Rudolf Kanzler
Encyclopedia
Rudolf Kanzler was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 surveyor and politician who was involved in the organisation of Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...

 units after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

A Roman Catholic, Kanzler was thus a member of the Centre Party
Centre Party (Germany)
The German Centre Party was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. Formed in 1870, it battled the Kulturkampf which the Prussian government launched to reduce the power of the Catholic Church...

 and served this party in the Landtag of Bavaria
Landtag of Bavaria
The Landtag of Bavaria is the unicameral legislature of the state of Bavaria in Germany. Between 1946 and 1999 there was an upper house, the Senate of Bavaria. The parliament meets in the Maximilianeum....

 as representative for Lichtenfels
Lichtenfels, Bavaria
Lichtenfels is a town in Bavaria, Germany, capital of the district of Lichtenfels. It is situated on the upper course of the river Main , approx. 15 km southeast of Coburg, and 30 km northeast of Bamberg, in an area called Gottesgarten am Obermain .Lichtenfels became as of middle of the 19...

 from 1905 to 1918. Noted for his anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 he organised a Bürgerwehr or militia against the communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 in Rosenheim
Rosenheim
Rosenheim is a town in Bavaria at the confluence of the rivers Inn and Mangfall. It is seat of administration of the district of Rosenheim, but is not a part of it.-Geography:...

 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
Georg Escherich
Georg Escherich was a German politician, representative of the Bavarian People's Party. By profession he was a forester....

 and soon led his own Organisation Kanzler or 'Orka' in imitaton of Escherich's Orgesch. Like his ally he became close to Richard Steidle
Richard Steidle
Richard Steidle was an Austrian lawyer and the leader of the paramilitary Heimwehr in Tyrol...

 in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 and helped him in the organisation of the Heimwehr
Heimwehr
The Heimwehr or sometimes Heimatschutz were a Nationalist, initially paramilitary group operating within Austria during the 1920s and 1930s; they were similar in methods, organisation, and ideology to Germany's Freikorps...

.

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
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...

 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
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

 during the Third Reich for attempting to promote monarchism and for co-operating with the Black Front
Black Front
The Black Front was a group formed by Otto Strasser after his expulsion from the Nazi Party in 1930. Strasser believed the original anti-capitalist nature of the NSDAP had been betrayed by Adolf Hitler...

 of Otto Strasser
Otto Strasser
Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser was a German politician and 'left-wing' member of the National Socialist German Workers Party. Strasser was part of the ‘left-wing’ faction of the party, along with his brother Gregor Strasser, and broke from the party due to disputes with the ‘Hitlerite’ faction...

. Following his death, on his 83rd birthday, he was buried in his hometown of Wasserburg am Inn.
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