Eiserne Division

This was decided at a joint meeting of the Reich Plenipotentiary August Winnig, the Army Commander Hugo von Kathen and the Central Soldiers' Council.

The Bolshevik armies, which consisted mainly of Red Latvian Rifle Regiments, conquered almost the entire territory of Latvia by mid-January 1919, and it was feared that they were planning an advance on East Prussia in order to trigger a revolution in Germany.

Liepāja) and had supply problems because Red soldiers' councils in the rear blocked the railway for the border guards.

On 16 January, command of the Iron Brigade passed from Colonel Friedrich Kumme to Major Josef Bischoff.

The latter forbade any further marches back, sent unreliable units home and renamed the remaining 300 men the ‘Iron Division’.

As German troops were ordered by the Reich government and the Entente powers not to carry out any further offensive movements, five battalions and three batteries were deployed for 14 days in Niedra-Latvian service.

The volunteers signed a contract for one month each, received a Baltic supplement to their pay and had the prospect of Latvian citizenship; they were also promised settlement land, albeit without authorisation.

Special company courts had to be set up due to the many assaults and overloading of the field gendarmerie (German military police).

Although the evacuation of the Baltic states officially began in July, the division continued to strengthen itself and maintained illegal recruitment centres in Germany for this purpose.

Contrary to official German policy, the aim of the circles around Bischoff was to work with the Russian White Armies to disempower the Bolsheviks and gain influence over a future Russia.

This gave rise to the story of the indomitable defiance and iron will of the Baltic people, who were the ‘last Germans ever’ and found symbolic expression in the slogan ‘and yet’.

At the end of September, the division, together with the Free Corps of the German Legion, joined the West Russian Liberation Army of the adventurer Pavel Bermondt-Avalov.

The former Baltic soldiers of the Freikorps were a destabilising factor during the Weimar Republic and a large proportion of them joined the Hitler movement.