Stab - in - the - back myth The stab - in - the - back myth ( German : ) is the notion , widely believed in right - wing circles in Germany after 1918 , that the German Army did not lose World War I but was instead betrayed by the civilians on the home front , especially the republicans who overthrew the monarchy . Advocates denounced the German government leaders who signed the Armistice on November 11 , 1918 , as the " November Criminals " ( ) . When the Nazis came to power in 1933 they made the legend an integral part of their official history of the 1920s , portraying the Weimar Republic as the work of the " November criminals " who used the stab in the back to seize power while betraying the nation . The Nazi propaganda depicted Weimar as " a morass of corruption , degeneracy , national humiliation , ruthless persecution of the honest ' national opposition ' — fourteen years of rule by Jews , Marxists , and ' cultural Bolsheviks ' , who had at last been swept away by the National Socialist movement under Adolf Hitler and the victory of the ' national revolution ' of 1933 " . Scholars inside and outside Germany unanimously reject the notion , pointing out the German army was out of reserves and was being overwhelmed in late 1918 . To many Germans , the expression " stab in the back " was evocative of Richard Wagner ' s 1876 opera " Götterdämmerung " , in which Hagen murders his enemy Siegfried with a spear in his back . 1919 . The theme of stab - in - the - back was articulated in 1919 most prominently by General Erich Ludendorff , one of the two top German commanders . He blamed the Berlin government and the civilian population for the armistice / surrender of November 1918 , saying they had failed to support him , had let him down , and had proved itself unworthy of the traditions of a fighting nation . He popularized the " Dolchstoß " terminology , and became a prominent right - wing leader in the 1920s . German popular reaction to the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was highly negative . As a result of the Treaty , Germany ' s territory was reduced by about 13 % , several million ethnic Germans came under foreign rule , even though they were the majority in many of those areas , the Rhineland was demilitarized and Allied troops occupied several areas ( See territorial changes of Germany # Territorial changes after World War I ) . There were also enormous war reparations to be paid over a period of 70 years , although they ended in 1931 ( but were resumed after World War II ) . The most important aspect of the Treaty relating to the " Dolchstoßlegende " was the War Guilt Clause " ( Kriegsschuldklausel ) " , which forced Germany to accept complete responsibility for the hostilities . Post - war reactions and reflections . Conservatives , nationalists and ex - military leaders began to speak critically about the peace and Weimar politicians , socialists , communists , Jews , and sometimes even Catholics were viewed with suspicion due to presumed extra - national loyalties . It was claimed that they had not supported the war and had played a role in selling out Germany to its enemies . These " November Criminals " , or those who seemed to benefit from the newly formed Weimar Republic , were seen to have " stabbed them in the back " on the home front , by either criticizing German nationalism , instigating unrest and strikes in the critical military industries or profiteering . In essence , the accusation was that the accused committed treason against the " benevolent and righteous " common cause . These theories were given credence by the fact that when Germany surrendered in November 1918 , its armies were still in French and Belgian territory , Berlin remained 450 miles from the nearest front , and the German armies retired from the field of battle in good order . The Allies had been amply resupplied by the United States , which also had fresh armies ready for combat , but the UK and France were too war - weary to contemplate an invasion of Germany with its unknown consequences . On the Western Front , although the Hindenburg Line had been penetrated and German forces were in retreat , the Allied army had not reached the western German frontier , and on the Eastern Front , Germany had already won the war against Russia , concluded with the Treaty of Brest - Litovsk . In the West , Germany had come close to winning the war with the Spring Offensive . Contributing to the " Dolchstoßlegende " , its failure was blamed on strikes in the arms industry at a critical moment of the offensive , leaving soldiers without an adequate supply of materiel . The strikes were seen to be instigated by treasonous elements , with the Jews taking most of the blame . This overlooked Germany ' s strategic position and ignored how the efforts of individuals were somewhat marginalized on the front , since the belligerents were engaged in a new kind of war . The industrialization of war had dehumanized the process , and made possible a new kind of defeat which the Germans suffered as a total war emerged . The weakness of Germany ' s strategic position was exacerbated by the rapid collapse of the other Central Powers in late 1918 , following Allied victories on the Macedonian and Italian fronts . Bulgaria was the first to sign an armistice