The Freikorps Lützow was formed in January 1919 in Berlin. It saw action in Berlin, Brunswick, Munich and the Ruhr.
On 5 May 1919 twelve workers (most of them 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 in June 1919.

Commanders

Major von Lützow

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)

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


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.

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 -