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Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (listen (help·info)), known universally as Paul von Hindenburg (listen (help·info)) (October 2, 1847 – August 2, 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman.

Hindenburg enjoyed a long if undistinguished career   in the Prussian army, eventually retiring in 1911. He was recalled at   the outbreak of the First World War, and first came to national   attention, at the age of sixty-six, as the victor at Tannenberg in 1914.   As Germany's supreme commander from 1916, he and his chief of staff,   Erich Ludendorff, rose in the German public's esteem until Hindenburg   came to eclipse the Kaiser himself. Hindenburg retired again in 1919,   but returned to public life one more time in 1925 to be elected as the   second President of Germany.

Though 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg   was obliged to run for re-election in 1932 as the only candidate who   could defeat Adolf Hitler, which he did in a runoff. In his second term   as President, he did what he could to oppose the Nazi Party's rise to   power, but was eventually obliged to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in   January 1933. In March he signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave   special powers to Hitler's government. Hindenburg died the next year,   after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant and made   himself the "Führer", or the combination of the president and   chancellor.

The famed zeppelin Hindenburg that was   destroyed by fire in 1937 had been named in his honour, as is the   causeway joining the island of Sylt to mainland Schleswig-Holstein, the   Hindenburgdamm, built during his time in office.