What a great book! For those who enjoy historical non-fiction, this one is a surefire bet. This book was very well researched and put together. This is an intelligent read that will be invaluable to anyone studying the period.

It was interesting to single out Erich Ludendorff, since there have been so many biographies and pieces written about others. I enjoyed the way the author approached the subject, making this an informative and yet highly readable book. Somewhere between popular non-fiction and an intellectual study, this book kept me turning pages without boredom.

I liked that Jay Lockenour managed to offer so many rarely given details about the life of this man, both inside and outside in infamous career.

If you are curious about this major historical figure, I can't think of a better book to read to satisfy your curiosity. I definitely recommend this book.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This was such a fascinating read. I do not read many books or articles on the first World War, but this book has made me want to read everything I can about it. I highly recommend this to everyone!

In the third section of Wagner's Ring cycle, which premiered in 1876, is a mythological person called Siegfried. Siegfried uses a sword which goes by the name of Nothung which has been reforged in order to slay the dragon and thus become immortal. One who knows no fear.

In the outstanding biography of Erich Lundendorff, author Jay Lockenour has put on the stage another with whom the German people can rally behind and lift up to a god like status of a new Siegfried one who slays the dragons, not in a fantasy world of a Wagerian opera, but on the battlefield of the first world war.
Erich Lundendorff doesn't disappoint the people of the Weimar Republic..
But unlike Wagner's Siegfried, Erich Lundendorff soon discovers the difference between myth and reality. As the beloved Weimar Republic soon collapses as a new Siegfried emerges as head of a socialist party one that Erich Lundendorff doesn't want any part of.

In "Dragonslayer" Mr. Lockenour has published a superb biography of General Erich Ludendorff, cutting through the myths and misconceptions that the would be "Siegrfied" and his followers attempted to establish after the Firat World War. Being deeply interested in the First World War, and particularly the Central Powers, the common narrative that I was exposed to was that Ludendorff initially supported both the stab in the back myth and Hitler, but in his later years devoted himself to a fringe Christian belief and became anti-nazi. Lockenour's work stabs at the heart of this false narrative and reveals the true narcissistic and conspiracy embracing Ludendorff.

The first third of the work covers Ludendorff's early military career and his service in the First World War. This period is relatively straightforward, although Lockenour pokes holes in Ludendorff's later claims that he was a prophet of things to come. It also reveals the initial break with Hindenburg at the end of the war, as well as the origins of the conspiracies of "supranational forces" (Jews, Catholics, and Freemasons) that Ludendorff would trade in for the rest of his life.

The meat of the work is Ludendorff's life in the inter-war period. Far from going softly into obscurity, Ludendorff was an active member in the far right plots to overthrow the Weimar Republic. His turn against the Nazi was not based on any moral objections to Hitler, but the concept that they were "to soft" on Jews and Catholics, to the extent that Hitler was even just a pawn of the supranational forces.

Ludendorff and his wife, Mathilde, are also extensively covered. Their ideology of Gotterkenntnis allowed them to both feed into each other's paranoia and attempt to establish their own movement and "pagan" religion. That this organization struggled to shape Nazi ideology, not to overturn it, was essential to the movement. It was, to a degree, persecuted under the Nazi Regime but Ludendorff and his clout ensured Gotterkenntnis' survival throughout, and even after, the Third Reich.

One of the central themes of the book is the legend of Siegfried and Ludendorff's attempts to mold his public image into a reborn Siegfried. In his own mind and the minds of his admirers he was the bold, daring warrior, the savior of Germany who was tragically betrayed and must be avenged. I found this to be an interesting concept, as Ludendorff struggled to come to terms with both his own conceit that he was a military genius and the total loss of the war he had controlled personally to a great extent.

Finally, the work covers the death of Ludendorff and both his followers and the Nazi's attempts to canonize him into a nationalist German pantheon. The reader sees the bombastic pageantry of the Nazis on display at his funeral, as well as the post war legal battles as the "Ludendorffers" attempted to distance both themselves and the patron from the Third Reich.

In sum, this is a superbly written and extensively researched work on a man and his mythos.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley.com

Jack Lockenour has written an incredible (and I would add essential) biography of one of the most important protagonists of early 20th century German history. A detailed account of Eric Ludendorff's life was long overdue.
I have been interested by this man since I read 2 years ago the monumental biography of Wilhelm II written by John Rolh published in English by Cambridge University Press. I wanted to know more about the key players in the entourage of the idiotic Kaiser at the beginning of WWI and in the early military victories of the conflict. Ludendorff was one of them.
Who was Eric Ludendorff and why would a man who was considered a war hero ended up a despicable right wing failure? That is the main question to keep in mind when one reads the incredible portrait that Jack Lockenour provides in this brilliantly researched biography.
Ludendorff was a pure product of the mighty Junker society, a man destined to be absorbed by the powerful Prussian military machine. After some early details about his early life & military training, we follow Ludendorff from his early successes on the frontlines (Battle of Tannenberg, 1914) to his ever increasing role in the operational background of the War until his mental collapse in 1918. The man was unable to accept defeat and of course he started to blame everyone else for Germany's woes. The second part of the biography was the most fascinating to me. Ludendorff became enmeshed in the growing right wing movement born from the ashes of the Versailles treaty. A strong believer of idiotic conspiracy theories (he would have felt right at home with Trump & cie) , he became a failed dictator, a rabid right wing monster....until his death in 1937. Ironically Hitler & Ludendorff couldn't stand each other.
A fascinating portrait of a disgusting character, well written and easily accessible but don't expect to feel too much empathy for Ludendorff by the end. For me he was a"walking coffin" who never probably smiled or cracked a joke in his entire life, but the panoramic portrait that Jack Lockenour gave me of the politics & social issues of postwar Germany through this engrossing biography was definitely worth the time I spent reading it!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Cornell University Press for the opportunity to read this biography prior and its release date

