He was born in
Ludwigsburg, Württemberg, the son of a regimental paymaster. He entered the Württemberg Army in 1884, and attended the War Academy from 1893 until 1897, whereupon he was appointed to the
General Staff (
1899). For the next seventeen years he was attached to the railway section, becoming head of it in
1912. In November of 1916 he moved into the
Prussian War Ministry as deputy war minister and was in charge of war production.
In August
1917 Groener took a field command in
the Ukraine.
On the resignation of
Erich Ludendorff on
October 29, 1918, Groener became First Quartermaster General (Deputy Chief of the General Staff) under Field Marshal
von Hindenburg. Germany's military situation was worsening under the onslaught of the enemy, and social unrest and rebellion among both the German armed forces and the civilian population threatened to break out into
revolution. In November, Groener advised
Kaiser Wilhelm II that he had lost the confidence of the armed forces and recommended
abdication to the monarch.
With the Kaiser's abdication on
November 9, 1918 the
Marxist Spartacist League had declared a soviet republic in Berlin.
Social Democrat leaders
Friedrich Ebert (newly-named Chancellor) and
Philipp Scheidemann sought to forestall the
Communists' action and — evidently on the spur of the moment — Scheidemann proclaimed the Republic.
Groener, who was second-in-command of the German Army and who had known Ebert from the soldier's days in charge of war production, contacted the socialist leader that evening.
The two men concluded the so-called
Ebert-Groener pact, which was to remain secret for a number of years.
For his part of the pact, Ebert agreed to suppress the
Bolshevik-led revolution and maintain the defeated Army's role as one of the pillars of the German state; Groener in turn agreed to throw the weight of the still-considerable Army behind the new government.
For this act, Groener earned the enmity of much of the military leadership, much of whom sought the retention of the monarchy.
Groener subsequently oversaw the retreat and demobilisation of the defeated German army after
World War I ended with the
armistice of
November 11, 1918.
After his resignation from the army (
September 30 1919), Groener was in and out of retirement during the 1920s. He served as
Transportation Minister between
1920 and
1923. He succeeded
Otto Geßler as
Defence Minister in
1928, a post he held until
1932. In
1931 he also became
Interior Minister, and favoured the banning of the
Nazi storm troopers (SA). After
Franz von Papen replaced
Heinrich Brüning as
Chancellor, Groener retired from public life.
Groener was married twice: Helene Geyer (
1864-1926), with one daughter, and Ruth Naeher-Glück, with whom he had a son. Groener died in
Bornstedt bei Potsdam on
May 3, 1939.
