Description
Object description
whole: the image occupies the majority, held within a blue border. The title is separate and positioned across the top
edge, in yellow gothic script, and held within a blue border. The text is integrated and positioned down the left and right edges, in
black, and in yellow, gothic script. Further text is separate and positioned across the bottom edge, in yellow gothic script, and held
within a blue border. All set against a white background.
image: a full-length depiction of a German 'Freikorps' soldier with his rifle across his back.
text: Freiwillige vor!
Zum Schutz für Ordnung Freiheit Recht!
Es werden auch ungediente Freiwillige angenommen
NAUCK UND HARTMANN. BERLIN. C. 19.
Zum Trutz wider Terror und Anarchie!
Korps-Werbe-Stelle
Bln. Ansbacherstr. 11
am Untergrundbahnhof
Wittenbergplatz
HANS SCHWEITZER 1919
Landesschützenkorps
[Volunteers step forward! For the defence of order, freedom, right! Volunteers with no service record are also accepted. For defiance
against terror and anarchy! Corps recruiting office: [address] at Wittenbergplatz underground station. Regional Rifles
Corps.]
Physical description
A version of this poster was produced with additional text in red and blue crayon giving a different local address
(see PST 7769).
Label
The 'Freikorps' were formed in Germany in late 1918 predominantly recruiting from unsettled, often disaffected, First
World War army veterans. They were also joined by students and adventure-seekers with right-wing, nationalist tendencies.
Acting as an auxiliary police force they were assigned to maintain order by the new post-war republican government in Germany. Yet, many
units proved little more than violent private armies, answerable to none but their commanders as they sought to crush communist-inspired
civil unrest. Nevertheless the ruling SDP viewed them as a necessary evil and ordered them to suppress left-wing insurrection in Berlin,
the Ruhr and Munich, as well as to fight in the disputed territory of Upper Silesia.
The more moderate units were eventually merged into the newly formed 'Reichswehr' in 1920. Whereas radical elements went underground, with
some taking part in the Nazi party's 'Munich Putsch' of 1923. Although the failure of the coup brought an end to the 'Freikorps' units,
many of its members formed 'Sturm Abteilung' (SA) to serve under the Nazi's. Others joined veteran's organisations, such as
'Stahlhelm'.
Inscription
22255
Inscription
824