Liechtenstein Homeland Service

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The Liechtenstein Homeland Service (LHD) was a political movement that turned against the party state and advocated the transformation of Liechtenstein into a corporate state . During the time of its existence, however, the home service remained relatively unsuccessful and could only win over a small part of the population.

history

The Liechtenstein Homeland Service was founded in Vaduz on October 1, 1933 and was partly inspired by the Austrian Homeland Service and the Vorarlberg Home Guard. The ideas of the corporate state that emerged in Vorarlberg and all of Austria in the 1930s thus also had an impact on Liechtenstein. As early as the end of 1933, party president Eugen Schafhauser , who was also the driving force behind the establishment of the Liechtenstein Homeland Service, and some other of the 15 founding members left the Homeland Service because it increasingly turned to National Socialist and anti-Semitic ideas. Although the Heimatdienst was inspired by the Vorarlberg organizations and adopted some ideas, it had more in common with the Swiss front movement .

On December 9, 1934, supporters of the Homeland Service held a major demonstration in Vaduz and demanded the resignation of the government and new elections.

At the beginning of 1935, the Heimatdienst began working together with the Christian Social People's Party (VP). As the “national opposition”, they tried to replace the previous majority procedure in state elections with proportional representation . On January 5, 1936, the Heimatdienst merged with the People's Party, which had considerably more members, to form the Fatherland Union (VU). While some former leaders of the Homeland Service, such as Otto Schaedler and Alois Vogt , succeeded in taking up important positions in the newly formed party , the political views of the Homeland Service could not prevail. The program of the Patriotic Union was largely based on the People's Party.

Some disappointed former members of the Homeland Service later became active in the Volksdeutsche movement in Liechtenstein .

organization

Originally founded by 15 men, the Heimatdienst had up to 300 members during its existence. About 200 of them belonged to the Sturmtrupp , a young man's organization within the Homeland Service . The storm troop orientated itself in gestures and symbolism to the Sturmabteilung (SA) of the NSDAP .

From October 14, 1933, two weeks after it was founded, until 1935, the Heimatdienst published its own newspaper called Liechtensteiner Heimatdienst, which appears once or twice a week . Voice for local economy, culture and nationality . This newspaper was merged in January 1936 with the Liechtensteiner Nachrichten , an organ of the Christian Social Party, and the Liechtensteiner Vaterland newspaper, which still appears today, was founded from this.

Historical evaluation

The starting point for the establishment of the Home Service is on the one hand the disaffection with the party in the 1930s, triggered among other things by disagreement between the existing parties, the Sparkassa affair and the generally poor economic situation, on the other hand political ideas coming from abroad. Contemporary VP politicians said that the electoral reform of 1932 , which in their opinion was a highly disadvantageous electoral law, was partly to blame for the creation of the Liechtenstein Homeland Service.

The Heimatdienst expanded the political landscape of Liechtenstein, which had consisted of two parties, and, as the second opposition party, caused further political unrest and its rejection of the confessed order. Through his collaboration and later union with the People's Party, he changed the political landscape permanently. At the same time, the Heimatdienst did not succeed in reshaping society and the political system as desired. The parties that had been confessed since 1918 were already too deeply rooted in the population for that. Rather, the Heimatdienst, unlike the local NSDAP group Liechtenstein founded in June 1933 , was the first expression of a genuine Liechtenstein movement that later continued in the Volksdeutsche movement.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stefan Hansen: Political System of the Small State of Liechtenstein (2007)
  2. ↑ a b Werner Haas: Europe wants to live (1936)
  3. ↑ Entry on Eugen Schafhauser on www.e-archiv.li
  4. ^ The Heimatdienst calls for membership , October 14, 1933, Liechtensteiner Heimatdienst. Voice for local economy, culture and nationality
  5. ↑ a b Peter Geiger: Time of Crisis: Liechtenstein in the Thirties, 1928–1939, Volume 1 (2000)
  6. ↑ a b Hanspeter Lussy, Rodrigo López: Liechtenstein's Financial Relations at the Time of National Socialism Volume 1 (Independent Commission of Historians Liechtenstein Second World War, 2005)
  7. ↑ a b c Arno Waschkuhn: Political System of Liechtenstein: Continuity and Change (1994)
  8. ^ Party president of the VU 1936 to 1965.
  9. ^ Refuge on installments - Liechtenstein and the Jews (PDF file; 1.02 MB), exhibition in Küefer-Martis-Huus, May 13, 2010 to February 6, 2011
  10. ↑ 1928: Sparkassa scandal with long aftermath. In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt . Liechtensteiner Volksblatt AG, February 6, 2015, accessed on July 17, 2019 .
  11. ^ Prince and People: Parties in Liechtenstein 1921 to 1943
  12. ^ Entry on the Liechtenstein branch of the NSDAP at www.e-archiv.li