on September 29 , 1918 , at Saloniki . On October 30 the Ottoman Empire capitulated at Mudros . On November 3 Austria - Hungary sent a flag of truce to ask for an Armistice . The terms , arranged by telegraph with the Allied Authorities in Paris , were communicated to the Austrian commander and accepted . The Armistice with Austria - Hungary was signed in the Villa Giusti , near Padua , on November 3 . Austria and Hungary signed separate treaties following the collapse of the Austro - Hungarian empire . Nevertheless , the idea of domestic betrayal resonated among its audience , and its claims would provide some basis for public support for the emerging National Socialist Party , under an autocratic and chauvinistic form of nationalism . Anti - Jewish sentiment was intensified by the Bavarian Soviet Republic , a Communist government which ruled the city of Munich for two weeks before being crushed by the Freikorps militia . Many of the Bavarian Soviet Republic ' s leaders were Jewish , allowing anti - Jewish propagandists to connect Jews with Communism ( and thus treason ) . Hunt ( 1958 ) argues the myth was an irrational belief which commanded the force of irrefutable emotional convictions for millions of Germans . He suggests that in back of these myths resided a sense of communal shame , not for causing the war , but for losing it . Hunt argues that it was not the guilt of wickedness , but the shame of weakness that seized Germany ' s national psychology , and " served as a solvent of the Weimar democracy and also as an ideological cement of Hitler ' s dictatorship " . Origins . In the latter part of the war , Germany was practically a military dictatorship , with the Supreme High Command ( German : OHL , " Oberste Heeresleitung " ) and General Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as commander - in - chief advising the Kaiser . After the last German offensive on the Western Front failed in 1918 , the war effort was doomed . In response , OHL arranged for a rapid change to a civilian government . General Ludendorff , Germany ' s Chief of Staff , said : " I have asked His Excellency to now bring those circles to power which we have to thank for coming so far . We will therefore now bring those gentlemen into the ministries . They can now make the peace which has to be made . They can eat the broth which they have prepared for us ! " On November 11 , 1918 , the representatives of the newly formed Weimar Republic signed an armistice with the Allies which would end World War I . The subsequent Treaty of Versailles led to further territorial and financial losses . As the Kaiser had been forced to abdicate and the military relinquished executive power , it was the temporary " civilian government " that sued for peace — the signature on the armistice document was of Matthias Erzberger , a civilian , who was later murdered for his alleged treason ; this led to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles . The official birth of the term " stab - in - the - back " itself possibly can be dated to the autumn of 1919 , when Ludendorff was dining with the head of the British Military Mission in Berlin , British general Sir Neill Malcolm . Malcolm asked Ludendorff why it was that he thought Germany lost the war . Ludendorff replied with his list of excuses , including that the home front failed the army . Malcolm asked him : " Do you mean , General , that you were stabbed in the back ? " Ludendorff ' s eyes lit up and he leapt upon the phrase like a dog on a bone . " Stabbed in the back ? " he repeated . " Yes , that ' s it , exactly , we were stabbed in the back " . And thus was born a legend which has never entirely perished . The phrase was to Ludendorff ' s liking , and he let it be known among the general staff that this was the " official " version , and so it was disseminated throughout German society . This was picked up by right - wing political factions and used as a form of attack against the SPD - led early Weimar government , which had come to power in the German Revolution of November 1918 . The reviews in the German press that grossly misrepresented general Frederick Barton Maurice ' s book , " The Last Four Months " , also contributed to the creation of this myth . " Ludendorff made use of the reviews to convince Hindenburg . " In 1919 Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund leader Alfred Roth , writing under the pseudonym Otto Arnim , published the book " The Jew in the Army " which he said was based on evidence gathered during his participation on the " Judenzählung " , a military census which had in fact shown that German Jews had served in the front lines proportionately to their numbers . Roth ' s work claimed that most Jews involved in the war were only taking part as profiteers and spies , whilst he also blamed Jewish officers for fostering a defeatist mentality which impacted negatively on their soldiers . As such the book offered one of the earliest published versions of the stab - in - the - back legend . In November 1919 , the newly elected Weimar National Assembly initiated a " Untersuchungsausschuß für Schuldfragen " to investigate the causes of the World War and Germany ' s defeat . On November 18 , von Hindenburg testified in front of this parliamentary commission , and