German politician and lawyer, born in Leipzig, EC Germany. Appointed Prussian finance minister (1933), he became an opponent of the NS-regime but remained controversial because of his contacts with Heinrich Himmler. He was arrested after the attempt on Hitler's life (20 Jul 1944), and was executed in 1945.
Life
As a pharmacist's son, Popitz studied political science and law in Dessau, Lausanne, Leipzig, Berlin and Halle.
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.
After Kristallnacht (9 November 1938), Popitz protested the mass persecution of Jews by offering his resignation.
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.
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. 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.
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