Engelbert dollfuss wiki

Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schuschnigg (14 December 1897 – 18 November 1977) was Chancellor of the Federal State of Austria from the 1934 assassination of his predecessor Engelbert Dollfuss until the 1938 Anschluss with Nazi Germany. He was opposed to Hitler's ambitions to absorb Austria into the Third Reich. After Schuschnigg's efforts to keep Austria independent had failed, he resigned his office. After the invasion by Nazi Germany he was arrested, kept in solitary confinement and eventually interned in various concentration camps. He was liberated in 1945 by the advancing United States Army and spent most of the rest of his life in academia in the United States.

Quotes

• There is no question of ever accepting Nazi representatives in the Austrian cabinet. An absolute abyss separates Austria from Nazism. We do not like arbitrary power, we want law to rule our freedom. We reject uniformity and centralization. . . . Christendom is anchored in our very soil, and we know but one God: and that is not the State, or the Nation, or that elusive thing, Race. Our children are God’s children, not to be abused by the State. We abhor terror; Austria has always been a humanitarian state. As a people, we are tolerant by predisposition. Any change now, in our "status quo", could only be for the worse.
  • "Morning Telegraph" of London (January 5, 1938), reprinted in "Let the Record Speak", Dorothy Thompson, Boston: MA, Houghton Mifflin Company (1939) p. 135

The Brutal Takeover: The Austrian ex-Chancellor’s account of the Anschluss of Austria by Hitler, 1971

New York: NY, Atheneum (1971)

• The situation changed visibly when sentimental reasons and long-term political aims gave way to a stern, ruthless nationalist ideology which would brook no compromise. Hitler had categorically demanded the Anschluss in "Mein Kampf". . . . As early as 1923 Hitler had decide that, if necessary, the National-Socialists must take over the government in Austria by

Engelbert Dollfuss (1892–1934) was an Austrian politician and fascist who was the chancellor of Austria during 1932 to 1934, having ascended to the position in the midst of a government crisis, previously holding the role as Minister for Forests and Agriculture. Dollfuss was allied with Mussolini during the 1930s, when Hitler was gaining prominence in Germany. When Dollfuss was assassinated, this caused Italy to have a difficult relationship with Germany until the beginning of World War II.

Beginnings

Dollfuss was born to a poor peasant family in rural Austria. The local priests aided him byfinancing his attendance in public school, which made Dollfuss consider becoming a priest when he enrolled in the University of Vienna to study theology. However, he later abandoned this decision and chose to study law instead in 1912. From there, he gave lessons as a career and even joined the Students' Social Movement, a student organization which performed charity for workers.

During the outbreak of World War I, it was reported that Dollfuss was considered for enlistment in the military, but was said to be rejected because his height was 2 centimeters shorter than the required average.

Political career

Dollfuss modeled Austrian fascism from Catholic religious values, corporatist ideals, and anti-secularism, which he modeled after Italian fascism.

Dolfuss banned Austrian socialist and social democrat movements and established an authoritarian regime, but he opposed Nazism and outlawed the Austrian Nazi Party in 1934. This was because he saw Nazism as anti-Christian and was committed to Austrian independence, while the Nazis sought to absorb Austria into a Greater Germany.

Austrian civil war

Dollfuss's administration took heavy action against social democrats. The social democrats responded by defending themselves,

Engelbert Dollfuss (4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) was the Chancellor of Austria (succeeding Karl Buresch and preceding Kurt Schuschnigg) and Foreign Minister of Austria from 1932 to 1934 (succeeding Karl Buresch and preceding Stephan Tauschitz). He was an early opponent of the Nazi Party and was assassinated by Nazis in Austria in 1934, a year after they took power in Germany.

Biography[]

Engelbert Dollfuss was born on 4 October 1892 in Texingtal, Austria-Hungary (present-day Austria). He was a devout Roman Catholic who studied at a seminary before studying law at the University of Vienna and economics at the University of Berlin. Dollfuss was slightly over five feet, so he barely made it into the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. He was captured by the Kingdom of Italy in 1918 and held as a prisoner-of-war, and after the war he worked with agriculture in postwar Austria. In 1932, he was offered the title of Chancellor by President Wilhelm Miklas, and on 20 May 1932 he was sworn in at the head of a coalition government. His economy failed to improve due to most of Austria's pre-Treaty of Versailles economy lying in Yugoslavia and Hungary. In 1933, with the creation of Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler's Austrian Nazi Party, Dollfuss felt threatened by the rise of Nazism in Europe and declared it illegal to be a member of the party.

Dictator of Austria []

Becoming a Fascist dictator, Dollfuss exercised all power in the government and for a few weeks in February 1934 there was an Austrian Civil War. Police and military power put down the industrial workers and social democrats, and in April 1934 he introduced a new constitution with corporatist ideas. All of democracy in Austria was crushed, and Dollfuss became the ultimate leader of Austria.

Dollfuss was assassinated by ten Austrian Nazis in July 1934 in response to his dictatorship. Benito Mussolini, the leader of Austria's ally of Fascist Italy, threatened to invade Nazi Germany if Hitler

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