Autograph request
Postcard sent by Bray to Franz Von Papen on 18th June 1932 asking for his autograph.
Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk (29 October 1879 - 2 May 1969) generally known as Franz von Papen, was a German nobleman, General Staff officer and politician. He served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 193334. He belonged to the group of close advisers to President Paul von Hindenburg in the late Weimar Republic. It was largely Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, who persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party domination. However, Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives, during which the Nazis killed some of his confidants. Subsequently, Papen served as an ambassador to the German Reich in Vienna and Ankara.
After the Second World War, Papen was indicted in the Nuremberg trials of war criminals before the International Military Tribunal but was acquitted of all charges. In 1947 a West German denazification court found Papen to have acted as a main culprit to crimes. Papen was given an eight year hard labour prison sentence but he was released on appeal in 1949.
