Papen, Franz von

Franz von Papen was born in the family of a large landowner, descended from an ancient German knightly family. By religion - Catholic . Before World War I was an officer of the General Staff. In 1905, he married Martha von Boch-Halhau , one of the richest brides in the German Empire, the daughter of the owner of Villeroy & Boch . In 1913 - 1915, he was a military attache in the USA , from where he was expelled for espionage and subversive activities. Then he served on the Western Front . In 1916, he mediated between the German government and the Irish Republican rebels in the supply of weapons that they used against the British army. From 1917 he served as an officer of the General Staff in the Middle East and in the rank of major in the Turkish army in Palestine . In 1918 he returned to Germany. In the spring of 1919 he retired from the army in the rank of lieutenant colonel .

In 1921 - 1932 he was a deputy of the Prussian Landtag from the Catholic party of the Center ; adjoined to its extreme right wing. In the presidential election of 1925, he surprised his party by supporting Paul von Hindenburg ’s candidacy, and not by the candidate of the Center William Marx .

From June 1 to December 2, 1932, he headed the government, receiving an appointment largely thanks to the patronage of General von Schleicher (who received the portfolio of the war minister) and his former fellow soldier Oscar von Hindenburg . Having no support of the majority in the Reichstag, von Papen was looking for ways to form a coalition government, including the question of including Hitler in his office as vice-chancellor. Hitler flatly refused, because he was striving for real power and considered such an achievement insignificant, capable of alienating voters from his party (during the summer elections the Nazis received 230 mandates from 608, being the largest faction in the Reichstag). Under the influence of General Kurt von Schleicher, who enjoyed the confidence of President Hindenburg, the government of von Papen was dismissed, which led to a personal conflict between Papen and Schleicher, which greatly contributed to the further advancement of the Nazis to power. In January 1933, with the permission of Hindenburg, he held talks with Hitler and entered Hitler's office as vice-chancellor.

On June 17, 1934, Papen delivered a speech at the University of Marburg in support of the views of the conservative forces of the Reichswehr , the financial and business elite of Germany, dissatisfied with Nazi socialist rhetoric and extremism (the so-called “ Marburg speech ”). The criticism infuriated the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler . On the night of the long knives — the defeat of the tops of the assault detachments ( SA ) —the office of von Papen in the Borsig palace on Wilhelmstrasse was captured and searched by the Gestapo . During the search, Vice-Chancellor for Press Herbert von Bose was shot dead. Von Papen himself for three days was actually under house arrest. The police officers guarding his subordinates to Göring had orders to prevent the arrest of von Papen by the Gestapo or the SS.

I had no doubt about the determination of Goebbels, Himmler and Heydrich to eliminate the Marburg reactionary in a timely manner. As I learned later, the only person who stood between me and a similar fate was Goering.

- F. von Papen. "Vice Chancellor of the Third Reich".

From July 1934 to March 1938 (before the Anschluss ), von Papen served as ambassador to Austria , providing financial and political support to pro-German nationalist organizations.

Then, taking the post of ambassador to Turkey in 1939-1944 , von Papen sought to prevent her from entering the war against Germany. In this connection, on February 24, 1942, he was assassinated by Soviet intelligence agents , which, however, was not crowned with success. During the war, Hitler’s government tried to appoint von Papen as German ambassador to the Holy See , but Pope Pius XII rejected this proposal.

In April 1945, von Papen was arrested in the Ruhr by the military administration of the 9th US Army. In 1946 he appeared before a court of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg , but was acquitted. However, in February 1947, he appeared before a denazification commission, and was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp. At the retrial of the case in January 1949, the sentence was commuted to the actual time served.

In the 1950s, von Papen tried unsuccessfully to re-engage in politics. In his declining years, he lived in Bentsenhofen Castle in Upper Swabia and published many books and memoirs in which he tried to justify the policies pursued by him in the 1930s, drawing parallels between this period and the beginning of the Cold War .

He died on May 2, 1969 in Oberzasbach ( Baden ) and was buried in the Wallerfangen cemetery.

• Franz von Papen. Vice Chancellor of the Third Reich. Memories of the political figure of Hitler's Germany. 1933-1947. - M .: Tsentrpoligraf, 2005. - 592 p. - ISBN 5-9524-1911-9 .

• “ Hitler: The Devil Rising ” / “Hitler: The Rise of Evil” ( Canada , USA ; 2003 ) director Christian Dughet , in the role of Franz von Papen - Robert Russell .

• Chirshki, Fritz Gunter von

in Russian

• Papen, Franz von / O. Vishlev // P - Perturbation function. - M .: Big Russian Encyclopedia, 2014. - p. 251-252. - (The Great Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 t.] / Ch. Ed. Yu. S. Osipov ; 2004–2017, Vol. 25). - ISBN 978-5-85270-362-0 .

in other languages

• Dutch O. The Errant Diplomat. The Life of Franz von Papen. - New York: AMS Press, 1983. - ISBN 0-404-16928-7 .

• Biography on Chronos
• Short biography on the website of the German Historical Museum (German)