Despite the prominence of Grunwald, commemoration of what is sometimes called the "German revenge" at Tannenberg five centuries later is not entirely absent. A few miles to the north-east, just outside Olsztynek on the main road between Warsaw and Gdansk, is Sudwa, a hamlet so small that we were through it before we realised. We returned, sought directions and were eventually pointed towards a group of trees beyond a line of houses. We could see no sign of what we were looking for. Then, we noticed a large, circular mound covered in the thick vegetation of early summer. We climbed it and looked across a depression in the centre, with isolated clumps of brick protruding from the long grass. We had found what little remains of Hindenburg's Mausoleum.

This extraordinary memorial started out as something else. In 1919, the Association of East Prussian Veterans suggested erecting a monument to their fallen comrades on the site of the Battle of Tannenberg. An architectural competition was held, and won by Berlin architects Walter and Johann Krüger. A decade after Tannenberg, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who had commanded the German troops, attended the laying of the foundation stone, along with tens of thousands of veterans. The monument was an octagon standing on an artificial mound. Above its walls rose eight 75-foot towers. In the middle of the enclosed area, which measured over 100 yards across, was a tomb for 20 unknown soldiers, surmounted by a wooden cross clad in brass. The unveiling ceremony took place on 18 September 1927, Hindenburg's 80th birthday.

By that time the Field Marshal had become the German President, an office to which he was re-elected in 1932, his main opponent being Hitler. Eight months later, Hindenburg appointed the Nazi leader Reich Chancellor.

Hitler visited the Tannenberg memorial in 1933 and, after Hindenburg's death the following year, decided to convert it into a mausoleum for his benefactor and his wife. The tomb of the unknown soldiers was removed. The central part of the enclosed area was lowered by eight feet and connected with the surrounding terrace by stone steps. A burial chamber was built in one of the eight towers, its entrance flanked by two 13-foot statues of soldiers on guard. On 7 August, the body of the old soldier was laid to rest in a brass sarcophagus. Hitler ended his funeral oration with the words, "Toter Feldherr, geh' ein in Valhall!" The monument was declared a "Reichsehrenmal" and became a place of national pilgrimage.