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Retirement and death

In 1926, Ludendorff divorced Margarethe Schmidt and married his second wife Mathilde von Kemnitz (1877–1966). They published books and essays claiming that the world's problems were the result of Christianity, especially the Jesuits and Catholics, but also conspiracies by Jews and the Freemasons. They founded the Bund für Gotteserkenntnis (in German) (Society for the Knowledge of God), a small and rather obscure esoterical society of theists that survives to this day.

By the time Hitler came to power, Ludendorff was no longer sympathetic to him. The Nazis distanced themselves from Ludendorff because of his eccentric conspiracy theories.

On 30 January 1933, the occasion of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor by President Hindenburg, Ludendorff allegedly sent the following telegram to Hindenburg:

I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done.

Some historians consider this text to be a forgery. In an attempt to regain Ludendorff's favor, Hitler arrived unannounced at Ludendorff's home on his 70th birthday in 1935 to promote him to field marshal. Infuriated, Ludendorff allegedly rebuffed Hitler by telling him: "An officer is named General Field-Marshal on the battlefield! Not at a birthday tea-party in the midst of peace." He wrote two further books on military themes.

Ludendorff died of liver cancer in the private clinic Josephinum in Munich, on 20 December 1937 at the age of 72. He was given—against his explicit wishes—a state funeral organized and attended by Hitler, who declined to speak at his eulogy. He was buried in the Neuer Friedhof in Tutzing in Bavaria.