Erwin Planck

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Erwin Planck (around 1932)

Erwin Planck (born March 12, 1893 in Charlottenburg , † January 23, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Erwin Planck was born as the fourth child of the physicist Max Planck and his first wife Marie nee Merck . After graduating from the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin in 1911, Planck joined the Prussian army and became an officer. During the First World War , he was taken prisoner by the French in 1914 . After his return he was active in the General Staff , where he first met Kurt von Schleicher . A lifelong friendship developed from this.

Von Schleicher, who was head of the political department, brought him to the Reichswehr Ministry in 1920 and sent him to the Reich Chancellery as a liaison man . In 1923 Planck married Nelly Schoeller, who later became a doctor, the youngest daughter of the well-known Berlin banker and secret maritime trade adviser Alexander Schoeller . In 1926, Planck after leaving the realm resistance as Government fully into the Reich Chancellery.

In 1932 he became State Secretary under the Reich Chancellors Franz von Papen and von Schleicher.

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Planck was dismissed from civil service and went to East Asia for a year . Shortly after his return, von Schleicher was shot by the SS in the so-called Röhm Putsch . Planck then tried in vain to investigate the murder of his friend.

In 1936, Planck moved into business and became a manager of the Otto Wolff Group in Cologne . In 1939 he took over the management of the Berlin branch. In 1941 he had a mandate on the supervisory board of the Deutsche Effecten- und Wechselbank, Frankfurt-Berlin .

In August 1939, a group with the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz , Planck and the Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht turned to General der Infantry Georg Thomas , the head of the Wehrwirtschafts- und Armaments Office in the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) , to prevent the impending war. He then wrote a memorandum that he presented to his superior, the head of OKW Wilhelm Keitel . The memorandum stated that the war against Poland would trigger a world war that Germany could not win due to massive supply problems. Keitel argued that Hitler was not planning such a war.

In 1940 Planck, Popitz, Ulrich von Hassell and Ludwig Beck drafted a “Provisional Basic Law” on the assumption that the impending attack by the Western powers would quickly overthrow Hitler. Subsequently, Planck remained active in the resistance against the regime and participated in the group around Goerdeler in the assassination attempt on Hitler . Erwin Planck was arrested on 23 July 1944 in the Berlin headquarters of the Gestapo brought and the " People's Court " on 23 October 1944 sentenced to death . Max Planck asked Adolf Hitler in vain, as thanks to the German people for his life's work, to pardon his son and to convert the death penalty into a prison sentence. On January 23, 1945 Erwin Planck was hanged in Berlin-Plötzensee prison . After the execution of his son, Max Planck wrote to Arnold Sommerfeld : “My pain cannot be expressed in words. I'm just struggling for the strength to shape my future life meaningfully through conscientious work. "

Honors

Memorial plaque for Paul von Hase , Ernst von Harnack and Erwin Planck at the Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Excerpt from the German lists of losses (Preuss. 275) of July 15, 1915, p. 7613
  2. ↑ a b Dieter Hoffmann : Max Planck. The emergence of modern physics . Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56242-6 , p. 104 ( digitized version )
personal data
SURNAME Planck, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1945
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee