Hermann Ehrhardt

Freikorps (Germany, 1918–1923) Counter-revolutionary forces Germany Germany 1881–1971 ○ Natural causes

Freikorps leader whose Marine Brigade Ehrhardt spearheaded the 1920 Kapp Putsch and who then founded the Organisation Consul murder ring

Leading the Marine Brigade Ehrhardt in 1919–1920 against the soviet republics and in the Kapp Putsch, he made its remnants into the Organisation Consul behind the murders of Erzberger and Rathenau.

Born in Baden, he joined the Imperial Navy in 1899, took part in the Herero and Nama genocide in 1904 and commanded torpedo-boat flotillas in the First World War. After storming the Wilhelmshaven Soviet Republic in January 1919 he raised the Marine Brigade Ehrhardt, which fought the soviet republics in Braunschweig and Munich and in Upper Silesia, and occupied Berlin’s government quarter in the 1920 Kapp Putsch. After its disbandment he founded the secret Organisation Consul, which murdered Erzberger and Rathenau. He opposed Hitler’s 1923 putsch. His brigade was folded into the SS in 1933 and dissolved the next year; escaping the Night of the Long Knives, he farmed an estate in Austria and died there in 1971.

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