The Aristocrat Who Naively Handed Germany to Hitler: The Story of Franz von Papen

Countries & Cities · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Franz von Papen was a Prussian nobleman and diplomat who believed he could control Adolf Hitler. Instead, his political maneuvering as Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor helped dismantle the Weimar Republic. A master of intrigue, he survived war crimes trials only to be later condemned by his own country's denazification courts.

Born in 1879 into a wealthy Westphalian Catholic family, Franz von Papen was a career officer and monarchist who viewed the aristocracy as superior. His early career included serving as a military attaché in the United States, where he engaged in covert sabotage and espionage during World War I. Expelled by the U.S. government in 1915, he returned to military service, eventually commanding troops on the Western Front and in the Middle East before entering politics in the Weimar Republic.

In 1932, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Papen Chancellor. Lacking a parliamentary base, Papen ruled by presidential decree, famously launching the Preußenschlag coup to seize control of the Prussian government. His tenure was marked by austerity measures and an authoritarian agenda. Convinced he could restrain the Nazi movement, Papen pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, with himself as Vice-Chancellor. This miscalculation proved catastrophic; the Nazis quickly marginalized him, and he was forced out of government following the 1934 Night of the Long Knives.

Despite his role in Hitler's rise, Papen served as ambassador to Austria and Turkey during the Nazi era, assisting in the 1938 Anschluss. Following World War II, he was acquitted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. However, in 1947, a West German denazification court sentenced him to eight years of hard labor, though he was released on appeal in 1949. He spent his final years portraying himself as a tragic patriot until his death in 1969, though modern historians consistently characterize him as an unscrupulous political operator.

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