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Зневажені
Поразка у війні, принизливий Версальський мир, сепаратистські рухи, бунти комуністів, інфляція... Саме на цьому тлі формувалися фрайкори, добровольчі корпуси, які захищали хиткі кордони Ваймарської рес-публіки. Бої в Балтиці, боротьба з поляками на сході та французькими окупаційними військами на заході — усі ці події, які автор влучно називає «післявійна», досі є маловідомими для загалу, хоча саме вони заклали підґрунтя для Другої світової. Зрештою, «Зневажені» є своєрідним продовженням найвідомішого твору Юнґера «У сталевих грозах», адже тут ідеться про час одразу після завершення Першої світової війни. Те, що описує Заломон, дає змогу провести паралелі з українськими реаліями — недарма слово «фрайкори» перекладається як «добробати». Нехай фрайкорівці програли, і пройшли смерть, в’язницю та зневагу — їхня мета була важливішою за усі ці ризики. «Ми не могли поважати батьківщину, тому що любили націю».
528 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 1930
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About the author
Ernst von Salomon
18 books28 followersGerman writer and Freikorps member.
He was born in Kiel, the son of an army officer. From 1913 he was a cadet in Karlsruhe and Berlin-Lichterfelde; starting in 1919, he joined the Freikorps ("Free-Corps") in the Baltic, where he fought against the Bolsheviks. Later he fought against Polish insurgents in Upper Silesia.
He received a five year prison sentence in 1922 for his part in the assassination of Walther Rathenau — he provided a car for the assassins. In 1927, he received another prison sentence for an attempted feme murder (paramilitary "self-justice"), and was released after a few months - he had not killed the severely wounded victim, Wagner, when he pleaded for his life, which was noted by the court.
After 1933, Salomon said, he did not support Nazism. He earned his living by writing film scripts. His wife, Ille Gotthelft, was Jewish but was protected due to his support. In his autobiography The Answers of Ernst von Salomon he described how both were mistreated by American soldiers when they were arrested, and called "Nazi swine."
Salomon was imprisoned by the Americans as POW from 1945–1946. The 1940 colonial film Carl Peters, which Salomon wrote the screenplay for, was forbidden by British occupation authorities, because of allegedly being "anti-English".
In 1951 he published the book Der Fragebogen ("The Questionnaire"), in which he gave his rather ironic answers to the 131 point questionnaire concerning their activities under Nazism. A famous public discussion of the book took place in the main train station of Cologne, organised by bookseller Gerhard Ludwig.
Salomon died in Stoeckte near Winsen.
He was born in Kiel, the son of an army officer. From 1913 he was a cadet in Karlsruhe and Berlin-Lichterfelde; starting in 1919, he joined the Freikorps ("Free-Corps") in the Baltic, where he fought against the Bolsheviks. Later he fought against Polish insurgents in Upper Silesia.
He received a five year prison sentence in 1922 for his part in the assassination of Walther Rathenau — he provided a car for the assassins. In 1927, he received another prison sentence for an attempted feme murder (paramilitary "self-justice"), and was released after a few months - he had not killed the severely wounded victim, Wagner, when he pleaded for his life, which was noted by the court.
After 1933, Salomon said, he did not support Nazism. He earned his living by writing film scripts. His wife, Ille Gotthelft, was Jewish but was protected due to his support. In his autobiography The Answers of Ernst von Salomon he described how both were mistreated by American soldiers when they were arrested, and called "Nazi swine."
Salomon was imprisoned by the Americans as POW from 1945–1946. The 1940 colonial film Carl Peters, which Salomon wrote the screenplay for, was forbidden by British occupation authorities, because of allegedly being "anti-English".
In 1951 he published the book Der Fragebogen ("The Questionnaire"), in which he gave his rather ironic answers to the 131 point questionnaire concerning their activities under Nazism. A famous public discussion of the book took place in the main train station of Cologne, organised by bookseller Gerhard Ludwig.
Salomon died in Stoeckte near Winsen.
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September 17, 2020
The Outlaws is advertised to modern readers as a memoir of the post-World War I struggles between the armed German Left and Right, between the Communists and the Freikorps. But it’s not. The Freikorps appear some; the Communists little, and often when they do, as quasi-friends of some on the Right. Rather, this is a personal memoir of Ernst von Salomon’s growing up in the 1920s, and follows his life, of which Freikorps conflict inside Germany was a small part. The book instead narrates his participation in postwar government-sponsored Freikorps fighting defending the Baltic Germans; his involvement in the assassination of Walther Rathenau, foreign minister of the Weimar Republic; and his resulting time in prison. All of these are surrounded by the introspective reflections of a right-wing German of 1930, which is what makes them interesting.
The Outlaws is not even technically a memoir. It’s written as a novel with an unnamed narrator. But it seems entirely obvious that the narrator is von Salomon himself, and the events precisely track real events, as far as I can tell. Presumably, given this book was published shortly after the author was released from prison and was being closely watched by the authorities, this artifice was adopted for self-protection. It does mean the reader can never be sure what is real, or where von Salomon may have stretched the truth. But that’s true for all memoirs.
The book’s first few pages set the tone for the rest of the book, which to a modern reader is often one of some confusion, because the author assumes the reader is intimately familiar with the events described, and so provides no background or context, and often omits details necessary to fully understand what is happening. Von Salomon, at the beginning of the book a sixteen-year-old military cadet, was born in Kiel, a Baltic seaport and headquarters of the German navy, and what the first chapter appears to describe is the events of the Kiel Mutiny of November 1918, as seen from his street-level perspective. The Kiel Mutiny, started by sailors (who throughout the twentieth century often were a nucleus of left-wing violence, as in 1930s Spain), purported to rule Kiel through a Bolshevik-inspired “workers’ and soldiers council,” and inspired similar leftist attempts to seize power throughout Germany. The result was the German Revolution, in which the Kaiser abdicated and a Republic formed, under the control of the Social Democrats (SPD). The SPD was the mainstream party of the Left, who largely opposed the Communists and wholly opposed their armed revolts (unlike America’s mainstream party of the left today, which endorses the modern instantiations of both).
This is the Weimar Republic, to which present-day America is often analogized. Whatever the accuracy of that comparison, and despite the present treason by today’s Democrats similar to that of the Communists of 1919, our society bears very little resemblance to that Germany where, as von Salomon says, “everything was possible and nothing was certain.” We may yet get there, perhaps in November, but our wealthy, aged, risk-averse, feminized society is a very far cry from the chaotic early 1920s ferment in which von Salomon grew up fast. Still, it is worth knowing how men think in a society in chaos, especially a Western society in chaos, even one quite different from 2020 America.
Gustav Noske, a veteran SPD politician with an interest in military affairs, took charge of defusing the Kiel Mutiny, and did so successfully. He then assumed control of both what was left of the army, and more importantly, of the Freikorps units, which he used to cement the Republic’s authority and put down further Communist attempts to establish a totalitarian state. Freikorps units are often called right-wing paramilitaries, and many were, but at first they were mostly parallel organizations to the fractured army, well-trained and adequately equipped. In von Salomon’s telling, quite a few of the soldiers were in fact socialists of one stripe or another, and what bound them politically was primarily dissatisfaction with the ruling classes. It was Freikorps soldiers, under Noske’s command, who put down the Spartacist Communist revolution in Berlin, in January 1918, and executed (as they deserved) Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Von Salomon, who had volunteered for Freikorps duty, the army no longer taking volunteers, participated in defeating the Berlin Communists, and again he offers a short, chaotic, street-level chapter on the Spartacist revolt. Aside from the fighting, what he emphasizes is how many Berliners, among the death and chaos, continued to enjoy themselves, ignoring the fighting. “They danced their feverish, erotic dances on glassy floors, while the last stray shots of our companions were still sounding in the distance.” This sense of both being part of a hardened elite surrounded by decadence, and of contempt for the selfish who do not have Germany’s interests at heart, permeates the book.
For a short while after breaking the Communists, Noske’s Freikorps was used for police actions, such as the search of workers’ tenement blocks for illegal weapons (an episode von Salomon describes in interesting detail). As the Weimar Republic stabilized, and the terms imposed on Germany by the victorious Allies were made known, men in the Freikorps of von Salomon’s bent—that is, right-wing and eager for action they were not finding as policemen—found each other. Thus, von Salomon and a few dozen of his companions left (illicitly or not, it is not clear) to go fight for Germany in the Baltic States.
