It Shouldn't Happen to a Papen

SATAN IN TOP HAT--Tibor Koeves--Alliance ($3).

In 1915 German Military Attache Franz von Papen was expelled from the U.S. for plotting an invasion of Canada, suborning disloyal Germans and Irishmen, blowing up ships, docks, munitions factories, and workingmen with an inept abandon that even a foreign government's official spy is not permitted to indulge. Ever since then, Americans have followed Papen's activities with a somewhat surreptitious personal interest--like that taken in a classmate who was expelled from school.

It has not always been easy to follow Papen. The sartorially perfect diplomat, who (in everything but integrity) much resembles a Prussian Anthony Eden, has been seen largely in tantalizing glimpses, shooting precipitately through the trap doors of Europe's high-political underworld. Last week Hungarian Newshawk Tibor Koeves brought these glimpses together to produce the first full-length biography of Papen in English. His book helped explain the connection between the shadowy circles in which Papen moves and the shadowy circles under his eyes. It also explained in part the chemistry of that strange political amalgam: Junker aristocrats with Nazi riffraff.

The Papens are Erbsaelzer, Hereditary Salters of Werl & Neuwerk, an honor which in medieval days assured them a fine hereditary income. This they augmented in cruder capitalist times by discreet ties with those Rhenish Schlotbaronen (smokestack barons) who were later to line the pockets of Adolf Hitler. An expert horseman and gentleman jockey, Franz was early admitted into Germany's select Military Riding School. Six years after leaving school he was a captain on the General Staff. Photographs of Papen taken at that time show the young Erbsaelzer looking straight into the camera with a characteristic "calm and open stare." "So," says Author Koeves, "Narcissus might have looked into the clear surface of a limpid stream."

The Dynamiter. As a military attache in Mexico, the young Junker became an eager student of the Mexican revolution. He kept the German War Ministry informed on just how the revolutionists blew up railway trains--"by burying dynamite beneath the line itself. . . . Infernal machines, so far as I know, have not been employed." But they were employed in the U.S., almost as soon as Papen opened his large office at No. 60 Wall Street in 1914.

He also opened a mirror-house at No. 123 W. 15th Street, Manhattan, whose buxom proprietress used to tell wondering neighbors that she rented the place because "its number could be easily remembered by her gentlemen friends."

Most important gentleman friend was probably German-American Dr. Walter T. Scheele, president of New Jersey Agricultural Chemical Co. He showed young Attache von Papen how to destroy ships at sea by means of incendiaries made out of a short piece of two-inch lead pipe. These were manufactured aboard the S.S. Friedrich der Grosse (then lying off Hoboken), smuggled aboard freighters by German agents and longshoremen, and went off at sea. They sank some 40 ships in a few months. When he was finally driven out of the U.S., the British stopped Papen at Falmouth. He had a safe conduct for himself, but among the papers which the British confiscated was his checkbook. Thorough Prussian, Papen had written out in full on the stubs the names of his secret agents, the sums he paid them, and the nature of their services.

The Old Gentleman. After the war, Germany was not merely a house divided, but a house politically atomized. All that stood between the German people and collapse was an old gentleman of 80, himself close to death--President Paul von Beneckendorff & von Hindenburg. "He called the Cabinet his General Staff, and the Chancellor his Chief of Staff," but "cooperated with Parliament in the manner of an old gentleman who likes order in his household." By virtue of Paragraph 48 of the Weimar Constitution, his chancellor could issue decrees "on the sole sanction of the President's signature." If the Reichstag objected, the President could send it home.

When Chancellor Heinrich Bruening first used these almost dictatorial powers, Soldier-Diplomat von Papen "looked on fascinated." The former bombster dreamed of becoming chancellor and restoring the Junkers to power.

There were four steps in Papen's plan: 1) to win over Hindenburg; 2) to eliminate Bruening; 3) to eliminate the Reichswehr's "political general," Schleicher; 4) to eliminate Adolf Hitler.

Step No. 1 was easiest. "Papen had the advantage of speaking the same language as the President. They also shared the same Junker ideal of life. They discussed their estates, they went shooting together, and spoke of the Kaiser as His Imperial Majesty. It was a well-known fact that nobody could make the Field Marshal laugh as heartily and as often as Fraenzchen." To Hindenburg, he was soon "a mixture of aide-de-camp, foster son and confidential adviser."

