Freikorps

thumb| paramilitaries in [[Berlin, 1919|300x300px]]

Freikorps were paramilitary militias formed in the aftermath of World War I and during the German Revolution of 1918–19. Freikorps units consisted primarily of demobilised soldiers, disillusioned young men, and fanatical conservative nationalists blaming socialists and communists for Germany's problems.

They were ostensibly mustered to fight on behalf of the Weimar government against the German communists during the Spartacist uprising. However, many also largely despised the Republic and were involved in assassinations of its supporters, later aiding the Nazis in their rise to power.

Following the Kapp Putsch in 1920, most Freikorps units were forcibly dissolved by the government, with Freikorps paramilitants often ending up in other far-right paramilitary units.

Interwar

thumb|1919 ad for Freikorps volunteers

thumb|right|[[Ministry of the Reichswehr|Minister of the Reichswehr, Gustav Noske, visits the Freikorps Hülsen in Berlin in January 1919.]]

thumb|Provisional Freikorps armored vehicle in Berlin during the [[Kapp Putsch of March 1920]]

After World War I, the meaning of the word Freikorps changed from its earlier iterations. After 1918, the term referred to various—yet still loosely affiliated—paramilitary organizations established in Germany following Germany's defeat in World War I. Of the numerous Weimar paramilitary groups active during that time, the Freikorps were, and remain, the most notable. While numbers are difficult to determine, historians agree that some 500,000 men were formal Freikorps members, with another 1.5 million men participating informally.

Amongst the social, political, and economic upheavals that marked the early years of the Weimar Republic, the tenuous German government under Friedrich Ebert, leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (, SPD), used the Freikorps to quell socialist and communist uprisings. Minister of Defence and SPD member Gustav Noske also relied on the Freikorps to suppress the Marxist Spartacist uprising, culminating in the summary executions of revolutionary communist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on 15 January 1919.

Freikorps involvement in Germany and Eastern Europe

Bavarian Soviet Republic

The Bavarian Soviet Republic was a short-lived and unrecognized socialist-communist state in Bavaria from 12 April – 3 May 1919 during the German Revolution of 1918–19. Following a series of political revolts and takeovers from German socialists and then Russian-backed Bolsheviks, Noske responded from Berlin by sending various Freikorps brigades to Bavaria in late April totalling some 30,000 men. The following day, a Freikorps patrol led by Captain Alt-Sutterheim interrupted the meeting of a local Catholic club, the St Joseph Society, and chose twenty of the thirty members present to be shot, beaten, and bayoneted to death. Historian Nigel Jones notes that as a result of the Freikorps' violence, Munich's undertakers were overwhelmed, resulting in bodies lying in the streets and decaying until mass graves were completed.

Freikorps identity and ideals

Freikorps ranks were composed primarily of former World War I soldiers who, upon demobilization, were unable to reintegrate into civilian society, having been brutalized by the violence of the war physically and mentally. Combined with the government's poor support of veterans, who were dismissed as hysterical when suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, many German veterans found comfort and a sense of belonging in the Freikorps. Jason Crouthamel notes how the Freikorps' military structure was a familiar continuation of the frontlines, emulating the Kampfgemeinschaft (battle community) and Kameradschaft (camaraderie), thus preserving "the heroic spirit of comradeship in the trenches". Others, angry at Germany's sudden, seemingly inexplicable defeat, joined the Freikorps to fight against communism and socialism in Germany or to exact some form of revenge on those they considered responsible. To a lesser extent, German youth who were not old enough to have served in World War I enlisted in the Freikorps in hopes of proving themselves as patriots and as men. Described as "children of the trenches, spawned by war" and its process of brutalization, historians argue that Freikorps men idealized a militarized masculinity of aggression, physical domination, the absence of emotion (hardness). Although World War I ended in Germany's surrender, many men in the Freikorps nonetheless viewed themselves as soldiers still engaged in active warfare with enemies of the traditional German Empire such as communists and Bolsheviks, Jews, socialists, and pacifists.

Demobilization

The extent of the Freikorps' involvement and actions in Eastern Europe, where they demonstrated full autonomy and rejected orders from the Reichswehr and German government, left a negative impression on the state. By this time, the Freikorps had served Ebert's purpose of suppressing revolts and communist uprisings. After the failed Kapp-Lütwitz Putsch in March 1920, in which the Freikorps participated, the Freikorps' autonomy and strength steadily declined as Hans von Seeckt, commander of the Reichswehr, removed all Freikorps members from the army and restricted the Freikorps' access to future funding and equipment from the government.

thumb|right|A recruitment poster for the Freikorps Hülsen

Freikorps groups and divisions

Iron Division ("Eiserne Division", formerly Eiserne Brigade, related to the Baltische Landeswehr)
Fought in the Baltics
Defeated by the Estonian Army and Latvian Army in the Battle of Cēsis
Trapped in Thorensberg by the Latvian Army. Rescued by the Rossbach Freikorps
(Garde-Kavallerie-Schützendivision)
Killed Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, 15 January 1919
Led by Captain Waldemar Pabst
Disbanded on order of Defence Minister Gustav Noske, 7 July 1919, after Pabst threatened to kill him
Freikorps Caspari
Fought against the Bremen Soviet Republic
Fought under the command of Walter Caspari
Freikorps Lichtschlag
Fought against the Red Ruhr Army
Fought under the command of Oskar von Watter
Freikorps Epp
Under the command of Franz Ritter von Epp
Members include: Ernst Röhm, Rudolf Hess, Eduard Dietl, Hans Frank, Gregor Strasser and Otto Strasser
Occupied Munich following the revolution of April 1919
Commanded by Major Schulz
Marinebrigade Ehrhardt (The Second Naval Brigade)
Participated in the Kapp Putsch of 1920
Disbanded members eventually formed the Organisation Consul, which performed hundreds of political assassinations
Marinebrigade Loewenfeld (The Third Naval Brigade)
Participated in the Kapp Putsch of 1920
(Maercker's Volunteer Rifles, or )
Founded by Ludwig Maercker
Members include: Reinhard Heydrich, Eggert Reeder, Ernst von Salomon, Alfred Toepfer and Walter Warlimont
Freikorps Oberland
Kurt Benson
Freikorps Roßbach (Rossbach)
Founded by Gerhard Roßbach
Rescued the Iron Division after an extremely long march across Eastern Europe
Members include: Kurt Daluege, Rudolph Hoess, Martin Bormann, and Ernst Krull (who was tried for his involvement in the murder of Rosa Luxemburg)
Formed by Czech German nationalists with Nazi sympathies, which operated from 1938 to 1939
Part of Hitler's successful effort to absorb Czechoslovakia into the Third Reich

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Freikorps Ebbinghaus
Freikorps Oberland
Eiserne Brigade (Iron Brigade, later Iron Division)
Hamburg Free Corps
Lowenfeld Brigade (First Naval Brigade)
Potsdam Free Corps

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World War II

thumb|Sudetendeutsches Freikorps members

During World War II, there existed certain armed groups loyal to Germany that went under the name "Freikorps". These include:

Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, a German nationalist paramilitary that fought against Czechoslovakia for annexation of the Sudetenland into Germany.
Free Corps Denmark, a Danish volunteer collaborationist group in the Waffen-SS that was founded by the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, and participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union.
British Free Corps, a Waffen-SS unit made up of former British Commonwealth prisoners of war.
Freikorps Sauerland
Sabotage groups in Poland, active during the German invasion of Poland

References

Notes

Bibliography