This is a forgotten episode from history—the little wars between ethnic Germans and other Balts, nationalist and Communist, as well as the Russians, in Courland and elsewhere, immediately after World War I. Von Salomon appears to have mostly fought in Latvia, where the Letts (now an obsolete term, I think) and the Estonians fought the Baltic Germans and the Russians. I really have little grasp of this episode, and reading the chapters devoted to it here did not clarify much. (Ever since the Teutonic Knights, the Germans imposed their influence here, forming the ruling class. But they are all gone now.) Again, we get a grunt-level view of the violence, similar in many ways to the memoirs of Erwin Rommel. In August 1919, the new German government, as required by the Allies, repudiated military activity in defense of the Baltic Germans. Most of the German military units obeyed and returned; some, including von Salomon’s, mutinied and remained. Most of them died; von Salomon was among the few to manage to retreat back to Germany.
Von Salomon saw this as a betrayal and the seed in the hearts of men like him of realizing that something was very wrong with the German spirit and German leadership, but what precisely that was remained opaque. For him, a message, a call to action, was forming in the wings, and their task was to wait for it, and be ready. “They stood among the ruins and listened with incredulous astonishment to the catchwords and theories which were hawked about as the treasures of the future and as the wisdom and truth of the present. And since they learnt under the shadow of death to distinguish truth from falsehood, they were not easily duped.”
This was 1920. Other Freikorps groups, more intact, returned from abroad, and here Hermann Ehrhardt, a based chad if there ever was one, first appears. They were all ordered to demobilize, by Noske. Then came the failed Kapp Putsch, in March 1920—and again, we are given a confused, street-level view. In another forgotten episode, Communists in several cities attempted to use the suppression of the Kapp Putsch as yet another opportunity for Red revolt (the Left never misses a chance to seize power). Von Salomon describes how, kicked off the train in Harburg, in Saxony, billeting in the local town hall, his unit was assaulted and defeated by local Communists, with significant loss of life on both sides. We also get a rearward-looking analysis of why the Kapp Putsch failed. “I tried to make the words of the Kapp programme seem real. But there was the rub! The proclamation began with a justification: that hardly indicated conviction! No, it was not the words of his programme which called us to fight. What was it, then? It was simply that we enjoyed danger. . . . We did not know what would happen; but how should we ever know except by finding out?” Von Salomon knew the SPD had disbanded the Freikorps as a defensive measure after the putsch; he did not know that Ehrhardt had in response formed Organisation Consul, a secret group whose aim was overthrow of the Republic by violence.
Von Salomon went to Hamburg, and was further whipped to rage by the French occupation of the town. In his telling it was here, after a confrontation with French soldiers, he met Erwin Kern, leader of the later conspiracy to assassinate Rathenau. Von Salomon describes how a small circle of like-minded young men grew, all of them working menial, flexible jobs to support themselves for their real work. He describes how very many organizations were recruiting and growing on the Right, “patriotic groups,” with whom he sympathized in general, but who had vague and unrealistic goals—they were dreamers, not doers, merely congregating and yammering because they “felt they had been betrayed and cheated by fate.” From these groups, his smaller group poached members, looking for young men of courage bored by the endless talk, and also engaged in street demonstrations and low-level brawling—thereby getting to know some of the Communists, with whom they became “great friends.” This commonality suggests, again, that opposition to the failed ruling class was the key driver of 1920s right-wing activity, though what was wanted instead doubtless differed between the groups.
They were preparing, even if they didn’t know for what. When the government announced a buyback program for rifles, at a hundred marks each, they waylaid people carrying their guns to the police station, and bought them for a hundred and five. They executed a French soldier who had raped the sister of a German. They made friendly contacts in police departments. They undermined the French and engineered prison escapes. Some of them died. In 1921, von Salomon left Germany again, going to Upper Silesia to fight the rebellious Poles, apparently as part of resurrected Freikorps units tacitly allowed by the SPD government—and were then, according to von Salomon, betrayed again by the government, which allowed the French to prevent total victory, resulting in many of his friends being cut off behind enemy lines and killed. And toward the end of 1921, he returned to Hamburg.
By this time, Organisation Consul and its sympathizers were in full flower, committing numerous assassinations of left-wing politicians, but also organizing attacks on the French and engaging in various other forms of illegal activity, such as gun-running. As with any such shadowy conspiratorial organization, a cloud of rumor and unknowing surrounded its activities, and its members, and those sympathetic to it, were justifiably suspicious of spies and enemies. The mechanism the “O. C.” used to address this, as well as to justify killings of Germans seen as betraying Germany, were the feme murders—killings ordered by “courts,” that is, by ad hoc groups of right-wing conspirators, in a resurrection of a medieval German Westphalian practice of secret private courts, the Vehmic courts. Von Salomon mostly conceals the specifics of his own actions, pointing instead to the actions of others, merely emphasizing that none of them cared about “official affairs” anymore, that is, normal politics. Rathenau, in a foreshadowing, appears repeatedly, as von Salomon reads his books and watches his speeches—with favor, not loathing, even though the Republic was an object of contempt for the Right.
At some length, von Salomon narrates his own participation in an attempted feme murder, of a mole in their organization, where the victim was beaten and almost drowned, but then released. (I am quite sure that is not as easy to kill someone as young men often think, emotionally.) Here the book turns to some combination of self-analysis and justification. “We realised fully what we were doing, we accepted the curse under which we had fallen—that violence breeds violence, and that we could not withdraw from our chosen path. Indeed, we felt a sense of duty in carrying out a historical purpose, which, while it relieved us of no personal responsibility, gave our actions an added excitement.” “We are not fighting to make the nation happy—we are fighting to force it to tread in the path of its destiny.”
Kern seems to have been von Salomon’s philosophical lodestar; certainly, von Salomon quotes him extensively, though who knows if the quotes are manufactured? There is much talk of duty and so forth, but at core what these men seemed to have wanted is, in their own words, “the domination of the world by Germany.” Opposing this goal they saw a variety of forces—but, odd to us given what we are told today, the Jews were not an important one, and barely get a mention. I doubt if von Salomon, at least at this time, was more anti-Semitic than Franklin Roosevelt (and in fact, he later had a long-term Jewish girlfriend). Instead, they directed their hate at those who would not stand up to the Allies, and to those who weakened the moral fiber of Germany. They were happy to ally with Communists against the “propertied classes,” and spoke of the “collectivism that will give the last farthing of value to every member of the nation,” which would also be “a socialisation through which we shall regain that intellectual unity which was stolen from us in the nineteenth century.” Fascinatingly, their target is those who “utter the word ‘Germany’ and mean ‘Europe’—their true motherland.” Today, everything old is new again, if with a fresh coloration.
For this reason Kern and his group made Rathenau, whom they still greatly admired, the focus of their anger. At least it seems . . . [review completes as first comment]
The Outlaws is not even technically a memoir. It’s written as a novel with an unnamed narrator. But it seems entirely obvious that the narrator is von Salomon himself, and the events precisely track real events, as far as I can tell. Presumably, given this book was published shortly after the author was released from prison and was being closely watched by the authorities, this artifice was adopted for self-protection. It does mean the reader can never be sure what is real, or where von Salomon may have stretched the truth. But that’s true for all memoirs.
The book’s first few pages set the tone for the rest of the book, which to a modern reader is often one of some confusion, because the author assumes the reader is intimately familiar with the events described, and so provides no background or context, and often omits details necessary to fully understand what is happening. Von Salomon, at the beginning of the book a sixteen-year-old military cadet, was born in Kiel, a Baltic seaport and headquarters of the German navy, and what the first chapter appears to describe is the events of the Kiel Mutiny of November 1918, as seen from his street-level perspective. The Kiel Mutiny, started by sailors (who throughout the twentieth century often were a nucleus of left-wing violence, as in 1930s Spain), purported to rule Kiel through a Bolshevik-inspired “workers’ and soldiers council,” and inspired similar leftist attempts to seize power throughout Germany. The result was the German Revolution, in which the Kaiser abdicated and a Republic formed, under the control of the Social Democrats (SPD). The SPD was the mainstream party of the Left, who largely opposed the Communists and wholly opposed their armed revolts (unlike America’s mainstream party of the left today, which endorses the modern instantiations of both).
