Max Bauer

Colonel Max Hermann Bauer (31 January 1869 – 6 May 1929) was a German General Staff officer and artillery expert in the First World War. As a protege of Erich Ludendorff he was placed in charge of the German Army's munition supply by the latter in 1916. In this role he played a leading role in the Hindenburg Programme and the High Command's political machinations. Later Bauer was a military and industrial adviser to President Chiang Kai-Shek of Nationalist China.

Rising in the army

Bauer was born in Quedlinburg. He began to study medicine in Berlin, but then enlisted as an officer candidate in Foot Artillery Regiment 2 (heavy artillery) in 1888. The following year he attended the Kriegs-Schule in Hanover and then was commissioned. After regimental service, in 1898 he was appointed Adjutant to the Artillerie Prüfungskommission (Artillery Testing Commission). In 1902 he took command of a battery as a captain. An observer of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), he was impressed by how Japanese 28 cm mortars demolished Russian forts. When he returned in 1905 he joined the fortress section of the General Staff as their artillery expert, which made him conversant with the leaders of German industry, science, and engineering. Unable to obtain authorization to develop a new heavy mortar, he ordered one from Krupp nonetheless. When the War Ministry learned that a prototype was completed they wanted Bauer dismissed, but the firing tests were so impressive that further development was authorized in 1911. Meanwhile, in 1908 he moved into the mobilization section of the Staff directed by Erich Ludendorff — they became staunch friends. Ludendorff regarded him as the “smartest officer in the army”. In the following year Bauer was appointed as a General Staff Officer, remarkable because he had not had the customary specialized schooling. Helped by his contacts in industry, he studied how the German economy would function during a European war.