Papen found other allies. There was Hindenburg's "notoriously lazy" son, Oscar, who "enjoyed parties in a slow way." And there was Dr. Otto Meissner who "was to have the unique distinction of having served Socialist Ebert, Field Marshal Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler in the same confidential capacity, giving the same satisfaction to all three."

As Presidential secretary, Meissner "served as a kind of second memory to the Chief of State," whose own memory tended more & more to wander. Once a Reichstag member strolled into the President's office, munching a sandwich. He put the sandwich wrapper on the table. "My God," shouted Meissner, "get that paper off the table before the Old Gentleman comes in here and signs it."

Blitz. Getting rid of Bruening merely involved an alliance with Kurt von Schleicher, who "brought the amateur politician what he needed the most--the unmistakable authority of machine guns and bayonets." Getting rid of Kurt von Schleicher was harder. It involved: 1) a conspiracy and alliance with Adolf Hitler to whom Papen brought the unmistakable authority of "fresh millions from the Rhenish-Westphalian industrialists"; 2) overcoming the prejudices of the Old Gentleman who had told Gregor Strasser: "I give you my word of honor that the Bohemian corporal will never be Chancellor." But the hint of a Schleicher Putsch proved stronger than the Old Gentleman's word of honor. When Hitler became Chancellor, his vice chancellor was Papen.

"That night the greatest procession the Capital had seen marched down the streets of Berlin. Waving torches and singing patriotic songs, an endless stream of 55, SA and Stahlhelm troops tramped up to the Chancellery. . . . Franz von Papen . . . his long face tense . . . observed the mob as if appraising the strength of his last rival. . . . Hitler could hardly control himself. Drunk with glory, he strode back and forth. . . . Paul von Hindenburg, leaning on his cane, stood rigid, immobile. Hour after hour passed, and his hazy eyes saw new and new columns, tens of thousands of uniformed men. . . . The Old Gentleman grew more and more tired. . . . Suddenly his lips moved and Oscar leaned nearer. 'Son,' he heard the Field Marshal's dreamy voice, 'I didn't know we'd caught so many Russian prisoners.' "

A month later, the Nazi terror began. Franz von Papen never could get rid of Adolf Hitler, never could understand why. He tried to rally the Catholic masses. At Marburg he attacked the Nazis in a violent speech. Freedom, he suddenly discovered, was an "arch-Germanic notion." The Old Gentleman wired congratulations, but Papen's speech was the signal for the Blood Purge. Dr. Edgar Jung, who had ghosted it, had just time to scrawl "Gestapo" on his bathroom wall--"the last sign of life he was ever to give."

Soon the Gestapo arrived at his "ugly greyish house in the Tiergartenstrasse," dragged Papen himself to the basement, knocked out two of his teeth. Hindenburg's intervention saved him. "Learning about the executions, the Old Gentleman, himself on the border line of the Great Beyond, sent Hitler and Goring prompt telegrams on behalf of ... the Charming Baron, the last ray of sunshine in a world going insane."

Why He Lost. Papen had played his political game with great skill and complete unscrupulousness. Why did he lose the last trick? Says Author Koeves: "He was slated to lose, for he had misjudged his century. He based his scheme on the assumption that democracy was dead and the way open for the return of an old-fashioned oligarchy." But "democracy, the 'rule of the people,' had taken a devious, paradoxical form, expressed in National Socialism and Communism. The masses had been lured into believing that nobody was taking their freedom away, but that they were renouncing it of their own will, for their own good; thus, even despotism could emerge only as a mass movement, a popular revolt." Papen had not misjudged Hitler: he had misjudged the masses, the dominant political force of his time.

But Papen was to have two more great triumphs:

> After having secretly ordered him to be murdered when the Nazis seized Austria, Hitler changed his mind, made Papen a Nazi party member for his part in the Anschluss. (As a reminder. Hitler had Papen's close friend, young Baron von Ketteler, murdered and horribly mutilated instead.)

> Through his decisive part in negotiating the Russian-German pact, Papen could enjoy the thrill of bringing on World War II.

Author Koeves is constantly torn between his desire to prove that Papen is a fool and his demonstration that he is satanically clever. To Author Koeves Franz von Papen may sometimes seem stupid. But to himself Franz von Papen must seem quite a success--at least as successful as the Abbe Sieyes, who, when asked: "What did you do in the French Revolution?," replied: "I survived."

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