German Empire, Paul von Hindenburg - Medal by Goetz on his 80th Birthday (1927)
Obv.: bust of Hindenburg to the right, mzz. "D", Jubilee date
Rev.: Double-helmeted, four-fielded family coat of arms, above eagle shield. GERMAN EMPIRE'S MOST LOYAL SERVANT
Historical
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (*1847 in Posen (now Poznań); † 1934 at Gut Neudeck, East Prussia) was a German field marshal and politician.
During the First World War, the Supreme Army Command he led exercised quasi-absolutist governmental power from 1916 to 1918. Hindenburg was elected the second President of the Weimar Republic in 1925. In 1932 he was
re-elected.
On his father's side, Paul von Hindenburg came from an old East Prussian noble family, the von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg family. Hindenburg was born in 1847 as the son of the Prussian officer and landowner Hans Robert Ludwig von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg's wife Luise Schwickart.
Education and military career
After two years at the citizen's school (primary school) and the Protestant grammar school in Posen, he attended the cadet school in Wahlstatt in Silesia from 1859 to 1863 and the main cadet school from Easter 1863.
1863 the main cadet school in Berlin. In 1865 he was assigned to Queen Elisabeth, the widow of the late Prussian King Frederick William IV, as a body page.
In 1866 he took over the 3rd Guards Regiment on Foot as a lieutenant and took part in the Battle of Königgrätz. Hindenburg also fought
Hindenburg fought in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71.
In 1914, Hindenburg became commander-in-chief of the 8th Army. The very next morning he left for East Prussia, where he was promoted to colonel general four days later at the Battle of Tannenberg.
The Election as Reich President
On 26 April 1925, at the age of 77, Hindenburg was elected in the second ballot to succeed Friedrich Ebert as Reich President and was sworn in on 12 May. This makes him to this day the only German head of state ever to have been directly elected by the people.
