Georg Maercker

Freikorps (Germany, 1918–1923) Counter-revolutionary forces 1865–1924 ○ Natural causes

Freikorps general whose Landesjäger corps put down the councils in Weimar, Halle, Magdeburg, Braunschweig and Leipzig in 1919

In 1919 he led the Landesjäger Freikorps through the towns of central Germany, dissolving the workers’ and soldiers’ councils one after another.

Born in West Prussia, he became a Prussian lieutenant in 1885 and served in the East Africa protection force and in the Herero and Nama war in South West Africa, rising to command the 214th Infantry Division in 1918. In December 1918, prompted by the Supreme Army Command, he formed the Landesjäger Freikorps from his old division and under Noske guarded Berlin and then the National Assembly in Weimar in 1919. He went on to Halle, Magdeburg, Braunschweig, Leipzig and other towns, disarming the workers’ and soldiers’ councils and taking Halle after street fighting. The corps joined the Reichswehr in May 1919. Dismissed for his equivocal stance in the 1920 Kapp Putsch, he led the Saxon Stahlhelm and died in Dresden in 1924.

Also known as: Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker