ABSTRACT
The officers’ companies represented an innovation in military history. Unlike regular soldiers, the members of the elite officers’ detachment and the right-wing civic militias in 1919 were volunteers. Recruitment into the armed groups took place in the open on the relatively free “violence market”, or market for violent men. With the members of fascist parties in mind, Theodor W. Adorno created the concept of the rebel as a creature of both modernity and tradition: a product of global capitalism and creeping bureaucratization, as well as of outdated social and political structures, habits and traditions. According to Wolfgang Sofsky, murder is “what imagination is to reason, and action to contemplation.” Violence is a uniquely human way to learn about the world and obtain self-knowledge. Murder and cannibalism represent the two most important taboos in every society and civilization. To kill with impunity, according to Wolfgang Sofsky, is the right and privilege of gods.
