 | This article duplicates the scope of other articles, specifically List of paramilitary organizations.(February 2023) |
The following is a list of defunct paramilitary organizations.
| This article duplicates the scope of other articles, specifically List of paramilitary organizations.(February 2023) |
The following is a list of defunct paramilitary organizations.
| Name | Region | Active between | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barracked People's Police (KVP) |  East Germany | 1948–1956 | gendarmerie | Formed by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany as the precursor to the National People's Army |
| B-Gendarmerie |  Allied-occupied Austria | 1949–1954 | gendarmerie | Formed as the precursor to the Austrian Armed Forces |
| Bundesgrenzschutz |  Germany | 1951–2005 | border guard | Responsible for border patrol and transport security. Also precursor to the Bundeswehr |
| Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment | East Germany | 1954–1990 | light infantry | Paramilitary unit of the East German secret service Stasi. Responsible for the security of the government leaders and government facilities. Dissolved during German reunification. |
| Grenztruppen | East Germany | 1946–1990 | border guard | Responsible for border patrol and prevention of Republikflucht , including along the inner-German border and the Berlin Wall. Dissolved during German reunification. |
| Dignity Battalions |  Panama | 1988–1990 | light infantry | Created to oppose a foreign invasion. Dissolved after the U.S. invasion of Panama. |
| Fedayeen Saddam |  Iraq | 1995–2003 | irregular unit | Created as an irregular military force separate from the Iraqi Armed Forces reporting directly to President Saddam Hussein. Dissolved after the U.S.-lead invasion of Iraq. |
| Haganah |  Mandatory Palestine | 1920–1948 | Precursor of the Israeli army | Origins in guarding Jewish colonies |
| Kuva-yi Miliye |  Turkey | 1918–1921 | irregular unit | Created as irregular military forces serving the Grand National Assembly during the Turkish War of Independence. Integrated into the Turkish Army. |
| National Police Reserve |  Allied-occupied Japan | 1951–1954 | police reserve | Formed by the Japanese government and the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers as a precursor for the Japan Self-Defense Forces during the Korean War. |
| ORMO |  Poland | 1946–1989 | police reserve | Responsible for aiding the Milicja Obywatelska in suppressing demonstrations. Declined during the period of martial law in the 1980s and was officially dissolved by the Sejm in 1989. |
| Volkspolizei-Bereitschaft | East Germany | 1955–1990 | police reserve | Served as riot control and anti-insurgency regiment functioning alongside the Stasi. Dissolved during German unification. |
| Sarandoy |  Democratic Republic Of Afghanistan | 1978–1992 | gendarmerie | Nicknamed "Defenders of the Revolution", Sarandoy was founded after the Saur Revolution and specialized in counterinsurgency and internal security. At its peak Sarandoy had 115,000 men and women under their command. Sarandoy was run by the Khalq faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and would occasionally clash with the Parchamite-dominated KHAD. |
| Sicherheitspolizei |  Germany | 1919–1935 | security police | Formed by Gustav Noske and the Reichswehr to control political violence from paramilitary parties after the German Revolution. Integrated into the Gestapo and the Reichswehr after the Nazi takeover. |
| Zelene Beretke | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 1991–1992 | Paramilitary | They were mostly active during the war in the early part of 1992 in northern and central Bosnia |
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
The Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages. Since the 9th century the Sudetenland had been an integral part of the Czech state both geographically and politically.
Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, commonly known as Der Stahlhelm, was a German First World War veteran's organisation existing from 1918 to 1935. In the late days of the Weimar Republic, it was closely affiliated to the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP), placed at party gatherings in the position of armed security guards.
National Socialist Party most often refers to the National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party, which existed in Germany between 1920 and 1945 and ruled the country from 1933 to 1945. However, similar names have also been used by a number of other political parties around the world, with various ideologies, some related and some unrelated to the NSDAP.
The military occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany began with the German annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, continued with the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and by the end of 1944 extended to all parts of Czechoslovakia.
With the collapse of the Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed as a result of the critical intervention of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, among others.
