A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler [Paperback]

Nigel H. Jones (Author), Michael Burleigh (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 2004 | Series: Brief History Of...

A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis is a timely and concise history of the Freikorps, the voluntary paramilitary groups that dominated German political life from the abdication of the Kaiser in 1918 to Hitler’s Beerhall Putsch of 1923. Theirs is an often overlooked story of political intrigue and murder. Raised in the chaotic aftermath of war, the Freikorps were composed mostly of veteran soldiers, embittered and out of place in civilian life, and young, right-wing students determined to crush those forces who had “betrayed” their homeland. First used by the Social Democrats in power to defeat their enemies on the extreme left in Berlin and Bavaria, they soon launched a counteroffensive in which the Freikorps all but overturned the State in their attempt to set up a full-blown Fascist military government. Once thwarted, however, the disgruntled Freikorps embarked on a campaign of political murder; their leaders retired briefly to Bavaria, where they came under the influence of the little-known but rising political agitator Adolf Hitler. The ideology of the Friekorps was adopted, almost unmodified, by the Nazis, who, fittingly, marked their arrival in 1934 with the massacre of many former Freikorps members. Photographs are included.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nigel Jones, assistant editor of BBC History Magazine, is author of several histories and biographies, including The War Walk: A Journey along the Western Front, Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and Myth and Sir Oswald Mosley. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 285 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; Rev. Pbk. Ed edition (March 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786713429
• ISBN-13: 978-0786713424
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,868,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but lacking...., July 8, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler (Paperback)

This book gives a quick overview of the Freikorps movement in Germany from 1918-23. The book's main objective is to tie the Freikorps in with the Nazis, showing that the Freikorps were the foundation of the later day Nazis.

I had trouble finding the thesis convincing, especially in light of the fact that this books lacks any new knowledge about the Fks and fails to more deeply examine the already exisitng knowledge.

My second complaint is that Jones wholeheartedly buys into the 'Sonderweg' theory that there is something unique to German culture that could produce the Third Reich. Perhaps this is his English bias coming through. Here and there, every few chapters Jones will take a crack at German culture in general and the barbs are so blatant that I started to wonder why he was writing about a German subject in the first place.

As a general overview to the uninitiated, the book is worth reading. If you can make it past the barely concealed cultural insults. However, for a reader already familiar with the Fks and looking for a more indepth study,the book will be unrewarding. My advice to any reader interested in the Freikorps movement is to get ahold of a copy of Robert Waite's 'Vanguard of Nazism'. Thirty years on it is still the most comprehensive ( as well as academic ) work.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Incomplete, August 5, 2004

By 

J A W (Norman, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler (Paperback)

This is a suitable introduction to the Freikorps and its ideology. Post-WWI Germany was a mess, and Left-wing Revolutionaries (the Spartacists) were causing problems in Bavaria, on the coast. Enter the Freikorps, voluntary soldiers used by the Gov't to prevent violent Revolution w/ even more violence. The Freikorps at times instigated the violence, in order to provoke a Communist response and use that response as justification for a more brutal one. One of the fascinating aspects of this book is how Germany could have gone Bolshevik in the wake of WWI, maybe if the Left had better leadership. The Freikorps, according to Jones, set the pavement for the Nazi takeover of Germany. Many Freikorps did become members of the Nazi party, and they shared common nationalistic and anti-communist values. This book covers a 5 year period, from the end of the War to the Beer Hall Putsch in 23. At times the history is almost too specific and we have hour-by-the-hour recounts of Right vs. Left standoffs.

I'm not sure its safe to call the Freikorp the "birth" of the Nazis. The Nazis pulled on various strains of German tradition for their ideology. "Blood and Soil" is only mentioned in passing, as is the Volk movement (see "The Logic of Evil" by Brustein). Which came first, the skeletal Nazi organizational structure seen in the Freikorps, or the Nazi ideological echoes found in German past? I think the title is a bit misleading, and if an author wanted to address the "Birth" of the Nazis, he'd have to go back to Haeckel and the Monist League, as the relationship between man and nature is intrical to the Nazi worldview. See books such as "The Scientific Origins of National Socialism" by Gasman and "Blood and Soil" by Bramwell. One thing I credit Jones w/, is he addresses Nietszche and his impact on the proto-Nazis. There has been a concerted effort on the part of English and Phil professors to save Nietszche from Nazism, and Jones will have none of that.

Nonetheless, this is a good solid history of that chaotic and dangerous five year period in Germany's past that set the table for Hitler's eventual rise to dictatorship.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Germany 1919, April 7, 2010

By 

Thomas Paine II "Thomas Paine II" (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler (Paperback)

I found "A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis" to be a captivating read. I picked it up at an airport bookstore for the flight and read it in one day, spending that night in Vegas finishing the book. Jones brings this era to life and vividly captures the personalities and traits of the men and women that took center stage during this traumatic time in Germany's history. He even manages to punctuate his work with those tragic-comic, Catch-22 moments that underline so much of history. His account of the Spartacist Uprising, Baltic fighting, the Bavarian Soviet Republic and Kapp Putsch are outstanding and covered in detail. Accounts of the Red Rhur and Silesian fighting are, unfortunately, only covered briefly. Moreover, at the end of the book, Jones lists the various Freikorps formations, with statistical information, and gives a brief biography of their more outstanding members. Jones also does an amazing job of illuminating the Zeitgeist of Germany in 1919, really looking into the souls of the men that served with the Freikorps, what their motivations were, the cultural background they drew from and what future they saw their actions leading to. As to the birth of the Nazis, the link between the Freikorps and the Nazis is a bit tentative, though the Nazis fit into the Freikorps' moment in history. If you are looking for an in depth account on the rise of the Nazis, there are more detailed books out there. However, if you are interested in the birth of the Weimar Republic, the ideological explosions in Berlin and Munich, the Freikorps' constitution and involvement in the birth-pangs of Weimar Germany, the cultural milieu the Freikorps drew from and the personalities that dominated this momentous time, all presented in a fluid, vivid writing style, this book is for you. Unfortunately, what happened in Germany in 1919 did not stay in Germany; therefore, the Freikorps and their times are one of the less know but more important movements and moments in our history.