page_title: Franz von Papen
section_title: Chancellorship
hierarchical_section_title: Franz von Papen / Chancellorship
caption_attribution_description: English: German Reichs-Chancellor Franz von Papen and his Minister of War General Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 watching a horse-race in Berlin-Karlshorst.
context_page_description: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk, was a German conservative politician, diplomat, Prussian nobleman and General Staff officer. He served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1934.
  Born into a wealthy family of Westphalian Roman Catholic aristocrats, Papen served in the Imperial German Army from 1898 onward and was trained as a German General Staff officer. He served as military attaché in Mexico and the United States from 1913 to 1915, organising acts of sabotage in the United States and financing Mexican forces in the Mexican Revolution. After being expelled from the United States in 1915, he served as a battalion commander on the Western Front of World War I and finished his war service in the Middle Eastern theatre as a lieutenant colonel.
  Appointed Chancellor in 1932 by President Paul von Hindenburg, Papen ruled by presidential decree. He negotiated the end of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. He launched the Preußenschlag coup against the Social Democratic government of the Free State of Prussia.
context_section_description: On 1 June 1932, Papen was suddenly lifted to supreme importance when president Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor. Papen owed his appointment to the Chancellorship to General Kurt von Schleicher, an old friend from the pre-war General Staff and influential advisor of President Hindenburg. Schleicher selected Papen because his conservative, aristocratic background and military career was satisfactory to Hindenburg and would create the groundwork for a possible Centre-Nazi coalition. Schleicher, who became Defence Minister, selected the entire cabinet himself. The day before, Papen had promised party chairman Ludwig Kaas he would not accept any appointment. After he broke his pledge, Kaas branded him the "Ephialtes of the Centre Party"; Papen forestalled being expelled from the party by leaving it on 31 May 1932.
  The cabinet that Papen formed was known as the "cabinet of barons" or "cabinet of monocles". Papen had little support in the Reichstag; the only parties committed to supporting him was the far-right/national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) and the Conservative-Liberal German People's Party. The Centre Party would not support Papen because he had backstabbed Brüning. Schleicher's planned Centre-Nazi coalition thus failed to materialize and the Nazis now had little reason to prop up Papen's weak government. Papen grew very close to Hindenburg and first met Adolf Hitler in June 1932.
  Papen consented on 31 May to Hitler's and Hindenburg's agreement of 30 May that the Nazi Party would tolerate Papen's government if fresh elections were called, the Sturmabteilung ban was canceled and the Nazis were granted access to the radio network. As agreed, the Papen government dissolved the Reichstag on 4 June and called a national election by 31 July 1932, in the hope that the Nazis would win the largest number of seats in the Reichstag, which would allow him the majority he needed to establish an authoritarian government. In a so-called "presidential government", Papen would rule by Article 48, having emergency decrees signed into effect by President Hindenburg. On 16 June 1932, the new government lifted the ban on the SA and the SS, eliminating the last remaining rationale for Nazi support for Papen.
  In June and July 1932 Papen represented Germany at the Lausanne conference where, on 9 July, German reparation obligations were cancelled. Germany had ceased paying reparations in June 1931 under the Hoover moratorium, and most of the groundwork for the Lausanne conference had been done by Brüning, but Papen took the credit for the success. In exchange for cancelling reparations, Germany was supposed to make a one-time payment of 3 million Reichmarks to France, a commitment that Papen repudiated immediately upon his return to Berlin.
  Through Article 48, Papen enacted economic policies on 4 September that cut the payments offered by the unemployment insurance fund, subjected jobless Germans seeking unemployment insurance to a means test, lowered wages (including those reached by collective bargaining), while arranging tax cuts for corporations and the rich. These austerity policies made Papen deeply unpopular with the masses but had the backing of the business elite.
  Negotiations between the Nazis, the Centre Party and Papen for a new Prussian government began on 8 June but broke down due to the Centre Party's hostility to the party deserter Papen. On 11 July 1932 Papen received the support of the cabinet and the president for a decree allowing the Reich government to take over the Prussian government, which was dominated by the SPD, in a move that was later justified through the rumour that the Social Democrats and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) were planning a merger. The political violence of the so-called Altona Bloody Sunday between Nazis, communists and the police on 17 July, gave Papen his pretext. On 20 July, Papen launched a coup against the SPD coalition government of Prussia in the so-called Preußenschlag. Berlin was put on military shutdown and Papen sent men to arrest the SPD Prussian authoriti
caption: Chancellor Papen (left) with his eventual successor, Minister of Defence Kurt von Schleicher, watching a horse race in Berlin-Karlshorst.
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