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It has been suggested that Weimar paramilitary groups#Freikorps be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The designation of Freikorps (German for "Free Corps") was originally applied to voluntary armies. The first freikorps were recruited by Frederick II of Prussia in the eighteenth century during the Seven Years' War. Other known freikorps appeared during the Napoleonic Wars and were led for example by Ferdinand von Schill and later Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow. The freikorps were regarded as unreliable by regular armies, so that they were mainly used as sentries and for minor duties.

However, the meaning of the word has changed over time. After 1918, the term was used for the paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. They were the key Weimar paramilitary groups active during that time. Many German veterans felt disconnected from civilian life, and joined a Freikorps in search of stability within a military structure. Others, angry at their sudden, apparently inexplicable defeat, joined up in an effort to put down Communist uprisings or exact some form of revenge (see Dolchstoßlegende). They received considerable support from Gustav Noske, Germany's Minister of Defense, who used them to crush the Marxist Spartacist League, including the summary execution of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on January 15, 1919. They were also used to defeat and annex the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919.

Several Freikorps fought in the Baltic, Silesia, and Prussia after the end of World War I, sometimes with significant success even against regular troops.

They were officially 'disbanded' in 1920; but some, instead of disbanding, attempted to overthrow the government in the Kapp Putsch in March 1920 (which ended in disaster).

Some future members and leaders of the Nazi Party had served in the Freikorps, including Ernst Röhm, future head of the Sturmabteilung, or SA, and Rudolf Höß, the future Kommandant of Auschwitz.

In 1919-1920, Adolf Hitler had just begun his political career as the leader of a tiny and as-yet-unknown party (the German Workers Party, soon renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party) in Munich. Most Freikorps members, however, remained outsiders during the Third Reich.^{[citation needed]}

Hermann Ehrhardt and his deputy Commander Eberhard Kautter, leaders of the Viking League, refused to help Hitler and Ludendorff in their Beer Hall Putsch and conspired against them.

Freikorps members:

• Rudolf Berthold
• Wilhelm Bittrich SS General
• Martin Bormann
• Wilhelm Canaris
• Leonardo Conti
• Kurt Daluege
• Hans Frank
• Richard Gluecks SS General
• Arthur Greiser
• Wilhelm Harster - see List of SS Personnel
• Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf SA member
• Reinhard Heydrich SS General
• Heinrich Himmler SS Leader
• Rudolf Hess Deputy Führer
• Erich Hoepner Wehrmacht General
• Rudolf Hoess
• Rudolf Jordan
• Hans Kammler SS General
• Ernst Kantorowicz
• Wilhelm Keitel
• Manfred Freiherr von Killinger
• Erich Koch
• Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper
• Bruno Loerzer Luftwaffe General
• Johaness Rattenhuber - see List of SS Personnel
• Hans Albin Rauter
• Ernst Röhm SA leader
• Josef “Beppo” Römer KPD Member
• Ernst von Salomon
• Emanuel Schaefer - see List of SS Personnel
• Albert Leo Schlageter
• Julius Schreck SS Leader
• Hugo Sperrle Luftwaffe General
• Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, Right wing Austrian politian
• Gregor Strasser NSDAP Member
• Otto Strasser NSDAP member
• Bruno Streckenbach SS General
• Felix Steiner SS General
• Walther Wenck Wehrmacht General
• Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten
• Sudetendeutsches Freikorps

• Axis History Factbook; Freikorps section – By Marcus Wendel and contributors;  site also contains an apolitical forum
• Freikorps Master list on Axis History Forum {reference only}