B-Gendarmerie

From 1950 onwards, the gradual development of the B-Gendarmerie can be traced back to the efforts of the Austrian Federal Government to defend the country against internal and external threats. Once it was no longer possible to have a deployment of military forces required for these tasks, since Austria's occupying powers prohibited all military activity, it was decided that equivalent secret units would be set up instead. As a result, the B-Gendarmerie emerged as part of an already existing federal gendarmerie under the control of the Interior Minister, though officers experienced in war were assigned as commanders and the newly recruited teams were trained according to military considerations. The operations were known to the Western occupying powers, but were tolerated in the context of the communist takeover in the neighbouring eastern states of Austria, and were, in particular, actively supported by the US organisationally and materially. The formation of units carrying the camouflage term Gendarmerie Schools systematically took place as of 1952 in the Western occupation zones, their strength amounting to about 100 officers and 6,000 men in 1955. Following the signing of the Austrian State Treaty, the B-Gendarmerie was renamed the Provisional Frontier Guard Unit and subsequently formed the core of the newly established federal Austrian armed forces.