View source for Engelbert Dollfuss (1892-1934)

{{Infobox officeholder
|name                = Engelbert Dollfuss
|image               = Engelbert Dollfuss.png
|imagesize           =
|smallimage          =
|caption             = Dollfuss pictured in uniform during 1933.
|order               = 14th [[Chancellor of Austria|Federal Chancellor of Austria]]
|term_start          = May 20, 1932
|term_end            = July 25, 1934
|president           = [[Wilhelm Miklas]]
|deputy              = [[Franz Winkler]]<br>[[Emil Fey]]<br>[[Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg]]
|predecessor         = [[Karl Buresch]]
|successor           = [[Kurt Schuschnigg]]
|order2          = [[Fatherland's Front|Federal leader of the Fatherland Front]]
|term_start2          = May 20, 1933
|term_end2          = July 25, 1934
|deputy2              = [[Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg]]
|predecessor2         = ''None''
|successor2          = [[Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg]]
|birth_date          = October 4, 1892
|birth_place         = [[Texingtal]], [[Austro-Hungary]]
|death_date          = July 25, 1934 (aged 41)
|death_place         = [[Vienna]], [[Federal State of Austria|Austria]]
|constituency        =
|party               = [[Christian Social Party (Austria)|Christian Social Party]]<br>[[Fatherland's Front (Austria)|Fatherland's Front]]
|spouse              =
|children            =
|profession          =
|religion            = [[Roman Catholic]]
|signature           =
|footnotes           =
}}

'''Engelbert Dollfuss''' (''in German'': '''Engelbert Dollfuß'''; October 4, 1892 – July 25, 1934) was an [[Austria]]n [[Christian Social Party (Austria)|Christian Social]] and [[Patriotic Front (Austria)|Patriotic Front]] [[Politician|statesman]]. Serving previously as Minister for Forest 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 [[Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei|Austrian Nazi party]] and assumed dictatorial powers. [[Austrian Civil War|Suppressing the Socialist movement]] in February 1934, he cemented the rule of “[[austrofascism]]” through the [[authoritarian]] ''[[May Constitution of 1934|First of May Constitution]]''. Dollfuss was assassinated as part of a failed coup attempt by [[Nazi party|Nazi]] agents in 1934. His regime was maintained through the [[Stresa Front]] until [[Adolf Hitler]]'s [[Anschluss|annexing of Austria]] in 1938.

==Early life==
He was born in [[Texingtal|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. Josepha married landowner Leopold Schmutz a few months after her son's birth, who did not adopt Engelbert however as his own child. Dollfuss, who was raised as a devout [[Roman Catholic]], was shortly in [[seminary]] before deciding to study law at the [[University of Vienna]] and then economics at the [[University of Berlin]]. Here he met Alwine Glienke, a German woman from a Protestant family, whom he married in 1921.<ref>[http://www.artikel32.com/wirtschaft/1/wer-war-engelbert-dollfu.php Wer war Engelbert Dollfuß?] retrieved April 19, 2012</ref> The couple had a son and two daughters, one of which died in early childhood.

Dollfuss had difficulty gaining admission into the Austro-Hungarian army in [[World War I]] because he was only 153&nbsp;cm tall.<ref>Gudula Walterskirchen: Engelbert Dollfuß - Arbeitermörder oder Heldenkanzler. Vienna 2004.</ref> He 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 [[prisoner of war]] in 1918.{{Citation needed|date=December 2007}} After the war he worked for the agriculture ministry as secretary of the Farmers' Association and became director of the [[Lower Austria]]n Chamber of Agriculture in 1927. In 1930 as a member of the conservative [[Christian Social Party (Austria)|Christian Social Party]] (CS), he was appointed president of the [[ÖBB|Federal Railway System]]. (One of the founders of the CS was a hero of Dollfuss', [[Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang]].) The following year he was named Minister of Agriculture and Forests.

==Chancellor of Austria==
In late May 1932, with the resignation of [[Karl Buresch]]'s Christian-Social government, Dollfuss, age 39 and with only one year's experience in the Federal government, was offered the office of [[Chancellor of Austria|Chancellor]] by President [[Wilhelm Miklas]], also a member of the Christian-Social Party. Accordingly, Dollfuss refused to reply, instead spending the night in his favorite church praying, returning in the morning for a bath and a spartan meal before replying to the President he would accept the offer.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882197-3,00.html | work=Time | title=AUSTRIA: Eve of Renewal | date=September 25, 1933}}</ref> Dollfuss was sworn in on May 20, 1932, as head of a [[coalition government]] between the Christian-Social Party, the [[Landbund]]—a [[right-wing]] [[agrarianism|agrarian]] party—and [[Heimwehr|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-en-Laye (1919)|Treaty of Saint-Germain]]. Postwar Austria was therefore economically disadvantaged.

