Stab-in-the-back myth
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The stab-in-the-back myth is an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not los
An illustration from a 1919 Austrian postcard showing a caricatured Jew, stabbing a German Army soldier in the back with a dagger. The capitulation of the Central Powers was blamed on communists, Bolsheviks, and the Weimar Republic, but in particular on Jews.
First Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff
Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg
Friedrich Ebert contributed to the myth when he told returning veterans that "No enemy has vanquished you."
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany in the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chan
Stab-in-the-back myth
…myth denounced the German government leaders who had signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918 as the "November criminals" (Novemberverbrecher). When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in 1933, they made the conspiracy theory an integral part of their official history of the 1920s, portraying the Weimar…
Formal portrait, 1938
Hitler (c. 1889–90)
Hitler's father, Alois, c. 1900
Hitler's mother, Klara, 1870s