Franz von Papen in the context of "Adolf Hitler"

Prussia (/ˈprʌʃə/; German: Preußen [ˈpʁɔʏsn̩] ; Old Prussian: Prūsija) was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization act of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany. Prussia formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947.

The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians who were conquered by the Teutonic Knights – an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders – in the 13th century. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Danzig. Their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany, and, in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The imposed Second Peace of Thorn (1466) split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the eastern Duchy of Prussia, a feudal fief of the Crown of Poland until 1657. After 1525, the Teutonic Order relocated their headquarters to Mergentheim, but managed to keep land in Livonia until 1561. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.

The 1932 Prussian coup d'état or Preußenschlag (German pronunciation: [ˈpʁɔʏsənˌʃlaːk]; lit. 'Prussian hit') took place on 20 July 1932, when Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, at the request of Franz von Papen, then Reich Chancellor of Germany, replaced the legal government of the Free State of Prussia with von Papen as Reich Commissioner. A second decree the same day transferred executive power in Prussia to the Reich Minister of the Armed Forces Kurt von Schleicher and restricted fundamental rights.

Papen had two rationales for the coup. One was that the 1932 Prussian state election had left a divided parliament with no viable possibilities for a coalition. This led to a caretaker government under the coalition that had held power before the election, with no clear path to replacing it with a new governing coalition. The second and major rationale was that in parts of Prussia there were violent street demonstrations and clashes taking place that Papen said the caretaker government could not control.

Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German politician, diplomat and convicted Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938.

Born to a Swabian noble family, Neurath began his diplomatic career in 1901. He fought in World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross for his service. After the war, Neurath served as minister to Denmark, ambassador to Italy and ambassador to Britain. In 1932, he was appointed Foreign Minister by Chancellor Franz von Papen, and he continued to hold the post under Adolf Hitler.

The Free State of Prussia (German: Freistaat Preußen, pronounced [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈpʁɔʏsn̩] ) was one of the constituent states of Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it continued to be the dominant state in Germany during the Weimar Republic, as it had been during the empire, even though most of Germany's post-war territorial losses in Europe had come from its lands. It was home to the federal capital Berlin and had 62% of Germany's territory and 61% of its population. Prussia changed from the authoritarian state it had been in the past and became a parliamentary democracy under its 1920 constitution. During the Weimar period it was governed almost entirely by pro-democratic parties and proved more politically stable than the Republic itself. With only brief interruptions, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) provided the Minister President. Its Ministers of the Interior, also from the SPD, pushed republican reform of the administration and police, with the result that Prussia was considered a bulwark of democracy within the Weimar Republic.

As a result of the Prussian coup d'état instigated by Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932, the Free State was subordinated to the Reich government and deprived of its independence. Prussia had thus de facto ceased to exist before the Nazi Party seized power in 1933, even though a Prussian government under Hermann Göring continued to function formally until 1945. After the end of the Second World War, by decree of the Allied Control Council, the de jure abolition of Prussia occurred on 25 February 1947.

The Hitler cabinet was the government of Nazi Germany between 30 January 1933 and 30 April 1945 upon the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. It was contrived by the national conservative politician Franz von Papen, who reserved the office of the Vice-Chancellor for himself. Originally, Hitler's first cabinet was called the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation (German: Reichskabinett der nationalen Rettung), which was a coalition of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). The Hitler cabinet lasted until his suicide during the defeat of Nazi Germany. Hitler's cabinet was succeeded by the short-lived Goebbels cabinet, with Karl Dönitz appointed by Hitler as the new Reichspräsident.