Franz von Papen

Born into Westphalian Catholic nobility in 1879, Papen trained as a Prussian General Staff officer and spent 1913 to 1915 as a military attaché in Mexico and the United States, covertly organizing sabotage and financing Mexican forces until expelled as persona non grata. After battalion command on the Western Front, he became Weimar chancellor in 1932 under President Hindenburg, ruling by decree and launching a coup against Prussia's Social Democratic government before losing Reichstag support. Determined to reclaim power, he convinced Hindenburg in 1933 that Hitler could be controlled in a coalition cabinet with Papen as vice-chancellor - a miscalculation that saw the Nazis sideline him within months and place him under house arrest during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, when they murdered his associates. He joined the Nazi Party in 1938 and served as ambassador to Vienna and Ankara through 1944. Acquitted at Nuremberg, he was convicted by a German denazification court in 1947 as a main culprit, sentenced to eight years' hard labor, and released on appeal in 1949.