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From the outset, the Reich authorities were able to rely in their activities on Austrian National Socialists, who had already initiated mass arrests, abuse, and murder during the »overthrow« of March 11, 1938. Especially the pogromlike excesses against the Jews culminating in the November-pogrom 1938 (»Night of Broken Glass«) were the work of local National Socialists, whose radicalism was primarily based on hatred and desire for vengeance as a result of their »illegality« between 1933–1938. Party officials in particular acted as informers for the Gestapo and the Security Service. In April and May 1945 during the regime's final stage, the party appeared for the last time as an instrument of terror when Gau-, district-, and local leaders acted as driving forces at massacres and courts-martial.
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