Everything about Freikorps totally explained
The designation of
Freikorps (
German for "Free
Corps") was originally applied to voluntary armies. The first freikorps were recruited by
Frederick II of Prussia in the eighteenth century during the
Seven Years' War. Other known freikorps appeared during the
Napoleonic Wars and were led for example by
Ferdinand von Schill and later
Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow. The freikorps were regarded as unreliable by regular armies, so that they were mainly used as sentries and for minor duties.
Post World War I
However, the meaning of the word has changed over time. After 1918, the term was used for the
paramilitary organizations that sprang up around
Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from
World War I. They were the key
Weimar paramilitary groups active during that time. Many German veterans felt disconnected from civilian life, and joined a Freikorps in search of stability within a
military structure. Others, angry at their sudden, apparently inexplicable defeat, joined up in an effort to put down
Communist uprisings or exact some form of revenge (see
Dolchstoßlegende). They received considerable support from Minister of Defense
Gustav Noske, a member of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany, who used them to crush the
German Revolution and the
Marxist Spartacist League, including the summary execution of
Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxemburg on
15 January 1919. They were also used to defeat the
Bavarian Soviet Republic in
1919.
Freikorps also fought in
the Baltic,
Silesia, and Prussia after the end of World War I, sometimes with significant success.
Though officially 'disbanded' in 1920, many Freikorps attempted, unsuccessfully, to overthrow the government in the
Kapp Putsch in March 1920.
In 1920,
Adolf Hitler had just begun his political career as the leader of the tiny and as-yet-unknown German Workers Party (soon renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party) in
Munich. Numerous future members and leaders of the
Nazi Party had served in the Freikorps, including
Ernst Röhm, future head of the
Sturmabteilung, or SA, and
Rudolf Höß, the future Kommandant of the
Auschwitz concentration camp.
Hermann Ehrhardt, founder and leader of
Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, and his deputy Commander Eberhard Kautter, leaders of the Viking League, refused to help Hitler and
Erich von Ludendorff in their
Beer Hall Putsch and conspired against them.
The largest of all the Freikorps was the
Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, eventually disbanded by the Nazis and combined with the SA.
Further Information
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