Rudolf Kanzler

Who was Rudolf Kanzler?

Rudolf Kanzler was a German surveyor and politician who was involved in the organisation of Freikorps units after World War I.

A Roman Catholic, Kanzler was thus a member of the Centre Party and served this party in the Landtag of Bavaria as representative for Lichtenfels from 1905 to 1918. Noted for his anti-communism he organised a Bürgerwehr or militia against the communists in Rosenheim in 1919. This group grew into the Freikorps Chiemgau, for a time the largest single Freikorps in Germany, under the command of Kanzler who became known as the 'White General'. Kanzler became an ally of the rightist militant Georg Escherich and soon led his own Organisation Kanzler or 'Orka' in imitaton of Escherich's Orgesch. Like his ally he became close to Richard Steidle in Austria and helped him in the organisation of the Heimwehr.

Kanzler stood down from his Freikorps roles in 1921 and later became a member of Carl Spruner von Mertz's Bayerischer Heimat- und Königsbund, a monarchist group that was outlawed in 1933 after the formation of the Nazi Party regime. Kanzler had little in common with the Nazis and was jailed for treason during the Third Reich for attempting to promote monarchism and for co-operating with the Black Front of Otto Strasser. Following his death, on his 83rd birthday, he was buried in his hometown of Wasserburg am Inn.