Gerhard Roßbach

Who was Gerhard Roßbach?

Gerhard Roßbach, also spelt Rossbach, was a German Freikorps leader and organizer of nationalist groups after World War I.

Roßbach was born in Kehrberg, Pomerania. During the Baltic fighting of 1919, his Freikorps made an extremely long march from Berlin across Eastern Europe to rescue the Iron Division from destruction by the Latvian Army. It went on to participate in the Kapp Putsch in 1920, get banned, and reform under various front organizations. Money came from the Landbund, Heavy Industry, and arms dealing. In the early 20s he was arrested for trying to overthrow the government.

He also joined the Nazi Party. He took part in the Beer Hall putsch of 1923 mobilising students, cadets and officer candidates of the Reichswehr Infantry, fleeing to Austria after the putsch failed. He was then recruited by Hitler to help organize the SA By 1928, he could claim to have killed "a number of Mecklenburg laborers and Spartacist sympathizers". He later fell out with Adolf Hitler during his rise to power and was arrested but not killed during the Roehm Purge of 1934.

Historian Robert G. L. Waite described him as a "sadistic murderer of the so-called Fehmgericht and the notorious homosexual who, according to his own testimony, perverted Ernst Röhm"