriegsernährungsministerium (War Food Ministry). In November 1916 (as Generalleutnant), Groener became head of the Kriegsamt (War Office), the department that managed the war economy… as well as deputy of the Prussian Minister of War.
Along with First Quartermaster General (Deputy Chief of the General Staff) Erich Ludendorff, Groener worked on the draft for the Hilfsdienstgesetz (Auxiliary Services Act), which laid down the conscription of men (Arbeitszwang) for the war economy. He negotiated with the civilian bureaucracy, unions, and representatives of the employers. Despite his efforts to appear neutral to maximize output, Groener became the target of criticism. Factory owners resented him for accepting the unions as partners. Revolutionary groups used his strict admonishments against those who went on strike… while soldiers died at the front to undermine his standing with the workers. The negotiations made the limits of German military power obvious to Groener, and he began to doubt that the Fatherland could win the war. This caused confrontations with the third Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, the supreme command of the German army), led by Paul Hindenburg and Ludendorff. During the change at the Reichskanzlei in July 1917, when Dr. Georg Michaelis replaced Bethmann-Hollweg as Chancellor, Groener suggested that the state should intervene to limit corporate profits and the wage growth that resulted from booming war-related public demand. On August 16, 1917, he was recalled from his post and reassigned to an operational command. This was seen by the public as a response to his views on social policy.
Groener served for six months on the Western Front, first as commander of the 33rd Division, and then the XXV Reserve Corps, where he was able to observe trench warfare and the mood of the troops. In March 1918, he commanded the I Corps during the occupation of Ukraine. On the 28th of that month, Groener was appointed chief of staff of the army group Heeresgruppe Eichhorn-Kiew. This task required him to deal with organizational and political challenges, including (1) confrontations with the Austro-Hungarian army high command, and (2) supervising (then reshuffling) the Ukrainian government which needed help against Bolshevik revolutionaries.
After the dismissal of Erich Ludendorff on October 26, 1918 by Kaiser Wilhelm II, Groener was recalled. Three days later, he was appointed Ludendorff’s successor as First Quartermaster General (Deputy Chief of the General Staff) under Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. The military situation was becoming untenable, as social unrest and rebellion in both the German armed forces and civilian population threatened to break out into full-scale revolution. In light of these circumstances, Groener started to prepare the withdrawal and demobilization of the army.
As revolution spread through Germany in early November, Groener began to see Wilhelm II as an impediment to saving the monarchy and the integrity of the army. Privately, he felt the Kaiser should sacrifice himself in a hero’s death at the front.
On November 6th, Groener had reacted indignantly when the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert suggested that the Kaiser should abdicate. Groener advised Wilhelm II to go into exile on November 9th, because the latter had lost the confidence of the armed forces. This was due to the Kaiser’s suggestion of using the army to crush the revolution at home.
Groener’s goal was to preserve the monarchy… but under a different ruler. He even told the Kaiser that the Fahneneide (the oath on the regimental colors which bound every German soldier to die rather than disobey) was now only a form of words. The German Army would march home in peace… and not to stem the tide of revolution.
Before dawn on Sunday, November 10, 1918, the imperial train rolled out of Spa, Belgium and headed towards the Dutch frontier. Its lone passenger would spend the remainder of his life in exile at Doorn in Holland, never again to set foot in the Fatherland.
Later that evening, Groener contacted the new chancellor, Friedrich Ebert, and concluded the Ebert-Groener pact (which was to remain secret for a number of years). Under the terms of this hidden agreement, Ebert was to suppress the Bolshevik revolutionaries and to maintain the traditional role of the armed forces as a pillar of a new German state. Groener promised that the army would support the new government. For this act, Groener earned the enmity of many other military leaders, many of whom sought the retention of the monarchy.
After the early morning signing of the armistice at Compiegne on November 11, 1918, Groener oversaw the retreat and demobilization of the defeated German Army. Despite a very tight schedule, the withdrawal took place without problem or incident. Groener then organized the defense of the eastern borders of the Reich until a peace treaty could be signed. The headquarters of OHL moved to Schloss Wilhelmshöhe on November 14, 1918… and then to Kolberg on February 13, 1919. Groener also planned for and expected the German peacetime army to number 300.000 men in the coming years.
On June 23, 1919, Ebert asked OHL for an opinion on whether Germany should sign the Treaty of Versailles. Groener supported signing, as he was worried that the unity of the Reich would be in danger if fighting was resumed, contradicting the officer corps and the views of Walther Reinhardt (Prussian Minister of War). Hindenburg followed Groener on this issue, and when the former resigned, the latter succeeded him.
Expected to be made a scapegoat, Groener began actively cooperating in the process to save the popular reputation of Paul von Hindenburg (something Ebert immediately noticed). OHL was dissolved as a condition of the Versailles treaty, and Groener temporarily took over command at Kolberg. He started to organize the establishment of a new peacetime army (the Reichswehr), arguing in favor of a high share of former general staff officers among the new leadership and Reichswehrministerium (including a senior position for Hans von Seeckt).
But by October 1919, Wilhelm Groener had resigned from the army, against the wishes of Friedrich Ebert. Groener felt that the secret pact with the Social Democrat had cost him the trust of many of his fellow officers.
Groener moved in and out of retirement during the 1920s. Not a member of any political party, he served as Minister of Transport between 1920 and 1923 at the request of Friedrich Ebert. His main achievement during that time was the rebuilding of the Reichsbahn.
In 1923, when the Cuno government resigned, Groener left politics and wrote military and political treatises, such as Das Testament des Grafen Schlieffen (1927). Hindenburg (Ebert’s successor as Reichspräsident) appointed Groener as the successor of Otto Geßler as Minister of Defense on January 20, 1928, a post he would hold for four years. Besides expanding the Reichswehr, Groener made an effort to integrate it into the society of the Weimar Republic.
On October 8, 1931, Groener became acting Interior Minister in the government of Heinrich Brüning… and favored the banning of the Nazi Party’s Sturmabteilung (storm troops). As Interior Minister, he was asked to outlaw the SA… while his goal as Defense Minister was to integrate it into a national, non-partisan paramilitary force! In April 1932 (under pressure from several German states), Groener outlawed the SA as well as the Schutzstaffel (SS).
Kurt von Schleicher (Groener’s subordinate at the Reichswehrministerium) wanted to set up a cooperation with the two groups… and pressured Hindenburg to have Groener dismissed. After a rhetorical defeat in the Reichstag, Groener resigned on May 13, 1932 as Defense Minister. He was urged by von Schleicher, who told Groener that he had lost the trust of the Reichswehr. When the Brüning government fell on May 30, 1932, Groener also lost his position as Interior Minister and left politics for good.
He moved to Potsdam-Bornstedt two years later and wrote his memoirs entitled Lebenserinnerungen.
At the age of seventy-one, Wilhelm Groener died of natural causes in Bornstedt on May 3, 1939. He is buried in the Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf, located between Potsdam and Berlin.