Editing Freikorps (section)

=== Freikorps identity and ideals ===
Freikorps ranks were composed primarily of former [[World War I]] soldiers who, upon [[demobilization]], were unable to reintegrate into civilian society having been brutalized by the violence of the war physically and mentally. Combined with the government's poor support of veterans, who were dismissed as [[Hysteria|hysterical]] when suffering from [[post-traumatic stress disorder]], many German veterans found comfort and a sense of belonging in the Freikorps.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Blakemore |first=Erin |date=2019-06-24 |title=When Germany Called its Soldiers Hysterical |url=https://daily.jstor.org/when-germany-called-its-soldiers-hysterical/ |access-date=2021-12-08 |website=JSTOR Daily |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Bartov |first=Omer |title=Mirrors of destruction: war, genocide, and modern identity |date=2000 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=0-19-507723-7 |location=Oxford |page=20 |oclc=42022246}}</ref> Jason Crouthamel notes how the Freikorps' military structure was a familiar continuation of the frontlines, emulating the ''Kampfgemeinschaft'' (battle community) and ''Kameradschaft'' (camaraderie), thus preserving "the heroic spirit of comradeship in the trenches".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Crouthamel |first=Jason |date=September 2018 |title=Homosexuality and Comradeship: Destabilizing the Hegemonic Masculine Ideal in Nazi Germany |journal=[[Central European History]] |language=en |volume=51 |issue=3 |page=424 |doi=10.1017/S0008938918000602 |doi-access=free |issn=0008-9389}}</ref> Others, angry at [[Stab-in-the-back myth|Germany's sudden, seemingly inexplicable defeat]], joined the Freikorps to fight against communism and socialism in Germany or to exact some form of revenge on those they considered responsible. To a lesser extent, German youth who were not old enough to have served in World War I enlisted in the Freikorps in hopes of proving themselves as patriots and as men.<ref name=":4" />

Regardless of reasons for joining, modern German historians agree that men of the Freikorps consistently embodied post-[[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] masculine ideals that are characterized by "physical, emotional, and moral 'hardness'".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mosse |first=George L. |title=The image of man: the creation of modern masculinity |date=1996 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=1-60256-338-1 |location=New York |oclc=174114386}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Kühne |first=Thomas |date=September 2018 |title=Protean Masculinity, Hegemonic Masculinity: Soldiers in the Third Reich |journal=[[Central European History]] |language=en |volume=51 |issue=3 |page=395 |doi=10.1017/S0008938918000596 |doi-access=free |issn=0008-9389}}</ref> Described as "children of the trenches, spawned by war" and its process of brutalization, historians argue that Freikorps men idealized a militarized [[masculinity]] of aggression, physical domination, the absence of emotion (hardness).<ref name="Jones_2004_p270" /><ref name=":5" /> They were to be as "swift as greyhounds, tough as leather, [and] hard as [[Krupp]] steel" so as to defend what remained of German conservatism in times of social chaos, confusion, and revolution that came to define the immediate [[Interwar period|interwar era]].<ref name="Jones_2004_p268">{{Cite book|last=Jones |first=Nigel |title=A brief history of the birth of the Nazis |date=2004 |publisher=Robinson |isbn=1-84119-925-7 |edition=Rev. & updated |location=London |page=268 |oclc=224053608}}</ref> Although [[World War I]] ended in Germany's surrender, many men in the Freikorps nonetheless viewed themselves as soldiers still engaged in active warfare with enemies of the traditional German Empire such as communists and [[Bolsheviks]], Jews, [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|socialists]], and [[Pacifism|pacifists]].<ref name="Jones_2004_p268" /> Prominent Freikorps member [[Ernst von Salomon]] described his troops as "full of wild demand for revenge and action and adventure...a band of fighter...full of lust, exultant in anger."<ref name="Jones_2004_p270" />

In 1977, German sociologist [[Klaus Theweleit]] published ''Male Fantasies,'' in which he argues that men in the Freikorps radicalized Western and German norms of male self-control into a perpetual war against feminine-coded desires for domesticity, tenderness, and compassion amongst men.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":5" /> Historians [[Nigel H. Jones|Nigel Jones]] and [[Thomas Kühne]] note that the Freikorps' displays of violence, terror, and male aggression and solidarity established the beginnings of the fascist [[New Man (utopian concept)|New Man]] upon which the [[Nazi Party|Nazis]] built.<ref name="Jones_2004_p151" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Kühne |first=Thomas |chapter=The Pleasure of Terror: Belonging through Genocide |date=2011 |title=Pleasure and Power in Nazi Germany |pages=234–255 |editor-last=Swett |editor-first=Pamela E. |editor-link=Pamela E. Swett|place=London |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230306905_11 |doi-access=free |isbn=978-0-230-30690-5 |editor2-last=Ross |editor2-first=Corey |editor3-last=d'Almeida |editor3-first=Fabrice}}</ref>