Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin

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Ewald Albert Friedrich Karl Leopold Arnold von Kleist-Schmenzin (born March 22, 1890 on Gut Groß-Dubberow , Belgard district (Persante) , Pomerania ; † April 9, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German conservative politician. He was executed as part of National Socialist persecution after July 20, 1944 .

Life

Kleist-Schmenzin was the son of the royal Prussian Rittmeister Hermann von Kleist (1849–1913) and Elisabeth (Lili) Countess von Kleist (1863–1945), who was shot by Poland on June 2, 1945 on her Gut Klein-Dubberow. After high school studied Kleist in Leipzig Jura to his studies then at the University of Greifswald continue. After completing his studies, von Kleist entered the civil service for a short time, but left it before the outbreak of the First World War . He volunteered for military service, but due to his rheumatism disease, he was only used in the field at the beginning of the war. After the war ended in 1918 he was entrusted with the management of his grandmother's property, which he inherited in 1921 (including Gut Schmenzin , hence the name extension). During the time of the Weimar Republic von Kleist-Schmenzin belonged to the anti-democratic right, became a member of the DNVP and welcomed both the Kapp and Hitler coups . From 1929 to 1933 he was chairman of the main conservative association .

He campaigned for a restoration of the Hohenzollern and acted against the Weimar " fulfillment policy ". In doing so, however, his ideal was not Wilhelm II's Prussia , but Frederick the Great . Out of his conservative attitude, he rejected National Socialism , in which he saw a further attempt to realize the "ideas of 1789 ". In 1932 he warned in his writing National Socialism - a Danger of the Nazis coming to power.

In January 1933, if a coalition government of the German Nationalists and the National Socialists did not materialize, Kleist-Schmenzin was envisaged by Franz von Papen as interior minister of a "combat cabinet" under Papen, ie a cabinet based only on President Hindenburg without a majority in the Reichstag. During the dramatic scenery in the last weeks of January 1933, Kleist-Schmenzin tried with all his might to thwart the formation of a government that included the National Socialists. In this sense, he tried to assert his relations with Franz von Papen and the DNVP chairman Hugenberg, in order to persuade them to prevent the "Hitler option" from being played out as a means of solving the simmering government crisis. In January 1933, Kleist-Schmenzin stayed in Papen's apartment at Wilhelmstrasse 74, sometimes all the time, in order to keep Papen from being “stupid”.

After Papen, Hugenberg and other conservatives had entered into an alliance with Hitler and the NSDAP and the Hitler cabinet had been formed on January 30, 1933 , Kleist-Schmenzin reacted with sharp rejection. In view of the rapid political downward spiral that began in November 1932 and in which the NSDAP found itself in the spring of 1933 (which was expressed in particular in the considerable loss of members of the NSDAP and especially in the imminent financial ruin of the party as a result of the costly election campaigns of 1932), he considered it a capital one political mistake that Hugenberg, Papen and others had saved Hitler from ruin by heaving him into their boat: In Kleist's opinion, the NSDAP only needed to be kept out of power for a few more months because it would then have completely collapsed and would have cleared the field for new constellations that would have made it possible to settle the state crisis that had persisted since 1929/1930 without daring the game, which he saw as highly dangerous, of engaging with a mass movement based on demagogy. At the same time, after the formation of the government on January 30, 1933, Kleist-Schmenzin judged the shortsightedness of the DNVP leadership and Papens with resignation and contempt (while at the same time he predicted their inability to successfully contain Hitler who came to power):

“People who do not have the courage to reject a man whose party collapses if you ruthlessly leave them aside with his insane demands, but instead help him gain unimagined power out of weakness and short-sightedness, will never have the strength to fight him successfully ! "

The uncomprehending answer that Papen replied to Kleist-Schmenzin when the first meeting after the fatal government was formed on January 30, 1933, was often quoted as saying that the government had been handed over to Hitler: “What do you want [Herr Schmenzin]? I have Hindenburg's trust. In two months we will have pushed Hitler into a corner until he squeaks. "

Kleist-Schmenzin reacted to the disappointing development for him by leaving the DNVP. He later signaled his continued rejection of the new regime by becoming a member of the Confessing Church .

After Hitler's revision policy was heading for war more and more, Kleist-Schmenzin sought contact with the military resistance around Ludwig Beck . In August 1938, during the Sudeten crisis , he traveled to London to find out the position of leading British politicians in the event of a coup in Germany. He met Robert Vansittart , Winston Churchill and Lord Lloyd , whom he informed about Hitler's unconditional war intentions. In August 1939, before the attack on Poland , he traveled again to Stockholm. German plans to attack and the existence of the military opposition in Germany were also discussed during the talks. However , he only had contact with the conspirators of July 20, 1944 through his son Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin , who was supposed to kill Hitler in a suicide bombing in 1944. His son Ewald-Heinrich asked him if he should risk his life to kill Hitler. He replied, “Yes, you have to do that. If you fail at such a moment, you will never be happy again in your life. "

After the failure of the July 20th coup, father and son were arrested. Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist Schmenzin but was released for lack of evidence again, condemned his father to death, however, and on April 9, 1945 Plotzensee with the guillotine executed.

family

Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin came from an old Prussian aristocratic family ; one of his direct ancestors was District Administrator Otto Bogislaff von Kleist (great-great-grandfather).

Kleist-Schmenzin was married to Anna von der Osten (1900–1937) for the first time. With this he had six children, including Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin as the oldest child and the daughter Reinhild von Kleist (born November 22, 1928). In his second marriage in 1938 he married a daughter of Major General Horst Kuhlwein von Rathenow . With this he became the father of two more children.

Fonts

  • "The last possibility. On the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933", in: Politische Studien 10 (1959), pp. 89-92. (Transcript of Kleist-Schmenzins from 1934, published posthumously)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joachim Bohlmann: The German Conservative Party at the end of the Empire: Standstill and change in a declining organization . Dissertation Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald, 2011, p. 273.
  2. ↑ Christoph Weiling: The "Christian-German Movement". A study on conservative Protestantism in the Weimar Republic . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, p. 40 .
  3. ^ Register: Died . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 2013, p. 154 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Bodo Scheurig : Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin. A conservative against Hitler . Stalling, Oldenburg u. a. 1968. New edition Propylaeen Verlag, Berlin a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-549-05324-X , p. 195
  5. ↑ Bodo Scheurig :  Kleist-Schmenzin, Ewald von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 29 f. ( Digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Kleist-Schmenzin, Ewald von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kleist, Ewald von; Kleist-Schmenzin, Ewald von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician and member of the resistance against Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Dubberow
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 1945
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee