Starting in France, the gendarmerie was soon established in many European countries, including Austria. Especially from 1945 to 1960, the organization of the gendarmerie was a fundamental pillar in the history of the state of Carinthia.The focus of the diploma thesis at hand is the question of how the gendarmerie has developed organizationally between 1945 and 1960, after the National Socialists had eliminated the dominant system, which had previously existed until 1938, and replaced it with the German Order Police and the Protection Police.The paper?s aim is to investigate the restoration of the "old order" as well as the reactivation of the legal basis, the reconstruction and organization of police stations, the recruitment of police officers, the improvement of educational standards and the general police work in the province of Carinthia.As Carinthia was within the British occupation zone, the return of gendarmerie stations from the allies and the general cooperation between the two of them will be discussed as well. The Border Service and the partisans also played an important role, as the Border Service in particular could be very dangerous.The geographical location of Carinthia required the gendarmerie to work under a wide variety conditions: in the winter time, police operations on skiing slopes were usual and in the summer, officers used boats to get around on Carinthian lakes such as Lake Ossiach and Lake Wörth. For this reason, Gendarmerie stations were opened in the skiing areas. Another important development during this time was the establishment of the Alpin gendarmerie.Taking this background into consideration, there will be a discussion of how the work of Carinthian Gendarmes changed during the post-war era until the year 1960.The main sources of this diploma thesis were the chronicle of the gendarmerie command of Carinthia, a variety of secondary literature and an interview with a former department inspector. |