Engelbert Dollfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss
Dollfuss pictured as Kaiserschütze (1933)
Dictator of the Austrian Federal State
In role 5 March 1933 – 25 July 1934
Preceded by	dictatorship established
Succeeded by	Kurt Schuschnigg
10th Chancellor of Austria
In office 20 May 1932 – 25 July 1934
President	Wilhelm Miklas
Deputy	Franz Winkler Emil Fey Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg
Preceded by	Karl Buresch
Succeeded by	Kurt Schuschnigg
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 20 May 1932 – 10 July 1934
Chancellor	himself
Preceded by	Karl Buresch
Succeeded by	Stephan Tauschitz
Minister of Agriculture
In office 18 March 1931 – 25 June 1934
Chancellor	Otto Ender Karl Buresch himself
Preceded by	Andreas Thaler
Succeeded by	Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg
Leader of the Fatherland Front
In office 20 May 1933 – 25 July 1934
Preceded by	office established
Succeeded by	Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg
Personal details
Born	(1892-10-04)4 October 1892 Texingtal, Lower Austria, Cisleithania
Died	25 July 1934(1934-07-25) (aged 41) Vienna, Austria
Cause of death	Assassination
Resting place	Hietzinger Cemetery, Vienna, Austria
Political party	Christian Social Party
Spouse(s)	Alwine Dollfuß
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Military service
Allegiance	Austria-Hungary
Service/branch	Austro-Hungarian Army
Years of service	1914–1918
Rank	Korporal
Unit	Kaiserschützen
Battles/wars	World War I Italian Front
Awards	Military Merit Cross 3rd Class Military Merit Medal (2 times) Medal for Bravery Karl Troop Cross (2 times) Wound Medal

Engelbert Dollfuss (German: Engelbert Dollfuß, IPA: [ˈɛŋəlbɛʁt ˈdɔlfuːs]; 4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Having served as Minister for Forests and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government. In early 1933, he shut down parliament, banned the Austrian Nazi party and assumed dictatorial powers. Suppressing the Socialist movement in February 1934, he cemented the rule of "austrofascism" through the authoritarian First of May Constitution. Dollfuss was assassinated as part of a failed coup attempt by Nazi agents in 1934. His successor Kurt Schuschnigg maintained the regime until Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938.

Early life

Dollfuss' birthplace in Texing

He was born in Texing in Lower Austria to unmarried mother Josepha Dollfuss and her lover Joseph Weninger. The couple, of peasant origin, was unable to get married due to financial problems. A few months after her son's birth, Josepha married landowner Leopold Schmutz in Kirnberg, who did not, however, adopt Engelbert as his own child. Dollfuss, who was raised as a devout Roman Catholic, received a scholarship for the minor seminary of the Archdiocese of Vienna in Hollabrunn in 1904. Having obtained his Matura degree in 1913, he first decided to continue his studies at the Vienna seminary but subsequently switched to study law at the University of Vienna.

At the outbreak of World War I, Dollfuss had difficulty gaining admission into the Austro-Hungarian Army as he was only 153 centimetres (5 ft 0 in) tall.^[1] Indeed, according to The New York Times, who 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 color of the Christian Democratic political faction), Dollfuss stood no more than 150 centimetres (4 ft 11 in) tall. Dollfuss' diminutive stature would remain an object of satire all his life; among his nicknames were 'Millimetternich' (blending 'millimeter' and Metternich), and 'Jockey'.

Dollfuss was eventually accepted and joined the Tyrolean Landesschützen regiment at Brixen and by the end of 1914 was sent to the Italian Front. Serving as commander of a machine gun detachment, he was a highly decorated soldier and was briefly taken by the Italian forces as a prisoner of war in 1918. After the war he returned to studies in Vienna, joining a Catholic male student fraternity (Studentenverbindung), became co-founder of the German Student Union in Austria and acted as a representative at the Cartellverband umbrella organization. Together with occasional allies like Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Robert Hohlbaum and Hermann Neubacher, he distinguished himself as a German nationalist and antisemite.

From 1919 he worked as secretary of the Austrian Farmers' Association (Bauernbund) and was sent to study economics at the University of Berlin. There Engelbert met Alwine Glienke (1897–1973), a German woman from a Protestant family, whom he married in 1921.^[2] The couple had one son and two daughters, with one daughter dying during early childhood.

Dollfuss finished his studies and obtained the doctor of law degree in 1922. He worked as a secretary of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Agriculture and in 1927 became its director. A great admirer of Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang's teachings, he became a member of the conservative Christian Social Party (CS) and promoted the establishment of agricultural cooperatives as well as the implementation of social insurance and unemployment benefits for farm workers against inner party disapproval. At the instigation of his party colleague Chancellor Carl Vaugoin, he was appointed president of the Austrian Federal Railways in 1930 (Dollfuss would push off Vaugoin to this post three years later).

