Was Erich Ludendorff any form of nobility?

Upvote:0

Yes, because Military Order of Max Joseph was awarded to him

Ludendorff was recipient of Military Order of Max Joseph (Militär-Max-Joseph-Orden). This is Bavarian award and order, and he only got lowest class (Knight's Cross - Ritterkreuz). Still, any recipient of the award could add to his family name title "Ritter von". For Ludendorff it would be Erich Ritter von Ludendorff.

EDIT: For those doubting Ludendorff was Bavarian subject, he fled to Bavaria, participated in famous Beer_Hall_Putsch with Hitler, and even participated in Bavarian elections with his party and National Socialists .

It was more likely that he refused superfluous title as he was already famous, just like he refused title of Field-Marshal

Upvote:9

There seems to be three different claims as to why Ludendorff should be considered noble in the question:

  1. Ludendorff being descended from Eric XIV of Sweden.
  2. Ludendorff being descended from several nobles listed in the question.
  3. Ludendorff belonging to the "Junker" class.

The first of these is relatively straightforward. Eric XIV had only two legitimate children that reached maturity: Gustav and Sigrid. Gustav never had issue of his own. Nobility in Sweden has only ever been inherited through agnatic lines. Eric had also two illegitimate but recognized children who survived childhood, Virginia and Constantia. Again, being female, they would not themselves have conferred nobility on their descendants (even though they did marry noblemen). Thus, Eric's branch of the family of Vasa is long closed.

(A side note on Eric's genealogy: he was indeed of the house of Vasa, but his only known link to the Lithuanian-Polish house of Jagiello was through the marriage of his half-brother, John III. However, his mother was Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg, who came from long line of German nobility.)

As for nobles closer to Ludendorff in his family tree, since they all appear to be on his mother's side, they were largely irrelevant; at best, they would be a plus if he was ever himself considered for ennoblement.

Now, for the question about "Junkers". While the word is commonly associated with Prussian, landowning, conservative noblemen, it was in fact not a noble title of its own. At most, it was a courteous title used for untitled nobility. By Ludendorff's time, it had also become attached to the landowning, conservative, Prussian noblemen, who controlled the Prussian state, but it was a socio-political denomination, not a matter of blood status. Ludendorff, or his father, could possibly be associated with them politically, but this would not make them members of the Junker "class".

So, no, Ludendorff was not a noble by birth, exactly as The Encyclopaedia says. To be that, his father would have had to be noble, not just his mother. As he never was ennobled during his lifetime, he was, and remained, a commoner.

Sources

On the descendants of Eric XIV, see Sveriges historia 1530-1600. Most encyclopaedias seem to be somewhat vague on what "Junker" meant, I found Nordisk Familjebok most useful; Encyclopaedia Britannica is somewhat less clear, focusing only on the Prussian usage.

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