Dollfuss' majority in [[Federal Assembly of Austria|Parliament]] was marginal; his government had only a one-vote majority.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Österreich I (Die unterschätzte Republik) |last=Portisch |first=Hugo |authorlink=Hugo Portisch |coauthors=Sepp Riff |year=1989 |publisher=Verlag Kremayr und Scheriau |location=Vienna, Austria |isbn=3-218-00485-3 |page=415}}</ref>

==Dollfuss as dictator of Austria==
In March 1933, an argument arose over irregularities in the voting procedure. The president of the [[National Council of Austria|National Council]] (the lower house of parliament) 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 of Austria|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 [[NSDAP|German National Socialist]] leader [[Adolf Hitler]] becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the [[Austrian National Socialism|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)|TIME]] analysts suggests a higher support of 50%, with a 75% approval rate in the [[Tyrol (state)|Tyrol]] region bordering Nazi Germany).<ref>Stanley G. Payne, ''A History of Fascism 1914-1945''</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882197-1,00.html | work=Time | title=AUSTRIA: Eve of Renewal | date=September 25, 1933}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882197-2,00.html | work=Time | title=AUSTRIA: Eve of Renewal | date=September 25, 1933}}</ref> As well, the Soviet Union's influence in Europe had increased throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Dollfuss banned the DNSAP in June 1933 and the communists later on. Under the banner of [[Christian Social Party (Austria)|Christian Social Party]], he later on 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, including its paramilitary ''Republikaner Schutzbund'', which could muster tens of thousands against Dollfuss' government.

==Austrofascism==
Dollfuss modeled [[Austrofascism]] after Italian [[fascism]] {{Citation needed|date=March 2012}} juxtaposed to [[Catholic]] [[corporatism]] and [[clericalism|anti-secularism]], dropping Austrian pretences of reunification with Germany as long as the Nazi Party remained in power. In August 1933, Mussolini's government issued a guarantee of Austrian independence. Dollfuss also exchanged 'Secret Letters' with [[Benito Mussolini]] about ways to guarantee Austrian independence. Mussolini was interested in Austria forming a buffer zone against Nazi Germany. Dollfuss always stressed the similarity of the regimes of Hitler in Germany and [[Joseph Stalin]] in the Soviet Union, and was convinced that Austrofascism and Italian fascism could counter [[totalitarian]] national socialism and communism in Europe.

In September 1933 Dollfuss merged his Christian Social Party with elements of other nationalist and conservative groups, including the Heimwehr, which encompassed many workers who were unhappy with the radical leadership of the socialist party, to form the ''[[Patriotic Front (Austria)|Vaterländische Front]]'', though the Heimwehr continued to exist as an independent organization until 1936, when Dollfuss' successor [[Kurt von Schuschnigg]] forcibly merged it into the Front, instead creating the unabidingly loyal ''Frontmiliz'' as paramilitary task force. Dollfuss escaped an assassination attempt in October 1933 by [[Rudolf Dertill]], a 22-year old who had been ejected from the military for his national socialist views.

==Austrian civil war and new constitution==
In February 1934, Nazi agents{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}} in the security forces provoked arrests of Social Democrats and unjustified searches for weapons of the Social Democrats' already outlawed [[Republikanischer Schutzbund]]. After the Dollfuss dictatorship took steps against known Social Democrats, the Social Democrats called for nationwide resistance against the government. [[Austrian Civil War|A civil war]] began, which lasted from February 12 until February 27. Fierce fighting took place primarily in the East of Austria, especially in the streets of some outer [[Vienna]] districts, where large fortress-like [[Gemeindebau|municipal workers' buildings]] were situated, and in the northern, industrial areas of the province of [[Styria]], where Nazi agents{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}} had great interest in a bloodbath between security forces and workers' militias. The resistance was suppressed by police and military power. The Social Democrats were outlawed,<ref>''[http://books.google.com/books?id=IaaJAAAAMAAJ&q=Sozialdemokratische+Partei+verboten+1934&dq=Sozialdemokratische+Partei+verboten+1934&lr=&cd=4 Protokolle des Ministerrates der Ersten Republik, Volume 8, Part 6]''. ISBN 3-7046-0004-0.  Google Book Search. Retrieved on February 6, 2010.</ref> and their leaders were imprisoned or fled abroad.

