Sunday, March 24, 2013

Franz von Papen's Memoirs

Just finished posting my notes on the memoirs of Franz von Papen.

I will be writing several blog posts on subjects related to Franz von Papen. He was not a Nazi, but he was closely associated with Adolf Hitler's government, being his first Vice-Chancellor. He was also briefly Chancellor in his own right before Hitler came to power.

He has been accused of being many things. My main interest is in whether he was really acting for the Pope when he enabled Hitler to come to power. Certainly Papen had close ties to the Vatican, and he did provide the crucial Roman Catholic votes in the Reichstag to allow Hitler to assume power legally.

It's a long story, suitable in truth or with exaggeration for spy novels. It has a lot of lessons about international relations (among other things von Papen had been assigned to the German embassy to the United States before World War I). Check out the link above to read my notes, or wait until I have time to post more polished essays here.

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