This is the Weimar Republic, to which present-day America is often analogized. Whatever the accuracy of that comparison, and despite the present treason by today’s Democrats similar to that of the Communists of 1919, our society bears very little resemblance to that Germany where, as von Salomon says, “everything was possible and nothing was certain.” We may yet get there, perhaps in November, but our wealthy, aged, risk-averse, feminized society is a very far cry from the chaotic early 1920s ferment in which von Salomon grew up fast. Still, it is worth knowing how men think in a society in chaos, especially a Western society in chaos, even one quite different from 2020 America.
Gustav Noske, a veteran SPD politician with an interest in military affairs, took charge of defusing the Kiel Mutiny, and did so successfully. He then assumed control of both what was left of the army, and more importantly, of the Freikorps units, which he used to cement the Republic’s authority and put down further Communist attempts to establish a totalitarian state. Freikorps units are often called right-wing paramilitaries, and many were, but at first they were mostly parallel organizations to the fractured army, well-trained and adequately equipped. In von Salomon’s telling, quite a few of the soldiers were in fact socialists of one stripe or another, and what bound them politically was primarily dissatisfaction with the ruling classes. It was Freikorps soldiers, under Noske’s command, who put down the Spartacist Communist revolution in Berlin, in January 1918, and executed (as they deserved) Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Von Salomon, who had volunteered for Freikorps duty, the army no longer taking volunteers, participated in defeating the Berlin Communists, and again he offers a short, chaotic, street-level chapter on the Spartacist revolt. Aside from the fighting, what he emphasizes is how many Berliners, among the death and chaos, continued to enjoy themselves, ignoring the fighting. “They danced their feverish, erotic dances on glassy floors, while the last stray shots of our companions were still sounding in the distance.” This sense of both being part of a hardened elite surrounded by decadence, and of contempt for the selfish who do not have Germany’s interests at heart, permeates the book.
For a short while after breaking the Communists, Noske’s Freikorps was used for police actions, such as the search of workers’ tenement blocks for illegal weapons (an episode von Salomon describes in interesting detail). As the Weimar Republic stabilized, and the terms imposed on Germany by the victorious Allies were made known, men in the Freikorps of von Salomon’s bent—that is, right-wing and eager for action they were not finding as policemen—found each other. Thus, von Salomon and a few dozen of his companions left (illicitly or not, it is not clear) to go fight for Germany in the Baltic States.
This is a forgotten episode from history—the little wars between ethnic Germans and other Balts, nationalist and Communist, as well as the Russians, in Courland and elsewhere, immediately after World War I. Von Salomon appears to have mostly fought in Latvia, where the Letts (now an obsolete term, I think) and the Estonians fought the Baltic Germans and the Russians. I really have little grasp of this episode, and reading the chapters devoted to it here did not clarify much. (Ever since the Teutonic Knights, the Germans imposed their influence here, forming the ruling class. But they are all gone now.) Again, we get a grunt-level view of the violence, similar in many ways to the memoirs of Erwin Rommel. In August 1919, the new German government, as required by the Allies, repudiated military activity in defense of the Baltic Germans. Most of the German military units obeyed and returned; some, including von Salomon’s, mutinied and remained. Most of them died; von Salomon was among the few to manage to retreat back to Germany.
Von Salomon saw this as a betrayal and the seed in the hearts of men like him of realizing that something was very wrong with the German spirit and German leadership, but what precisely that was remained opaque. For him, a message, a call to action, was forming in the wings, and their task was to wait for it, and be ready. “They stood among the ruins and listened with incredulous astonishment to the catchwords and theories which were hawked about as the treasures of the future and as the wisdom and truth of the present. And since they learnt under the shadow of death to distinguish truth from falsehood, they were not easily duped.”
This was 1920. Other Freikorps groups, more intact, returned from abroad, and here Hermann Ehrhardt, a based chad if there ever was one, first appears. They were all ordered to demobilize, by Noske. Then came the failed Kapp Putsch, in March 1920—and again, we are given a confused, street-level view. In another forgotten episode, Communists in several cities attempted to use the suppression of the Kapp Putsch as yet another opportunity for Red revolt (the Left never misses a chance to seize power). Von Salomon describes how, kicked off the train in Harburg, in Saxony, billeting in the local town hall, his unit was assaulted and defeated by local Communists, with significant loss of life on both sides. We also get a rearward-looking analysis of why the Kapp Putsch failed. “I tried to make the words of the Kapp programme seem real. But there was the rub! The proclamation began with a justification: that hardly indicated conviction! No, it was not the words of his programme which called us to fight. What was it, then? It was simply that we enjoyed danger. . . . We did not know what would happen; but how should we ever know except by finding out?” Von Salomon knew the SPD had disbanded the Freikorps as a defensive measure after the putsch; he did not know that Ehrhardt had in response formed Organisation Consul, a secret group whose aim was overthrow of the Republic by violence.
Von Salomon went to Hamburg, and was further whipped to rage by the French occupation of the town. In his telling it was here, after a confrontation with French soldiers, he met Erwin Kern, leader of the later conspiracy to assassinate Rathenau. Von Salomon describes how a small circle of like-minded young men grew, all of them working menial, flexible jobs to support themselves for their real work. He describes how very many organizations were recruiting and growing on the Right, “patriotic groups,” with whom he sympathized in general, but who had vague and unrealistic goals—they were dreamers, not doers, merely congregating and yammering because they “felt they had been betrayed and cheated by fate.” From these groups, his smaller group poached members, looking for young men of courage bored by the endless talk, and also engaged in street demonstrations and low-level brawling—thereby getting to know some of the Communists, with whom they became “great friends.” This commonality suggests, again, that opposition to the failed ruling class was the key driver of 1920s right-wing activity, though what was wanted instead doubtless differed between the groups.
They were preparing, even if they didn’t know for what. When the government announced a buyback program for rifles, at a hundred marks each, they waylaid people carrying their guns to the police station, and bought them for a hundred and five. They executed a French soldier who had raped the sister of a German. They made friendly contacts in police departments. They undermined the French and engineered prison escapes. Some of them died. In 1921, von Salomon left Germany again, going to Upper Silesia to fight the rebellious Poles, apparently as part of resurrected Freikorps units tacitly allowed by the SPD government—and were then, according to von Salomon, betrayed again by the government, which allowed the French to prevent total victory, resulting in many of his friends being cut off behind enemy lines and killed. And toward the end of 1921, he returned to Hamburg.
By this time, Organisation Consul and its sympathizers were in full flower, committing numerous assassinations of left-wing politicians, but also organizing attacks on the French and engaging in various other forms of illegal activity, such as gun-running. As with any such shadowy conspiratorial organization, a cloud of rumor and unknowing surrounded its activities, and its members, and those sympathetic to it, were justifiably suspicious of spies and enemies. The mechanism the “O. C.” used to address this, as well as to justify killings of Germans seen as betraying Germany, were the feme murders—killings ordered by “courts,” that is, by ad hoc groups of right-wing conspirators, in a resurrection of a medieval German Westphalian practice of secret private courts, the Vehmic courts. Von Salomon mostly conceals the specifics of his own actions, pointing instead to the actions of others, merely emphasizing that none of them cared about “official affairs” anymore, that is, normal politics. Rathenau, in a foreshadowing, appears repeatedly, as von Salomon reads his books and watches his speeches—with favor, not loathing, even though the Republic was an object of contempt for the Right.
At some length, von Salomon narrates his own participation in an attempted feme murder, of a mole in their organization, where the victim was beaten and almost drowned, but then released. (I am quite sure that is not as easy to kill someone as young men often think, emotionally.) Here the book turns to some combination of self-analysis and justification. “We realised fully what we were doing, we accepted the curse under which we had fallen—that violence breeds violence, and that we could not withdraw from our chosen path. Indeed, we felt a sense of duty in carrying out a historical purpose, which, while it relieved us of no personal responsibility, gave our actions an added excitement.” “We are not fighting to make the nation happy—we are fighting to force it to tread in the path of its destiny.”
Kern seems to have been von Salomon’s philosophical lodestar; certainly, von Salomon quotes him extensively, though who knows if the quotes are manufactured? There is much talk of duty and so forth, but at core what these men seemed to have wanted is, in their own words, “the domination of the world by Germany.” Opposing this goal they saw a variety of forces—but, odd to us given what we are told today, the Jews were not an important one, and barely get a mention. I doubt if von Salomon, at least at this time, was more anti-Semitic than Franklin Roosevelt (and in fact, he later had a long-term Jewish girlfriend). Instead, they directed their hate at those who would not stand up to the Allies, and to those who weakened the moral fiber of Germany. They were happy to ally with Communists against the “propertied classes,” and spoke of the “collectivism that will give the last farthing of value to every member of the nation,” which would also be “a socialisation through which we shall regain that intellectual unity which was stolen from us in the nineteenth century.” Fascinatingly, their target is those who “utter the word ‘Germany’ and mean ‘Europe’—their true motherland.” Today, everything old is new again, if with a fresh coloration.
