Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (31 July 1884-2 February 1945) was a German monarchist politician who served as the DNVP Mayor of Leipzig from 22 May 1930 to 31 March 1937, succeeding Karl Wilhelm August Rothe and preceding Rudolf Haake. He was executed by the Gestapo for his involvement in the 20 July plot.
Biography[]
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was born in Schneidemuhl, Province of Posen, German Empire (now Pila, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland) in 1884. His father served as a Free Conservative Party member of the Reichstag, and he came from a devoutly Lutheran and national conservative middle-class family. He studied law before serving as a captain in the Imperial German Army on the Eastern Front of World War I, after which he called for the destruction of Poland to prevent territorial losses on Germany's eastern borders. After his discharge from the military, he joined the ultraconservative DNVP due to his strong opposition to the Treaty of Versailles and the cession of eastern territories to Poland. However, he came around to supporting Poland during the Polish-Soviet War due to the greater threat that Soviet Russia posed to Germany. He went on to serve as Mayor of Koenigsberg in 1922 and of Leipzig from 1930 to 1937, and he distinguished himself as a hard-working and outstanding municipal politician. He went on to serve as Reich Price Commissioner after 1931, and he supported a Conservative Revolution to replace the failing democracy of the Weimar Republic. In 1932, he was considered for the role of Chancellor after the downfall of his friend Heinrich Bruening's government, but Franz von Papen was chosen instead. He resigned as Price Commissioner on Bruening's fall from power, and he refused an offer to serve in Papen's cabinet.
While Goerdeler initially viewed Adolf Hitler as an enlightened dictator who could be advised into pursuing good policies, he opposed the SA's noycott of Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933. However, he did not oppose the expulsion of non-Aryans from the civil service that same week. He went on to become a legal and economic advisor to the Nazi regime, although he refused to join the party. Hitler eventually stopped taking Goerdeler's advice and pursued irresponsible financial and economic policies, and Goerdeler opposed Hitler's non-aggression treaty of Poland, supporting the annexation of Pomerania and Greater Poland. In 1935, Goerdeler ended Deputy Mayor Rudolf Haake's boycott of Jewish physicians. He also returned to the office of Price Commissioner, heading the free-market faction in the German government and working with Hjalmar Schacht to attempt to persuade Hitler to reduce statism in the economy. In 1937, he resigned as Mayor of Leipzig due to disagreements with Haake over the demolition of a monument to the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn.
Goerdeler became involved in anti-Nazi plots during the late 1930s, heading a faction of civil servants and businessmen. He failed to persuade the Wehrmacht to mount a putsch after the 1938 Blomberg-Fritsch affair, and he later failed to secure British support for Hitler's removal, partly due to his insistence that the British help the Germans recover parts of Poland and Germany's former colonies in Africa. During World War II, Goerdeler continued to launch failed attempts to start a military putsch, including the Zossen putsch attempt in November 1939. He later devised a plan to enthrone Prince Oskar of Prussia and restore the House of Hohenzollern, envisioning the creation of a constitutional monarchy with a British-style parliamentary democracy. He later issued a memo to the German government calling for all German Jews to be classified as Germans, while all Jews whose families had come to Germany after 1871 would be considered citizens of a Jewish state whose creation would occur later. In 1942, he persuaded Gunther von Kluge and Henning von Tresckow to arrest Hitler when he visited the Eastern Front, but, after Kluge received an enormous bribe from Hitler to assuage concerns about the Fuhrer's leadership, Kluge decided not to go along with the plot.
Following the Battle of Stalingrad, Goerdeler's conspiratorial activities intensified. In the autumn of 1943, he approached the Allies about a peace treaty that would restore Germany's 1914 borders, while Austria, the Sudetenland, and South Tyrol would also be included within Germany. In the summer of 1943, he recruited Erwin von Witzleben and Ludwig Beck into a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, and Claus von Stauffenberg joined that autumn. The group planned Operation Valkyrie, and, while Goerdeler was disliked by the socialist Kreisau Circle and by other members of the German Resistance for his monarchism and reluctance to directly kill Hitler (he wished for Hitler to be tried and later executed), a network was formed that planned a roadmap for a post-Hitler Germany. Ludwig Beck would serve as President, while Goerdeler would serve as Chancellor. On 17 July 1944, three days before the bombing, a warrent for Gordeler's arrest was issued, and he was apprehended on 12 August 1944 while visiting the grave of his parents. His brother Fritz Goerdeler was executed on 1 March 1945, while eight members of his family were sent to concentration camps. Goerdeler freely volunteered names to the Gestapo rather than endure torture, and he made several anti-Semitic comments before he was finally executed by hanging on 2 February 1945.