"Born into a wealthy family of Westphalian Roman Catholic aristocrats, Papen served in the Imperial German Army from 1898 onward and was trained as a German ...
General Staff officer. He served as military attaché in Mexico and the United States from 1913 to 1915, organising acts of sabotage in the United States and financing Mexican forces in the Mexican Revolution. After being expelled from the United States in 1915, he served as a battalion commander on the Western Front of World War I and finished his war service in the Middle Eastern theatre as a lieutenant colonel.
Appointed Chancellor in 1932 by President Paul von Hindenburg, Papen ruled by presidential decree. He negotiated the end of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. He launched the Preußenschlag coup against the Social Democratic government of the Free State of Prussia. His failure to secure a base of support in the Reichstag led to his dismissal by Hindenburg and replacement by General Kurt von Schleicher. Determined to return to power, Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, persuaded Hindenburg into appointing Hitler as Chancellor and Papen as Vice-Chancellor in 1933 in a cabinet ostensibly not under Nazi Party domination. With military dictatorship the only alternative to Nazi rule, Hindenburg consented. Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, during which the Nazis killed some of his confidants. Subsequently, Papen served as an ambassador of Germany in Vienna from 1934 to 1938 and in Ankara from 1939 to 1944." - (en.wikipedia.org 29.01.2020)
