Engelbert Dollfuss

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Engelbert Dollfuss.

Engelbert Dollfuss (German: Dollfuß; October 4, 1892 – July 25, 1934) was an Austrian conservative statesman, who served as chancellor for two years from 1932 until his assassination by Nazi agents in 1934.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Assassination
2 External links
3 Primary and secondary literature

[edit] Biography

Born in Texing in Lower Austria and deeply religious, Dollfuss was educated at a Roman Catholic seminary before deciding to study Law at the University of Vienna and then Economics at the University of Berlin.

Dollfuss had difficulty gaining admission into the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I due to his short stature, but was eventually accepted and sent to the Alpine Front. He was a highly decorated soldier and was briefly taken prisoner by the Italians as a POW in 1918. After the war he worked for the Agriculture ministry as secretary of the Peasants' Association and became director of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Agriculture in 1927, and in 1930 as a member of the conservative Christian Social Party was appointed president of the Federal Railway System. (One of the founders of the CS was a hero of Dollfuss's, Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang.) The following year he was named minister of agriculture and forests.

He became Chancellor on May 20, 1932 as head of a coalition government, with the pressing goal of tackling the problems of the Great Depression, in a state (post-Versailles Austria) which was not an economically viable entity since its creation in 1919.^{[citation needed]} But, Dollfuss's majority in Parliament was almost non-existent; deflationary policies implemented by his chief economic advisor, Ludwig von Mises, would prove unpopular in and outside of Parliament, especially among the (deeply hostile to Dolfuss) Austrian Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAPÖ).

Dollfuss suspended Parliament indefinitely in March 1933 and governed thereafter by decree. He arguably also had another reason for the suspension of democracy in Austria besides standard political fighting – the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. With Adolf Hitler now German Chancellor, it looked increasingly likely that the Austrian National Socialists (DNSAP) would gain a majority in any future elections, after which Austria would surely cease to exist as a state. Accordingly, Dollfuss banned the DNSAP in June 1933, and then the SDAPÖ in February 1934, after a bloodbath that killed hundreds of people of the factory workers district, including women and children, who tried to stage a revolt against him. Some historians argue the Nazi rise to power in 1933 in Germany forced Dollfuss to take an authoritarian line in order to preserve Austrian sovereignty, whilst others argue that the authoritarian trend was already underway in 1932.

Dollfuss was drawn to Italian fascism and leveraged support from fascist Italy against Nazi Germany, gaining a guarantee for Austria's independence from Italy in August 1933 in exchange for radical political reforms along Fascist lines. He also exchanged 'Secret Letters' with Mussolini about ways to guarantee Austrian independence.

In September 1933 Dolfuss formed the Vaterländische Front, an umbrella grouping to support his government, and merged the Christian Social Party with the Nationalist paramilitary Heimwehr (Home Guard). The Austrian regime which then ruled from 1933 until 1938 (long after his assassination and up until the Anschluss) is referred to by some as Austrofascism. The regime designated itself Ständestaat.

Dollfuss was a very short man and his diminutive stature was the object of satire, among his nicknames were 'Millimetternich' and the 'Jockey'. The New York Times also reported a series of jokes, including how in the coffee houses of Vienna, one could order a 'Dollfuss' cup of coffee instead of a 'Short Black' cup of coffee (black being the colour of the clerical political faction). He has also been satirized by Jura Soyfer.

[edit] Assassination

Dolfuss was assassinated in 1934 by eight Austrian Nazis who entered the Chancellery building and shot him in an attempted coup d'état, as a prelude to the Anschluss. Immediately after the assassination Italian armed forces mobilized at the Austrian-Italian border to deter any German invasion of Austrian territory. However, the Nazi assassins in Vienna surrendered and were executed. Kurt Schuschnigg became the new chancellor. A year earlier, in October 1933, Dollfuss already escaped an assassination attempt by Rudolf Dertill, a 22-year old who was ejected from the military for his national-socialist views.

Dollfuss is buried in the Hietzing cemetery in Vienna, alongside his wife Alvine.

By the time of the Anschluss in 1938 it was clear that Mussolini did not support Schuschnigg as he had Dollfuss; contacts between Italian fascists and German Nazis had improved enough by then to see Mussolini's acceptance of the annexation of the Austrian territories by Nazi Germany.

Engelbert Dollfuss

[edit] External links

[edit] Primary and secondary literature

Bußhoff, Heinrich, Das Dollfuß Regime in Österreich (Berlin: Duncker & Humbolt, 1968)
Carsten, F. L., The first Austrian Republic 1918-1938 (Cambridge U.P., 1986)
Dollfuß, Engelbert, Dollfuß Schafft Arbeit [Pamphlet] (Heimatdienst, 1933)
Ender, D, Die neue Österreichische Verfassung mit dem Text des Konkordates (Wien/Leipzig: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1935)
Gregory, J. D., Dollfuss and his Times (Tiptree: Hutchinson & Co. Anchor, 1935)
Maleta, Alfred, Der Sozialist im Dollfuß-Österreich (Linz: Preßverein Linz, 1936)
Messner, Johannes, Dollfuß (Tyrolia, 1935)
Messner, Johannes, Dollfuss: An Austrian Patriot (Norfolk, Virginia: IHS Press, 2003)
Moth, G., Neu Österreich und seine Baumeister (Wien: Steyrermühl-Verlag, 1935)
Österreichischer Bundespressedienst, Der Führer Bundeskanzler Dr. Dollfuß zum Feste des Wiederaufbaues 1. Mai 1934 (Österreichischer Bundespressedienst, 1934)
Sugar, Peter (ed.) Native Fascism in the Successor States (Seattle 1971)
Tálos, Emmerich & Neugebauer, Wolfgang, Austrofascismus (Vienna: Lit. Verlag, 2005)
Walterskirchen, Gudula Engelbert Dollfuss, Arbeitermörder oder Heldenkanzler (Vienna: Molden Verlag, 2004)
Weber, Hofrat Edmund, Dollfuß an Oesterreich, Eines Mannes Wort und Ziel (Wien: Reinhold Verlag, 1935)
Winkler, Franz, Die Diktatur in Oesterreich (Zürich/Leipzig, Orell Füssli Verlag, 1935)
Zweig, Stefan, Die Welt von Gestern, eines Dichters von Morgen (Frankfurt am Main/Bonn: Athenäum, 1965)