The Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler

by Nigel H. Jones

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 and 'who could not get the war out of their system'. It was an atmosphere in which civilised values withered, and violent extremism flourished. In this chronicle of the paramilitary Freikorps - the freebooting armies that crushed the Red revolution, 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. Astonishingly, this is the first in-depth study of the Freikorps to appear in English for 50 years. Yet the figures who flit through its shadowy world - men like Rohm, Goering and Hitler himself - were to become frighteningly familiar just ten years after the turmoil that gave Nazism its fatal chance.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Politics, Military History, 20th Century, Germany

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[zed · Rating 2 out of 5]

This brief history focuses more on the paramilitary Freikorps that began almost immediately with the fall of imperial Germany at the end of The Great War.

Told in chronological order from that fall through to the Beer Hall Putsch, author Nigel Jones has written an opinionated short history of the violence that occurred from the recriminations that befell the German people from armistice onwards. As far as the narrative of events goes, this was a very useful read for me personally as the Freikorps and their violent use and effect in Germany was an area that I had not really delved into too deeply in the past. I would suggest that as a brief history this does the job it sets itself out to do even if the opinions of the author are a little too much to the fore at times.

The violence started early, with the infamous thoughts of being “stabbed in the back” and that “November Criminals” had humiliated a beaten Germany took root very early. The use of Freikorps was immediate as the ideological warfare of extreme left and right took to the streets in such areas as the murders of Liebknecht and Luxemburg and the smashing of the Munich Soviet.
There were also events that had completely passed this reader by, such the chapter called The Baltic Campaign. The author writes that this campaign was “….important historically and for its contribution to the Freikorps’ – and hence to the German nations – myth” The wiki for anyone that needs to read further on this fascinating but seemingly little known event that made contribution to the thought process of the ultra-right and their rise to power under Hitler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikor...

The Freikorps themselves comprised irregulars with many that knew nothing of life other than trench warfare, hence violent methods were the norm. The republican government of Germany used the Freikorps to suppress the left, though the Freikorps had no love for that government and blamed it completely for the humiliations that came with defeat. Many government leaders later paid with their lives.

In appendix A the author lists the main Freikorps, their leaders, dates, fate, size and insignia. Many of these were dissolved and merged into the regular army. Though well written and moving at a good pace, my criticisms of this book are that the narrative gets too opinionated for a brief history. There are also no footnotes. The appendix A noted above is very good, and Appendix B lists Freikorps members who became prominent in Nazi Germany. Many fell at The Night of the Long Knives, as even their free booting style of ill-disciplined violence was too much for the Nazis. There is a selective bibliography with some interesting further reading.

I would recommend this one to anyone with an interest but no knowledge of the subject. For those with a bit more depth of knowledge, there would be better served elsewhere, I would suggest.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reasons behind the advent of Hitler and the Third Reich are always a source of great interest: hence the main appeal of this book. Nigel Jones covers his subject comprehensively and in the main I found it a very useful and interesting read.

I came to realise, reading this, that Hitler was pushing at an open door. The Freikorps were very useful to him in preparing a way, the nationalist flames were easily whipped up and they were well equipped to do it. We get a fairly clear view of Freikorps action in the main centres of their activities – the Baltic States, Munich, The Ruhr and Berlin . I found it a useful prelude on which to reflect upon events post 1933/4 when Hitler came to power. With the ‘Beerhall Putsch’ of 1923 he considered the Freikorps largely obsolete and even of nuisance value. NB his Reichstag speech (1934) justifying The Night of the Long Knives in which many were got rid of:

“ They (the Freikorps) were revolutionaries who, in 1918, had been shaken in their former relation to the state and uprooted, and had thereby lost all inner contact with the human social order. Men who have no respect for any authority..men who found their faith in nihilism..moral degenerates constant conspirators incapable of real cooperation, ready to oppose any order, hating all authority, their restless and excited minds found satisfaction only in incessant intellectual and conspiratorial activity aimed at the destruction of all existing institutions...These pathological enemies of the state are the enemies of all authority.”
There are some very interesting biographical sketches of most of the main characters in here and their role with regard to the Freikorps. (This is followed up in the appendices with useful mini biographies for reference and also the lists by name, leader etc of the various Freikorps, their numbers etc.

