In the summer of 1932, Franz von Papen cut a deal that he thought would save his political life and allow him to remain as German Chancellor of a center right coalition. But he miscalculated the ruthlessness and mendacity of the guy across the negotiating table. His miscalculation killed the Weimar Republic.
The Weimar Republic was formed in 1919 after Germany’s defeat in World War I. On paper, it looked progressive with voting rights for women and a proportional voting system that supported a broad range of political parties. Unfortunately, many Germans were lukewarm toward their new republic because the politicians leading it were the same men who had signed the Versailles Treaty.
The Versailles Treaty humiliated Germany by forcing it to pay crushing war reparations. In fact, Germany couldn’t pay so the U.S. and Britain concocted a sort of financial shell game. They loaned money to Germany to pay the reparations with the expectation that the loans would be repaid when the German economy recovered.
But Germany’s economy was never able to cover the repayment schedule and the loans were repeatedly rolled over and topped up. A similar plan was tried in the 1990’s euro crisis when the European Union and the IMF loaned money to Greece and Italy expecting their economies to grow sufficiently to repay the loans. Financial wizardry in the 1990’s didn’t work any better than in the 1920’s.
While the global economy grew, Germany’s repayment problems were disguised. Then the world economy crashed in 1929. Millions of Germans faced unemployment, starvation and a worthless currency. As the situation worsened, proportional voting allowed more political parties to win seats in the Reichstag, leaving the legislature stalemated and squabbling. Democracy was failing the people. They began looking to the political fringes for help.
One of the right wing beneficiaries of voter disenchantment was the National Socialist German Workers Party (NDSAP or Nazi Party). In 1928, only 2.6% of voters supported them but by 1932, the Nazis were polling between 36% and 37% nationally.
The Nazis owed their rise to a fabulously clever public relations campaign. Adolf Hitler was always photographed in stern poses that emphasized his law and order message. The slick packaging allowed voters to overlook the fact that his thuggish supporters were attacking suspected Jews, communists, union leaders and homosexuals in the streets every day.
They also rented an airplane to fly Hitler around Germany (“Hitler Over Germany”) to give speeches. Eventually, his speeches were broadcast live on the radio. No other party used technology as effectively. The PR blitz left other politicians in the dust.
By 1932, the mainstream parties were fading into irrelevancy when Franz von Papen became the newest chancellor. His center right party needed a coalition partner to stay in power. He looked around the Reichstag. The center left parties wouldn’t support him and he rejected the communists. That left the Nazis.
In June 1932, Papen approached Herman Goring, Reichstag leader for the Nazis, to make a deal. Hitler had two key demands. First, he demanded the lifting of a federal ban on his thugs that had been imposed by the previous chancellor. Second, he demanded that the legislature be dissolved immediately so that a new election could be held. In exchange, he promised to support Papen as chancellor.
Franz von Papen thought Hitler was socially inferior. Like many aristocrats and intelligentsia, he also dismissed Nazi supporters as uneducated trailer trash too stupid to know what was in their best interests. With these preconceptions, Papen believed he was smart enough to keep Hitler on a short leash. So he convinced President von Hindenburg to agree to Hitler’s demands.
Papen’s clever plan to control his new coalition partner fell apart a month later after the national election. The mainstream parties were almost wiped off the electoral map while the Nazis picked up 230 seats in the Reichstag. The Nazis were now the largest party in the legislature.
That’s when Hitler reneged on his promise and demanded the chancellorship for himself. Papen offered him the vice chancellor position, a job with no power. Hitler rejected the offer and began undermining Papen’s government. Through parliamentary maneuvers, Papen managed to cling to power until 1933. At that point, he surrendered and became vice chancellor while Hitler moved into the Reich Chancellery.
In 1934, Papen was unceremoniously dumped as vice chancellor and shipped off to Turkey as the German ambassador. His banishment saved his life at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials; he was acquitted of war crimes because he wasn’t in Germany when the crimes were committed. He died in 1969.
For political junkies, a detailed account of Papen’s and Hitler’s parliamentary backstabbing can be found in Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power, by Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. (1996) An overview of the political end of the Weimar Republic is in The Death of Democracy, by Benjamin Carter Hett (2018).
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