History of World War I: German Colonialism in Central and Eastern Europe and the Fall of Tsarist Russia
When in February 1918, the German politician Prince Max of Baden asked his country’s military dictator, Erich Ludendorff, what would happen if the latter’s spring offensive failed, he replied, “Then Germany will just have to suffer annihilation”. General Ludendorff’s response, which offended Prince Max’s sensitive liberal tastes, would be repeated almost verbatim by Hitler a…