I found the epilogue: The Fate of the Freikorps and the Afterword, especially interesting and well written. Here’s a chunky taster:

“The Freikorps themselves were the children of the trenches, spawned by war out of revolution. Owing something to the dark, non-Christian roots of German history, something to the prevailing fashion for anti-rationalist mysticism, but much more to the savage habits of mind bred by four years of war, the Freikorps fighters were above all, the natural representatives of a time of social chaos, confusion, revolution and reaction. As such they were the natural humus for the growth of Hitlerism…...They believed they were saving their country from the machinations of the Bolsheviks, the subversion of the Sparticists and the depredations of the Allies; the atrocities committed by (them)..cannot be condoned but they can be understood.” 4*

[Takethat · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title of this book is misleading because the Freikorps was organized and mobilized to deal with the Bolshevik insurgency that was sweeping over Germany from 1916-20. Mr. Jones does not take time to tell the reader exactly who Rosa Luxemburg was, nor does he discuss her Spartacist revolutionary Polish-Russo Jewish revolutionary friends in any depth. Why not tell the reader they were not German first and foremost. Tell the reader Rosa smuggled herself into Germany under false pretenses. Rosa was a Polish Jew. Karl Liebnecht was a Russian Jew. And both were close with Lenin and the Bolshevik party. Mr. Jones does not tell the reader who these 'migrant rats from the East' really are but the German population knew and saw the invaders as migrant foreign rats. Mr. Jone's exhibits an agenda unworthy of sound scholarship. Thousands of Germans died for Rosa's and Karl's foreign ideals and treachery ultimately to subvert German culture. However, all is not lost. There are some excellent and very telling anecdotes as to whom the revolutionaries really were and what they really intended for Germany. On page 146. Gustav Landauer found himself the minister of Public Instruction. He speedily ordered the END of the study of history. The minister of Finance, Silvio Gesell, he believed in the abolition of money. Impressive concept given the reparations to be paid to the Allies. And Dr. Lipp, poor Dr. Lipp became the Foreign Minister after escaping a mental ward. Once in the seat of power he sent telegrams to the Pope complaining the former minister STOLE the key to his ministerial toilet. Dr. Lipp bragged to his friends that he declared war on Switzerland because the Swiss government did not send him the 60 locomotives he demanded. He was 'certain of victory' in his writings. What do these three anecdotes tell? Germany was being overrun by Jewish Communist lunatics. Anarchists. DESTRUCTIONISTS. But this is not to simply dismiss them as totally crazy. The goal for the Reds was the destruction and subjugation of Germany. City after city, region after region, declared their independence under Red revolutionary leadership fracturing Germany's unity and strength. We would call that Balkanization today. Arrogant little statelets with NO POWER if the Reds had succeeded. Easy to plunder. No central power structure or army to deal with. So yes, the Freikorp was mobilized, but it was to keep the country together and cast out the invaders from the East, because like Lincoln in the US Civil war, Lincolns' one and only goal was to keep the Union as one cohesive Union. The Freikorp kept Germany as one cohesive Germany. What was going to keep Germany together other than force? The Weimar government was caving to the Allies who were carving up their resources and assessing blame with billions in reparations that went far beyond Germany's GDP and the Reds were installing strikes, mutinies and planned Chaos. They were agitating sailors to mutiny, break into weapons barracks, arm citizens by the thousands but Mr. Jones sees to have a moral objection that the Freikorps had to use violence to take back their country. The Spartacists agitated FIRST then came the Freikorps response. Mr. Jones seems to make a tacit apology for the Spartacists and at every chance he demonizes and connects the conservative forces in Germany, the Freikorps in particular, as being tied to Nazis, violent thugs, when the Nazis did not yet even exist. Mr. Jones pushes a false biased agenda in my opinion. The great feature of this book, truly, is it reveals that Germany was in Chaos with a capital C for years. Thousands of civilian mobilized militia died fighting Bolshevism because of FOREIGN COMMUNIST AGITATION. Germans fought the Red terror from the East, which we now know was funded by Jacob Schiff out of New York city. Wall Street Capitalism funded Red menace Communism. And yet none of this is ever discussed? Hmmm? Schiff funded the assassination of both Czars in Russia. Schiff bankrolled Lenin. Schiff bankrolled the Bolsheviks, to whom the Spartacists were tied. Then, in its quest for world domination, the Red menace ravaged Germany and inserted anarchists like Landauer and Lipp into key positions to socially engineer Germany into oblivion which is what is happening right now to the United States. So this book is certainly worth the read, and reread. BUY IT. It's worth every penny for all its bias and omissions for whom the Jewish Communists really were. This is history you did not learn about in university because it was censored. Germany became a slave state for central bankers' rabid profiteering. We should not demonize Germans in 1916-20 for trying to keep their country together. We should not have to go to other sources to find out who Rosa and Karl were and where they were really from. They were not from Germany! We should not have to be constantly inundated with the word NAZI NAZI NAZI at every turn of the page in a pre-Nazi era! Shame on Mr. Jones for that, but at least he got a few things right by revealing the chaos of the time and true color of the Reds and possibly even his own true color.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a one volume history, this book does quite a good job of trying to untangle the mess that was Germany in the late teens and early twenties of the last century. Nigel Jones gives you just enough background that helps but not enough to overwhelm or get distracted. That being said, a general knowledge of the time period definitely helps as well as an understanding of the geography of central Europe. One of things that I think he does well is he keeps focus on one area and then moves to the next. This prevents feeling like you are being shuttled all over Germany, Poland and the Baltic. Another item that I well liked was his afterword in which he discusses the changes in Europe since the first publication in 1987. In it he talks about the deaths of two "famed" members of the Freikorps movement that has since died, Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) who used the Freikorps as his entrance to right wing politics and the Nazi movement and Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) who as influential writer amongst the Freikorps and among the Right who later turned his back on Nazism and the reactionary forces to becoming an advocate of peaceful cooperation among the nations of Europe. Jones also points to the changes in European politics and ethnic attacks in the post Cold War Europe and provides an ominous warning about the future of Europe.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and covers ground I'd never read about before. The large barrage of names was fairly easy to keep track of.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good. And I understand much better what led to the Nazis rise. Although studied the history mechanics in school I really got a clearer look at the turbulence and unrest and our own contribution as Allies (Wilson's 14 steps were really outrageous to think that anyone would agree to the terms and not develop a true hatred of anyone they deemed to be contributing to their demise was a real miss by us) to what led to Hitler and his Freikorps taking power. Good history reading.

