The Battle of Tannenberg Didn’t Take Place in Tannenberg

Between August 26 and August 30, 1914, during the first month of World War I, Russia and Germany engaged in the Battle of Tannenberg, also referred to as the Second Battle of Tannenberg. The Russian Second Army was nearly completely destroyed as a result of the conflict, and its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov, committed suicide. The majority of the First Army was also destroyed in a series of subsequent battles (First Masurian Lakes), which also kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915.

Diverse Slavic armies beat Teutonic knights in Tannenberg in 1410. In the simplest terms possible, Russians vanquished the Germans. So, in a combat between German and Russian forces in Allenstein, which happened to be 500 years in the future, the Germans brutally defeated the Russians, who suffered a loss of 120,000 men. Even though Allentstein was far from Tannenberg, the name of the battle was chosen as a form of restitution and a way to mythologize German military superiority.