Ostmärkische Sturmscharen was a political paramilitary

Paramilitary

A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....

 force founded on December 7, 1930 in Innsbruck

Innsbruck

- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, recruited from the Katholische Jugend (Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 Youth), later from journeymen and teacher organisations, forming an opposition to the Heimwehr

Heimwehr

The Heimwehr or sometimes Heimatschutz were a Nationalist, initially paramilitary group operating within Austria during the 1920s and 1930s; they were similar in methods, organisation, and ideology to Germany's Freikorps...

. Kurt Schuschnigg

Kurt Schuschnigg

Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schuschnigg was Chancellor of the First Austrian Republic, following the assassination of his predecessor, Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss, in July 1934, until Germany’s invasion of Austria, , in March 1938...

 was its "Reichsführer". The Ostmärkische Sturmscharen spread over the entire Austrian territory in 1933, comprising 15,000 members according to their own figures, but never became very popular. In Lower Austria

Lower Austria

Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...

 they incorporated the "Lower Austrian Heimwehr" and were supported by the Bauernbund (Austrian Farmers' Federation). The chairman of the Bauernbund Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl was an Austrian politician of the Austrian People's Party and the first Federal Chancellor after World War II...

was their "Landesführer". The Ostmärkische Sturmscharen declared themselves a cultural organisation on April 11, 1936, hence the dissolution of all defence forces in October 1936 was for them merely a formality.