[Timtracy Seguinjohnston]

Quite a good read. Demonstrated the groundwork in Germany as WWI drew to a close and the immediate following years and how it, coupled with Versailles, lead to Hitler's rise to power.

[Hans Eijssens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jones's trail is not free of biases but nevertheless he opens a few new windows on a muddled part of crucial history. And so adds food for thought.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise and well-written popular history of the German Freikorps and its members from 1919 to 1923.

Nigel Jones (author of several other works on WWII such as Countdown to Valkyrie: The July Plot to Assassinate Hitler) offers an concise and engaging account of the Freikorps, paramilitary groups of German soldiers raised in 1919 in order to bypass the defeated remnants of the old Imperial Army and shore up the power of the new German Republic. Jones takes us through the Freikorps various campaigns fighting left-wing revolutionaries in Berlin, Bavaria, and the Rhineland, as well as in combating foreign invaders in the Baltic States and against Poland while also exploring the personal biographies of some of the key Freikorps members like Ernst Jünger. The book also delves into the nihilistic and often contradictory ideology which made up the free-booting Freikorp spirit and explains its ruthlessness in dealing with adversaries.

Originally published in 1987, Jones' book is not a comprehensive attempt to explain every aspect of the Freikorp, but rather offers a series of vignettes looking at its most (in)famous moments, such as their assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in 1919, their role in the Kapp Putsch of 1920, and ends with how many of their members ended up among Hitler's rising Nazi Party just in time for the aspiring dictator's 1923 Beerhouse Putsch. This offers some interesting parallels that can sometimes be overlooked in more direct studies of the Nazis. For example, Erich Ludendorff's often seemingly random support of Hitler in 1923 can be better understood if, as Jones writes, his role in the Kapp Putsch four years before is put into the picture. This also helps explain why Hitler fervently (and wrongly) believed that he could overthrow the Weimar Republic by force if we consider the wider number of Freikorps supported coups which had been attempted in the then recent past.

Ending with a new afterword and appendixes listing of most of the major Friekorp units as well as the roles of many former Freikorp soldiers in the Nazi Party, the book is an excellent introduction to the Feikorps and the turmoil of post-First World War Germany.

[Dropbear123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 Worth reading if interested in immediate post-WWI Germany and definitely worth reading if you are interested in the Freikorps or the German rightwing paramilitary groups after WWI as there doesn't seem to be much else in English.

