Franz Xaver Ritter von Epp
(16.10.1868 - 31.01.1947)
place of birth:  München, Oberbayern
Königreich Bayern:  Rgt-Kdr,  Oberst,  Reichsleiter-NSDAP  (WW2)


Oberst Franz Ritter von Epp served as commander of Bavaria's Infanterie-Leib-Regiment throughout most of the Great War. Despite his distinguished military career, Ritter von Epp is more infamously known for his Nazi-Party affiliation during the Second World War era.

Ritter von Epp joined the Royal Bavarian Army in 1887 and was soon commissioned as an infantry officer. In the summer of 1900, he temporarily left the Bavarian Army and deployed to China with the Ostasiatisches Expeditions-Korps (German Expeditionary Forces) during Boxer Rebellion. He served as a company commander while in Asia and returned one year later to rejoin the Bavarian Army. He again left Bavaria in 1904 to deploy to Southwest Africa with the Kaiserliche Schutztruppe (Germany's Colonial Protection Forces.) There he participated in the Herero and Namaqua genocide.

After almost three years in Africa, Epp returned to Munich in 1906 to rejoin the Bavarian Army as a company commander with Infanterie-Leib-Regiment. He was later promoted to Major and was in command of the regiment's 2nd Battalion when Germany marched to war in August 1914. He was soon promoted to regimental commander and remained so for much of the war. For his noteworthy actions in the field during the 1916 Battle at Verdun, Epp was awarded the Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross) of Bavaria's highest military order - the Militär-Max-Joseph-Orden. He was officially presented with the decoration on 17.11.1917 and later elevated into Bavaria's nobility.

In post-War Germany, Ritter von Epp remained in uniform and headed up the paramilitary unit Freikorps Epp, fighting German communist volunteers who were attempting to overthrow the Weimar Republic. In 1928, he became a member of the NSDAP (Germany's Nazi Party). As Reichsleiter, he later headed up the KPA (the Nazi's Office of Colonial Policy) and was simultaneously serving as Reichsstatthalter (governor), the leading NSDAP political representative in Bavaria. During the course of the Nazi reign in Germany, he was thus responsible for the liquidation of all of the Jews living in Bavaria. Ritter von Epp became gravely ill in 1945, but Hitler suspected him of being a traitor and had his hospitalized under guard. The Allies imprisoned him after the war with the intention of trying him in Nürnberg, but von Epp died in 1947 at the age of 78.

	Oberst	14.12.1917
	Militär-Max-Joseph	23.06.1916  Ritter
	China-Denkmünze	Ostasiatisches Expeditionskorps  1900-01
	DSW-Afrika Medaille	Deutsch-Südwestafrika, Herero Aufstand  1904-06