For this reason Kern and his group made Rathenau, whom they still greatly admired, the focus of their anger. At least it seems . . . [review completes as first comment]
June 27, 2021
A quite remarkable sort-of memoir, sort-of novel set in the years following the armistice in November 1918. Published in 1930, three years after the events described and three years before the ascension of Hitler. This English translation, which is slightly clunky but serviceable, was published in 1931.
Ernst von Salomon was a 16-year old cadet in a Prussian military academy when the war ended and he was almost immediately swept up in the post-war violence—pummeled by Reds on the day he learned of the armistice, joining the Freikorps and taking part in the suppression of the communist Spartacist uprising in Berlin, war against sundry enemies in the Baltic states, war against Polish nationalist forces in Silesia, and finally an abortive Putsch. From there he joined a paramilitary organization called the OC that operated like the mafia and planned the assassinations of members of the Weimar government whom the OC’s members felt had betrayed Germany. Because of his role on the margins of an assassination that actually succeeded, von Salomon found himself tried, convicted, and imprisoned at 20. War, terrorism, prison—these are the three acts of his drama.
It’s sometimes hard to follow, especially as it lacks some of the conventions of normal novels and von Salomon assumes you already know a great deal about the nitty-gritty of postwar Germany, but the cumulative effect is staggering. I ended the book tonight feeling the nine years it had covered, especially the five years of prison, and the intangible sense that something big was coming in Germany. Eerie.
Ernst von Salomon was a 16-year old cadet in a Prussian military academy when the war ended and he was almost immediately swept up in the post-war violence—pummeled by Reds on the day he learned of the armistice, joining the Freikorps and taking part in the suppression of the communist Spartacist uprising in Berlin, war against sundry enemies in the Baltic states, war against Polish nationalist forces in Silesia, and finally an abortive Putsch. From there he joined a paramilitary organization called the OC that operated like the mafia and planned the assassinations of members of the Weimar government whom the OC’s members felt had betrayed Germany. Because of his role on the margins of an assassination that actually succeeded, von Salomon found himself tried, convicted, and imprisoned at 20. War, terrorism, prison—these are the three acts of his drama.
It’s sometimes hard to follow, especially as it lacks some of the conventions of normal novels and von Salomon assumes you already know a great deal about the nitty-gritty of postwar Germany, but the cumulative effect is staggering. I ended the book tonight feeling the nine years it had covered, especially the five years of prison, and the intangible sense that something big was coming in Germany. Eerie.
December 31, 2016
This is one of the single most important books for anybody wishing to understand the Weimar Republic, and especially the "freikorps" & the radical right within the Weimar Republic. Almost all historians who say anything about the freikorps inevitably reference this book. Also essential for understanding National Bolshevism, the ideology that many freikorps members went on to adopt
April 7, 2019
Un libro violento, vibrante, accecante e allo stesso tempo cupo. La complessità della vita intera, in tutte le sue sfumature, è quello che esce fuori dal racconto fatto da Ernst Von Salomon della sua vita nella Germania del primo dopoguerra. Dalla Berlino scossa dai disordini politici alle lontante terre del Baltico e della Slesia, le gesta dei Freikorps - le organizzazioni paramilitari che hanno segnato la storia della Germania uscita sconfitta dalla Grande Guerra - sono il simbolo di un mondo che ha perso la vecchia strada e, sulle rovine del passato, fatica a costruirsi un futuro. Pochi sono i libri come questo. Poche le persone come Ernst Von Salomon.
April 26, 2024
Wow, juste wow. Parmi les meilleurs livres que j’ai jamais lu de ma vie. Meilleur récit autobiographique jamais écrit. Ce livre m’a donner envie de devenir allemand et de castagner des communistes avant de finir en prison pour complot contre la sûreté de l’État.
March 30, 2019
The Outlaws- by Ernst Von Salomon
Following the brutal 4 long great war Germany had lost. As a young officer cadet following the end of ww1 a young Ernst Von Salomon was forced to witness the hardships and humiliation in Germany. As a member of a German Freikorps group he defies Berlin’s orders and heads to the Baltics to join up with other German Freikorps groups and wage war against the Bolsheviks and Latvians. But he soons finds out that the Germany he once knew is no more and that it’s a race against time to restore the old ways of life and tradition to his homeland.
What I liked most about this was that it’s an autobiography about the author's life when he was a member of the Freikorps. This makes the stories more impactful and everything that goes on in the story you know happened and was real. This allowed me to sympathise with the main character when he was scared, when he was in pain, when he felt excitement or anger. It also allowed me to immerse myself more into the story and was able to live the moments with him.
Another part of the story that I like is how it’s a window into that time period in history, we can get a glimpse into how the average German felt after the defeat of Germany in the first world war. Ernst Von Salomon describes this perfectly; "I knew that we could not have been mistaken, for we had lived according to the spirit of the times; and there had been justification for our actions everywhere. We had lived dangerously, for the times had been dangerous; and since the times were chaotic, so everything we thought or did or believed was chaotic too. We were possessed by the spirit of our day, possessed by its destructiveness, and also possessed by the pain which made this destruction fruitful. We had lived up to the only virtue demanded by our day, that of decision, because we had the will to decide. But the decisive moment had not yet come. The world was still afraid of itself." (p.420-421)
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone interested in History, ww1, the build up to ww2, Germany, or anyone interested in a good adventure story.
Following the brutal 4 long great war Germany had lost. As a young officer cadet following the end of ww1 a young Ernst Von Salomon was forced to witness the hardships and humiliation in Germany. As a member of a German Freikorps group he defies Berlin’s orders and heads to the Baltics to join up with other German Freikorps groups and wage war against the Bolsheviks and Latvians. But he soons finds out that the Germany he once knew is no more and that it’s a race against time to restore the old ways of life and tradition to his homeland.
What I liked most about this was that it’s an autobiography about the author's life when he was a member of the Freikorps. This makes the stories more impactful and everything that goes on in the story you know happened and was real. This allowed me to sympathise with the main character when he was scared, when he was in pain, when he felt excitement or anger. It also allowed me to immerse myself more into the story and was able to live the moments with him.
Another part of the story that I like is how it’s a window into that time period in history, we can get a glimpse into how the average German felt after the defeat of Germany in the first world war. Ernst Von Salomon describes this perfectly; "I knew that we could not have been mistaken, for we had lived according to the spirit of the times; and there had been justification for our actions everywhere. We had lived dangerously, for the times had been dangerous; and since the times were chaotic, so everything we thought or did or believed was chaotic too. We were possessed by the spirit of our day, possessed by its destructiveness, and also possessed by the pain which made this destruction fruitful. We had lived up to the only virtue demanded by our day, that of decision, because we had the will to decide. But the decisive moment had not yet come. The world was still afraid of itself." (p.420-421)
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone interested in History, ww1, the build up to ww2, Germany, or anyone interested in a good adventure story.
March 31, 2023
"The Outlaws" is a book written by Ernst von Salomon and published in 1930. The book is a semi-autobiographical account of von Salomon's experiences as a member of a right-wing paramilitary group during the tumultuous years of the Weimar Republic in Germany.
Von Salomon was a member of the Freikorps, a group of ex-soldiers and paramilitary volunteers who fought against left-wing revolutionaries in the aftermath of World War I. In "The Outlaws," he describes his experiences as a member of this group, as well as his encounters with other right-wing extremists, criminals, and political radicals.
The book is notable for its vivid portrayal of the political violence and social chaos that characterized Germany during the Weimar Republic. It also offers a critique of the failures of liberal democracy and the rise of extremist politics in interwar Germany.
"The Outlaws" has been praised for its powerful and evocative prose, as well as its historical significance as a document of Weimar-era Germany. However, it has also been criticized for its sympathetic portrayal of right-wing extremism and violence.
GPT
Von Salomon was a member of the Freikorps, a group of ex-soldiers and paramilitary volunteers who fought against left-wing revolutionaries in the aftermath of World War I. In "The Outlaws," he describes his experiences as a member of this group, as well as his encounters with other right-wing extremists, criminals, and political radicals.
