Freikorps

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It has been suggested that Weimar paramilitary groups#Freikorps be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

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.

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 Gustav Noske, Germany's Minister of Defense, who used them to crush the Marxist Spartacist League, including the summary execution of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on January 15, 1919. They were also used to defeat and annex the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919.

Several Freikorps fought in the Baltic, Silesia, and Prussia after the end of World War I, sometimes with significant success even against regular troops.

They were officially 'disbanded' in 1920; but some, instead of disbanding, attempted to overthrow the government in the Kapp Putsch in March 1920 (which ended in disaster).

Some 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 Auschwitz.

In 1919-1920, Adolf Hitler had just begun his political career as the leader of a tiny and as-yet-unknown party (the German Workers Party, soon renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party) in Munich. Most Freikorps members, however, remained outsiders during the Third Reich.[citation needed]

Hermann Ehrhardt and his deputy Commander Eberhard Kautter, leaders of the Viking League, refused to help Hitler and Ludendorff in their Beer Hall Putsch and conspired against them.

[edit] See also

Freikorps members:

[edit] External links

af:Freikorps ast:Freikorps cs:Freikorps de:Freikorps el:Φρέικορπς es:Freikorps fr:Freikorps ko:자유군단 id:Freikorps it:Freikorps he:פרייקורפס nl:Vrijkorps no:Frikorps nn:Frikorps pl:Freikorps pt:Freikorps ru:Фрайкор sr:Фрајкорпс fi:Freikorps sv:Frikår zh:自由軍團

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