Konstantin von Neurath: SS-Obergruppenführer, Minister to Denmark (1919-1921), Ambassador to Rome (1921-1930), Reichsminister of Foreign Affairs (1932-1938) and Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1943)

(2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956)

Political career

In 1919, Neurath, with the approval by President Friedrich Ebert, returned to diplomacy and joined the embassy in Copenhagen as Minister to Denmark. From 1921 to 1930, he was the ambassador to Rome and was not overly impressed with Italian fascism. After the death of Chancellor Gustav Stresemann in 1929, Neurath was already considered for the post of Foreign Minister in the cabinet of Chancellor Hermann Müller by President Paul von Hindenburg, but his appointment failed because of the objections raised by the governing parties. In 1930, Neurath returned to head the embassy in London.

Neurath was recalled to Germany in 1932 and became Reichsminister of Foreign Affairs as an independent politician in the "Cabinet of Barons" under Chancellor Franz von Papen in June. He continued to hold that position under Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher in December and then under Adolf Hitler from the Machtergreifung on 30 January 1933. During the early days of Hitler's rule, Neurath lent an aura of respectability to Hitler's expansionist foreign policy.

In May 1933, the American chargé d'affaires reported, "Baron von Neurath has shown such a remarkable capacity for submitting to what in normal times could only be considered as affronts and indignities on the part of the National Socialists, that it is still quite a possibility that the latter should be content to have him remain as a figurehead for some time yet". He was involved in the German withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, the negotiations of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935) and the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. Neurath was also made a member of Hans Frank's Academy for German Law. To mark the fourth anniversary of the regime on 30 January 1937, Hitler determined to enroll all the remaining non-NS ministers in the NSDAP and to confer upon them personally the Golden Party Badge. By his acceptance, Neurath officially joined the NSDAP (membership number 3,805,229). Additionally, in September 1937, he was given the honorary rank of a Gruppenführer in the SS, equivalent in the Wehrmacht rank to a Generalleutnant.

On 5 November 1937, the conference was held between the Reich's top military-foreign policy leadership and Hitler, which was recorded in the so-called Hossbach Memorandum. At the conference, Hitler stated that it was the time for war or, more accurately, wars, as what Hitler envisioned were a series of localised wars in Central and Eastern Europe in the near future. Hitler argued that because the wars were necessary to provide Germany with Lebensraum, autarky and the arms race with France and Britain made it imperative to act before the Western powers developed an insurmountable lead in the arms race. He further declared that Germany must be ready for war as early as 1938 and at the latest by 1943.

Of those invited to the conference, objections arose from Neurath, War Minister Generalfeldmarschall Werner von Blomberg and Army Commander-in-Chief, Generaloberst Werner von Fritsch. They all believed that any German aggression in Eastern Europe was bound to trigger a war with France because of the French alliance system in Eastern Europe, the so-called cordon sanitaire. They further believed that if a Franco-German war broke out, it would quickly escalate to a European war since Britain would almost certainly intervene, rather than risk the prospect of France's defeat. Moreover, they contended that Hitler's assumption was flawed that Britain and France would ignore the projected wars because they had started their rearmament later than Germany. The opposition expressed by Fritsch, Blomberg and Neurath was concerned entirely with the assessment that Germany could not start a war in the heart of Europe without Anglo-French involvement, and more time was needed to rearm. However, they did not express any moral opposition to aggression or disagreement with Hitler's basic idea of annexing Austria or Czechoslovakia. That said, offering moral or humanitarian arguments to Hitler — just three years after the Night of the Long Knives — would have been futile if not dangerous.

In response to the reservations expressed at the conference, Hitler tightened his control of the military-foreign policy making apparatus by removing those who expressed reservations at the November conference: Blomberg, Fritsch and Neurath. On 4 February 1938, Neurath was sacked as Foreign Minister with Blomberg and Fritsch also losing their posts Blomberg–Fritsch Affair. Neurath felt his office was marginalized and opposed Hitler's aggressive war plans because he felt that Germany needed more time to rearm, which were detailed in the Hossbach Memorandum of 5 November 1937. Neurath was succeeded by Joachim von Ribbentrop but remained in government as a minister without portfolio to allay the concerns that his removal would have caused internationally. Neurath was also named as president of the Secret Cabinet Council, a purported super-cabinet to advise Hitler on foreign affairs. On paper, it appeared that Neurath had been promoted. However, this body only existed on paper; Hermann Göring subsequently testified that it never met, "not for a minute".

In March 1939, Neurath was appointed Reichsprotektor of occupied Bohemia and Moravia, serving as Hitler's personal representative in the protectorate. Hitler chose Neurath in part to pacify the international outrage over the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. Soon after his arrival at Prague Castle, Neurath instituted harsh press censorship and banned political parties and trade unions. He ordered a harsh crackdown on protesting students in October and November 1939 (1,200 student protesters went to concentration camps and nine were executed). He also supervised the persecution of Czech Jews according to the Nuremberg Laws. Draconian as those measures were, Neurath's rule overall was fairly mild by National Socialist standards. Notably, he tried to restrain the excesses of his police chief, Karl Hermann Frank.

However, in September 1941, Hitler decided that Neurath's rule was too lenient and so stripped him of his day-to-day powers. Reinhard Heydrich was named as his deputy but in truth held the real power. Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 and succeeded by Kurt Daluege. Neurath officially remained as Reichsprotektor. He tried to resign in 1941, but his resignation was not accepted until August 1943, when he was succeeded by the former Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick. On 21 June 1943, Neurath had been raised to the honorary rank of an SS-Obergruppenführer, the equivalent to a three-star general.

Trial and imprisonment

The Allies prosecuted Neurath at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. Otto von Lüdinghausen appeared for his defence. The prosecution accused him of "conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes and crimes against humanity". Neurath's defence strategy was predicated on the fact that his successor and fellow defendant, Ribbentrop, was more culpable for the atrocities committed in the National Socialist state than Neurath was.

The International Military Tribunal acknowledged that most of Neurath's crimes against humanity were conducted during his short tenure as nominal Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, especially in quelling the Czech resistance, and in the summary execution of several university students. The tribunal came to the consensus that Neurath had been a willing and active participant in war crimes but held no such prominent position during the height of the Third Reich's tyranny and so had been only a minor adherent to the atrocities committed. He was found guilty by the Allies on all four counts and was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment.

Neurath was held as a war criminal in Spandau Prison until November 1954, when he was released in the wake of the Paris Conference, officially because of his ill health, as he had suffered a heart attack.

Later life

He retired to his family's estates in Enzweihingen, where he died two years later, aged 83.