The book is notable for its vivid portrayal of the political violence and social chaos that characterized Germany during the Weimar Republic. It also offers a critique of the failures of liberal democracy and the rise of extremist politics in interwar Germany.
"The Outlaws" has been praised for its powerful and evocative prose, as well as its historical significance as a document of Weimar-era Germany. However, it has also been criticized for its sympathetic portrayal of right-wing extremism and violence.
GPT
August 8, 2023
A frankly honest look into the mind of the proto-fascist. To his credit, von Salomon can write decently and so provides an honest account of a worldview that rejects modern life, values violent action, and is strangely honest about the fact that that no extant plan, ideology, or organization yet justifies this violence. Despite Salomon's literary pretensions, this is more an exercise in political psychology than literature proper.
January 19, 2025
Definito in copertina come “romanzo” più probabilmente credo che sia a cavallo tra la pagina di diario (ma non si tratta di un diario completo perché parla solo di una parte della vita di von Salomon) e il resoconto giornalistico. Ne “I proscritti”, l’autore racconta di quando lui, sedicenne, nel 1918 si arruolò come volontario con i Freikorps. Venne subito spedito nel nord della Germania, a Kiel, a sedare le rivolte dei marinai che si erano ammutinati nell’estate dell’ultimo anno della prima guerra mondiale: all’ordine di attaccare la Royal Navy, intuendo che non avrebbero avuto la meglio, i marinai si rifiutarono di obbedire. Evidentemente nel corpo della marina, o per lo meno tra coloro arruolati su quelle navi, dovevano esserci diversi socialisti i quali erano stati fortemente affascinati dai risvolti della rivoluzione russa dell’ottobre del 1917 ed avevano cominciato di farla esplodere anche in Germania: chiedevano fondamentalmente migliori condizioni di lavoro. L’ammutinamento dei marinai di Kiel effettivamente sboccerà in quella che verrà poi definita come la “rivoluzione di novembre” e che verrà brutalmente repressa dei Freikorps (tra cui von Salomon) ma che avrà come risultato cruciale quello di traghettare la Germania da una monarchia ad una repubblica (federale) – per inciso, alle prime elezioni libere del 1919 parteciparono anche le donne. Una volta sedata la rivoluzione, il giovanissimo Eric, un ragazzino animato da sentimenti esaltati propri anche – soprattutto? – dell’età, indignato dalla firma del trattato di Versailles che metteva la Germania in una posizione umiliante di fronte ai grandi della terra e disgustato da un governo legale e democratico che però era pavido, esitante, ha bisogno di qualcosa di forte, qualcosa che motivi la sua vita. Già, perché la vita di Eric, non pare fosse tutto ‘sto gran che: non andava molto bene a scuola, allora il padre lo iscrisse all’accademia militare. L’impostazione di codesto istituto deve avere forgiato parecchi l’animo e la mente del ragazzo, che arde solo per avere obiettivi concreti da completare. Insomma, fare qualcosa, qualcosa di deciso e decisivo, qualcosa che inoltre possa fare della sua patria di nuovo un posto degno e meritevole. Con queste premesse, allora, una volta sedata l’ammutinamento dei marinai, partirà alla volta di Danzica, per riscattarla dalla Polonia e mantenerla tedesca: parteciperà agli scontri fino a quando non gli fu intimato, dal governo in carica, di smettere perché stavano procedendo contro quanto scritto nel trattato di pace. Deluso e fiaccato dal governo e dalla difficoltà di portare a termine obiettivi concreti e gloriosi, Eric von Salomon passa la sua giovanissima vita “all’avventura”, tra un combattimento e l’altro, tra case rotte ed agguati, tra vestiti laceri, la fame e il freddo. Ma tutto questo lo fa sentire un qualcuno, anche se si rende conto che non sta raggiungendo niente di particolare. Non ci riesce principalmente perché tutta questa vita, tutte le persone che incontra e contro cui ora combatte ora si allea, è precipitata in un caos gigantesco: i tedeschi sono spaccati in due, tra rossi e neri. Sono spesso sull’orlo della guerra civile. C’è un governo ma ci sono anche organizzazioni semi-segrete molto potenti che sono contrarie al governo. Non si capisce veramente niente. Travolto da questo disordine a tutto tondo, von Salomon si ritrovò coinvolto nell’assassinio di Walther Ratenau, il primo ministro (che tra l’altro aveva inizialmente impressionato così favorevolmente il giovanotto – per poi declinare all’improvviso solo dopo aver sentito il commento di un suo compare che l’aveva definito “debole”). Catturato a seguito dell’assassinio, von Salomon dovrà scontare sei anni di carcere. Avrà venticinque/ventisei anni di vita e tutta la sua adolescenza e giovinezza li ha trascorsi o in guerra o in carcere. L’autore non se ne rende conto, ma ha raccontato la storia di un fallito – la storia che è poi alla base del successo del nazismo. Un libro strepitoso se si vuole capire il caos in cui era precipitata la Germania nel primo dopoguerra, il caos in cui era precipitata l’intera popolazione a torto osannato dalla destra come un libro “di destra”. Non lo è. Sicuramente il suo autore è un conservatore, ma le pagine che scrive non sono quelle di uno che abbia apprezzato il nazismo: sono, al contrario, pagine in cui emerge un grande sentimento di frustrazione (a dispetto dell’energia investita e dell’amore per la patria), un senso di inutilità e confusione (che l’autore non vorrebbe dare, ma giocoforza la situazione era tale che non si poteva altrimenti). Per la cronaca, inoltre va detto che von Salomon era sposato con una donna ebrea e rimmarà a lungo indeciso se aderire al socialismo o al nazismo e finirà per non aderire a nessuna delle due ideologie. Mi ha fatto invece molto piacere leggere sul retro di copertina che anche Giaime Pintor (il fondatore del Manifesto) la pensa come me. E questo libro, come a me, gli piacque così tanto che ne discusse a lungo con Cesare Pavese e poi decisero di presentarlo ad Einaudi. Le riflessioni di questo ragazzino sono estremamente interessanti (spesso anche molto profonde) ed inquietanti perché si intuisce, andranno a costituire la base del futuro nazionalsocialismo – un’ideologia fondata dunque su esaltati e falliti.
Read
March 25, 2012i dont know what translation is represented by 'book cover unavailable' but the 1930s translation to english i had was ass
July 13, 2022
The Outlaws, or Die Geächteten as is the original German title, is the fictionalized memoir of the author, Ernst von Salomon. It chronicles the narrator's (Ernst's) life from 1918 to 1927. Not only is it an invigorating tale of violence, conspiracy, and self-reflection, but I also believe it to be one of the most important accounts for understanding how a single man, or even an entire nation, could spiral into extremism amongst disillusionment and uncertainty.
The book is divided into 3 parts:
Part I: Exiles
It is here where the story begins, with the young cadet learning that the "Invincible German Army had been defeated" and that the French were coming to occupy the Ruhr. The narrator finds himself consumed with hatred and confusion as everything he believed, and the future he saw for himself and his nation, have been shattered. That the new democratic government that has succeeded the Kaiser had betrayed the German people. It is here that the narrator makes the decision to join the Freikorps where he gets a small taste of war, one that he so desperately craved. Putting down communist uprisings, going on a crusade in the Baltic States, and taking part in a Putsch, it is in Exiles that we see a young man raised to be a soldier, acting out his cravings for battle and glory in a world that he believes has betrayed him and his fellow countrymen.
Part II: Conspirators
Following the disbandment of the Freikorps, the narrator continues to seek out means to undermine the government and reclaim Germany's former glory. He joins the Organization Consul (O.C.), a nationalist terrorist organization. It is here the narrator partakes in the political violence that consumed the Weimar Republic. Going so far as to partaking in violent action against those in the government itself.
Part III: Criminals
Arrested for his actions within the O.C., the narrator spends the next 5 years imprisoned. This final act of the book tells of the self reflection the narrator undergoes in his lonely cell, as he slowly begins to lose sight of why he must continue his resistance against the powers at be. By the time of his release, the narrator decides to start his new life as a decent hardworking man as he sees many of his former compatriots have already shed their extremist antics.
The Outlaws is the story of a young man who became consumed with hatred and delusion amongst the chaotic times of post WW1 Germany. Allowing this hatred to manifest and being swallowed into extremism, as many during this time have. And after being given time to reflect, realizing that there is no reason for him to continue this path of hate and resistance.
