15,697
edits
Changes
no edit summary
====Freikorps 1918-1923====
[[File: Freikorps One.jpg|300px|thumb|left|Freikorps in the Saar (1919)]]
By 1919 the socio-economic situation was so dire, that the communists and other extreme leftists believed that the time had arrived for revolution. All over Germany - workers, councils and revolutionary committees seized control of cities in the period from late 1918 to mid-1919. From Bremen to Munich there were mini Communist Revolutions.<ref> Waite, Robert Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Post-War Germany, 1918–1923 (New York, Norton & Company, 1997), p. 14 </ref>
New units of paramilitaries were formed to fight the Poles in Silesia and communists in the Baltic States. Here, they helped local Estonian and Latvian units defeat communist forces. However, the Freikorps attempted to seize control of these Baltic states for Germany but were eventually expelled by local forces with the help of the British. By late 1919, the communist threat had ended and the Freikorps were no longer needed by the Weimar government.<ref> Waite, p. 111</ref>. The Weimar Defense Minister Noske set a deadline for the Freikorps to disband. They refused to do so, and the Berlin Freikorps joined in the so-called Kapp Putsch.
Kapp Putsch was a right-wing coup that sought to end the Weimar Republic in March 1920. The revolt was initially successful. The rebels and Freikorps seized control of much of Berlin and sought to impose a right-wing dictatorship on the country. However, the population of Berlin rejected the attempt to reverse the German Revolution and they launched a general strike and this . The strike led to the collapse of the coup. The Freikorps in the German capital disbanded, and others quickly followed suit. The Putsch had also provoked a communist revolt in the Ruhr, which that was in part suppressed by local Freikorps detachments. The various units officially disbanded, but the individual Freikorps members went underground and formed a clandestine terrorist network. They attempted to undermine the Weimar Republic, by assassinating leading supporters of the democracy. Among their victims was Walther Ratheneau, a prominent German-Jewish industrialist, and statesman. However, these terrorist outrages did not seriously destabilize the Weimar Republic. By 1925 as the Weimar entered its most stable period and the Freikorps largely ceased their violence. [[File: Freikorps One.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Freikorps in the Saar (1919)]]
====The Freikorps and the Communist Revolt====