Czech National Social Party is a civic nationalist political party in the Czech Republic, that played an important role in Czechoslovakia during the interwar period. It was established in 1897 by break-away groups from both the national liberal Young Czech Party and the Czech Social Democratic Party, with a stress on achieving independence of the Czech lands from Austria-Hungary. Its variant of socialism was moderate and reformist rather than a Marxist one. After the National Labour Party dissolved and merged with National Socialists in 1930, the party also became the refuge for Czech liberals. Its best-known member was Edvard Beneš, a co-founder of Czechoslovakia and the country's second President during the 1930s and 1940s.
Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, also known as the Slovak People's Party or the Hlinka Party, was a far-right clerico-fascist political party with a strong Catholic fundamentalist and authoritarian ideology. Its members were often called ľudáci.
Weimar paramilitary groups were militarily organized units that were formed outside of the regular German Army following the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. The most prominent of them, the Freikorps, were combat units that were supported by the German government and used to suppress uprisings from both the Left and the Right. There were also Citizens' Defense groups to maintain public order and paramilitary groups associated with specific political parties to protect and promote their interests.
The Sudeten German Party was created by Konrad Henlein under the name Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront on 1 October 1933, some months after the First Czechoslovak Republic had outlawed the German National Socialist Workers' Party. In April 1935, the party was renamed Sudetendeutsche Partei following a mandatory demand of the Czechoslovak government. The name was officially changed to Sudeten German and Carpathian German Party in November 1935.
German Bohemians, later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, over three million German Bohemians constituted about 23% of the population of the whole country and about 29.5% of the population of Bohemia and Moravia. Ethnic Germans migrated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electoral territory of the Holy Roman Empire, from the 11th century, mostly in the border regions of what was later called the "Sudetenland", which was named after the Sudeten Mountains.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia, a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian and Hungarian territories.
The national colours of the Federal Republic of Germany are officially black, red, and gold, defined with the adoption of the West German flag as a tricolour with these colours in 1949. Germany was divided into West Germany and East Germany from 1949 to 1990, and both Germanies retained the black, red, and gold colors on their respective flags. After German reunification in 1990, the united Germany retained the West German flag, thus retaining black, red, and gold as Germany's colors.
The German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic was a German social democratic party in Czechoslovakia, founded when the Bohemian provincial organization of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria separated itself from the mother party. The founding convention was held in Teplice from 30 August – 3 September 1919; the first leader of the party was Josef Seliger.
The Iron Front was a German paramilitary organization in the Weimar Republic which consisted of social democrats, trade unionists, and democratic socialists. Its main goal was to defend social democracy against what was seen as anti-democratic, totalitarian ideologies on the far-right and far-left. The Iron Front chiefly opposed the Sturmabteilung (SA) wing of the Nazi Party and the Antifaschistische Aktion wing of the Communist Party of Germany. Formally independent, it was intimately associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Three Arrows, originally designed for the Iron Front, became a well-known social democratic symbol representing resistance against monarchism, Nazism, and communism during the parliamentary elections in November 1932. The Three Arrows were later adopted by the SPD itself.
The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold was an organization in Germany during the Weimar Republic with the goal to defend German parliamentary democracy against internal subversion and extremism from the left and right and to compel the population to respect and honour the new Republic's flag and constitution. It was formed by members of the left-wing Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the centre-right to right-wing German Centre Party, and the centrist German Democratic Party in February 1924.
Sozialistischer Schutzbund was a paramilitary formation in Weimar Germany, linked to the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). SSB was active between 1931 and 1933. The organization mainly acted as guards at election campaign meetings. SSB also guarded offices of the party and the Socialist Youth League of Germany. The SSB wore a uniform with blue shirts, red armbands and dark blue caps. SSB earned a degree of respect for its discipline.
The Three Arrows is a social democratic political symbol associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), used in the late history of the Weimar Republic. First conceived for the SPD-dominated Iron Front as a symbol of the social democratic resistance against Nazism in 1932, it became an official symbol of the Party during the November 1932 German federal election, representing their opposition towards monarchism, Nazism, and communism.
The 1935 Czechoslovak presidential election took place on 18 December 1935. Edvard Beneš was elected the second President of Czechoslovakia and replaced Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. Beneš's victory was considered unlikely due to lack of support in a parliament but negotiations helped him to win much larger support than Masaryk has ever received.