Kurt von Schleicher (7 April 1882-30 June 1934) was the Chancellor of the Weimar Republic from 3 December 1932 to 28 January 1933, succeeding Franz von Papen and preceding Adolf Hitler. Von Schleicher promoted the idea of "national conservatism", and he was murdered by the Nazi Party during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 for his anti-Nazi views.
Biography[]
Kurt von Schleicher was born on 7 April 1882 in Brandenburg an der Havel, Brandenburg, German Empire. He joined the Imperial German Army and was a Captain at the start of World War I, serving almost the entire war as a Supreme Command officer. After the German Revolution in 1918, Von Schleicher told Friedrich Ebert that he could either give the Reichswehr permission to crush the Spartacist League, or the military would perform the task by itself. In January 1919, Von Schleicher created the Freikorps due to the lack of loyal Reichswehr troops, and Schleicher was given the task of ensuring that the military was appeased by the government during the Weimar Republic years. During the 1920s, he was a member of the Black Reichswehr, a paramilitary group that murdered suspected Allied Powers informants that ensured that Germany was adhering to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. He rose in the ranks of the military, and he had General Werner von Blomberg dismissed from the army after accusing him of attending meetings of army volunteers in Westphalia; he disagreed with Blomberg over troop deployments. Chancellor Franz von Papen appointed Schleicher appointed him as Minister of Defense, and he became Chancellor on 3 December 1923 after the downfall of Papen's government. Schleicher began to lose power due to inheriting Papen's government, which opposed his conservative views; the German Social Democratic Party was an enemy of the military. He supported Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor because it meant that the socialists would not have power, but this allowed for Nazi Party member Werner von Blomberg to get his revenge against Schleicher, purging the army of all of his associates. His associates were either forced to retire or removed from power, such as being sent to other countries as attaches. Schleicher was one of the men targeted by the Sturmabteilung (SA) of the Nazi Party in the Night of the Long Knives, and on 30 June 1934 he was shot inside of his house alongsde his wife during Hitler's purge.