Making Austria German Again: Austrofascist ‘Home Guards’ against Nazi ‘Austrian Legionaries’, 1933–1934

Abstract

Years before the Second World War, there emerged an Austrofascist Ständestaat [Corporatist State] to the south of Nazi Germany. This Ständestaat would be subsumed into Germany during the Anschluss of 1938. Subsumption of Austrofascism into Nazism has also occurred in understandings of fascism. This article centers two paramilitary organizations—an Austrian Nazi Legion based in Bavaria and the Austrian-based Heimwehren [Home Guards]—to argue that German-speaking fascists functioned via internecine violence over Austria’s sovereignty. Fighting between the Heimwehren and Austrian Nazi Legionaries based in Bavaria culminated in a quasi-war across the Austro-Bavarian border, studied here from 1933 to 1934. This article showcases how fascist obsessions with total control came with an uncontrollable need for conflict over this contested borderland space. This tension undermined their claims of supremacy yet undergirded their supporters to fight harder against, ironically, other German-speaking fascists. As such, division was critical to their very formation. By taking this granular perspective, we acquire a better understanding of the convoluted history prior to the notorious Anschluss.