Osprey's examination of German troops in the post-World War I (1914-1918) period. The troops returning home to Germany after the 1918 Armistice found their country riven by internal unrest, and its eastern borders threatened. Though reluctant to support the new Republic, the many Free Corps formed by ex-Imperial soldiers fought furiously against Communist revolutionaries at home and Polish and Bolshevik Russian pressure on the frontiers. Later providing much of the manpower for the new Reichswehr, the Free Corps would have strong links with the nascent Nazi Party. This concise account of a little-known but central episode in the history of 20th century Germany is illustrated with rare photographs, and ten colour plates showing unprecedented details of uniforms and insignia.
A dramatic history of a group that would give birth to Nazism... The birth pangs of Nazism grew out of the death agony of the Kaiser's Germany. Defeat in World War I and a narrow escape from Communist revolution brought not peace but five chaotic years (1918-1923) of civil war, assassination, plots, putsches and murderous mayhem to Germany. The savage world of the trenches came home with the men who refused to admit defeat. It was an atmosphere in which civilised values withered, and violent extremism flourished. In this chronicle of the paramilitary Freikorps - the freebooting army that crushed the Red revolution and then themselves attempted to take over by armed force - historian and biographer Nigel Jones draws on little-known archives in Germany and Britain to paint a portrait of a state torn between revolution and counter revolution. Raised in the chaotic aftermath of war, the Freikorps were composed mostly of veteran soldiers, embittered and out of place in civilian life, and young, right-wing students determined to crush those forces who had "betrayed" their homeland. The ideology of the Freikorps was adopted, almost unmodified, by the Nazis, who, fittingly, marked their arrival in 1934 with the massacre of many former Freikorps members. Nigel Jones, assistant editor of BBC History Magazine, is author of several histories and biographies, including The War Walk: A Journey along the Western Front, Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and Myth and Sir Oswald Mosley.
This highly illustrated volume covers the uniforms and insignia of Germany's military in transition from the trenches of the Western front, to street fighting in Berlin, Munich, and other cities, the bitter contests with the Poles and Communists in the Baltic, the Kapp.Luttwitz Putsch, and finally the campaign in the Ruhr. The Quasi-uniformed look of the Communist revolutionaries, as well as images of the tanks and armored cars operated by the Kokampf of the Provisional Reishswehr, are also examined in detail. The photographs and many color illustrations pained and drawn during this violent time, make this a unique volume for uniform and equipment researchers, historians, and modelers. A companion volume will cover the period 1924-1935 and will include uniforms of the: Reichswehr, Stahlhelm, SA, SS, Erhardt Brigade and other para-military units.
It is November 1918. Germany has just surrendered after four years of the most savage warfare in history. It is teetering on the brink of total social and economic collapse, and the German people now lie at the mercy of new, liberal politicians who despise everything Germany once stood for. The Communists are rioting in the streets, threatening to topple the new government in Weimar and bring about their own revolution. The frontline soldiers are returning from the hell of the war to find an unrecognizable land, the principles and traditions they had sacrificed so much to defend now the stuff of mockery. The narrator of The Outlaws, a 16-year-old military cadet, is too young to have served in the trenches, but feels the sting of this betrayal no less than they. Since Germany's armies have been all but disbanded, he joins the paramilitary Freikorps - groups of veterans who refuse to lay down their arms, and who have pledged to stop the Communists - and begins fighting, first in the streets of Germany's cities, and then in the Baltic states, defending Germany's eastern frontiers from Communist subversion while ignoring the calls to disengage by the meek politicians at home. After months of intense fighting abroad, the Freikorps soldiers return to settle scores with their enemies in Germany, dreaming of a nationalist counter-revolution, and, their trigger fingers still itchy, fix their sights on bringing down the hated new government once and for all... The Outlaws is a chronicle of the experiences of the men who fought in the Freikorps, but it is also an adventure and a war story about an entire generation of soldiers who loved their homeland more than peace and comfort, and who refused to accept defeat at any price. "What we wanted we did not know; but what we knew we did not want. To force a way through the prisoning wall of the world, to march over burning fields, to stamp over ruins and scattered ashes, to dash recklessly through wild forests, over blasted heaths, to push, conquer, eat our way through towards the East, to the white, hot, dark, cold land that stretched between ourselves and Asia - was that what we wanted? I do not know whether that was our desire, but that was what we did. And the search for reasons why was lost in the tumult of continuous fighting." - p. 65 Ernst von Salomon (1902-1972) was one of the writers of the German Conservative Revolution of the 1920s. Like the narrator of The Outlaws, he was a military cadet at the end of the First World War, and joined the Freikorps, participating in many of the events described in the book, including the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, for which he was imprisoned. He went on to write many books and film scripts.
Vanguard of Nazism is the first full history of the Free Corps Movement which arose in Germany after World War I. Robert Waite's closely documented account shows how proto-Nazi thinking developed in this movement, and how the Free Corp contributed to the growth of National Socialism.
The author chronicles the rise of the Freikorps, a paramilitary organization with roots in the First World War that was later co-opted by Hitler's Nazi Party and used as tool for political repression and intimidation. Original.
Immediately following the end of World War I, amid the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, bitter fighting broke out in the Baltic region as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania struggled for their independence, and Red and White Russian armies began their civil war. There were also German forces still active in what had been the northern end of Germany's Eastern Front. This book offers a concise but detailed introduction to this whole theatre of war, focusing on the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and relevant German and Russian forces, plus Finnish, Danish and Swedish contingents. For each region there is a detailed map as well as meticulous orders-of-battle and insignia charts. Detailed for the first time in the English language, this fascinating book concisely tells the story of the birth of these Baltic nation states.
An "account of the continuing ethnic and state violence after the end of WWI--conflicts that more than anything else set the stage for WWII"--Provided by publisher.
This book outlines and illustrates the living conditions of German civilians in World War II, and the Nazi state's basic structure. German families suffered the same hardships as British labour conscription, extra civic duties, severe shortages of food and necessities, disrupted transport, homelessness and evacuation, separation from loved ones and, for many, bereavement. However, there were important differences. The dictator for whom many had voted was leading them to ruin; unequalled death and devastation ensued from Allied air raids; and every aspect of life was caged around with repressive decrees that began to replace the true rule of law well before September 1939.
