The clash was the result of conflict between the Social Democratic Party of Austria and a right-wing alliance including wealthy industrialists and the Catholic Church. Many paramilitary forces had been formed in Austria during the early 1920s, among them the Nationalist Frontkämpfervereinigung Deutsch-Österreichs under Col. Hermann Hiltl and the Social Democratic Republikanischer Schutzbund. A clash between those groups during a gathering in Schattendorf, Burgenland on 30 January 1927 resulted in the death of a World War I veteran and an eight-year-old boy.