Home guard explained

Home guard is a title given to colonial military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense.

The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting with units formed by German immigrants in Missouri, and may derive from possible historical use of the term Heimwehr ("home guard") to describe units officially known as Landwehr ("country guard"), or from an attempted translation of landwehr.

Military units

Active

	Country	Name	Active
			2002–
			1965–
			1942–
			2020–
			1949–
			1918–1940, 1990–
			1892–
	Germany	Heimatschutz of Bundeswehr	1965–2007, 2019–
			1958–
		Indian Home Guard	1962–
			1991–
		Lithuanian Riflemen's Union	1918–1940, 1989–
		Lithuanian National Defence Volunteer Forces	1991–
		Lithuanian Armed Forces Military Commandant's Offices Command	2025–
			1898–
			1946–
			2017–
			2022–
		Sri Lankan Home Guard	1986–
			1940–
			2020–
			2022–
			1917–

Historical & Defunct

• Aizsargi (Latvia, 1919–1940)
• Home Guard (Unionist), during the American Civil War
• Civilian Irregular Defense Group program (1961-1970) during the Vietnam War
• Confederate Home Guard (1861–1865) during the American Civil War
• Croatian Home Guard, several historic military formations during 19th and 20th century
• Czechoslovak Home Guard (1918–1919)
• Home Guard (Austria) (Heimwehr) (1920–1938) paramilitary unit of Fatherland Front Party
• Home Guard (New Zealand) (1940–1943)
• Home Guard (United Kingdom) (1940–1944)
• Home Service Force, British force for the 1980s-90s.
• Indian Home Guard, units raised from Indian tribes to support the Unionists in the American Civil War
• Kikuyu Home Guard, a government paramilitary force in Kenya (1953–1955)
• Malayan Home Guard, auxiliary volunteer police forces in Malaya during Malayan Emergency^[1]
• Narodnoe Opolcheniye, Russia
• Slovene Home Guard (1943–1945)
• Veterans Guard of Canada (1940–1947)
• Volkssturm, Nazi Germany (1944-1945)
• Volunteer Defence Corps (Australia) (1940-1944)
• Volunteer Fighting Corps, Japanese armed citizen militia (1945)

Similar units

• Auxiliary Units
• City guard
• Civil Guard (disambiguation)
• Gendarmerie
• Home Guard (India)
• Home Army (Armia Krajowa), Poland, World War II
• Fencibles, British temporary militias
• Boeitai, a Japanese home guard force of World War II
• Kondei, ancient Japanese militia of the Nara and Heian periods
• Local Defence troops (Finland)
• Militia
• Ordenanças, Portuguese home guard from 1570 to 1831
• Omakaitse, Estonian Home Guard in World War II
• United States Coast Guard Reserve "temporary reservists" during World War II
• United States Guards
• Wachdienst, an auxiliary organisation erected by the Third Reich in Germany during the last months of World War II

Other

• Home Guard (Shannara), in Terry Brooks' novel series
• Home Guard potato, a variety of first early potato

See also

• Irregular military
• Irregular warfare
• Insurgency weapons and tactics
• Internal security

Notes and References

1. Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya, Director of Operations, Malaya, 1958, Chapter III: Own Forces