Hlinka Guard

Hlinka Guard

Emblem of the Hlinka Guard
Commander of Hlinka Guard Interior Minister Alexander Mach and German Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick visit in Germany
Agency overview
Formed	1938
Preceding agency	Rodobrana
Dissolved	1945
Type	Paramilitary
Jurisdiction	Slovak State
Headquarters	Bratislava
Ministers responsible	Jozef Tiso, High Commander (1938–45) Karol Sidor, Minister of Interior (1938–39) Alexander Mach, Minister of Interior (1939–44) Otomar Kubala, Minister of Interior (1944–45)
Parent agency	Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSĽS-SSNJ)

Part of a series on
Fascism
Core tenets Nationalism Totalitarianism Anti-democratic thought One-party state Personality cult Dictatorship Militarism Direct action Mixed economy Class collaboration Third Position New Man Imperialism Social order
Topics Definitions Economics Fascism and ideology Fascism worldwide Symbolism
Ideas Autarky Class collaboration Corporatism Totalitarianism
People Benito Mussolini Adolf Hitler Francisco Franco José Antonio Primo de Rivera Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Ante Pavelić Ikki Kita Wang Jingwei Ferenc Szálasi Vidkun Quisling Plínio Salgado Konstantin Rodzaevsky Oswald Mosley William Dudley Pelley Aleksandr Dugin Julius Evola Abba Achimeir
Literature The Doctrine of Fascism Fascist Manifesto La Conquista del Estado Mein Kampf My Autobiography The Myth of the Twentieth Century The Last Will of a Russian Fascist
Organizations Axis powers 1934 Montreux Fascist conference
History World War I March on Rome Beer Hall Putsch Aventine Secession Pacification of Libya German election of 1932 Enabling Act Second Sino-Japanese War Second Italo-Ethiopian War Spanish Civil War Anti-Comintern Pact Italian invasion of Albania World War II The Holocaust Downfall in Italy
Lists Fascists by country
Variants Austrofascism Brazilian Integralism British Fascism Christofascism Clerical fascism Crypto-fascism Ecofascism Falangism Fascist mysticism Feudal fascism Francoism French fascism Hindu fascism Islamofascism Italian Fascism Japanese fascism Left-wing fascism Legionarism Metaxism Nazism Neo-fascism Proto-fascism Red fascism Revisionist Maximalism Rexism Social fascism Strasserism Tropical fascism
Related topics Alt-right Anti-fascism Conservatism Fascist (epithet) Glossary of Fascist Italy Iron law of oligarchy Palingenetic ultranationalism Racism Syndicalism
Fascism portal Politics portal

The "autonomist Flag", 1938–45 Party flag of the Ludaks and their Organisations Hlinka Guard and Hlinka Youth.

Hlinka Guard (Slovak: Hlinkova garda; German: Hlinka-Garde; abbreviated as HG) was the militia maintained by the Slovak People's Party in the period from 1938 to 1945; it was named after Andrej Hlinka.

The Hlinka Guard was preceded by the Rodobrana (Home Defense/Nation's Defense) organization, which existed from 1923 to 1927, when the Czechoslovak authorities ordered its dissolution. During the crisis caused by Hitler's demand for the Sudetenland (in the summer of 1938), the Hlinka Guard emerged spontaneously, and on October 8 of that year, a week after Hitler's demand had been accepted at the Munich conference, the guard was officially set up, with Karol Sidor (1901–1953) as its first commander.

Under one of the Beneš decrees, No. 16/1945 Coll., membership of the Hlinka Guard was punishable by 5–20 years imprisonment.

Duties

The guard was the Hlinka party's military arm for internal security, and it continued in that role under the autonomous government of Slovakia in federated Czecho-Slovakia. The Hlinka Guard were Slovakia's state police and most willingly helped Hitler with his plans. It operated against Jews, Czechs, Hungarians, the Left, and the opposition. By a decree issued on October 29, 1938, the Hlinka Guard was designated as the only body authorized to give its members paramilitary training, and it was this decree that established its formal status in the country. Hlinka guardsmen wore black uniforms and a cap shaped like a boat, with a woolen pompom on top, and they used the raised-arm salute. The official salute was "Na stráž!" ("On guard!").

Membership

Until March 14, 1939, when Slovakia declared its independence, the Hlinka Guard attracted recruits from all walks of life. On the following day, March 15, Alexander Mach became its commander, retaining the post up to the collapse of the pro-Nazi regime in Slovakia in 1945. Its functions were laid down in a series of government decrees: it was to be a paramilitary organization attached to the party, fostering love of country, providing paramilitary training, and safeguarding internal security. By assuming these tasks, the guard was meant to counterbalance the army and the police. In 1941 Hlinka Guard shock troops were trained in SS camps in Germany, and the SS attached an adviser to the guard. At this point many of the guardsmen who were of middle-class origin quit, and thenceforth the organization consisted of peasants and unskilled laborers, together with various doubtful elements. A social message was an integral part of the radical nationalism that it sought to impart.

Deportation of the Jews

In 1942, the Hlinka Guard headed deportations of Slovak Jews to Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. The Guard would regularly make round ups for Jews in the spring and summer months. Deportation of the Jews by Hlinka Guards lead to confiscation of Jewish property (Arizácia majetku) while distributing some of that property to individual members of the Hlinka Guards. Over the course of time, the guardsmen prospered financially but their zeal for stolen wealth never abated.

Political competition

A small group called Náš Boj (Our Struggle), which operated under SS auspices, was the most radical element in the guard. Throughout its years of existence, the Hlinka Guard competed with the Hlinka party for primacy in ruling the country. After the anti-Nazi Slovak National Uprising in August 1944, the SS took over and shaped the Hlinka Guard to suit its own purposes. Special units of the guard (Hlinka Guard Emergency Divisions - POHG) were employed against partisans and Jews.

References in literature

The Hlinka Guards are a pivotal antagonist group in the 2006 novel by Colum McCann, Zoli.

Further reading

• Jelinek, Yeshayahu (1971). "Storm-Troopers in Slovakia: The Rodobrana and the Hlinka Guard". Journal of Contemporary History. 6 (3): 97–119. doi:10.1177/002200947100600307. JSTOR 259881.