The book is merely an example of one person's journey into and out of political extremism. I found this book in a folder containing "Right-wing rhetoric". I am withholding my political opinions in this review, however I cannot deny that the author and the story is definitely Right-leaning and nationalist. But I do not believe that that is the purpose of this book, nor is it the reason why I believe every person, no matter their political beliefs, should read this book.
The story takes place during the Inter-War period, a period between the First and Second World War. This period is marked with failed democracies, the rise of Communism and Fascism, the Great Depression, and overall uncertainty at what the future holds. At the center of this uncertainty was Weimar Germany, the direction that the nation would go would greatly affect the world for years.
Many people question how the entire nation of Germany, a nation filled with culture and innovation, could allow itself to be consumed by the hate of Nazism. Many people question how a person could allow themselves to believe hateful ideas spewed by extremists, how they can allow themselves to dehumanize another person. The Outlaws will not answer these questions, but I believe the book well help you get a better insight onto how these things happen.
I am not saying you will agree with the narrator and his actions, but I truly believe if you read this book cover to cover, you will be able to better understand how someone in extreme circumstances may fall into extremism. And that is why I must recommend this book, because if more people are able to understand how someone falls into extremism, we can better understand how to combat and prevent it.
The book is divided into 3 parts:
Part I: Exiles
It is here where the story begins, with the young cadet learning that the "Invincible German Army had been defeated" and that the French were coming to occupy the Ruhr. The narrator finds himself consumed with hatred and confusion as everything he believed, and the future he saw for himself and his nation, have been shattered. That the new democratic government that has succeeded the Kaiser had betrayed the German people. It is here that the narrator makes the decision to join the Freikorps where he gets a small taste of war, one that he so desperately craved. Putting down communist uprisings, going on a crusade in the Baltic States, and taking part in a Putsch, it is in Exiles that we see a young man raised to be a soldier, acting out his cravings for battle and glory in a world that he believes has betrayed him and his fellow countrymen.
Part II: Conspirators
Following the disbandment of the Freikorps, the narrator continues to seek out means to undermine the government and reclaim Germany's former glory. He joins the Organization Consul (O.C.), a nationalist terrorist organization. It is here the narrator partakes in the political violence that consumed the Weimar Republic. Going so far as to partaking in violent action against those in the government itself.
Part III: Criminals
Arrested for his actions within the O.C., the narrator spends the next 5 years imprisoned. This final act of the book tells of the self reflection the narrator undergoes in his lonely cell, as he slowly begins to lose sight of why he must continue his resistance against the powers at be. By the time of his release, the narrator decides to start his new life as a decent hardworking man as he sees many of his former compatriots have already shed their extremist antics.
The Outlaws is the story of a young man who became consumed with hatred and delusion amongst the chaotic times of post WW1 Germany. Allowing this hatred to manifest and being swallowed into extremism, as many during this time have. And after being given time to reflect, realizing that there is no reason for him to continue this path of hate and resistance.
The book is merely an example of one person's journey into and out of political extremism. I found this book in a folder containing "Right-wing rhetoric". I am withholding my political opinions in this review, however I cannot deny that the author and the story is definitely Right-leaning and nationalist. But I do not believe that that is the purpose of this book, nor is it the reason why I believe every person, no matter their political beliefs, should read this book.
The story takes place during the Inter-War period, a period between the First and Second World War. This period is marked with failed democracies, the rise of Communism and Fascism, the Great Depression, and overall uncertainty at what the future holds. At the center of this uncertainty was Weimar Germany, the direction that the nation would go would greatly affect the world for years.
Many people question how the entire nation of Germany, a nation filled with culture and innovation, could allow itself to be consumed by the hate of Nazism. Many people question how a person could allow themselves to believe hateful ideas spewed by extremists, how they can allow themselves to dehumanize another person. The Outlaws will not answer these questions, but I believe the book well help you get a better insight onto how these things happen.
I am not saying you will agree with the narrator and his actions, but I truly believe if you read this book cover to cover, you will be able to better understand how someone in extreme circumstances may fall into extremism. And that is why I must recommend this book, because if more people are able to understand how someone falls into extremism, we can better understand how to combat and prevent it.
December 23, 2023
Memoir? Fictionalized? Doesn't matter. von Salomon has written a captivating account of a lesser-known piece of German history, which serves to link the First World War and what is more commonly known about the Weimar Republic. This is the account of a member of the Freikorps. A military cadet who became an irregular soldier. An outlaw. A prisoner.
Assuming he is the unnamed narrator, I felt I was walking in von Salomon's shoes throughout. The action of the first half of the book kept me enthralled, and having some idea of what was ahead, I wondered if I would lose interest once he became imprisoned.
Well, he managed to keep me hooked throughout his time of imprisonment to the end of the book. Was it his dry humor? His fascinating attention to detail? The fact that I had already marched thousands of miles "in his boots" and needed to know the end of his story?
Throughout the book, von Salomon also takes time to record what was going on in Germany before delving into his particular part in it. Maybe not information someone wants if they are simply interested in the narrative, but as an amateur historian I found it valuable. The narrative itself may be gripping for fans of adventure stories or other types of "outlaw" stories.
The audiobook was read by Aaron Waters. While some listeners complained about his style, I found it believable. Perhaps this is what a young man of 16 to 25 would have sounded like, thought like, spoken like. The only complaint is that there are a number of mistakes that were not edited out in production. Unfortunate but certainly not a dealbreaker.
Assuming he is the unnamed narrator, I felt I was walking in von Salomon's shoes throughout. The action of the first half of the book kept me enthralled, and having some idea of what was ahead, I wondered if I would lose interest once he became imprisoned.
Well, he managed to keep me hooked throughout his time of imprisonment to the end of the book. Was it his dry humor? His fascinating attention to detail? The fact that I had already marched thousands of miles "in his boots" and needed to know the end of his story?
Throughout the book, von Salomon also takes time to record what was going on in Germany before delving into his particular part in it. Maybe not information someone wants if they are simply interested in the narrative, but as an amateur historian I found it valuable. The narrative itself may be gripping for fans of adventure stories or other types of "outlaw" stories.
The audiobook was read by Aaron Waters. While some listeners complained about his style, I found it believable. Perhaps this is what a young man of 16 to 25 would have sounded like, thought like, spoken like. The only complaint is that there are a number of mistakes that were not edited out in production. Unfortunate but certainly not a dealbreaker.
March 10, 2024
Powerful immersion into the vigor of youth and how it expends itself in a world falling apart, no time could match up with this better than post WWI Germany.
Visceral and energetic, naturally hard to get ahold of due to its subject matter being effectively right-wing terrorism, at the very least, you at least come to understand the discontent which manifested it.
The pacing of the book is interesting, with first third being bold, reckless, chaotic. You feel there is an order in the chaos, where could be nothing more powerful than the ideals holding the outlaws together in concert. And the rising oppositions of communism and submission.
You may find yourself in sorrowful self-reflection. Despite the danger, you'll never have the opportunity to live so vigorously, or with such strong intent.
The last third of the book, a too-realistic descent into a half-decade prison sentence, the pacing crawls to a standstill, the contrast becomes depressing and it feels quite nihilistic.
It certainly diluted the strong thematic elements of the first half, however this is an autobiographical account after all.
In general, the most interesting fact that the mindset and sentiments of main character and his comrades. Which feels so alien in our current times.
No one believes anything is worth protecting, preserving, dying for any longer. The will to life, or power, has given way for something else. You can't help but feel something has been lost.
Perhaps a chaotic future will enable a way of living as such again, for better or worse.
Visceral and energetic, naturally hard to get ahold of due to its subject matter being effectively right-wing terrorism, at the very least, you at least come to understand the discontent which manifested it.
The pacing of the book is interesting, with first third being bold, reckless, chaotic. You feel there is an order in the chaos, where could be nothing more powerful than the ideals holding the outlaws together in concert. And the rising oppositions of communism and submission.
You may find yourself in sorrowful self-reflection. Despite the danger, you'll never have the opportunity to live so vigorously, or with such strong intent.
The last third of the book, a too-realistic descent into a half-decade prison sentence, the pacing crawls to a standstill, the contrast becomes depressing and it feels quite nihilistic.
It certainly diluted the strong thematic elements of the first half, however this is an autobiographical account after all.
In general, the most interesting fact that the mindset and sentiments of main character and his comrades. Which feels so alien in our current times.
No one believes anything is worth protecting, preserving, dying for any longer. The will to life, or power, has given way for something else. You can't help but feel something has been lost.
