Kurt Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann von Schleicher (; 7 April 1882 – 30 June 1934) was a German military officer and the penultimate chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic. A rival for power with Adolf Hitler, Schleicher was assassinated by Hitler's Schutzstaffel (SS) during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.
Schleicher was born into a military family in Brandenburg an der Havel. Entering the Prussian Army as a lieutenant in 1900, he rose to become a general staff officer in the Railway Department of the German General Staff and served in the General Staff of the Supreme Army Command during World War I. Schleicher served as liaison between the army and the new Weimar Republic during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. An important player in the Reichswehr's efforts to avoid the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, Schleicher rose to power as head of the Reichswehr's Armed Forces Department and was a close advisor to President Paul von Hindenburg from 1926 onward. Following the appointment of his mentor Wilhelm Groener as minister of defence in 1928, Schleicher became head of the defense Ministry's Office of Ministerial Affairs (Ministeramt) in 1929. In 1930, he was instrumental in the toppling of Hermann Müller's government and the appointment of Heinrich Brüning as chancellor. He enlisted the services of the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung (SA) as an auxiliary force for the Reichswehr from 1931 onward.
Beginning in 1932, Schleicher served as minister of defence in the cabinet of Franz von Papen. Schleicher organised the downfall of Papen and succeeded him as Chancellor on 3 December. During his brief term, Schleicher negotiated with Gregor Strasser on a possible defection of the latter from the Nazi Party, but the plan was abandoned. Schleicher attempted to "tame" Hitler into cooperating with his government by threatening him with an anti-Nazi alliance of parties, the so-called Querfront ("cross-front"). Hitler refused to abandon his claim to the chancellorship and Schleicher's plan failed. Schleicher then proposed to Hindenburg that the latter disperse the Reichstag and rule as a de facto dictator, a course of action Hindenburg rejected.
On 28 January 1933, facing a political impasse and deteriorating health, Schleicher resigned and recommended the appointment of Hitler in his stead. Schleicher sought to return to politics by exploiting the divisions between Ernst Röhm and Hitler, but on 30 June 1934, he and his wife Elisabeth were murdered on the orders of Hitler during the Night of the Long Knives.
Early life and family
Kurt Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann von Schleicher was born on 7 April 1882, in Brandenburg an der Havel, the son of Prussian officer and noble Hermann Friedrich Ferdinand von Schleicher (1853–1906) and a wealthy East Prussian shipowner's daughter, Magdalena Heyn (1857–1939). He had an older sister, Thusnelda Luise Amalie Magdalene (1879–1955), and a younger brother, Ludwig-Ferdinand Friedrich (1884–1923). On 28 July 1931, Schleicher married Elisabeth von Schleicher, daughter of the Prussian general Victor von Hennigs. She had previously been married to Schleicher's cousin, Bogislav von Schleicher, whom she had divorced on 4 May 1931.Marriage Register: Berlin-Lichterfelde: No. 4/1916.
He studied at the Hauptkadettenanstalt in Lichterfelde from 1896 to 1900. He was promoted to Leutnant on 22 March 1900 and was assigned to the 3rd Foot Guards, where he befriended fellow junior officers Oskar von Hindenburg, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and Erich von Manstein. From 1 November 1906 to 31 October 1909, he served as adjutant of the Fusilier battalion of his regiment.
After his promotion to Oberleutnant on 18 October 1909, he was assigned to the Prussian Military Academy, where he met Franz von Papen. Upon graduation on 24 September 1913, he was assigned to the German General Staff where he joined the Railway Department at his own request. He soon became a protégé of his immediate superior, Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Groener. Schleicher was promoted to captain on 18 December 1913.
First World War After the outbreak of World War I, Schleicher was assigned to the General Staff at the Supreme Army Command. During the Battle of Verdun, he wrote a manuscript criticising war profiteering in certain industrial sectors, causing a sensation and earning him the approval of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) chairman Friedrich Ebert and a reputation as a liberal. From November 1916 to May 1917, Schleicher served in the Kriegsamt (War Office), an agency tasked with administering the war economy led by Groener.
Schleicher's only front-line mission was as Chief of Staff of the 237th Division on the Eastern Front from 23 May 1917 to mid-August 1917 during the Kerensky Offensive. He served the rest of the war at the Supreme Army Command. He was promoted to Major on 15 July 1918. Following the collapse of the German war effort from August 1918 onward, Schleicher's patron Groener was appointed Erster Generalquartiermeister and assumed de facto command of the German Army on 29 October 1918. As Groener's trusted assistant, Schleicher became a crucial liaison between the civil and military authorities.
