The legacy of the 1918 Revolution was scarcely less ominous on the right. Extreme violence against the left had been legitimized, if not encouraged, by the moderate Social Democrats; but this in no way exempted them from being a target themselves, as the Free Corps now turned on their masters. Many of the Free Corps leaders were former army officers whose belief in the 'stab-in-the-back' myth was unshakeable. The depth of the Free Corps' hatred of the Revolution and its supporters was almost without limit. The language of their propaganda, their memoirs, their fictional representations of the military actions they took part in, breathed a rabid spirit of aggression and revenge, often bordering on the pathological. The 'reds', they believed, were an inhuman pack of rats, a poisonous flood pouring over Germany, requiring measures of extreme violence if it were to be held in check.

Their feelings were shared to a greater or lesser extent by large numbers of regular officers, and by the vast majority of right-wing politicians. Scores of young students and others who had missed the war now flocked to their banner. For these people, socialists and democrats of any hue were no better than traitors - the 'November criminals' or 'November traitors' as they were soon dubbed...

-The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard Evans