SCHUTZBUND

in full Republikanischer Schutzbund (German: Republican Defense League), paramilitary socialist organization active in Austria between World Wars I and II. Compared with its chief right-wing opponent force, the Heimwehr, the Schutzbund was tightly organized, having been created in 1923 from the workers' guards by the Austrian Social Democratic Party, of which the Schutzbund remained an adjunct. It was also descended from the People's Guard of 1918, a Social Democratic weapon against the Communists; it considered as its main objective the protection of a social reform program hated by Austria's conservative bourgeois parties. After regular demonstrations, sometimes leading to conflict, throughout the 1920s, a clash in 1927 between Schutzbund and reactionary forces culminated in the accidental shooting of an old man and a child by the latter. Left-wing anger at the acquittal of the killers by a Vienna jury and the burning of a judicial court building resulted in worse disorders, which led to the suspension of Parliament in 1933. In February 1934 a short civil war resulted in the small Schutzbund being crushed by government troops and the Heimwehr after only four days' fighting. Following the Anschluss of 1938 the Nazis tried to win the proletariat with concessions, such as reinstating Schutzbund leaders into civilian life; but the organization's active life had ended in 1934.