SV: Saving Germany and liberating Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania 1918-23

["Bertil Häggman" <bertil.haggman@helsingborg.se>]

EJ has described the Free Corps in positive terms: when the Fatherland was down as in 1806 young people came together in spite of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy, in spite of the a monarchy that did not work, with new thoughts and a will to revolt. Few years were needed to liberate.

 I always thought that the Free Corps of post-WWI Germany has been given a rough deal by historians (but without havimng read any specialist works on the Free Corps, I must admit). 
In 1917 Lenin had carried out his coup d'etat in Russia. Adolf Joffe, the Soviet ambassador to Germany, was expelled just before the fall of the Kaiser in Germany. He was accused of having been involved in communist propaganda and had purchased arms and ammunition for German revolutionaries for 105,000 marks.

As the collapse of imperial Germany was approaching the idea of revolutionary warfare in Germany was entertained by the Soviets. Lenin wrote in October 1918: "The result of the crisis in Germany...will surely be the capture of the government by the German proletariat." and the Soviets decided to declare:"... to the whole world that Soviet Russia will offer all its forces and resources to aid the German revolutionary government."

The Red Army was strengthened, the "toiling masses" of Germany were to be helped with a food program (!) and taxes were levied on the "propertied classes" in Russia. Probably the Soviets even went one step further and concluded a secret treaty with communist Karl Liebknecht stipulating that a Russian army would take the offensive to support a Spartacist uprising in Berlin. Liebknecht had promised that after a communist victory in Germany he would raise a German Red Army of 500,000 men. It is possible that a similar treaty was formed with Hungarian communist Bela Kun in March 1919 and that Red Army forces were moving to western Soviet Union to attack Poland and Romania. But Bela Kun's Red Republic in Budapest collapsed before the units were ready for action. In 1919 Karl Radek, Comintern representative, developed a second plan for revolutionary warfare against Germany. Now Russian POW's in Germany were part of the plan.

Meanwhile German General Ruediger von der Goltz in 1918 helped liberate Estonia, Finland,
Latvia and Lithuania from the threat of a Soviet takeover. Many of his German soldiers in the Baltic Sea area became member of the various Free Corps (in all 120 with around 250,000 members).
The first one being formed in 1919. All countries above owe Germany a debt of thanks for helping defeat internal reds and the Red Army forces.

Communist revolutionary warfare threatened Germany with uprisings in Hamburg, Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony and fighting erupted in Silesia and the Rhine area. The Free Corps soldiers had the thankless task of putting down the communist revolts that threatened to create a Soviet Germany.
I must admit I have not read the latest literature on the Free Corps in Germany. But after reading the version on the Free Corps in Walter Laqueur's book _Guerrilla_ I got a taste of some negative views.
With the result in hand (the Soviet collapse in 1991 and the record of a communist regime on German soil, the GDR) one wonders what might have happened to Germany if it hadn't been for the Free Corps. On the other hand I don't think the Allies would have accepted a Soviet takeover of Germany 1918-1923. 

Best greetings

Bertil Haggman