ESCHERICH, GEORG

(1870-1941)

forester and paramilitary leader; helped organize and lead the BavarianEinwohnerwehr. Born in the Upper Pa-latinate town of Schwandorf, he studied forestry. After teaching for several years, he became a counselor at the forestry office in the Upper Bavarian town of Isen. In 1913 the Colonial Office appointed him leader of a scientific expe-dition to Cameroon. He served in World War I, was wounded on the Western Front, and ended the war as chief of the army s forestry administration in Bi-alowicz, Poland.*

In April 1919, during the weeks of Bavaria's*Raterepublik, Escherich re-turned to Isen to found a people's militia.Once theRaterepublikwas suppressed, his militia became the nucleus of theEinwohnerwehr. Independent of state con-trol, but the beneficiary of state financial support, theEinwohnerwehrnumbered 300,000 at the time of the Kapp* Putsch (March 1920). Using the putsch as an excuse for action, Escherich engineered thecoup d'etatthat removed the Ba-varian government of Johannes Hoffmann*. Thereafter the rightist regime of Gustav von Kahr,* formed in March 1920, became his means of support.

Escherich's contacts enabled him to establishOrganisation Escherich(Orgesch) in May 1920. A paramilitary unit headquartered in both Regensburg and Munich,Orgeschinstituted rather reasonable goals: defense of the Constitution*; protection of work, property, and people; preservation of the Reich, including opposition to overt separatism; and resistance to putsches from both the Right and the Left. But Escherich also viewedOrgeschas the nucleus for a national union ofWehrverbande. With sixteen organizational districts throughout the country,Orgeschclaimed a membership by late 1920 in excess of one million. Such success was its undoing; not only did it violate the Versailles Treaty s* disarmament* clauses, but Carl Severing,* Prussian Interior Minister, found its existence unacceptable. Soon banned in every German state outside Bavaria,Orgeschwas camouflaged by Kahr until, after its May 1921 involvement against the Poles in Upper Silesia,* Berlin* forced its disbanding. Since the paramilitary successor organizations toOrgeschwere increasingly radical, Escherich fell out of favor. After May 1921 he returned to Bavaria s Forestry Administration. Although he was reinstated as head of the BavarianEinwohnerwehrin December 1929, his powers were quite limited. Bavaria s chief forest ranger, he retired in 1931 to write travel guides.