Hermann Hiltl
| Hermann Hiltl | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 June 1872 Olmütz (Olomouc), Margraviate of Moravia, Austria-Hungary |
| Died |
15 August 1930 (aged 58) Bad Hall |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Citizenship | Austrian |
| Alma mater | Wiener Neustadt military academy |
| Occupation | Army officer |
| Known for | Militia leader |
| Title | Colonel |
| Political party | None |
| Spouse(s) | Maria von Kriesten |
| Children | Herbert |
| Parent(s) | Anton Hiltl |
Hermann Hiltl, also Hermann Ritter von Hiltl (16 June 1872 – 15 August 1930) was an Austrian army officer who became leader of his own right wing militia, the Frontkämpfervereinigung (Front Fighters' Union), after the First World War. He embraced both fascism and Pan-Germanism without fully committing to Nazism.
A career soldier, Hiltl attended the military academy at Wiener Neustadt before being commissioned to Infantry Regiment No. 33. He also served as a tutor at Vienna Infantry Cadet School. He served for the entirety of the First World War, initially in Serbia, then Italy, before a return to Serbia and finally South Tyrol where he was captured and spent time in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. By the end of the war Hiltl had risen to the rank of colonel.
After his release he formed his own 'Battalion Hiltl' as a force against growing radicalism in Austria and he soon reorganised this group as the Bund für Ordnung und Wirtschaftsschutz. This latter group soon gave way to the Frontkämpfervereinigung, an organisation that served a similar purpose to the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten in Germany i.e. a rallying point for militant nationalist rightists opposed to the growth of socialism and communism. This group however called for a unification of the German volk and blamed the Jews on preventing this unity. Hiltl was personally noted for his anti-Semitism and when speaking to a March 1921 conference of the Antisemitenbund he called for Jews in Austria to be stripped of their citizenship, blaming them for the collapse of the Habsburg Empire.
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