Army service after the First World War German Revolution After the November Revolution of 1918, the situation of the German military was precarious. In December 1918, Schleicher delivered an ultimatum to Friedrich Ebert on behalf of Paul von Hindenburg demanding that the German provisional government either allow the Army to crush the Spartacus League or the Army would do that task itself.
During the ensuing talks with the German cabinet, Schleicher was able to get permission to allow the Army to return to Berlin. On 23 December 1918, the provisional government under Ebert came under attack from the radical left-wing Volksmarinedivision. Schleicher played a key role in negotiating the Ebert–Groener pact. In exchange for agreeing to send help to the government, Schleicher was able to secure Ebert's assent to the Army being allowed to maintain its political autonomy as a "state within the state".
To crush the left-wing rebels, Schleicher helped to found the Freikorps in early January 1919. Schleicher's role for the rest of the Weimar Republic was to serve as the Reichswehr'''s political fixer, who would ensure that the military's interests would be secured.
1920s Contacts with the Soviet Union In the early 1920s, Schleicher emerged as a leading protégé of General Hans von Seeckt, who often gave Schleicher sensitive assignments. In the spring of 1921, Seeckt created a secret group within the Reichswehr known as Sondergruppe R, whose task was to work with the Red Army in their common struggle against the international system established by the Treaty of Versailles. Schleicher worked out the arrangements with Leonid Krasin for German aid to the Soviet arms industry. German financial and technological aid in building the industry was exchanged for Soviet support in helping Germany circumvent the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. Schleicher created several dummy corporations, most notably the GEFU (Gesellschaft zur Förderung gewerblicher Unternehmungen, "Company for the Promotion of Industrial Enterprise"), which funnelled 75 million Reichsmarks, some $18 million (equivalent to $ million in ), into the Soviet arms industry by the end of 1923.
Black Reichswehr At the same time, a team led by Fedor von Bock and comprising Schleicher, Eugen Ott and Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord established what came to be known as the Black Reichswehr. Major Bruno Ernst Buchrucker was tasked with building up the Arbeitskommandos (Work Commandos), officially a labor group intended to assist with civilian projects but in reality a force of soldiers. This fiction allowed Germany to exceed the limits on troop strength set by the Versailles Treaty. The Black Reichswehr became infamous for its practice of using Feme murders to punish "traitors" who, for example, revealed the locations of weapons' stockpiles or names of members. During the trials of some of those charged with the murders, prosecutors alleged that the killings were ordered by the officers from Bock's group.
Schleicher denied in court that the Reichswehr ministry had had any knowledge of the "Black Reichswehr" or the murders they had committed. In a secret letter sent to the president of the German Supreme Court, which was trying a member of the Black Reichswehr for murder, Seeckt admitted that the Black Reichswehr was controlled by the Reichswehr, and claimed that the murders were justified by the struggle against Versailles; the court should therefore acquit the defendant. Although Seeckt disliked Schleicher, he appreciated his political finesse and came increasingly to assign Schleicher tasks dealing with politicians.
Military-political role in the Weimar Republic Despite Hans von Seeckt's patronage, it was Schleicher who brought about the former's downfall in 1926 by leaking the fact that Seeckt had invited Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the former Crown Prince's eldest son, to attend military manoeuvres. After Seeckt's fall Schleicher became, in the words of Andreas Hillgruber, "in fact, if not in name [the] military-political head of the Reichswehr". Schleicher's triumph was also the triumph of the "modern" faction within the Reichswehr, which favored a total war ideology and wanted Germany to become a dictatorship that would wage total war upon the other nations of Europe.
During the 1920s, Schleicher moved up steadily in the Reichswehr, becoming the primary liaison between the army and civilian government officials. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 1 January 1924, and Colonel in 1926. On 29 January 1929, he became Generalmajor. Schleicher generally preferred to operate behind the scenes, planting stories in friendly newspapers and relying on a casual network of informers to find out what other government departments were planning. Following the hyperinflation of 1923, the Reichswehr took over much of the administration of the country between September 1923 and February 1924, a task in which Schleicher played a prominent role.
The appointment of Groener as defence minister in January 1928 did much to advance Schleicher's career. Groener, who regarded Schleicher as his "adopted son", created the Ministeramt (Office of the Ministerial Affairs) for Schleicher in 1928. The new office officially dealt with all matters relating to joint concerns of the Army and Navy, and was tasked with liaising between the military and other departments, and between the military and politicians. Because Schleicher interpreted that mandate very broadly, the Ministeramt quickly became the means by which the Reichswehr interfered in politics. The creation of the Ministeramt formalised Schleicher's position as the chief political fixer for the Reichswehr, a role which had existed informally since 1918. He became Chef des Ministeramtes on 1 February 1929.