Freikorps Lützow was formed Jan 1919 in Berlin. It saw action in Berlin, Brunswick, Munich and the Ruhr.

On 5 May 1919 twelve workers (most of the members of the Social Democratic Party, SPD) were arrested and killed by members of Freikorps Lützow in Perlach near Munich based on a tip from a local cleric saying they were communists. (1)

It was a part of Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division and was used to form Reichswehr-Brigade 30 June 1919.

A memorial in memory of the fallen of Freikorps Lützow was inaugurated 24 June 1923 in Remscheid.

Formed in the area of

Generalkommando des Garde-Korps (Berlin)

Manpower strength

1.375

Notable members

SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Goecke

SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Korner

SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Wilhelm Kruger

SS-Oberführer Walter von Petersenn

Vizeadmiral Rudolf Stange

(the ranks are the highest ranks reached in the Third Reich era)

Freikorps Lützow celebrates its one year anniversary at Zossen in 1920

(Courtesy of Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Germany)

Footnotes
1. A memorial on Pfanzeltplatz in Munich today commemorates this atrocity.

Published sources used

Verkuilen Ager - Awards of the German Freikorps 1919-1935

Richard Grunberger - Red rising in Bavaria

Max Hirschberg & Reinhard Weber - Jude und Demokrat: Erinnerungen eines Münchener Rechtsanwalts 1883 bis 1939

Douglas G. Morris - Justice Imperiled: The Anti-Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany

Georg Tessin - Deutsche Verbände und Truppen 1918-1939

Reference material on this unit

- None known at this time -