2-378-229 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Adolf Hitler standing next to General Erich Ludendorff, Germany, 11 November 1921. Adolf Hitler, (1889-1945) with Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (1865-1937), one of Germany's foremost generals of the First World War. After the war ended he was one of the most prominent proponents of the view that Germany had lost because it had been 'stabbed in the back' by its left-wing politicians and in the 1920s entered politics as a prominent member of the Nazi Party, participating in Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He contested the 1925 presidential election but was soundly defeated by his former commander, Hindenburg.