In the 1930 legislative election, the Social Democrats emerged as the strongest party and Vaugoin resigned as chancellor. In March 1931, Dollfuss was named Minister of Agriculture and Forests in the short-lived coalition cabinet of Chancellor Otto Ender. When Ender resigned a few months later at the height of the Creditanstalt affair, he maintained this office under Ender's successor Karl Buresch. However, the political situation became more and more unstable after a failed Heimwehr coup d'état and the Nazi Party reaching a significant level of votes in several Landtag elections. The CS lost its Greater German allies in parliament and when the Social Democrats requested the dissolution of the National Council, the Buresch cabinet resigned on 20 May 1932.

Chancellor of Austria

On 10 May 1932, Dollfuss, age 39 and with only one year's experience in the Federal Government, was offered the office of Chancellor by President Wilhelm Miklas, also a member of the Christian-Social Party. Dollfuss refused to reply, instead spending the night in his favourite church praying, returning in the morning for a bath and a spartan meal before replying to the President he would accept the offer.^[3] Dollfuss was sworn in on 20 May 1932 as head of a coalition government between the Christian-Social Party, the Landbund — a right-wing agrarian party — and Heimatblock, the parliamentary wing of the Heimwehr, a paramilitary ultra-nationalist group. The coalition assumed the pressing task of tackling the problems of the Great Depression. Much of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's industry had been situated in the areas that became part of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia after World War I as a result of the Treaty of Saint-Germain. Postwar Austria was therefore economically disadvantaged.

Dollfuss' majority in Parliament was marginal; his government had only a one-vote majority.^[4]

Dollfuss as dictator of Austria

Chancellor Dollfuss in Geneva, 1933

In March 1933, an argument arose over irregularities in the voting procedure. The Social Democratic president of the National Council (the lower house of parliament) Karl Renner resigned to be able to cast a vote as a parliament member. As a consequence, the two vice presidents, belonging to other parties, resigned as well to be able to vote. Without a president, the parliament could not conclude the session. Dollfuss took the three resignations as a pretext to declare that the National Council had become unworkable, and advised President Wilhelm Miklas to issue a decree adjourning it indefinitely. When the National Council wanted to reconvene days after the resignation of the three presidents, Dollfuss had police bar entrance to parliament, effectively eliminating democracy in Austria. From that point onwards, he governed as dictator by emergency decree with absolute power.

Dollfuss was concerned that with German National Socialist leader Adolf Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Austrian National Socialists (DNSAP) could gain a significant minority in future elections (according to fascism scholar Stanley G. Payne, should elections have been held in 1933, the DNSAP could have mustered about 25% of the votes – contemporary Time magazine analysts suggest a higher support of 50%, with a 75% approval rate in the Tyrol region bordering Nazi Germany).^[5][6][7] In addition, the Soviet Union's influence in Europe had increased throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Dollfuss banned the communists on 26 May 1933 and the DNSAP on 19 June 1933. Under the banner of Christian Social Party, he later established a one-party dictatorship rule largely modeled after fascism in Italy, banning all other Austrian parties including the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDAPÖ). Social Democrats however continued to exist as an independent organization, nevertheless, without its paramilitary Republikanischer Schutzbund, which until 31 March 1933^[8] could have mustered tens of thousands against Dollfuss' government.

Assassination

Dollfuss was assassinated on 25 July 1934 by ten Austrian Nazis (Paul Hudl, Franz Holzweber, Otto Planetta and others)^[11] of Regiment 89^[12] who entered the Chancellery building and shot him in an attempted coup d'état, the July Putsch.^[13] Mussolini had no hesitation in attributing the attack to the German dictator: the news reached him at Cesena, where he was examining the plans for a psychiatric hospital. The Duce personally gave the announcement to the widow, who was a guest at his villa in Riccione with children. He also put at the disposal of Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, who spent a holiday in Venice, a plane that allowed the prince to rush back to Vienna and to face the assailants with his militia, with the permission of President Wilhelm Miklas.^[14]

Mussolini also mobilised a part of the Italian army on the Austrian border and threatened Hitler with war in the event of a German invasion of Austria to thwart the putsch. Then he announced to the world: "The independence of Austria, for which he has fallen, is a principle that has been defended and will be defended by Italy even more strenuously", and then replaced in the main square of Bolzano the statue^[15] of Walther von der Vogelweide, a Germanic troubadour, with that of Drusus, a Roman general who conquered part of Germany. This was the greatest moment of friction between Fascism and National Socialism and Mussolini himself came down several times to reaffirm the differences in the field. The assassination of Dollfuss was accompanied by uprisings in many regions in Austria, resulting in further deaths. In Carinthia, a large contingent of northern German Nazis tried to seize power but were subdued by the Italian units nearby. At first Hitler was jubilant, but the Italian reaction surprised him. Hitler became convinced that he could not face a conflict with the Western European powers, and he officially denied liability, stating his regret for the murder of the Austrian Prime Minister. He replaced the ambassador to Vienna with Franz von Papen and prevented the conspirators entering Germany, also expelling them from the Austrian Nazi Party. The Nazi assassins in Vienna, after declaring the formation of a new government under Austrian Nazi Anton Rintelen, previously exiled by Dollfuss as Austrian Ambassador to Rome, surrendered after threats from Austrian military of blowing up the Chancellery using dynamite, and were subsequently tried and executed by hanging.^[16] Kurt Schuschnigg, previously Minister of Education, was appointed new chancellor of Austria after a few days, assuming the office from Dollfuss’ deputy Starhemberg.

