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 1916 he moved into the Prussian War Ministry as deputy war minister and was in charge of war production. In August 1917 Groener served as chief of staff of an army group 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.
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.
Groener was married twice: Helene Geyer (1864-1926), with one daughter, Dorothea Groener-Geyer {b.1900}, and Ruth Naeher-Glück, with whom he had a son. Groener died in Bornstedt bei Potsdam on May 3, 1939.
References
Eschenburg, Theodor "The Role of the Personality in the Crisis of the Weimar Republic: Hindenburg, Brüning, Groener, Schleicher" pages 3-50 from Republic to Reich The Making Of The Nazi Revolution edited by Hajo Holborn, New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.
Groener, Wilhelm. Lebenserinnerungen: Jugend-Generalstab-Weltkrieg. Edited by Friedrich Frhr. Hiller von Gaertringen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1957.
Groener-Geyer, Dorothea. General Groener: Soldat und Staatsmann. Frankfurt a. M.: Societäts-Verlag, 1955.
Haeussler, Helmut H. General William Groener and the Imperial German Arm. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin for Dept. of History, University of Wisconsin, 1962.
Hürter, Johannes. Wilhelm Groener: Reichswehrminister am Ende der Weimarer Republik (1928-1932). Munich: Oldenbourg, 1993.
Rakenius, Gerhard W. Wilhelm Groener als Erster Generalquartiermeister: Die Politik der Obersten Heeresleitung 1918/19. Boppard a.R.: Boldt, 1977.
Stoneman, Mark R. “Wilhelm Groener, Officering, and the Schlieffen Plan.” PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2006. abstract
Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John. The Nemesis of Power: German Army in Politics, 1918-1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishing Company, 2005.
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