German Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen

Marburg speech was an address given by German Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen at the University of Marburg on 17 June 1934.

Now, in the train, as Papen read the text for the first time, Tschirschky saw a look of fear cross his face. It is a measure of the altered mood in Germany- the widespread perception that dramatic change might be imminent- that Papen, an unheroic personality, felt he could go ahead and deliver it and still survive. Not that he had much choice “We more or less forced him to make that speech.” Tschirschky said. Copies had already been distributed to foreign correspondents. Even if Papen balked at the last minute, the speech would continue to circulate. Clearly hints of it’s content already had leaked out, for when Papen arrived at the hall the place hummed with anticipation. His anxiety surely spiked when he saw that a number of seats were occupied by men wearing brown shirts and swastika arm bands.
Papen walked to the podium.

“I am told” he began, “that my share in events in Prussia, and in the formation of the present government” -an allusion to his role in engineering Hitler’s appointment as chancellor- “has had such an important effect on developments in Germany that I am under an obligation to view them more critically than most people.”

The remarks that followed would have earned any man of lesser stature a trip to the gallows. “The Government” Papen said, “is well aware of the selfishness, the lack of principle,the insincerity, the unchivalrous behavior, the arrogance which is on the increase under the guise of the German revolution.” If the Government hoped to establish “an intimate and friendly relationship with the people,” he warned, “then their intelligence must not be underestimated, their trust must be reciprocated and their must be no continual attempt to browbeat them.”

The German people, he said, would follow Hitler with absolute loyalty “provided they have a share in the making and carrying out of descisions, provided every word of criticsim is not immediately interperated as malicious, and provided that depairing patriots are not branded as traitors.”

The time had come, he proclaimed, “to silence doctrinaire fanatics.” The audience reacted as if it’s members had been waiting a very long time to hear such remarks. As Papen concluded his speech, the crowd leapt to it’s feet. “The thunder of applause,” Papen noted, drowned out “the furious protests” of the uniformed Nazis in the crowd. Historian John Wheeler Bennett, at the time a Berlin resident, wrote, “It is difficult to describe the joy with which it was received in Germany. It was as if a load had suddenly been lifted from the German soul. The sense of relief could almost be felt in the air. Papen had put into words what thousands upon thousands of his countrymen had locked up in their hearts for fear of the awful penalties of speech.”