Editing Freikorps (section)

==== Eastern Europe ====
The Freikorps also fought against communists and [[Bolsheviks]] in Eastern Europe, most notably [[East Prussia]], [[Latvia]], [[Silesia]], and [[Poland]]. The Freikorps demonstrated fervent anti-Slavic racism and viewed [[Slavs]] and [[Bolsheviks]] as "sub-human" hordes of "ravening wolves".<ref name="Jones_2004_p270" /> To justify their campaign in the East, the Freikorps launched a campaign of propaganda that falsely positioned themselves as protectors of Germany's territorial hegemony over [[Lithuania]], [[Latvia]], and [[Estonia]] as a result of the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] and as defenders against Slavic and Bolshevik hordes that "raped women and butchered children" in their wake.<ref name="Jones_2004_p270" /> Historian [[Nigel H. Jones|Nigel Jones]] highlights the Freikorps's "usual excesses" of violence and murder in Latvia which were all the more unrestrained since they were fighting in a foreign land versus their own country.<ref name="Jones_2004_p270" /> Hundreds were murdered in the Freikorps' Eastern campaigns, such as the massacre of 500 [[Latvians|Latvian]] civilians suspected of harbouring [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] sympathies or the capture of [[Riga]] which saw the Freikorps slaughter some 3,000 people.<ref name="Jones_2004_p270" /> [[Summary execution]]s via firing squads were most common, but several Freikorps members recorded the brutal and deadly beatings of suspected communists and particularly communist women.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Theweleit |first=Klaus |title=Male fantasies |date=1987–1989 |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |isbn=0-8166-1448-2 |location=Minneapolis |pages=184–191 |oclc=14818459}}</ref>