Erwin Planck

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Erwin Planck, about 1932

Erwin Planck (12 March 1893 – 23 January 1945) was a German politician, and a resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Biography

Born in

German Physical Society (DPG); his children grew up in the wealthy environment of the Grunewald
mansions colony.

Having obtained his

German Army. In World War I, he soon found himself a prisoner of the French forces in 1914. Planck returned to Germany in 1917 and was active on the General Staff. Here he first met Major Kurt von Schleicher
, the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

After the war, Major Schleicher became head of the political department in the newly established Ministry of the Reichswehr and in 1920 appointed Planck his assistant. In January 1924 Schleicher sent him as a liaison officer to the Reich Chancellery, where Planck also became a government official after he left the Reichswehr armed forces in 1926. Upon the downfall of the Brüning government in 1932, he became a deputy minister under Chancellor Franz von Papen, and retained this post when Schleicher himself was appointed Reich Chancellor in December. Planck contributed to Schleicher's Querfront to gain Nazi support for his government, though to no avail.

After Schleicher resigned and Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933, Planck immediately resigned office and, put in temporary retirement, went abroad to East Asia for a year. Shortly after he came back to Germany, Kurt von Schleicher and his wife were shot at their Babelsberg home by members of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June 1934. Planck tried in vain to get an explanation for his friend's murder. He also held several conspirative talks with Reichswehr General Werner von Fritsch[1] which, however, did not lead to any conclusion.

In 1936, Planck changed career paths and went into business, becoming a leading employee at the Otto Wolff corporate group, a large conglomerate in Cologne. In 1939, he took over leadership of the Berlin branch office.

In August 1939, on the eve of World War II, a group including Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz, Planck, and Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht approached General Georg Thomas, head of the Defence Economy and Armament Office asking him to thwart the outbreak of the forthcoming Invasion of Poland. Thomas agreed to write a memorandum to his superior, OKW Chief Wilhelm Keitel, in which he stated that a war against Poland would set off a world war that Germany could not win owing to massive supply problems. However, Keitel tried to allay Thomas's fears by telling him that Hitler was planning no such war.

In 1940, Planck, Popitz,

Reichssicherheitshauptamt
 (RSHA).

Erwin Planck was sentenced to death in a show trial at the "People's Court" (Volksgerichtshof) on 23 October. On 25 October, Max Planck personally drafted a letter to Adolf Hitler pleading for Erwin's life, a plea that was ignored.[2] Planck was executed by hanging on 23 January 1945 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.[3]

Memorial plaque

Memorial plaque, Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium

A memorial plaque dedicated to Erwin Planck and his fellow students

Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium in the Berlin borough of Wilmersdorf
.

Sources

Notes

  1. ISBN 9781440649301
    . Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  2. ^ admin (2014-02-28). "Max Planck letter to Hitler discovered". Graham Farmelo. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
  3. ^ Jürgen Heideking, American Intelligence And The German Resistance: A Documentary History[permanent dead link], Westview Press, 1998, p. 361.

External links

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