Sudetendeutsches Freikorps

Sudeten German Free Corps
Sudetendeutsches Freikorps
Sudetendeutsches Freikorps members
Active	1938 to 1939
Country	Nazi Germany
Allegiance	Adolf Hitler
Type	Terrorist organization
Role	Break-up of Czechoslovakia
Engagements	Undeclared German-Czechoslovak war
Commanders
de facto commander	Friedrich Köchling
formal commander	Konrad Henlein
vice-commander	K.H.Frank
chief of staff	Anton Pfrogner

Freiwilliger Schutzdienst
Ordnersgruppe
Karl Hermann Frank, FS's vice-Führer who was receiving orders directly from Hitler
Active	17 May 1938 to 16 September 1938
Country	Czechoslovakia
Allegiance	Germany
Type	terrorist organization
Role	break-up of Czechoslovakia
Commanders
Führer	Konrad Henlein
Vice-Führer	Karl Hermann Frank
Secretary	Fritz Köllner
Chief of staff	Willi Brandner

Sudeten German Party Putsch
Part of German occupation of Czechoslovakia
Date 10–15 September 1938 Location Czechoslovak borderlands Result Putsch quashed, SdP & SF banned and dissolved
Belligerents
Sudeten German Party Freiwilliger Schutzdienst	Czechoslovakia
Commanders and leaders
Konrad Henlein Karl Hermann Frank Fritz Köllner Willi Brandner	Milan Hodža
Casualties and losses
10 dead, over dozen wounded	over 23 dead, over 60 wounded
Violence led large number of Jews, Czechs and anti-fascist Germans to flee from borderlands further to inland Czechoslovakia. Following restoration of order by Czechoslovak authorities, tens of thousands of pro-Nazi ethnic Germans fled to Germany to avoid either arrest or Czechoslovak army mobilization order.

Sudeten German uprising
Part of German occupation of Czechoslovakia
Marching Freikorps unit
Date 17 September - early October 1938 Location Czechoslovak borderlands Result Czechoslovak Army deployment mostly restored order.
Belligerents
Germany Sudeten German Freikorps SS SA Abwehr Sudeten German Party Grüne Cadres	Czechoslovakia Czechoslovak Army State Defense Guard Financial Police, Gendarme, State Police Republikanische Wehr
Commanders and leaders
Friedrich Köchling Konrad Henlein Karl Hermann Frank Fritz Köllner Willi Brandner	Jan Syrový Ludvík Krejčí
Casualties and losses
Freikorps: Killed: 52 Wounded: 65 Missing in action: 19 Other: Unknown	Armed forces: Killed: 110 Wounded: 50 Abducted: 2029 (including railway employees, postal workers, judges, other functionaries and their family members Civilians: Unknown (both volunteers as well as innocent victims of Freikorps terror)
Violence led large number of Jews, Czechs and anti-fascist Germans to flee from borderlands further to inland Czechoslovakia. Clashes continued also after Czechoslovakia ceded the borderlands to Germany.

Sudetendeutsches Freikorps (Sudeten German Free Corps, also known as the Freikorps Sudetenland, Freikorps Henlein and Sudetendeutsche Legion) was a paramilitary Nazi organization founded on 17 September 1938 in Germany on direct order of Adolf Hitler. The organization was composed mainly of ethnic German citizens of Czechoslovakia with pro-Nazi sympathies who were sheltered, trained and equipped by German authorities and who were conducting cross border terrorist operations into Czechoslovak territory from 1938 to 1939. They played important part in Hitler's successful effort to occupy Czechoslovakia and annex the region known as Sudetenland into the Third Reich under Nazi Germany.

Sudetendeutsches Freikorps was a factual successor to Freiwillinger Schutzdienst, also known as Ordnersgruppe, an organization that had been established by the Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia unofficially in 1933 and officially on 17 May 1938, following the example of Sturmabteilung, the original paramilitary wing of the German Nazi Party. Officially being registered as promoter organization, the Freiwillinger Schutzdienst was dissolved on 16 September 1938 by the Czechoslovak authorities due to its implication in large number of criminal and terrorist activities. Many of its members as well as leadership, wanted for arrest by Czechoslovak authorities, had moved to Germany where they became the basis of Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, conducting Freikorps' first cross-border raids into Czechoslovakia only few hours after its official establishment. Due to the smooth transition between the two organizations, similar membership, Nazi Germany's sponsorship and application of the same tactic of cross-border raids, some authors often don't particularly distinguish between the actions of Ordners (i.e. up to 16 September 1938) and Freikorps (i.e. from 17 September 1938).

Relying on the Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš and the government-in-exile later regarded 17 September 1938, the day of establishment of the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, as the beginning of the undeclared German-Czechoslovak war. This understanding has been assumed also by the contemporary Czech Constitutional court.