The family fortunes had taken a serious downturn, as their business interests in Egypt had been expropriated by the British.[10] Hess joined the Thule Society, an antisemitic right-wing Völkisch group, and the Freikorps of Colonel Ritter von Epp,[11] one of many such volunteer paramilitary organisations active in Germany at the time.[12] Bavaria witnessed frequent and often bloody conflicts between right-wing groups such as the Freikorps and left-wing forces as they fought for control of the state during this period.[13] Hess was a participant in street battles in early 1919 and led a group which distributed thousands of antisemitic pamphlets in Munich.[14][15] He later said that Egypt made him a nationalist, the war made him a socialist, and Munich made him an antisemite.[16]