The Outlaws

The Outlaws (1930) by Ernst von Salomon was the incredibly commercially successful, semi-autobiographical novel detailing the author's experiences in the Freikorps—right-wing paramilitary groups—following Germany's collapse in WWI. It depicts the violent, chaotic life of young, disillusioned veterans fighting communists in Berlin and the Baltics in favor of nationalist action and camaraderie.

Set in the tumultuous Weimar Republic, the narrator, a young cadet, joins the Freikorps to resist communist agitation and the nation’s social decline. It describes street-level urban combat with left-wing radicals. The book captures a sense of lost youth, and functions as both a memorable personal memoir of political violence and a biting critique of the interwar era's social chaos.