Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Österreichs

Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Österreichs
Austrian Boy Scouts and Girl Guides
Country	Austria
Founded	1976
Membership	21,000
Präsident	Dominik Habsburg-Lothringen
Vizepräsidentin	Susanna Hasenauer
Affiliation	World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, World Organization of the Scout Movement
Website ppoe.at

Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Österreichs (PPÖ; Austrian Boy Scouts and Girl Guides) is the largest Scouting and Guiding organization in Austria and the only one approved by World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) and the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). The association claims more than 300 troops (local units) with more than 85,000 Scouts nationwide. WOSM and WAGGGS give quite smaller membership values for the PPÖ: 9,503 Scouts (as of 2013) and 10,508 Guides (as of 2003).

The badge of the PPÖ is dark red with a white combination of a fleur-de-lis and a trefoil, the symbols of WOSM and WAGGGS, respectively. In the center of the crest is a lighter red-and-white shield bearing the heraldic colors of Austria. The badges of both supranational organizations are also used. Male Scouts wear a blue WOSM logo on their uniforms, females wear a WAGGGS logo in the same position.

The association is member of the Austrian National Youth Council.

The first Austrian Scouting was founded in 1909 under Austria-Hungary. In 1910, the first Scout group - still in existence today - was founded in Wiener Neustadt. In 1912, Emmerich Teuber began the first Scout group in Vienna. The Catholic Church simultaneously founded the Pfadfinderkorps Sankt Georg. The first camps were held in 1913.

As the movement spread, Girl Guides joined in 1913 and troops were founded all over the country. The national organization, the Österreichischer Pfadfinderbund (ÖPB), was founded in April 1914. including the Girl Guide movement. This organization had strong ties to Magyar Cserkészszövetség and Junák, which was an independent Scout association in Bohemia. After World War I, Scouting developed separate organizations in Slovenia and in other areas of the fractured Habsburg Empire.