Perhaps a chaotic future will enable a way of living as such again, for better or worse.
February 15, 2025
I am quite honestly struggling to finish this book. I read about a quarter in one sitting. Left it for a month and began again and since then i’ve been reading every chance i’ve had. Im on the second to last chapter and cannot bring myself to read more. It strikes my heart deeply to read of such a noble and brave man become so indecisive and brought so low. When Ernst failed to kill the traitor i felt like screaming. After all the hardship he had faced; how could that be the point where he bears no more? How could he do so much, yet fail to finish such a lowly wretch? You can tell something breaks in him. The chapters written afterwards read like it was written by an entirely different, far lower man. I envy Ernst for being willing and able to throw everything to the wind and live for what he believes in, for being willing to face death, humiliation, and pain so readily, and i despise him for faltering and never recovering.
January 2, 2024
1 STERN
CW: Krieg, Tod, Gewalt, detailierte Beschreibung von Verletzungen & Leichen, Rassismus
Für meinen Kurs musste ich nur die ersten 160 Seiten des Buches lesen und ich bin sehr froh, dass es endlich vorbei ist.
Im mittleren Teil dieses Ausschnitts, während der Protagonist im Baltikum ist und dort mit den Freikorps Gruppen kämpft, habe ich irgendwann angefangen viel zu überspringen weil es alles immer nur dasselbe war. Man hätte das definitiv verkürzen können.
Die einzige amüsante Stelle war wie in einem Update kurz erwähnt, als sie dann wieder in Deutschland sind und zum Bahnhof gehen, um mit dem Zug nach Berlin zu fahren. Doch wie sich herausstellt ist der Bahnhof verlassen und es ist Generalstreik.
Wäre es nicht für die Uni gewesen hätte ich das Buch wahrscheinlich gar nicht erst angefangen geschweigedenn 160 Seiten gelesen.
CW: Krieg, Tod, Gewalt, detailierte Beschreibung von Verletzungen & Leichen, Rassismus
Für meinen Kurs musste ich nur die ersten 160 Seiten des Buches lesen und ich bin sehr froh, dass es endlich vorbei ist.
Im mittleren Teil dieses Ausschnitts, während der Protagonist im Baltikum ist und dort mit den Freikorps Gruppen kämpft, habe ich irgendwann angefangen viel zu überspringen weil es alles immer nur dasselbe war. Man hätte das definitiv verkürzen können.
Die einzige amüsante Stelle war wie in einem Update kurz erwähnt, als sie dann wieder in Deutschland sind und zum Bahnhof gehen, um mit dem Zug nach Berlin zu fahren. Doch wie sich herausstellt ist der Bahnhof verlassen und es ist Generalstreik.
Wäre es nicht für die Uni gewesen hätte ich das Buch wahrscheinlich gar nicht erst angefangen geschweigedenn 160 Seiten gelesen.
July 28, 2025
I don't see how Salomon doesn't have a Celine sized reputation. You could argue strictly from a documentarian point of view this is more valuable than Journey to the End of the Night. But it's also twice as funny and just as horrifying. And yes, it's an exhortation novel, but pacing and action are both deftly handled. Really enjoyed the structure; the chapter breaks and separation between various "parts" are well thought out. You know by the time you've arrived at the Putsch it's going to be unrelenting hell for 25 pages. That said, if my schedule permitted it felt like I could read the whole thing in one setting.
Since nothing else from him is available in English credit the publisher for bringing this back into print. . . but man is this edition riddled with errors. The first 50 pages is rough. And I mean, just look at the back cover. . .
Since nothing else from him is available in English credit the publisher for bringing this back into print. . . but man is this edition riddled with errors. The first 50 pages is rough. And I mean, just look at the back cover. . .
October 10, 2017
A semi-autobiographic account of the author’s time as a Lichterfeld Academy officer cadet turned Freikorp volunteer defending ancient German territory in the Baltic states against Soviet Bolshevik invasions after World War One and other subsequent events that uncannily mirror the current malaise. The ending reminded me of Evelyn Waugh”s Brideshead Revisited, due to its message of personal spiritual redemption and commitment towards a greater good that transcends the personal self. A deeply moving and philosophical read.
December 29, 2022
Good look into post-WWI Germany and the subsequent violence and confusion that consumed the Weimar Republic.
The first half, which reads quickly, is action-packed and a solid first-hand account of warfare chaos, while the second half is more introspective and slogs along as Saloman recounts his time in prison.
It's worth reading, but may be more enjoyable and easier to follow, with a somewhat thorough knowledge of the time period, Weimar Germany, WWI and armistice, the rise of extremist/far-right/nationalist organizations, the Bolshevik Revolution, and so on.
The first half, which reads quickly, is action-packed and a solid first-hand account of warfare chaos, while the second half is more introspective and slogs along as Saloman recounts his time in prison.
It's worth reading, but may be more enjoyable and easier to follow, with a somewhat thorough knowledge of the time period, Weimar Germany, WWI and armistice, the rise of extremist/far-right/nationalist organizations, the Bolshevik Revolution, and so on.
June 14, 2022
A great resource for following one young man's journey into the Freikorps in post-WWI Germany. Ernst von Salomon was obviously a very idealistic and determined young man, who had a vision for what Germany should be in the world. I think this book also shows how the stage was set for Adolf Hitler to come to power, since so many people thought that Germany had completely lost its way in the interwar years, and they were desperate for someone to bring them out of their bleak situation, even if it meant using extreme measures to do so.
March 21, 2023
An account of the resistence to communism by a Friekorps volunteer. A brief mention of Adolf Hitler's inspiration on the movement is mentioned, but for the most part the author avoids name dropping and keeps the narrative personal.
October 4, 2023
L'étudiant en histoire, le professeur ou l'historien trouvera quelques passages intéressants dans cet objet étrange où se confondent mémoires et ressentiments. Que de longueurs aussi, de propos où la passion et l'onirisme se mêlent en un discours nébuleux.
February 1, 2022
A "novel" that is mostly an account of what Ernst actually did and how he felt with the Freikorps and in prison from actions from the Freikorps. Well-written
August 22, 2022
What we wanted we did not know - but what we knew, we did not want.
March 24, 2024
Freikorps men defended Upper Silesia and ran guns to Bohemia, meanwhile you post online about the upcoming election and watch TV
April 8, 2025
A warning against trying the audiobook.
July 9, 2024
The Outlaws is a book i absolutely loved, but i can see that most will struggle to get something out of it. The author is an incredibly morally scrupulous individual who writes in a very frank and honest way about his own experiences and his judgement of others. Particulary in the first half of the book. Although technically a novel, it's very obviously an autobiography of Von Salomon's life
The first half is a very matter of fact summary of absolutely unbelievable things that he done that i think someone interested in Weimar history would enjoy. His honesty really shines through when he basically writes like "Yeah, we just threw that guy in the fire". Not all pyschopathic mercenaries can write so cleanly, so reading this half is definitely a valuable insight into that sort of lifestyle. Not that I condone his actions in any way, but if you ever wanted to know what motivates people to do these sorts of things, this is a good read. For those who are interested in the history, this and Von Salomon's other books are a great primary source and first-hand account of the activities and attitudes of the Freikorps, an organisation that can be fairly summed up as a group of people who just went through the horrors of the First World War and decided to fight more. The first half alone is worth a 5 star just for it's sheer historical value paired up with the fact that Von Salomon is just a genuinely good writer.
The second half is alot more different, it's very philosphical and at times difficult to follow because of how deeply rooted it is in 20th century German ideals and politics. Lots of mentions of "The nation" and "Homeland" in a way that doesn't really exist in our age. I'm sure if you studied it a bit deeper than i did it would make sense. Von Salomon himself seems relatively confused about his political beliefs so i'm unsure why he expected anyone else to understand them. However his very matter-of-fact observations of his circumstances and his insights did give alot of value to me. Particulary those he gave of his time in prison. The ending is fine but nothing mind blowing. It's a simple conclusion to a wild book both in terms of ideas and events catalouged.
There are a couple of issues with the translation work on this. Certainly as someone who understands limited German, I noticed some oddities with how words were being phrased. Personally i enjoy somewhat shoddy translations because they allow the writing to be expressed in a unique way with unfamiliar phrases and idioms but i think many would find it annoying. Also prepare to do alot of googling of words and phrases. There is no glossary and Von Salomon was very much writing for a 20th century German audience.
