Short answers, pulled from the story.
Paul von Hindenburg was a German military officer and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later served as President of Germany from 1925 until his death on the 2nd of August 1934. He is historically significant for commanding German forces at the Battle of Tannenberg, where 92,000 Russian soldiers were captured, and for appointing Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany on the 30th of January 1933.
The Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914 resulted in the destruction of the Russian Second Army, with 92,000 Russians captured and four hundred guns seized, while German casualties numbered only 14,000. Hindenburg commanded the German Eighth Army and authorised the flanking strategy proposed by Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffmann, which encircled and annihilated the Russian force. British field marshal Edmund Ironside called it the greatest defeat suffered by any combatant during the war.
After twice dissolving the Reichstag in 1932 without producing a stable government, Hindenburg reluctantly agreed in January 1933 to appoint Hitler as chancellor in coalition with the German National People's Party. He was opposed to Hitler and the Nazis but was persuaded by advisers that Hitler could be managed within a coalition. Following the Reichstag fire, Hindenburg then signed the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933, which suspended civil liberties and granted the Nazi regime emergency powers.
The Hindenburg Programme was an ambitious arms production plan launched by the German Supreme Army Command under Hindenburg's leadership. Major goals included a new light machine gun, updated artillery, and motor transport. To increase output, the army released a million men from active service to work in industry. Hindenburg proposed extensive social controls alongside the programme, but most were not adopted.
The stab-in-the-back myth held that the German Army had been on the verge of winning World War I and was defeated not on the battlefield but by disloyal elements on the home front and unpatriotic politicians. Hindenburg testified to this effect before the parliamentary commission investigating the 1918 defeat on the 18th of November 1919, reading a prepared statement and walking out before answering questions. His testimony gave official weight to the myth, which nationalist politicians then used to delegitimize the Weimar Republic throughout the following decade.
Historical opinion on Hindenburg versus Ludendorff has shifted over time. Churchill wrote in 1923 that Ludendorff appeared as the uncontested master, a view shaped largely by Ludendorff's own comprehensive postwar memoir. However, officers who testified before the Reichstag investigation committee agreed that Hindenburg was always in command, setting overall strategy and appointing capable subordinates. Ludendorff's unstable behavior in the final months of the war, including breaking down in tears and shouting at subordinates, contrasted with Hindenburg's reported steadiness under pressure.