Allies' Hundred Days Offensive. Upon his country's armistice with the Allies in the November 1918 armistice, Hindenburg stepped down as Germany's commander-in-chief and retired once again from military service in 1919. In 1925, Hindenburg returned to public life to become the second elected president of the German Weimar Republic. Personally opposed to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, Hindenburg nonetheless played a major role in the political instability that resulted in their rise to power. After twice dissolving the Reichstag in 1932, Hindenburg agreed in January 1933 to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in coalition with the Deutschnationale Volkspartei. In response to the Reichstag fire, which was allegedly committed by Marinus van der Lubbe, he approved the Reichstag Fire Decree in February 1933, which suspended various civil liberties. Later in March, he signed the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave the Nazi regime emergency powers. After Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler combined the presidency with his office as chancellor before proceeding to declare himself Führer und Reichskanzler des deutschen Volkes () and transformed Germany into a totalitarian state. Early life Hindenburg was born in Posen, Prussia the son of Prussian junker Hans Robert Ludwig von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (1816–1902) and his wife Luise Schwickart (1825–1893), the daughter of physician Karl Ludwig Schwickart and wife Julie Moennich. His paternal grandparents were Otto Ludwig Fady von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (1778–1855), through whom he was remotely descended from the illegitimate daughter of Count Heinrich VI of Waldeck, and his wife Eleonore von Brederfady (d. 1863). Hindenburg was also a direct descendant of Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora, through their daughter Margarethe Luther. Hindenburg's younger brothers and sister were Otto (b. 1849), Ida (b. 1851) and Bernhard (b. 1859). His family was all Lutheran Protestants in the Evangelical Church of Prussia, which since 1817 included both Calvinist and Lutheran parishioners. Paul was proud of his family and could trace his ancestors back to 1289. The dual surname was adopted in 1789 to secure an inheritance and appeared in formal documents, but in everyday life, they were von Beneckendorffs. True to family tradition, his father supported his family as an infantry officer; he retired as a major. In the summer they visited his grandfather at the Hindenburg estate of Neudeck in East Prussia. At age 11 Paul entered the Cadet Corps School at Wahlstatt (now Legnickie Pole, Poland). At 16