For Hugenberg, the great trauma of his life was Germany's defeat in World War One, which he blamed on the November Revolution, the "stab-in-the-back" that was alleged to defeated the "Reich" just when was alleged to be on the verge of victory. Hugenberg was always convinced that Germany would recover from the defeat of 1918, all the more so as he believed the German military had not actually been defeated in 1918; in his viewpoint, because it was the "stab-in-the-back" that caused the defeat, all that was necessary was merely to remove the "traitors" from the scene in order to win the next world war that he expected to occur sometime in the near-future. In Hugenberg's viewpoint, just as the Thirty Years' War was followed by rise of Brandenburg/Prussia and the crushing defeat of Prussia by Napoleon in 1806 was followed by the War of Liberation in 1813-1814, so too would the Prussian-German state rise again to emerge victorious over its enemies. Hugenberg's devotion to the "Social Darwinistic and Nietzchean philosophies" with the emphasis on the power of willpower that he had embraced in the late 19th century further reinforced his commitment to doing his part in bringing about the revival of Germany.