The first half is a very matter of fact summary of absolutely unbelievable things that he done that i think someone interested in Weimar history would enjoy. His honesty really shines through when he basically writes like "Yeah, we just threw that guy in the fire". Not all pyschopathic mercenaries can write so cleanly, so reading this half is definitely a valuable insight into that sort of lifestyle. Not that I condone his actions in any way, but if you ever wanted to know what motivates people to do these sorts of things, this is a good read. For those who are interested in the history, this and Von Salomon's other books are a great primary source and first-hand account of the activities and attitudes of the Freikorps, an organisation that can be fairly summed up as a group of people who just went through the horrors of the First World War and decided to fight more. The first half alone is worth a 5 star just for it's sheer historical value paired up with the fact that Von Salomon is just a genuinely good writer.
The second half is alot more different, it's very philosphical and at times difficult to follow because of how deeply rooted it is in 20th century German ideals and politics. Lots of mentions of "The nation" and "Homeland" in a way that doesn't really exist in our age. I'm sure if you studied it a bit deeper than i did it would make sense. Von Salomon himself seems relatively confused about his political beliefs so i'm unsure why he expected anyone else to understand them. However his very matter-of-fact observations of his circumstances and his insights did give alot of value to me. Particulary those he gave of his time in prison. The ending is fine but nothing mind blowing. It's a simple conclusion to a wild book both in terms of ideas and events catalouged.
There are a couple of issues with the translation work on this. Certainly as someone who understands limited German, I noticed some oddities with how words were being phrased. Personally i enjoy somewhat shoddy translations because they allow the writing to be expressed in a unique way with unfamiliar phrases and idioms but i think many would find it annoying. Also prepare to do alot of googling of words and phrases. There is no glossary and Von Salomon was very much writing for a 20th century German audience.
January 28, 2025
I won't leave a long review, but what hit me most about this book is the depressing undercurrent that runs from beginning to end. If you've read Jünger’s Storm of Steel before this, you'll feel the contrast immediately. Storm of Steel, despite being 'merely' a personal diary from the battlefield, is almost Homeric in tone and delivery. It's violent but with resolve and purpose, the mythic valor of war, a sense of fighting for something: one nation, one goal, defeat the enemy, be the best. In The Outlaws, all of that is gone. They're left with the aftermath, their entire identity lost, and the soldiers are trying to make sense of the wasteland, where they no longer have a place in society, a home they don't recognise, because that and what they fought for no longer exist.
Downtrodden soldiers return home, aimless, but some are still fighting, because that's all they know: in the streets against communists, in the near abroad in places like Latvia, and in a new Weimar Republic that is politically and socially falling apart. Political intrigue, as you will find, leads the narrator to dire consequences. The style is very direct, first-person, documenting what's happening in the immediate. Much like the times, it is confusing, fractured, and hard to tell what is going on. It is quite exhausting to read, because, as I mentioned before, there's this depressing, bitter undercurrent throughout. To an extent, I could empathise with the narrator. Even if his actions are morally questionable, he is genuinely trying. Trying to make the most of an impossible situation, trying to take control of what little he has, trying to reclaim his sense of self-agency. There's a powerful undertone of a Nietzschean Will to Power amidst the struggle, however the moral compass seems to be spinning in all directions. It's grimdark, basically.
The Weimar Republic is a well-documented period of German history, and there are excellent non-fictional texts that cover the period, but it can be hard to grasp what it must have been like, with all the political intrigue, the economic and social reality, etc. unrolling in real time. If you want to *feel* the grim reality from the perspective of a Freikorps soldier in this fictional memoir, you can't really go wrong. Ultimately, it's a book about losing after you've already lost. There's no silver lining. Be prepared for a bleak and intense read.
Downtrodden soldiers return home, aimless, but some are still fighting, because that's all they know: in the streets against communists, in the near abroad in places like Latvia, and in a new Weimar Republic that is politically and socially falling apart. Political intrigue, as you will find, leads the narrator to dire consequences. The style is very direct, first-person, documenting what's happening in the immediate. Much like the times, it is confusing, fractured, and hard to tell what is going on. It is quite exhausting to read, because, as I mentioned before, there's this depressing, bitter undercurrent throughout. To an extent, I could empathise with the narrator. Even if his actions are morally questionable, he is genuinely trying. Trying to make the most of an impossible situation, trying to take control of what little he has, trying to reclaim his sense of self-agency. There's a powerful undertone of a Nietzschean Will to Power amidst the struggle, however the moral compass seems to be spinning in all directions. It's grimdark, basically.
The Weimar Republic is a well-documented period of German history, and there are excellent non-fictional texts that cover the period, but it can be hard to grasp what it must have been like, with all the political intrigue, the economic and social reality, etc. unrolling in real time. If you want to *feel* the grim reality from the perspective of a Freikorps soldier in this fictional memoir, you can't really go wrong. Ultimately, it's a book about losing after you've already lost. There's no silver lining. Be prepared for a bleak and intense read.
October 25, 2014
"Die Geächteten", of "the Outlaws", zoals het in het Engels heet, valt uiteen in drie delen: "Bannelingen", "Samenzweerders" en "Criminelen". De driedeling vat de evolutie van de Duitse patriot na WO I goed samen; Een generatie zag alles waar ze in geloofde verdwijnen in de verwoestende maalstroom van de oorlog en werd als krijger herboren uit het IJzerslijk. Een generatie die nergens thuishoorde dan aan het front, was gedwongen om de dagtaak van 1914 weer op te nemen, het spreekt voor zich dat de meerderheid liever onder de wapens bleef dan zich achter een bureau te zetten of de riek ter hand te nemen.
"What we wanted, we did not know, what we knew we did not want [...] and the search for reasons why was lost in the tumult of continuous fighting." (p.65)
Deze evolutie van frontsoldaat over doelloze verliezer naar privésoldaat van een nieuw soort krijgsheer komt prachtig naar voren in het eerste deel. Eens de hoofdpersoon in de Baltische staten belandt, kent het verhaal een snelle opeenvolging van aanvallen, bestormingen, samenzweringen en moordcomplotten, alsof de auteur zelf een offensief heeft ingezet op de geest van de lezer. Het derde deel kent, begrijpelijk doch jammer genoeg, een veel lager tempo en breekt grotendeels met de rest van het boek, ietwat frustrerend, al moet na de daad altijd de loutering volgen, wat de auteur naar het einde toe elegant uitklaart.
Samenvattend: een must voor wie (rechts) Duitsland in de vroege jaren '20 wil begrijpen, von Salomon was waarlijk de tijdsgeest met geschouderd geweer.
"I knew that we could not have been mistaken, for we had lived according to the spirit of the times; and there had been justification for our actions everywhere. We had lived dangerously, for the times had been dangerous; and since the times were chaotic, so everything we thought or did or believed was chaotic too. We were possessed by the spirit of our day, possessed by its destructiveness, and also possessed by the pain which made this destruction fruitful. We had lived up to the only virtue demanded by our day, that of decision, because we had the will to decide. But the decisive moment had not yet come. The world was still afraid of itself." (p.420-421)
"What we wanted, we did not know, what we knew we did not want [...] and the search for reasons why was lost in the tumult of continuous fighting." (p.65)
Deze evolutie van frontsoldaat over doelloze verliezer naar privésoldaat van een nieuw soort krijgsheer komt prachtig naar voren in het eerste deel. Eens de hoofdpersoon in de Baltische staten belandt, kent het verhaal een snelle opeenvolging van aanvallen, bestormingen, samenzweringen en moordcomplotten, alsof de auteur zelf een offensief heeft ingezet op de geest van de lezer. Het derde deel kent, begrijpelijk doch jammer genoeg, een veel lager tempo en breekt grotendeels met de rest van het boek, ietwat frustrerend, al moet na de daad altijd de loutering volgen, wat de auteur naar het einde toe elegant uitklaart.
Samenvattend: een must voor wie (rechts) Duitsland in de vroege jaren '20 wil begrijpen, von Salomon was waarlijk de tijdsgeest met geschouderd geweer.
"I knew that we could not have been mistaken, for we had lived according to the spirit of the times; and there had been justification for our actions everywhere. We had lived dangerously, for the times had been dangerous; and since the times were chaotic, so everything we thought or did or believed was chaotic too. We were possessed by the spirit of our day, possessed by its destructiveness, and also possessed by the pain which made this destruction fruitful. We had lived up to the only virtue demanded by our day, that of decision, because we had the will to decide. But the decisive moment had not yet come. The world was still afraid of itself." (p.420-421)
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