General von Hindenburg with General Ludendorff. Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (October 2, 1847 - August 2, 1934) was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician. In 1932, Hindenburg, 84 years old and in poor health, was considered the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. In February 1933, he issued the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act, in which the parliament gave Hitler's administration legislative powers. He remained in office until his death at the age of 86 from lung cancer in 1934. Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (April 9 1865 - December 20, 1937) was a German general. After the WWI, he became a prominent nationalist leader, and a promoter of the stab-in-the-back legend, convinced that the German Army had been betrayed by Marxists and Republicans in the Versailles Treaty. In 1935 he published Der Totale Krieg (The Toal War) in which he argued that the entire physical and moral forces of the nation should be mobilized, because peace was merely an interval between wars. He died in 1937 at age of 72. Bain News Service, circa 1910-15.