The End of the Freebooter Tradition: The Forgotten Freikorps Movement of 1944/45
One of the difficulties in thinking about postwar German history comes in trying to explain the apparent absence of a paramilitary effervescence accompanying the collapse of the Third Reich. Independent military formations—Freikorps—had played a role during the 1806–1813 period, and such units had appeared again during the stormy years from 1918 to 1923, so the seeming absence of such formations in 1944/45 is quite noticeable. Charles Maier called it one of the major surprises of postwar European politics. To some extent, this perception is illusory; in truth, there were a number of Freikorps launched in 1944/45, although they failed to make a military or political impact and were therefore quickly forgotten. Considering the integral connection between previous Freikorps and the development of modern German nationalism, their relative absence in 1944/45 warrants the historian’s attention.