Out of a population of 6.5 million, approximately 500,000 Austrians were present at Dollfuss’ burial in Vienna.^[17] He is interred in the Hietzing cemetery in Vienna^[18] beside his wife Alwine Dollfuss (d. 1973) and two of his children, Hannerl and Eva, all of whom were in Italy as guests of Rachele Mussolini at the time of his death, an event which saw Mussolini himself shed tears over his slain ally.^[19][20]

In literature

In Bertolt Brecht's 1941 play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Dollfuss is represented by the character "Dullfeet".^[21]

Works

• Das Kammersystem in der Landwirtschaft Österreichs. Agrarverlag, Wien 1929.
• Mertha, Rudolf, Dollfuß, Engelbert: Die Sozialversicherung in der Landwirtschaft Österreichs nach dem Stande von Ende März 1929. Agrarverlag, Wien 1929.
• Der Führer Bundeskanzler Dr. Dollfuß zum Feste des Wiederaufbaues. 3 Reden. 1. Mai 1934. Österr. Bundespressedienst, Wien 1934.
• Tautscher, Anton (Hrsg.): So sprach der Kanzler. Dollfuss’ Vermächtnis. Aus seinen Reden. Baumgartner, Wien 1935.
• Weber, Edmund (Hrsg.): Dollfuß an Oesterreich. Eines Mannes Wort und Ziel. Reinhold, Wien 1935.
• Maderthaner, Wolfgang (Hrsg.): „Der Führer bin ich selbst.“ Engelbert Dollfuß – Benito Mussolini. Briefwechsel. Löcker, Wien 2004, ISBN 3-85409-393-4.

Notes

References

• Bauman, Vladimír & Hladký, Miroslav První zemřel kancléř, Praha, 1968
• Brožek, Otakar & Horský, Jiří, Na dně byla smrt, Praha, 1968
• Bußhoff, Heinrich, Das Dollfuß-Regime in Österreich (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1968)
• Carsten, F. L., The First Austrian Republic 1918-1938 (Cambridge U.P., 1986)
• Dollfuß, Engelbert, Dollfuß schafft Arbeit [Pamphlet] (Heimatdienst, 1933)
• Dreidemy, Lucile: Der Dollfuß-Mythos. Eine Biographie des Posthumen. Böhlau, Wien 2014, ISBN 978-3-205-79597-1.
• 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)
• Höhne, Heinz, Zollin; Barry, Richard (2001), The Order of the Death's Head: the Story of Hitler's SS, Penguin Books ISBN 0-14-139012-3
• Luksan, Martin, Schlösser, Hermann, Szanya, anton (Hrsg.): Heilige Scheine – Marco d’Aviano, Engelbert Dollfuß und der österreichische Katholizismus. Promedia, Wien 2007, ISBN 978-3-85371-275-7.
• Maass, Walter B. Assassination in Vienna, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
• 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)
• Naderer, Otto: Der bewaffnete Aufstand: der Republikanische Schutzbund der österreichischen Sozialdemokratie und die militärische Vorbereitung auf den Bürgerkrieg (1923–1934) (= Hochschulschriften), Ares, Graz 2005, ISBN 978-3-902475-06-0 (Dissertation Universität Salzburg 2003, 384 Seiten).
• Österreichischer Bundespressedienst, Der Führer Bundeskanzler Dr. Dollfuß zum Feste des Wiederaufbaues 1. Mai 1934 (Österreichischer Bundespressedienst, 1934)
• Hans Schafranek: „Sommerfest mit Preisschießen“. Die unbekannte Geschichte des NS-Putsches im Juli 1934. Czernin, Wien 2006, ISBN 3-7076-0081-5.
• Sugar, Peter (ed.) Native Fascism in the Successor States (Seattle 1971)
• Tálos, Emmerich & Neugebauer, Wolfgang, Austrofaschismus (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)
• Ludwig Jedlicka (1959), "Dollfuß, Engelbert", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 4, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 62–63 ; (full text online)
• "Dollfuß Engelbert". In: Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Vol. 1, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1957, p. 192.

External links

• Video: Dollfuss gives a speech in Burgenland 1933 (mpeg, 6,1 MB)
• Dollfuss: An Austrian Patriot by Father Johannes Messner at Angelus Press
• Newspaper clippings about Engelbert Dollfuss in the 20th Century Press Archives of the German National Library of Economics (ZBW)