Forty years ago, C. Earl Edmondson published his comprehensive study, The Heimwehr and Austrian Politics, 1918–1936 (Athens, 1978), which explored the complex political history of the Austrian paramilitary movement from its post–World War I emergence to its dissolution. To Lothar Höbelt's chagrin, Edmondson's monograph was never translated into German. His book, which bears a nearly identical title, rectifies this gap in the German-language scholarship. Employing a plethora of additional archival resources and addressing enduring historiographical questions about the organization, Die Heimwehren confirms the earlier findings of Edmondson, Bruce Pauley, and Walter Wiltschegg, while providing a new standard work on this controversial group.

On the structural and argumentative levels, Die Heimwehren breaks little new ground. Organized chronologically, the book recounts the consensus narrative of the organization's rise and fall during the First Austrian Republic and the Ständestaat. Emerging in the early postwar years as self-defense outfits along the borders of the new Austrian state, the disparate regional organizations achieved national relevance in the mid-1920s as a Christian-national movement transcending the class and Lager divisions of Austrian politics. The events surrounding 15 July 1927—when Heimatwehr members helped the government suppress worker protests after the Schattendorf acquittal and the Palace of Justice fire—demonstrated the movement's usefulness to Austria's bourgeois political parties as a “chained dog” that could be unleashed against the Social Democrats and its paramilitary Schutzbund. The organization achieved the peak of its success in 1929–30, culminating in its central role in the 1929 constitutional reform debates and its participation in the ruling parliamentary coalition of 1930. Thereafter the movement's internal tensions—regional rivalries among leaders, divisions between Catholic conservatives and German nationalists, and disagreements over political participation or military overthrow of the state—undermined any hopes for sustained relevance. Against the backdrop of the worldwide economic crisis, the rise of the National Socialists, and the mounting political crises of the First Republic, the Heimwehr failed to maintain either its popular support or its political strength. In the critical years 1933–34, the Heimwehr played minor parts, yet they misinterpreted the Dollfuss/Schuschnigg regime as a realization of their ideological vision. Increasingly marginalized, the Heimwehr did not survive until the Anschluss. It was absorbed into the Fatherland Front in 1936, even as its ostensible leader, Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, retreated from the public scene.

In spite of its conventional interpretation and organization, Die Heimwehren more than atones for these shortcomings with its painstaking attention to detail and engaging style. Höbelt makes excellent use of new sources to paint vivid portraits of leading personalities and pivotal events. In particular, he casts Count Starhemberg as a Hamlet-like figure, caught between putsch and politics, and between German nationalism and Catholic conservatism. Starhemberg's financial and marital troubles come into sharp relief, as does his inability to capitalize on political opportunities, especially after the assassination of Dollfuss in July 1934. The portrayals of Richard Steidle, the Tyrolean leader, and Walter Pfrimer, the Styrian head, also add depth to our understanding of the interpersonal conflicts that beset the movement. Höbelt's generous quotations from correspondence and diaries permit an intimate glimpse into the machinations of Heimwehr leaders, putschists, and financial backers as well as Christian Social politicians and foreign diplomats. The details of the financial support from the Alpine Montan Gesellschaft, the Hauptverband der Industrie, and the Italian and Hungarian states offers outstanding insight into the nexus of money, power, and international diplomacy at work in undermining the First Republic. Moreover, the situation of the Austrian movement within broader networks of fascism and authoritarianism becomes more comprehensible through his use of Italian diplomatic sources. Höbelt parlays this depth into a lively telling of the declining years of the interwar Austrian state. He dedicates ample space to each pivotal event—from the 15 July fire to the 1936 Gentleman's Agreement. Every play for power, every cabinet reshuffle and national election, and every step toward the Austrofascist state (and then the Anschluss) is richly told. Particularly well done is his expatiation of the Korneuburg oath, which shows the lack of ideological focus that plagued the movement.

While he does not fully answer the question in the book's subtitle, Höbelt's conclusions hold up to scrutiny. In considering the relationship between the Heimwehr and fascism, Höbelt concedes that major differences separated it from Italian (or German) variants, yet it found its niche within the “Ideenwelt” of interwar fascism. The Heimwehr “were an ideal partner for a fascist movement, even if they themselves did not make a convincing representation of a fascist movement” (407). It was only the lack of grassroots support and an effective political arm that prevented full-blown fascistization. Höbelt also addresses well the perennial question of whether the Heimwehr paved the way for Nazism in Austria. He dismisses the question as poorly phrased and naïve because interwar Austrians “did not need gateway drugs like the Heimwehr to become ready for the Nazis” (413). The tumult of the Great War, the end of the Habsburg Empire, the emergence of the despised First Republic, and the worldwide economic crisis provided all the impetus necessary. The lack of a clear reactionary position embodied in a single movement undermined the Austrian political right and its authoritarian aspirations. These shortcomings contributed to the fall of the Heimwehr and the Austrofascist state.

Die Heimwehren will become the standard, German-language reference work on the Heimwehr—and rightfully so. It surpasses all previous works in the breadth of research and narrative detail. Whether it represents a major step forward from Edmondson's book on the interpretive level is debatable. One wonders why the author did not pursue new social or cultural directions—to which he alluded to in the forward to the book (9–10)—instead of retracing earlier works. These limitations will restrict the book's readership and broader impact. Nonetheless, Die Heimwehren merits the close attention of First Republic scholars and Heimwehr aficionados.