1969 deaths

Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk (German: [ˈfʁants fɔn ˈpaːpn̩] ; 29 October 1879 – 2 May 1969) was a German conservative politician, reactionary, diplomat, Prussian nobleman and General Staff officer. He served as the chancellor of Germany in 1932, and then as the vice-chancellor under Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1934.
Born into a wealthy family of Westphalian Catholic aristocrats, Papen served in the Prussian Army from 1898 onward and was trained as a German General Staff officer. He served as military attaché in Mexico and the United States from 1913 to 1915, while also covertly organising acts of sabotage in the United States and quietly backing and financing Mexican forces in the Mexican Revolution on behalf of German military intelligence.
After being expelled as persona non grata by the United States State Department in 1915, he served as a battalion commander on the Western Front of World War I and finished his war service in the Middle Eastern theatre as a lieutenant colonel.
Asked to become chancellor of the Weimar Republic by President Paul von Hindenburg in 1932, Papen ruled by presidential decree. He launched the Preußenschlag coup against the Social Democratic Party-led Government in the Free State of Prussia. His failure to secure a base of support in the Reichstag led to his removal by Hindenburg and replacement by General Kurt von Schleicher.
Determined to return to power, Papen, believing that Adolf Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor and Papen as vice-chancellor in 1933 in a cabinet ostensibly not under Nazi Party domination. Seeing military dictatorship as the only alternative to a Nazi Party chancellor, Hindenburg consented. Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, during which the Nazis killed some of his allies and confidants. Subsequently, Papen served the German Foreign Office as the ambassador in Vienna from 1934 to 1938 and in Ankara from 1939 to 1944. He joined the Nazi Party in 1938.After the Second World War, Papen was indicted for Nazi war crimes in the Nuremberg trials before the International Military Tribunal but was acquitted of all charges. In 1947, a West German denazification court found Papen to have acted as the main culprit in crimes relating to the Nazi government. Papen was given a sentence of eight years' imprisonment at hard labour, but was released on appeal in 1949. Franz von Papen's memoirs were published in 1952 and 1953; he died in 1969.

Lea Bondi, later Lea Jaray or Lea Bondi-Jaray (12 December 1880 – 1969) was an Austrian art dealer and art collector who was forced to emigrate to Great Britain due to Nazi persecution after the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich. The Würthle Gallery, which she ran, was "Aryanized" by Nazis and her art collection, including the Portrait of Wally by Egon Schiele, extorted.

Sir William Russell Flint (4 April 1880 – 30 December 1969) was a Scottish artist and illustrator who was known especially for his watercolours of women. He also worked in oils, tempera, and printmaking.

Vaine Wilton Ivie (March 28, 1907 – August 8, 1969) was an American arachnologist, who described hundreds of new species and many new genera of spiders, both under his own name and in collaboration with Ralph Vary Chamberlin. He was employed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He also was a supporter of the Technocracy movement.

Gotthard Schuh (22 December 1897 – 29 December 1969) was a Swiss photographer, painter and graphic artist.

Manuel Martínez del Campo y Cuevas (14 November 1913 – 16 February 1969) was a Mexican film editor working in Hollywood and British film.

Brunolf Baade (15 March 1904 – 5 November 1969) was a German aeronautical engineer. He led the team that developed the Baade 152.

Friedrich von Huene, born Friedrich Richard von Hoinigen, (22 March 1875 – 4 April 1969) was a German paleontologist who renamed more dinosaurs in the early 20th century than anyone else in Europe. He also made key contributions about various Permo-Carboniferous limbed vertebrates.

Fritz Georg Arndt (6 July 1885 – 8 December 1969) was a German chemist recognised for his contributions to synthetic methodology, who together with Bernd Eistert discovered the Arndt-Eistert synthesis.

Ruth Mitchell (ca. 1889–1969) was a reporter who was the only American woman to serve with the Serbian Chetnik under Draža Mihailović in World War II. She was captured by the Gestapo and spent a year as a prisoner of war, later writing a book about her experiences. She also wrote a book about one of her brothers, General Billy Mitchell, who is regarded as the founder of the U.S. Air Force.