Franz von Papen | Biography

In 1946, an International Military Tribunal declared Franz von Papen not guilty of crimes against peace for his involvement in Germany's National Socialist (Nazi) Party government during its proclaimed Third Reich from 1933 to 1945. But Papen played a vital role prior to 1933 as one of the leading conservative politicians who schemed to let Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party seize power. Born October 29, 1879, in the Westphalia region, Papen came from a landowning Roman Catholic family with a minor aristocratic title. As a young man, he became an officer in the army of the Kaiser and served as the German military attach‚ in Washington at the onset of World War I. He was recalled, however,for participating in sabotage activities there. After postings in Turkey and Palestine, Papen resigned his commission from the army following the humiliating terms of the Versailles Treaty that concluded the war, which imposed harsh penalties on Germany. He joined the Catholic Center Party and was elected to the Prussian Parliament in 1920.

Married to the heiress of the Villeroy & Boch porcelain firm, Papen had ties to prominent industrialist families in Germany. Many of them disliked the new multi-party democracy of the Weimar Republic, which had been formed after the abdication of the Kaiser, and feared that a Bolshevik Revolution, similar to the one that had established communism and state ownership of all industry in Russia in 1917, would also occur Germany. In the late 1920s, Papen broke with the Catholic Center Party and began plotting with other politicians to hasten the end the Weimar Republic, viewing the growing support for the Nazi Party as a sign that Germany was ready for a far more authoritarian right-wing government.

Friends with Weimar Republic President Paul von Hindenburg, Papen convinced Hindenburg to make him chancellor on June 1, 1932. Papen hoped to find support for elite rule and a conservative fiscal program that would restore economic stability for Germany. He immediately named a "Cabinet of National Concentration," which was derided by many as a "Cabinet of Barons" because most of the appointees also had aristocratic titles before their names, such as Papen's own "von." Papen could not win enough members of the Reichstag to form a government after two hastily called elections, and so he resigned on November 17, 1932. The Cabinet of Barons was responsible for one significant act: they voted to lift the ban on two paramilitary groups of the Nazi Party, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Sturm-Abteilung (SA).

Papen and the others then began plotting to let Hitler take power, believing the Nazi Party founder could be a figurehead leader and would enervate the populace through his compelling oratory, while men like Papen would hold the real power. On January 4, 1933, he met with Hitler and plotted the overthrow of Kurt von Schleicher, the current chancellor. Papen convinced Hindenburg to make Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933, with Papen named vice-chancellor.

The appearance of Papen and other conservative politicians gave the new Nazi regime a measure of credibility. Papen's one important contribution to the new government was a concordat reached with the Vatican in July of 1933. But Papen realized that Hitler was not about to be figurative leader and quickly came to dislike the new dictatorial Third Reich as much as he had the democratic Weimar government. His life was endangered after he spoke in Marburg on June 17, 1934, criticizing the more extremist elements in the Nazi Party, and he was forced out of Hitler's cabinet after being arrested and detained two weeks later.

Papen was then appointed Hitler's ambassador to Austria. He was recalled just before its annexation by Germany in 1938, and the indictment against Papen at the Nuremberg trials focused on this part of his career. Papen helped prepare for Hitler's annexation by working closely with Austrian Nazi Party leaders and undermining the ruling Christian Socialist regime by urging it to appoint more Nazis to its cabinet; in the end, however, Papen counseled Hitler not to use military force in the annexation. From 1939 to 1944 he served as the envoy to Turkey.After the International Military Tribunal declared him not guilty of the charge of planning aggressive wars, Papen faced another trial in a denazification court in Germany and received a sentence of eight years. He was beaten badly by an inmate, appealed his sentence, and was released in 1949. He died in 1969 at the age of eighty-nine.