Marinebrigade Ehrhardt
In 1920, Adolf Hitler had just begun his political career as the leader of the tiny and as-yet-unknown Deutsche Arbeiterpartei/DAP German Workers' Party, which was soon renamed the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei/NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party) or Nazi Party in Munich. Numerous future members and leaders of the Nazi Party had served in the "Freikorps", including Ernst Röhm, future head of the Sturmabteilung, or SA, Heinrich Himmler, future head of the Schutzstaffel, or SS, and Rudolf Höß, the future "Kommandant" of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Hermann Ehrhardt, founder and leader of the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, and his deputy commander Eberhard Kautter, leaders of the Viking League, refused to help Hitler and Erich Ludendorff in their 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and conspired against them.