Sudetendeutsches Freikorps

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Sudeten German Free Corps
German: Sudetendeutsches Freikorps
Sudetendeutsches Freikorps members
Active	1938 to 1939
Country	Germany  Czechoslovakia
Allegiance	Adolf Hitler
Type	Paramilitary organization
Role	Break-up of Czechoslovakia
Engagements	Sudeten German uprising, Undeclared German–Czechoslovak war
Commanders
De facto commander	Friedrich Köchling
Formal commander	Konrad Henlein
Vice-commander	Karl Hermann Frank
Chief of staff	Anton Pfrogner

The Sudetendeutsches Freikorps (SFK) (Sudeten German Free Corps, also known as the Freikorps Sudetenland, Freikorps Henlein and Sudetendeutsche Legion) was a paramilitary 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 the German army and who conducted cross-border terrorist operations into Czechoslovak territory from 1938 to 1939. They played an important role in Hitler's successful effort to occupy Czechoslovakia and annex the region known as Sudetenland into the Third Reich under Nazi Germany.^[1][2][3][4]

The Sudetendeutsches Freikorps was a successor to Freiwilliger Schutzdienst, also known as Ordnersgruppe, an organization established by the Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia unofficially in 1933 and officially on 17 May 1938, following the example of the Sturmabteilung, the original paramilitary wing of the German Nazi Party. Officially registered as a promoter organization, ^{[clarification needed]} the Freiwilliger Schutzdienst was dissolved on 16 September 1938 by the Czechoslovak authorities due to its implication in many 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 the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, conducting the Freikorps' first cross-border raids into Czechoslovakia only a few hours after its official establishment.^[5] 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 do not particularly distinguish between the actions of Ordner (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^[6] and the government-in-exile^[7] later regarded 17 September 1938, the day of establishment of the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps and beginning of its cross-border raids, as the beginning of the undeclared German–Czechoslovak war. This understanding has been assumed also by the contemporary Czech Constitutional Court.^[8] Meanwhile, Nazi Germany formally declared that Czech captives would be considered prisoners of war from 23 September 1938 onwards.^[9]