Franz von Epp

Franz Ritter von Epp was a German general and politician who started his military career in the Bavarian Army. Successful wartime military service earned him a knighthood in 1916. After the end of World War I and the dissolution of the German Empire, Epp was a commanding officer in the Freikorps and the Reichswehr. His unit, the Freikorps Epp, was responsible for numerous massacres during the crushing of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. He was a member of the Bavarian People's Party before joining the Nazi Party in 1928, when he was elected as a member of the German parliament or Reichstag, a position he held until the fall of Nazi Germany. He was the Reichskommissar, later Reichsstatthalter, of Bavaria, and a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party. He also was a Obergruppenführer in the Sturmabteilung, the Nazi paramilitary unit. During the Nazi era, Epp, who had participated in the Herero and Nama genocide as a young soldier, shared responsibility for the liquidation of virtually all Bavarian Jews and Romani people as the governor of Bavaria.

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