cited a December 17 , 1918 " Neue Zürcher Zeitung " article that summarized two earlier articles in the " Daily Mail " by British General Frederick Barton Maurice with the phrase that the German army had been " dagger - stabbed from behind by the civilian populace " ( " von der Zivilbevölkerung von hinten erdolcht " ) . ( Maurice later disavowed having used the term himself . ) It was particularly this testimony of Hindenburg that led to the wide spread of the " Dolchstoßlegende " in post - World War I Germany . Richard Steigmann - Gall says that the stab - in - the - back legend traces back to a sermon preached on February 3 , 1918 , by Protestant Court Chaplain Bruno Doehring , six months before the war had even ended . German scholar Boris Barth , in contrast to Steigmann - Gall , implies that Doehring did not actually use the term , but spoke only of ' betrayal ' . Barth traces the first documented use to a centrist political meeting in the Munich Löwenbräu - Keller on November 2 , 1918 , in which Ernst Müller - Meiningen , a member of the Progressive coalition in the Reichstag , used the term to exhort his listeners to keep fighting : As long as the front holds , we damned well have the duty to hold out in the homeland . We would have to be ashamed of ourselves in front of our children and grandchildren if we attacked the battle front from the rear and gave it a dagger - stab . ( " wenn wir der Front in den Rücken fielen und ihr den Dolchstoß versetzten . ) " Barth also shows that the term was primarily popularized by the patriotic German newspaper " Deutsche Tageszeitung " that repeatedly quoted the " Neue Zürcher " article after Hindenburg had referred to it in front of the parliamentary inquiry commission . Charges of a Jewish conspirational element in Germany ' s defeat drew heavily upon figures like Kurt Eisner , a Berlin - born German Jew who lived in Munich . He had written about the illegal nature of the war from 1916 onward , and he also had a large hand in the Munich revolution until he was assassinated in February 1919 . The Weimar Republic under Friedrich Ebert violently suppressed workers ' uprisings with the help of Gustav Noske and Reichswehr General Groener , and tolerated the paramilitary Freikorps forming all across Germany . In spite of such tolerance , the Republic ' s legitimacy was constantly attacked with claims such as the stab - in - the - back . Many of its representatives such as Matthias Erzberger and Walther Rathenau were assassinated , and the leaders were branded as " criminals " and Jews by the right - wing press dominated by Alfred Hugenberg . The noted German historian Friedrich Meinecke attempted to trace the roots of the expression in a June 11 , 1922 article in the Viennese newspaper " Neue Freie Presse " . In the 1924 national election , the Munich cultural journal " Süddeutsche Monatshefte " published a series of articles blaming the SPD and trade unions for Germany ' s defeat in World War I , which came out during the trial of Adolf Hitler and Ludendorff for high treason following the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 . The editor of an SPD newspaper sued the journal for defamation , giving rise to what is known as the " Munich Dolchstoßprozess " from October 19 to November 20 , 1925 . Many prominent figures testified in that trial , including members of the parliamentary committee investigating the reasons for the defeat , so some of its results were made public long before the publication of the committee report in 1928 . The " Dolchstoß " was a central image in propaganda produced by the many right - wing and traditionally conservative political parties that sprang up in the early days of the Weimar Republic , including Hitler ' s NSDAP . For Hitler himself , this explanatory model for World War I was of crucial personal importance . He had learned of Germany ' s defeat while being treated for temporary blindness following a gas attack on the front . In " Mein Kampf " , he described a vision at this time which drove him to enter politics . Throughout his career , he railed against the " November criminals " of 1918 , who had stabbed the German Army in the back . Even provisional President Friedrich Ebert contributed to the myth when he saluted returning veterans with the oration that " no enemy has vanquished you " ( " kein Feind hat euch überwunden ! " ) and " they returned undefeated from the battlefield " ( " sie sind vom Schlachtfeld unbesiegt zurückgekehrt " ) on November 10 , 1918 . The latter quote was shortened to " im Felde unbesiegt " ( " undefeated on the battlefield " ) as a semi - official slogan of the " Reichswehr " . Ebert had meant these sayings as a tribute to the German soldier , but it only contributed to the prevailing feeling . Second World War . The Allied policy of unconditional surrender was devised in 1943 in part to avoid a repetition of the stab - in - the - back theme . According to historian John Wheeler - Bennett , speaking from the British perspective , It was necessary for the Nazi régime and / or the German Generals to surrender unconditionally in order to bring home to the German people that they had lost the War of themselves ; so that their defeat should not be attributed to a " stab in the back " . References . Notes Further reading