Franz von Papen

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Franz von Papen
Image:Papen.jpg
Order: 22nd Chancellor of Germany
Term of Office: June 1, 1932 - November 17, 1932
Predecessor: Heinrich Brüning
Successor: Kurt von Schleicher
Date of Birth: October 29, 1879
Date of Death: May 2, 1969
Profession: officer and diplomat

Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen (October 29, 1879–May 2, 1969) was a German politician and diplomat associated with the Centre Party. He played a pivotal role in the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Contents

Background

Born to a wealthy and noble Catholic family in Westphalia, von Papen served as an officer on the Turkish front in World War I, achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During World War I, von Papen served as German ambassador in Washington were he conducted acts of sabotage[1], for which he was expelled from the United States. Von Papen also served as intermediary between the Irish rebels of 1916 and the German government regarding the purchase and delivery of arms to be used against the British during the Easter Rising. Returning to Germany, he entered politics, joining the Centre Party, in which the monarchist Papen formed part of the right wing.

In the 1925 presidential elections, he surprised his party by supporting the right-wing candidate Paul von Hindenburg over the Centre Party's Wilhelm Marx.

Chancellorship

In June 1, 1932, he moved from relative obscurity to supreme importance when President Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor, even though this meant replacing his own party's Heinrich Brüning. The day before, he had promised party chairman Ludwig Kaas not to accept any appointment, and Kaas accordingly branded him the "Ephialtes of the Centre Party". Papen forestalled being expelled by leaving the party on June 3, 1932.

The French ambassador in Berlin, André François-Poncet, wrote at the time that von Papen's selection by von Hindenburg as Chancellor "met with incredulity." Papen, the ambassador continued, "enjoyed the peculiarity of being taken seriously by neither his friends nor his enemies. He was reputed to be superficial, blundering, untrue, ambitious, vain, crafty and an intriguer."[2] The cabinet which Papen formed, with the assistance of General Kurt von Schleicher, was known as the "baron's cabinet" and was widely regarded with ridicule by Germans.

Except from the conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), he had practically no support in the Reichstag, of which he was never a member. Papen ruled in an authoritarian manner, launching a coup against the Social Democrat-led government of Prussia (the so-called Preußenschlag), and repealing his predecessor's ban on the SA as a way to appease the Nazis, whom he hoped to lure into supporting his government. Ultimately, after two Reichstag elections only increased the Nazis' strength in the Reichstag without substantially increasing Papen's own parliamentary support, he was forced to resign as Chancellor, and was replaced on December 4, 1932 by von Schleicher, who hoped to establish a broad coalition government by gaining the support of both Nazi and Social Democratic trade unionists.

Image:Papentiergarten.jpg

As it became increasingly obvious that Schleicher's maneuvering to find a Reichstag majority would be unsuccessful, Papen and DNVP leader Alfred Hugenberg came to an agreement with Hitler to allow him to become Chancellor of a coalition government with the Nationalists, and with Papen serving as Vice-Chancellor. Papen used his personal ties with the aged von Hindenburg to persuade the President, who had previously vowed never to allow Hitler to become Chancellor, to fire Schleicher and appoint Hitler to the post on January 30, 1933.

Vice Chancellor and Ambassador under Hitler

Once Hitler was in power, von Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized. Following the Night of the Long Knives, when many of Hitler's enemies inside and outside the party (including Schleicher) were murdered, von Papen's office was ransacked by the SS, his secretary Herbert von Bose was shot to death at his desk, and his speech writer, Edgar Julius Jung, was arrested by the Gestapo and murdered in prison. Erich Klausener, one of von Papen's other associates was killed in his office, and several of von Papen's staff members were interned in concentration camps.

Von Papen himself was placed under house arrest at his villa with his telephone line cut. In spite of this indignity and his close escape from sharing the same fate as his associates and General von Schleicher, von Papen accepted within a month the assignment by Hitler as German ambassador in Vienna, where Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss had just been murdered in a bungled Nazi attempt at a coup. Von Papen's duty was to provide damage control; in Hitler's words, he was to restore "normal and friendly relations" between Germany and Austria. However, after these relations were restored, the devious von Papen worked to help achieve Hitler's goal of undermining Austrian sovereignty and bringing about the Nazis' long-dreamed-of Anschluss (union) with Nazi Germany. Ironically, one of the plots called for von Papen's murder by Austrian Nazi sympathizers as a pretext for a retaliatory invasion by Germany.

Though von Papen was dismissed from his mission in Austria on February 4, 1938, Hitler drafted von Papen to arrange a meeting between the German dictator and Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg at Berchtesgaden. The ultimatum that Hitler presented Schuschnigg at the meeting on February 12 led to the Austrian government capitulating to German threats and pressure, and paved the way for the Anschluss, which was proclaimed on March 13, 1938.

Papen later served the German government as Ambassador to Turkey from 1939 to 1944. There he survived an assassination attempt by Stalin's agents.

During the war, the German government considered appointing Papen ambassador to the Holy See, but Pope Pius XII, after consulting Konrad von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, rejected this proposal.

Trial at Nuremberg and post-war years

Papen was captured and indicted by the Allies after the war and was one of the defendants at the main Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. The court acquitted von Papen and stated that he had in the court's view committed a number of political immoralities, but that these actions were not punishable under the "conspiracy to commit crimes against peace" charged in von Papen's indictment.

He tried unsuccessfully to re-start his political career in the 1950s.

In 1923 Papen had received the honorary dignity of a Papal chamberlain. After Pope Pius XI had died in 1939, his successor Pius XII did not renew this appointment, probably in the light of Papen's political role. John XXIII however, who was acquainted with Papen from his years as nuntius to Greece and Turkey, revived this honour on July 24, 1959. Franz von Papen died in 1969 at the age of 89.

Papen's Government, June to November 1932

Changes

Notes

  1. ^  Article about von Papen's role in World War I sabotage in the United States.
  2. ^  François-Poncet made this observation in his book, The Fateful Years: Memoirs of a French Ambassador in Berlin, 1931-1938, also quoted in William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

References

  • Bracher, Karl Dietrich Die Aufloesung der Weimarer Republik; eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie Villingen: Schwarzwald,Ring-Verlag, 1971.
  • Turner, Henry Ashby Hitler's thirty days to power : January 1933, Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1996.
  • Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John The Nemesis of Power: German Army in Politics, 1918-1945 New York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishing Company, 2005.


Preceded by:
Heinrich Brüning 		Chancellor of Germany
1932 		Succeeded by:
Kurt von Schleicher
Preceded by: (first term)
Otto Braun 		Prime Minister of Prussia
1932, 1933 		Succeeded by: (first term)
Kurt von Schleicher
Preceded by: (second term)
Kurt von Schleicher 		Succeeded by: (second term)
Hermann Göring
Preceded by:
Hermann R. Dietrich 		Vice Chancellor of Germany
1933–1934 		Succeeded by:
Franz Blücher

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.freepedia.org/Franz_von_Papen.html"


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