Epp Free Corps

When the Eisner cabinet refused to set up Free Corps in Bavaria, Colonel Franz von Epp, once commander of the Bavarian Leibregiment, secured the support of the Noske government and founded the “Bavarian Free Corps for Border Protection East” in Thuringia on February 11, 1919. The troops were promised incorporation into the Bavarian Reichswehr. Two months later, the Free Corps comprised 363 officers, 219 non-commissioned officers, 425 men, had artillery equipment and took part in the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic as part of the Württemberg association Haas. As Prussian court officers reported, members of the Free Corps were particularly violent, for example on May 6 in the cellar of a house at Karolinenplatz 5, where they abused and shot 21 Catholic Journeymen whom they believed to be Spartacists (BayHStA, GruKo 4, 268).

In May 1919, the Free Corps was incorporated into the Bavarian Reichswehr as Rifle Regiment 21 and Epp was promoted to leader of Brigade 21. In this position, Epp and his captain Ernst Röhm were able to transfer large stocks of weapons from the Reichswehr to the citizens’ militias and right-wing extremist military associations.

Many later Nazi leaders belonged to Epp Free Corps, such as the police lieutenant general Adolf von Bomhard, Hitler's adjutant Wilhelm Brückner, the “Hero of Narvik” Eduard Dietl, Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, the corps commander of the Nazi motor vehicle service Adolf Hühnlein, Josef Meisinger, a putschist of November 9, 1923, and Reich Leader of University Teachers (Reichsdozentenführer) Dr. Walther Schultze, as well as the glove manufacturer Heinrich Roeckl and the director of the diocesan charity Franz Müller along with other clerics.