Johannes Popitz
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Johannes Popitz (born 2 December 1884 in Leipzig; died 2 February 1945 in Berlin) was a Prussian finance minister and an opponent of the Third Reich.
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[edit] Life
As a pharmacist's son, Popitz studied political science and law in Dessau, Lausanne, Leipzig, Berlin and Halle. From 1907 to 1918 he acted as a junior government lawyer.
In 1918, he married Cornalia Slot, with whom he had three children.
In 1919, after the election for the Weimar National Assembly, he became a Geheimrat in the finance ministry.
From 1925 to 1929, Popitz acted as State Secretary in the German Ministry of Finance, where he sometimes worked under Finance Minister Rudolf Hilferding, with whom, in 1929, he was provisionally retired owing to political differences with the government.
As an honorary professor of tax law and financial science at the Berliner Universität and the State Academy (Verwaltungsakademie) from 1922, Popitz was named to Kurt von Schleicher's cabinet as State Minister without Portfolio, and as commissary leader of the Prussian Finance Ministry.
On 21 April 1933, Popitz took up the offices of Prussian State and Finance Minister, although up to this time, he was still not a member of the NSDAP. On 1 February 1937 (1939, according to some sources), the Völkischer Beobachter reported in its South German edition that Popitz had been offered the Nazi Party's golden insignia, which he had accepted.
After Kristallnacht (9 November 1938), Popitz protested the mass persecution of Jews by offering his resignation. His offer was refused.
As a rightwing conservative and monarchist who would have loved to see Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II's eldest son, succeed Hitler, Popitz became very active in the resistance circles beginning in 1938, including the one around Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. As a member of another such circle, the Mittwochsgesellschaft ("Wednesday Company"), a small group of high officials and industrialists who had evolved from a debating club into a centre for conservative opposition to the National Socialist régime, he was drawn ever further into the centre of the conspiracy against Hitler. He even drew up a provisional post-Hitler constitution, the Vorläufiges Staatsgrundgesetz, whose general tendencies were quite authoritarian.
In the summer of 1943, Popitz conducted secret talks with Heinrich Himmler, whose support he sought to win for a coup d'état, and whom he tried to convince to take part in attempts to negotiate with the Western Powers for an acceptable peace deal.
Already in the autumn of that same year, Popitz was being watched by the Gestapo, and indeed, he was arrested in Berlin on 21 July 1944, the day after Claus von Stauffenberg's attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia. On 3 October, he was sentenced to death at the Volksgerichtshof by Roland Freisler. At first, in the hopes that the contacts with the Allies that he and Popitz had discussed might still develop, Himmler saw to it that Popitz was not put to death. However, as it became apparent that no such talks would be forthcoming, Popitz's fate was sealed. He was hanged on 2 February 1945 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.
[edit] Works by Popitz
- Finanzausgleichsprobleme. - Berlin : Dt. Kommunal-Verl., 1927
- Der künftige Finanzausgleich zwischen Reich, Ländern und Gemeinden. - Kiel : Bibl. d. Inst. d. Weltwirtschaft, 1955 <Repr. d. Ausg. Berlin 1932>
[edit] Works about Popitz
- Lutz-Arwed Benthin: Johannes Popitz und Carl Schmitt : zur wirtschaftlichen Theorie des totalen Staates in Deutschland. - München : Beck, 1972. - (Münchener Studien zur Politik; 19) - ISBN 3-406-02799-7
- Hildemarie Dieckmann: Johannes Popitz : Entwicklung und Wirksamkeit in der Zeit der Weimarer Zeit. - Berlin : Colloquium Verl., 1960
[edit] Sources
- Largely translated from linked German article.
- Additional information
