Kurt von Schleicher

Born into a military family in Brandenburg an der Havel in 1882, Schleicher entered the Prussian Army at eighteen and rose through the General Staff during World War I. He became the Reichswehr's fixer in the new Weimar Republic, working around the Treaty of Versailles restrictions and advising President Hindenburg from 1926 onward. By 1930 he was toppling governments - orchestrating Hermann Müller's fall, installing Heinrich Brüning, then bringing down Franz von Papen to take the chancellorship himself on 3 December 1932. He tried to split the Nazis by courting Gregor Strasser and threatened Hitler with a cross-party alliance, but Hitler refused to negotiate and Hindenburg rejected Schleicher's proposal to rule by emergency decree. On 28 January 1933, Schleicher resigned and recommended Hitler as his replacement. Eighteen months later, on 30 June 1934, SS men walked into his home and shot him and his wife Elisabeth dead during the Night of the Long Knives.