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[[File: Freikorps 3.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Mutinous German sailors in 1918]]
==Background==
As the Allies were advancing on the Western Front, morale on the German Homefront collapsed. Sailors refused orders at Kiel, to launch a suicidal attack and mutinied and this initiated a series of events that led to the German Revolution (1918). The Revolution forced the Kaiser to abdicate and to go into exile. The left-wing Social Democrats, under the leadership of Ebert came to power and they, with the support of other democratic parties established what came to be known as the Weimar Republic<ref> Richard M. Watt: The Kings Depart: The Tragedy of Germany – Versailles and the German Revolution (New York, Simon and Schuster 1968), p 56 </ref>. In the aftermath of the armistice that ended World War One, Germany was in a state of crisis. The economy had collapsed, and the allies were blockading the country even after the official end of hostilities and many civilians starved<ref>Watt, p, 34</ref>. The Weimar Republic was faced with an array of challenges, from the collapsing economy, food shortages, labor unrest and the complex peace negotiations at Versailles. Perhaps the greatest challenge that the new Weimar government faced was the threat from the extreme left. Emboldened by the example of the Russian Revolution (1917), German Communists believed that they could seize power and give power to the workers and peasants and create a Socialist Republic. Into this volatile environment, large groups of battle-hardened veterans of the trenches returned from the Western Front<ref>Watt, p.18</ref>. Many of these men were frustrated by the nature of the German defeat and blamed it on the Social Democrats, they subscribed to the myth of the ‘stab in the back’<ref>Watts, p. 21</ref>. This myth erroneously claimed that the Weimar politicians were responsible for the defeat and that German could have continued the war. Many of these veterans had no prospects and were rootless. Soon after many veterans had returned from France, and they began to band together in paramilitary groups and became known as the Freikorps. The groups were composed mainly of ex-soldiers along with unemployed men and even some criminals<ref> Jones, Mark Founding Weimar. Violence and the German Revolution of 1918-19, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2016), p. 78</ref>. The Freikorps were led by former officers and soon established links with Conservative groups. They began to spread all over Germany in the hard and hungry winter of 1918 and by the spring of 1919, there were dozens of these bands who were well-armed and disciplined. There was no centralized command for directing the Freikorps, but the various bands coordinated their activities. They had a shared ideology that was anti-communist, anti-democratic and they believed in political violence.
[[File: Freikorps Two.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Freikorps in Bavaria (1919)]]
==Freikorps 1918-1923==
By 1919 the socio-economic situation was so dire, and 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 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>. The Spartacist Revolt, was led by Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht and it sought to seize Berlin in January 1919 and it was the most serious left-wing revolt of the Weimar era. The revolutionaries occupied public buildings all over the city. The Social Democratic government did not have sufficient forces to put down the revolt and so they turned to the Freikorps in the city and in the surrounding districts. The veterans easily quelled the revolt and murdered its leaders in cold blood. There followed a wave of terror in the city and beyond when the Freikorps killed many left-wingers. This provoked other left-wing rebellions in other regions of Germany. For approximately six months there were Socialist Republics established in Bremen, Saxony, Hamburg, the Rhineland and the Ruhr region. These were all suppressed by the army, police and especially by the Freikorps, who soon earned themselves a reputation for violence and looting. The Bavarian Soviet Republic was the last attempt to start a Revolution in Germany in 1919 but this was suppressed mainly by the local Freikorps in May 1919. The Freikorps remained active for the rest of 1919<ref> Waite, p. 89</ref>. New units of Freikorps were formed to fight the Poles in Silesia and communists in the Baltic States. In the latter they helped local Estonian and Lithuanian units to defeat communist forces. However, the Freikorps attempted to seize control of these Baltic states for Germany, but were expelled by the Latvians and Lithuanians with the help of the British. By late 1919 the communist threat had ended and the Freikorps, were no longer needed by the government<ref> Waite, p. 111</ref>. Many conservatives and nationalists hated the Weimar Republic especially after the Social Democrats had signed the Versailles Agreement. A group of right-wing conspirators attempted to reverse the German Revolution. The government had set a deadline for the Freikorps to disband. They refused to do so, and Berlin Freikorps joined in the so-called Kapp Putsch. The revolt was initially successful and the rebels with the Freikorps support seized control of much of the German capital and they were about to impose a right-wing dictatorship on the country. However, the population of Berlin refused to support the rebels and the launched a general strike and this led to the collapse of the Putsch. The Freikorps in Berlin disbanded, and others followed suit. The Putsch led to a communist revolt in the Ruhr, which was in part suppressed by local Freikorps units. By now the Freikorps were seen as an unreliable and lawless and they lost the support of their conservative sympathisers and were denounced even in right-wing papers. The units officially disbanded, and they went underground. They had always despised the Weimar Republic and they assassinated leading democrats. Among their victims was Walther Ratheneau, a leading German-Jewish industrialist and statesman. In general, right wing terrorists such as the Freikorps received lighter sentences than their left-wing opponents. By 1925 as the Weimar entered its most stable period the Freikorps largely ceased their violence.
