Franz Xaver Ritter von Epp frequently felt the power of powerlessness: as a colonial fighter, as a company commander in World War I, as a Freikorps leader, and especially under Hitler as the Reich Governor of Bavaria and head of the Wehrpolitical and Colonial Political Office of the NSDAP. Ritter von Epp was a typical representative of that generation which, in the attempt to use National Socialism for its own purposes, was itself used and disempowered. He served as a mediator between the Reich and the land, between the party and the state, between conservatives and radicals. Despite his inner distance and contacts with the resistance group Freiheitsaktion Bayern, he was unable to make an open break. Epp's political biography exemplifies how the experiences from the German Empire, World War, and the turmoil of the Weimar Republic provided Hitler with followers who had so little in common with him.