The Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler PDF
Preview The Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler
Nigel Jones is a historian, biographer and broadcaster, and former Assistant Editor of History Today and BBC History magazines. He has written lives of the writer Patrick Hamilton, Rupert Brooke, and Oswald Mosley, and his study of the Great War, The War Walk, is being reissued in 2004. His latest book is a re-examination of the Edwardian era for BBC Books. OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES A Brief History of The Boxer Rebellion Diana Preston A Brief History of British Kings & Queens Mike Ripley A Brief History of British Sea Power David Howarth A Brief History of The Celts Peter Berresford Ellis A Brief History of Christianity Bamber Gascoigne A Brief History of The Circumnavigators Derek Wilson A Brief History of The Crusades Geoffrey Hindley A Brief History of The Druids Peter Berresford Ellis A Brief History of The Dynasties of China Bamber Gascoigne A Brief History of Fighting Ships David Davies A Brief History of the Great Moghuls Bamber Gascoigne A Brief History of The Hundred Years War Desmond Seward A Brief History of Infinity Brian Clegg A Brief History of Napoleon*s Russian Campaign Alan Palmer A Brief History of The Royal Flying Corps in World War I Ralph Barker A Brief History of Science Thomas Crump A Brief History of The Tudor Age Jasper Ridley A B R I E F H I S T O R Y OF THE BIRTH OF THE NAZIS Nigel Jones Foreword by Michael Burleigh ROBINSON London Constable 6c Robinson Ltd 3 The Lanchesters 162 Fulham Palace Road London W6 9ER www.constablerobinson.com First published in 1987 by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd 50 Albemarle Street, London W1X 4BD This revised and updated edition published by Robinson, an imprint of Constable 6c Robinson Ltd, 2004 Copyright © Nigel Jones 1987, 2004 Foreword copyright © Michael Burleigh 2004 The right of Nigel Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library ISBN 1-84119-925-7 ISBN 978-1-84119-925-2 Printed and bound in the EU 2468 10 9753 To Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) Fighter & Writer ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my thanks to the following institutions and individuals for help in the writing of this book: Herr Ernst Jünger, Professor Horst Muhleisen, the staff of the Staatsbibliothek für Zeitgeschichte Stuttgart, the London Library, the Wiener Library, and the Imperial War Museum; also my editors Antony Wood and Roger Hudson, my colleague Colin Parkes for suggesting the title, Ms. Elaine Koster for typing the manuscript, and the staff of the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. NIGEL JONES CONTENTS List of Illustrations and Maps ix Foreword by Michael Burleigh xi Introduction xvii 1 Birth of the Stormtrooper 1 2 Collapse of an Empire 14 3 ‘Revolution or Republic?* 32 4 The First Freikorps 47 5 ‘Spartacus Week* 60 6 The Twin Murders: Liebknecht and Luxemburg 70 7 Maercker’s March 84 8 Strikes and Street Fights 95 9 The Freebooting Spirit 107 10 The Baltic Campaign 123 11 The Munich Soviet 139 12 Versailles: Resistance or Submission? 159 13 The Kapp Putsch * 170 viii CONTENTS 14 The Red Army of the Ruhr 192 15 The Politics of Murder 203 16 Enter Hitler: The Beerhall Putsch 230 Epilogue: The Fate of the Freikorps 261 Afterword 271 Appendix A The Main Freikorps, leaders, dates, fate, size, and insignia 281 Appendix B Freikorps members later prominent in Nazi Germany 297 Selective Bibliography 311 Index 317 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS Plates A Freikorps recruiting poster General Ritter von Epp, Freikorps leader Friedrich Ebert, first President of the Weimar Republic Revolutionary Spartacists, Berlin, January 1919 Spartacist leader Karl Liebknecht, 4 January 1919 Defence Minister Gustav Noske A Freikorps unit moves in to crush the chaotic Soviet Republic, May 1919 Insurrection in Kiel during the Kapp Putsch, March 1920 Members of the ‘Red Army of the Ruhr* on parade, Spring 1920 Hitler at the time of the Beerhall Putsch in Munich, November 1923 Great War hero General Erich von Ludendorff Nazi demonstration in central Munich during the Beerhall Putsch, November 1923 ♦All images are courtesy of akg-images X ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS Maps Germany xvi Berlin 46
The list of books you might like
