Oskar von Hindenburg

Oskar von Hindenburg
Oskar von Hindenburg, April 1930
Birth name	Oskar Wilhelm Robert Paul Ludwig Hellmuth von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg
Born	(1883-01-31)31 January 1883 Königsberg, Prussia, German Empire
Died	12 February 1960(1960-02-12) (aged 77) Bad Harzburg, Lower Saxony, West Germany
Buried	Medingen
Allegiance	German Empire  Weimar Republic Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Prussian Army Reichsheer German Army
Years of service	1903–1934, 1939–1945
Rank	Generalleutnant
Battles/wars	World War I

Oskar Wilhelm Robert Paul Ludwig von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (31 January 1883 – 12 February 1960) was a German Generalleutnant. The son and aide-de-camp to Field Marshal and Reich President Paul von Hindenburg had considerable influence on the appointment of Adolf Hitler as German chancellor in January 1933.

Oskar von Hindenburg was born in Königsberg, East Prussia (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia), the only son of Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) and his wife Gertrud Wilhelmine (1860–1921). He had two sisters, Irmengard Pauline (1880–1948) and Annemarie (1891–1978). In 1921, he married Margarete von Marenholtz (1897–1988), the couple had four children.

He followed his father into the Prussian Army and joined the 3rd Foot Guards regiment in 1903, where he befriended Kurt von Schleicher. Initially, his career did not prosper, as Hindenburg's superiors considered him to be of low intelligence. Nevertheless, after his father became a German World War I hero upon the Battle of Tannenberg, Oskar von Hindenburg's career started to advance thanks to his surname. A General Staff officer at the Armeeoberkommando during the war, he achieved the rank of Hauptmann (Captain) in the 20th Division.

After the war, he continued his career within the newly established German Reichswehr, where he was promoted to Major and acted as his father's liaison officer. After his father became Reich President of the Weimar Republic in 1925, Major von Hindenburg acted as his father's aide-de-camp. As his father's closest friend and advisor, he exercised considerable power behind the scenes as he largely controlled access to the President. It was in large part due to his friendship with the younger von Hindenburg, that von Schleicher became Chancellor and one of the elder von Hindenburg's closest advisors. Because of this influence on the President beyond any control by constitutional means, the publicist and writer Kurt Tucholsky ironically spoke of him as "... the son of the president, not designated by the Reich's constitution ...".