A volunteer army fighting for German freedom against Napoleon.

So here we have the German mark, nominal - 5. The year of issue of this coin is 1984, Mint: Berlin, Germany. Total circulation – 45.000. The coin is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the death of Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow.

In 1811, Lützow was recommissioned into the Prussian army as major, and at the outbreak of the German War of Liberation received permission from Scharnhorst to organize a free corps consisting of infantry, cavalry and Tirolese riflemen, for attacking flanks or in guerilla fighting in the French rear and rallying the smaller governments into the ranks of the allies. From their uniform, they were known as the "Black Troopers" or "Black Riflemen".

This corps played a marked part in the campaign of 1813. But Lützow was unable to coerce the minor states, and the wanderings of the corps had little military influence. At Kitzen (near Leipzig) the whole corps, warned too late of the armistice of Poischwitz, was caught on the French side of the line of demarcation, and, as a fighting force, annihilated. Lützow himself, wounded, cut his way out with the survivors, and immediately began reorganizing and recruiting.

Lützow died on 6 December 1834. One of the last acts of his life for which Lützow is remembered is his challenge to Blücher (died in 1819), who had been ridden down in the rout of the 6th Ulans at the Battle of Ligny, and had made, in his official report, comments thereon, which their colonel considered disparaging.