Weimar paramilitary groups were militarily organized units that were formed outside of the regular German Army following the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. The most prominent of them, the Freikorps, were combat units that were supported by the German government and used to suppress uprisings from both the Left and the Right. There were also Citizens' Defense (Einwohnerwehr) groups to maintain public order^[1] and paramilitary groups associated with specific political parties to protect and promote their interests.^[2]

Most who volunteered for the paramilitary groups came from the 6 million German soldiers^[3] who returned from the war to a country in the midst of the turmoil of the German revolution, which overthrew the Hohenzollern monarchy and established the Weimar Republic. The Freikorps especially took part in significant fighting in the Baltics, Silesia, Berlin during the Spartacist uprising and the Ruhr during the 1920 uprising there.^[2] The paramilitary groups as a whole contributed significantly to the remilitarization of Germany between the wars.^[4]

The Citizens' Defense groups were disbanded in 1920 and the Freikorps in 1921 because the government came to see them as threats and because of pressure from the Allies, who feared that the paramilitary groups were being used to circumvent the 100,000 man limit on the German Army imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.^[2][5] The paramilitary groups connected with political parties lasted throughout the life of the Weimar Republic and in the case of the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung (SA), beyond its end.

In the aftermath of World War I and during the German revolution of 1918–1919, Freikorps units consisting largely of World War I veterans were raised as paramilitary militias. They were armed with the rifles they had returned with from the front; infantry and cavalry units also had machine guns and mortars.^[6] While exact numbers are difficult to determine, it is estimated that some 500,000 men were formal Freikorps members with another 1.5 million participating informally.^[7]

In the early days of the German revolution, the Council of the People's Deputies, the revolutionary government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Social Democratic Party, needed reliable troops in Berlin to protect its position. In consultation with the Army High Command (OHL), the Council reached an agreement to form the voluntary Freikorps units. Most of their members were anti-communist monarchists who saw no clear future in the revolutionary Germany that they had returned home to. They did not fight in support of the revolutionary government or the Weimar Republic after it was formed, but against its enemies from the political left, who they saw as Germany's enemies.^[6]

Freikorps units suppressed the Marxist Spartacist uprising and were responsible for the extrajudicial executions of revolutionary communist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on 15 January 1919.^[8] The Freikorps also fought in the Baltic against Soviet Russia and were instrumental in putting down the Munich Soviet Republic, the Ruhr uprising and the Third Silesian uprising. The Kapp Putsch of March 1920, a failed attempt to overthrow the government of the Weimar Republic, drew its military support from the Freikorps, in particular the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt. It was after the failure of the Kapp Putsch, and under Allied pressure to keep both Germany's official and unofficial military forces at the 100,000 man limit, that the Freikorps were officially disbanded in the spring of 1920. Some Freikorps members were then accepted into the Reichswehr, Germany's official army, but more joined the Nazi Stormtroopers (SA), illegal far right formations such as the Organisation Consul, or groups such as the Stahlhelm that were associated with political parties.^[6]

For a list of major Freikorps units during the Weimar era, see Freikorps groups and divisions.

The Citizens' Defense paramilitary groups were voluntary, honorary associations based on part-time membership that performed self-protection tasks in local areas. They emerged in 1918 after the end of the First World War to ensure the maintenance of public order in cooperation with state authorities.^[1] After the Spartacist uprising in Berlin in January 1919, the Reichswehr Ministry instructed all general commands on 22 March 1919 to develop local militia groups into centrally controlled citizens' defense groups at the state level according to a uniform model. The newly created units were then to be directly subordinate to the Reichswehr leadership. In an emergency the citizens' defense forces were to serve as an army reserve.^[9]

Instead of becoming a pillar of support for the parliamentary system, some of the citizens' defense forces developed into anti-republican groups that were largely outside the control of the government and thus a threat to the Republic. As a result of the Allied disarmament requirements, the Citizens' Defense forces at Reich level were released from their military subordination and placed under the control of the individual state ministries. The Allies continued to regard them as a military reserve formation that was to be disbanded in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. After the failed Kapp Putsch, the Prussian minister of the Interior ordered the dissolution of the Citizens' Defense groups. His order was followed by the other states in the summer of 1920. Only Bavaria, where the groups had been most active, refused to disband its forces and kept them alive for another year.^[10]

• Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten (The Steel Helmet, League of Front-Line Soldiers), was officially a veterans' organization with about 500,000 members. Led by Franz Seldte and with ties at the leadership level to the Reichswehr, it was opposed to the Weimar Republic and politically close to the German National People's Party (DNVP) and other conservative groups. In 1931 it formed part of the Harzburg Front, an anti-democratic political alliance that included the Nazi Party. In 1934 it was integrated into the SA and dissolved in 1935.^[11]
• Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (German Nationalist Protection and Defiance Federation) was an antisemitic völkisch group led by Alfred Roth. Its membership peaked at about 200,000 when it was banned by the German government in 1922. It was notable for its revisionist propaganda regarding Germany's defeat in World War I and for attacking Jews, Social Democrats and middle-class supporters of the Republic.^[12]
• Sturmabteilung (SA; English "Storm Division") was formed by Adolf Hitler in 1921, with most of its members coming from the Freikorps. As part of the Nazi Party, it protected its meetings, marched in its rallies and was often involved in street violence against members of the political left. Led by Ernst Röhm beginning in 1931, it had an estimated 2,000,000 members when Hitler became German chancellor.^[13]
• Kampfbund (Battle League) was a Bavarian umbrella group involving the SA, the Freikorps Oberland and the Bund Reichskriegsflagge (Imperial War Flag Society). It was created on 1 September 1923 to consolidate and streamline their agendas after the government in Berlin called off passive resistance to the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. It planned and conducted the Beer Hall Putsch and disbanded after it failed.^[14]

• Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (Reich Banner Black-Red-Gold) was devoted to the defense of the Weimar Republic. It was founded by former front-line soldiers of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (who made up the majority of the group), the German Democratic Party and the Catholic Centre Party. Organized militarily, its main opponents were the Nazi SA and the Communist Party of Germany's Roter Frontkämpferbund. The Reichsbanner claimed more than three million members at its peak and was banned by the Nazis in 1933.^[15][16]
• Eiserne Front (Iron Front) brought together the Reichsbanner, free labor unions and workers' gymnastics and sports associations in 1931 in response to the far right's Harzburg Front. Not itself organized as a paramilitary, the Iron Front's central goal was to strengthen the Social Democrats in the 1932 Reichstag election.^[17]
• Jungdeutscher Orden (Young German Order) was a nationalist and antisemitic association founded by Artur Mahraun. Initially a paramilitary, it changed into a more politically oriented group with the goal of recreating the camaraderie experienced by soldiers at the front during World War I in order to overcome class and social differences in German society. In 1930, its political arm merged with the liberal German Democratic Party to form the short-lived German State Party. The Young German Order was banned by the Nazis in 1933.^[18]

• Roter Frontkämpferbund (Red Front Fighters' League) was founded by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1924 and attained a peak membership of 110,000. It was banned across Germany in 1929 after the Blutmai demonstrations in Berlin that left 33 dead. Despite the ban, it engaged in frequent street battles with the Nazi SA until Hitler came to power in 1933.^[19]
• Antifaschistische Junge Garde (Young Antifascist Guard) was the youth wing of the KPD^[20] and was banned in 1933.
• Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus [de] (Fighting League against Fascism) was the successor to the Roter Frontkämpferbund after it was banned in 1929. The Kampfbund itself was banned in 1933.^[21]
• Antifaschistische Aktion (Antifascist Action) was founded in 1932 and affiliated with the KPD. Its primary activity was to boost the KPD campaign during the July 1932 and November 1932 German federal elections. It was banned in 1933.^[22]
• Rote Ruhrarmee (Ruhr Red Army) was an army of approximately 50,000 workers that formed in the industrialized Ruhr district during the Kapp Putsch with the goal of establishing a council republic. Not a true paramilitary in structure, it was suppressed with considerable loss of life by government troops and Freikorps units in what was known as the Ruhr uprising (13 March – 12 April 1920).^[23]
• Schwarze Scharen (Black Band) were resistance groups of anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist youth affiliated with the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD). The Black Band was banned in 1933.^[24]

Similar organisations existed in the First Austrian Republic, most notably the Schutzbund and the Heimwehr.

• Black Reichswehr
• Weimar political parties

Notes

Bibliography

• Koepp, Roy G. (2010). Conservative Radicals: The Einwohnerwehr, Bund Bayern Und Reich, and the Limits of Paramilitary Politics in Bavaria, 1918–1928 (PhD thesis). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska.
• Payne, Stanley G. (1995). The History of Fascism, 1914–1945. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299148744.
• Rosenhaft, Eve (1983). Beating the Fascists?: The German Communists and Political Violence 1929-1933. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521089388.

Further reading

• Waite, Robert G. L. (1952) Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918-1923, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.