Career
After his Abitur in 1911, Planck went into the military and pursued a career as an officer In the First World War, Erwin rather quickly found himself a prisoner of the French in 1914. After the war ended Erwin came back to Germany, where he was active on the General Staff.
Schleicher, who headed the political branch, called Planck into the Reich Defence Ministry in 1920 and sent him as a liaison man to the Reich Chancellery, where he also became a government advisor after he left the Reichswehr in 1926.
In 1932, he became a deputy minister under Franz von Papen, and later also Schleicher in the Reich Chancellor" General’ s Office. After Hitler seized power in 1933, Planck left government work and went to East Asia for a year.
Shortly after he came back to Germany, Schleicher was shot by the Gestapo. Planck tried in vain to get an explanation for his friend"s murder.
In 1936, Planck changed career paths and went into business, becoming a leading employee at the Otto-Wolff-Konzern, a large conglomerate, in Cologne.
In 1939, he took over leadership of the Berlin branch office. In August 1939, a group including Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz, Planck, and Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht approached General Georg Thomas, head of the Defence Economy and Armament Office asking him to do something to thwart the outbreak of the forthcoming war. However, Keitel tried to allay Thomas"s fears by telling him that the Führer was planning no such war.
Such a war, of course, began the very next month.
In 1940, Planck, Popitz, Ulrich von Hassell and Ludwig Beck drafted a "Provisional Constitution" on the assumption that the West"s forthcoming attack would overthrow Hitler. Even afterwards, Planck vainly stayed in the resistance against the régime and was involved in the July 20 plot.
This led to his arrest on 23 July 1944, after which he was taken to the Gestapo"s Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA). Planck was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed on 23 January 1945 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.
A memorial plaque to Erwin Planck and two others can be found at his old school, the Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium in the Berlin borough of Wilmersdorf, Bundesallee 1-12.