Slovakian Hlinka Guard Assault Unit Member Stickpin

Very nice member stickpin in silvered bronze (officer’s version) for the Slovakian Hlinka Guard’s Assault Division. Measures 16 mm tall with a 36 mm stickpin.

The Hlinka Guard (Slovak: Hlinkova garda; German: Hlinka-Garde; abbreviated as HG) was the militia maintained by the Slovak People’s Party in the period from 1938 to 1945; it was named after Andrej Hlinka.

The Hlinka Guard was preceded by the Rodobrana (Home Defense/Nation’s Defense) organization, which existed from 1923 to 1927, when the Czechoslovak authorities ordered its dissolution. During the crisis caused by Hitler’s demand for the Sudetenland (in the summer of 1938), the Hlinka Guard emerged spontaneously, and on October 8 of that year, a week after Hitler’s demand had been accepted at the Munich conference, the guard was officially set up, with Karol Sidor (1901–1953) as its first commander.

The Hlinka Guard was known for its participation in the Holocaust in Slovakia; its members appropriated Jewish property and rounded up Jews for deportation in 1942. Under one of the Beneš decrees, No. 16/1945 Coll., membership of the Hlinka Guard was punishable by 5 to 20 years’ imprisonment.