The book is short at 280 or so pages and mainly covers the period from the end of the First World War to the failure of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The book is fairly easy to read in my opinion and doesn't feel like it needs much background knowledge. Despite the name of the book the Nazis don't really get mentioned till the last chapter (my guess is publishing gimmick as including Nazis and swastikas on the cover would boost sales). The topics that are included are the formation of the Freikorps, their use by the SPD government to fight the far left, the anti-government activities of the Freikorps (the Kapp Putsch gets a good chapter) and the nationalists and the political violence and murder campaigns once the large scale fighting had stopped. The book then ends with a relatively large (but still good) chapter on Hitler's rise to prominence in Bavaria and his attempted coup at the end of 1923. The author is sympathetic to the left (fair enough considering the subject) and does often point out the blatant bias of the authorities on behalf of the right, for example the average sentence for a leftwing political murderer was 15 years, for a rightwing murderer it was 4 months. Or that out of 354 rightwing political murders, 326 went unpunished. There are two appendices - the first is a list of all the main Freikorps, their leaders, size, dates of operation, eventual fate and any symbols. The second a biographical list of any Freikorp member who eventually became prominent within Nazi Germany or who had a major falling out with the Nazis.

My main complaint is that the Freikorps' Baltic Campaign - offering to help the new Latvian and Estonian governments against the Bolsheivks then trying to turn these areas into German colonies, was only covered in one brief chapter. I wanted more about that topic. Additionally I felt that sometimes the more military focused bits felt like just lists of names and units.

There is a decent further reading list but this is a book that originally came out in 1987 and was republished in 2003 so all of the books mentioned will be rather old and possibly out of date researchwise.

[ItsJavelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Birth of the Nazis does a very good job at showing how the German Freikorps, which formed the Nazi Sturmabteilung, or SA, helped clear the way for Hitler to gain power in Germany throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The book itself focuses more how the German defeat in World War I influenced new political groups and units, such as the Freikorps, to form and battle for power in the country.
The detail put into the book about the Weimar Republic, and intermittent leaders between 1919 and 1933 really helps show the public dissent during the period in Germany. It mentions leaders such as Ernst Röhm, who was the leader of the Freikorps and the SA until he was assassinated during the Night of the Long Knives. It tells in detail how the Freikorps used fear mongering to influence rival parties and the citizens of Germany to voice support for the Nazi party, and how that allowed Hitler to eventually rise to power.

[Joshua Letchford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating period of history. Like a lot of history books (so this is no slight on this one) I was left wanting a little bit more interpretative commentary. What are we to think of the Freikorps? Can we justify some of their violence given the collapse of the German state, or were they just Nazis without a Fuhrer, or in a sense both? Were the Communists any better? In deploying the Freikoprs was the government making the best of a bad hand or were they complicit in the later rise of the Nazis?

It says something about the book (which was very readable and engrossing) that it leaves you asking questions like these. That is a very good thing for a book to do.

[Brian Alston · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, engaging read full of information relevant to today’s society. The Weimar Republic is often overlooked in the American education system, yet this period of time could not be more important to understanding modern political rhetoric. With talk of right-wing authoritarianism and the “despotic” nature of President Trump running rampant in the media, this book is indispensable in uncovering the truths and, more importantly, the lies extant in present-day politics.

[Stephen Bedard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of things happened between the First and Second World Wars. This book tells this story. Despite the title, only the last 50 pages are about Hitler. But it does describe the events that took place that paved the way for Hitler and the Nazis.

[Garth · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was a great of political unrest and violence in Germany between 1918 and the 1930's, and this book covers it exhaustively. I found it very difficult to keep track of the incidents and the protagonists.

[Ddraig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the freikorps, and the political chaos that engulfed Germany at the end of WWI.

[Bugra Konur Alp Dönmez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read. Gives a good and comprehensive explanation to the rise of the Nazi's after World War I.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Historical journalism; description without a thought on what it's telling.

[Ben Parsons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuck nazis all my homies hate nazis, lots of good info on the freikorps but bro did glorify them a bit and I don’t love that

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manages to cover an impressive wealth of information for a supposedly ‘brief history’. Jones critically explores the role of the German paramilitary organisations in the rise of Nazism, which thoughtful examination of every major coup, insurrection and putsch of the Weimar period. His examination of the role of the ostensibly ‘leftist’ Ebert government in authorizing violence is particularly illuminating.

[Adi Gupte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cleverly narrated and as concise as it could get, Nigel Jones takes us on a mesmerizing journey a century back in time when 'the New man' wreaked a havoc in the interim peace and humiliating conditions after the great war. The insidious politics and colliding forces of the right wing and sneaky left make it thrilling simply unputdownable.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

informative