The Kärntner Heimatdienst (KHD - Carinthian Homeland Service) is a far right and nationalist advocacy group of the German-speaking majority in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The KHD describes itself as a "nonpartisan patriotic citizens' initiative". As an officially approved traditions association it receives direct funding by the Carinthian state.
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After World War I the provisional Carinthian state assembly on 11 November 1918 declared the accession of the former Duchy of Carinthia as a whole to the newly established Republic of German Austria, while the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (SHS) raised claims to southern Carinthian territories with a predominantly Slovene-speaking poulation and had begun to occupy the lands south of the Drava river. On December 5 the Carinthian state assembly decided to array paramilitary troops, whose armed resistance led to several clashes of arms (Abwehrkampf), until a ceasefire was mediated by a US commission in January 1919.
According to the Treaty of Saint-Germain signed on 10 September 1919, the Meža valley and the Jezersko region were allocated to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In all other Carinthian territories occupied by Yugoslav troops the treaty ordered that a referendum should be held on 10 October 1920, whether the local population would join the Austrian Republic or the SHS-state. Beforehand the paramilitary fighters, organised in the Kärntner Heimatdienst, strongly agitated against the Yugoslav claims. On October 10, a majority of 59,04 % of voters in the district decided for the accession to Austria, determining the border as it exists up to today with Slovenia.
After its triumph, the KHD and its successor organization Kärntner Heimatbund (KHB) in the First Austrian Republic developed aggressive anti-Slovene, anti-Slavic, pan-German, anti-Semitic, and anti-Communist policies and also served as a platform for the illegal Nazi Party. After World War II the Kärntner Heimatdienst was re-established in 1957. It was able to exert influence on Carinthia's political parties during various public campaigns such as violent attacks against bilingual German-Slovene traffic signposts in 1972, agitations for the minority census in 1976, or for the abolition of bilingual primary education in 1988.
The KHD claims a membership of about 20,000, including some influential members of right-wing political parties, such as the Freedom Party of Austria and the Alliance for the Future of Austria. Since the late 1990s the association has tried for a rapprochement with organizations of the Carinthian Slovenes. It is nevertheless reproached with continuous contempt for the Slovene minority rights, while the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 in its Article Seven states that organizations aiming to divest any minority rights should be prohibited. In recent years the KHD has been in pursuit of more general issues like Islamophobia or the resistance against war reparations.
The KHD is also a founding member of the Ulrichsberg Memorial Association (Verein für die Heimkehrergedenkstätte Ulrichsberg) which organises an annual memorial service held by World War II veterans and expellees at the Ulrichsberg, a prominent hill overlooking the historic Zollfeld plain about 10 km (6.2 mi) north of Klagenfurt. The event is regularly attended by former members of the Waffen-SS and far right activists, the former Carinthian governor Jörg Haider delivered some of his most controversial speeches here.