Dragonslayer sounds like the title of sci-fi romance, but the subtitle sets us straight: The Legend of Erich Ludendorff in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich. It's serious history, rather than a pop-boiler promising the Untold Story of something that Changed the World Forever. The author is Jay Lockenour, who teaches courses on World War One, Nazi Germany, and Blut und Eisen (Blood and Iron) at Temple University. Far from telling us something Untold, he makes a point of citing all previous biographies of Ludendorf, who in August 1914 became the hero of Liège and, a few weeks later on the other side of Europe, the hero of Tannenberg, so that Germany began the First World War with punishing blows on both the Western and the Eastern Front. Nevertheless, it lost the war, to the astonishment of just about every German including Ludendorff, who was the first to advance the "stab in the back" theory so eagerly exploited by an Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler. In November 1923, the two men marched together in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch that ended with 18 dead and Hitler in prison, with the leisure to write Mein Kampf. The two men parted company thereafter, in part because Ludendorff thought Hitler's antisemitism too mild, and also didn't pay attention to the other "supranational" forces that were conspiring to keep Germany down, namely the Masons and the Catholic church. (He didn't live to see the Final Solution, however.) "Dragonslayer" is a reference to Germany's first stab in the back, that of Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied, and Mr Lockenour introduces each chapter with a quote from the 12th/13th century epic poem that later inspired Wagner to write The Ring, which in turn became Hitler's favorite opera. By no coincidence, three of Germany's campaigns in the Second World War were named Operation Siegfried, Hagen, and Alberich, each a character from both the poem and the opera.

Though Germany before the First World War is not my main historical topic of interest, Jay Lockenour’s Dragonslayer: The Legend of Erich Ludendorff in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich was a quite enjoyable and relatively easy read (if one considers reading a historical book an entertainment). The author proved to be competent in his field and in possession of huge research material, both directly and indirectly connected with the topic.

The book itself consists of lists of illustrations, acknowledgment, and a list of abbreviations, 8 chapters, epilogue, notes, bibliography, and index (which strangely wasn’t present in my version of the book). As formulated in the first chapter Mythic Life, the aim of the book is to provide readers with the biography of Erich Ludendorff from new perspectives: Ludendorff as a man who constructed a myth of a betrayed hero Siegfried around his persona, and as a prolific writer. After a brief encyclopedia-style chapter describing Ludendorff’s actions during WWI, the book dives deep into his activities and writings in the interwar period. Language and the author’s style are flawless; readers won’t be overwhelmed by dry facts and hordes of suddenly appearing new names. Material is structured according to the dates, with no unexpected time twists. First and last, the book is well-written and I would recommend it to all history lovers.

The book also has several faults I would like to mention (to explain why it is 4/5, not 5/5).

I recorded more than 50 minor, insignificant mistakes, like missing or additional commas, repetition of one word/phrase in one/two adjoining sentences, traces of editing, and missing apostrophes. For example, page 30, the last paragraph’s beginning: “Whatever Ludendorff may have lacked in charisma, he clearly compensated for with his work ethic.”; page 176, paragraph 2, last sentence – a word “deep” two times; page 89, paragraph 2, line 1 ‘the plotters sense” – should be “the plotters’ sense”. A phrase “supranatural powers” appears in the first chapter in quotation marks, then after page 119, paragraph 2, line 12 it is written without quotation marks, then after page 142 it is written “supranatural” powers. OHL in the list of abbreviations is decoded as Army Supreme Command, and in the first chapter the same explanation is given, yet, in the second chapter, it is the Third Supreme Command. (The full list of the typos can be provided if needed.)

After Laurence Rees and his The Holocaust: A New History it is hard to complement the origins of anti-Semitism of the 20th century. Jay Lockenour talks on the topic in the new (for me) light of Die Niebelungen-Sage, as well as fully explains the anti-Catholic views of Ludendorff. What is missing is almost no mention of the third component of “supranatural powers”, Freemasonry: why this exact theme bothered the main hero and what the sources of his concern were. Also, as long as this is the work dedicated partly to the literary side of Ludendorff’s life, it would be wise to compare a list of his most prominent and influential works in accordance with the time scale.

As an overall conclusion, I would say thank you to the author for the time spent with his book. It was truly an exciting read.