==New constitution==
Dollfuss staged a parliamentary session with just his party members present in April 1934 to [[May Constitution of 1934|have his new constitution approved]], effectively the second constitution in the world espousing [[corporatist]] ideas (after that of the Portuguese ''[[Portuguese Constitution of 1933|Estado Novo]]''). The session retrospectively made all the decrees already passed since March 1933 legal. The new constitution became effective on May 1, 1934, and swept away the last remnants of democracy and the system of the first Austrian Republic.

==Assassination==
Dollfuss was assassinated on July 25, 1934, by ten Austrian Nazis ([[Paul Hudl]], [[Franz Holzweber]], [[Otto Planetta]] and others<ref>http://erfurt-web.de/PlanettaOtto&recommend_site</ref>) of Regiment 89<ref>[http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=33686 SS ]</ref> who entered the Chancellery building and shot him in an attempted coup d'état, the [[July Putsch]].<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747609-1,00.html | work=Time | title=AUSTRIA: Death for Freedom | date=August 6, 1934 | accessdate=May 2, 2010}}</ref> 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]].<ref>Richard Lamb, ''Mussolini and the British'', 1997, p. 149</ref>

Mussolini also mobilized 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 of [[Walther von der Vogelweide]], a Germanic troubadour, with that of [[Nero Claudius Drusus|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 (state)|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 and convinced him that he can not even face a conflict with the powers of Western Europe, officially denied liability stating its regret for the murder of 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 [[hanging|executed through hanging]].<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747609-3,00.html | work=Time | title=AUSTRIA: Death for Freedom | date=August 6, 1934}}</ref> [[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]].<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747609-5,00.html | work=Time | title=AUSTRIA: Death for Freedom | date=August 6, 1934}}</ref> He is interred in the [[Hietzing]] cemetery in Vienna<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.viennatouristguide.at/Friedhoefe/Hietzing/Ehrengraeber/z_dollfuss.htm |title=Vienna Tourist Guide: Dollfuss Hietzinger Friedhof |publisher=Hedwig Abraham  |accessdate=6 February 2010}} (includes photographs)</ref> 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 some tears over his slain ally.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882197-4,00.html | work=Time | title=AUSTRIA: Eve of Renewal | date=September 25, 1933}}</ref> Dollfuss' son Rudolph (Rudi) Dollfuss is alive as of today.

==Stature==
Dollfuss was a very short man and his diminutive stature (155&nbsp;cm = 5'2"{{Citation needed|date=December 2007}} or 150&nbsp;cm = 4'11" according to the ''New York Times'') was the object of satire; among his nicknames were 'Millimetternich' (making a [[portmanteau]] out of millimeter and [[Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich|Metternich]]), 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 Christian Democratic political faction).

In contrast to his own diminutive stature, his personal assistant and secretary [[Eduard Hedvicek]], who later played a significant role in the unsuccessful attempt to save his life was a very large and tall man (200&nbsp;cm = 6'7").

==Notes and references==
{{Reflist}}

* Assassination in Vienna, Walter B. Maass, published by Charles Scribners's Sons, New York
* The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS, by Heinz Zollin Höhne and Richard Barry
* První zemřel kancléř, Vladimír Bauman a Miroslav Hladký, Praha 1968
* Na dně byla smrt, Otakar Brožek a Jiří Horský, Praha 1968
* 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, ''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)

==External links==
*[http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.film.data.film/f029a.mpg Video: Dollfuss gives a speech in Burgenland 1933 (mpeg, 6,1 kb)]
*[http://www.angeluspress.org/oscatalog/item/8044/dollfuss-an-austrian-patriot ''Dollfuss: An Austrian Patriot'' by Father Johannes Messner] at [http://www.angeluspress.org/ Angelus Press]

{{s-start}}
{{s-off}}
{{succession box|
 before=[[Karl Buresch]]|
 title=[[Chancellor of Austria]]|
 years=1932&ndash;1934|
 after=[[Kurt Schuschnigg]]
}}
{{s-end}}

{{AustrianChancellors}}
{{Foreign Ministers of Austria}}

{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
| NAME              = Dollfuss, Engelbert
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
| DATE OF BIRTH     = October 14, 1892
| PLACE OF BIRTH    = [[Texingtal]], [[Austro-Hungary]]
| DATE OF DEATH     = July 25, 1934
| PLACE OF DEATH    = [[Vienna]], [[Austria]]
}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dollfuss, Engelbert}}
{{born|1892}}
{{died|1934}}
[[Category:Born in Texingtal]]
[[Category:Died in Vienna]]
[[Category:Born in Austria-Hungary]]
[[Category:Austrian Ministers of Defence]]
[[Category:Assassinated heads of state]]
[[Category:Austrian anti-communists]]
[[Category:Chancellors of Austria]]
[[Category:Foreign ministers of Austria]]
[[Category:Austrofascists]]
[[Category:Austrian Civil War]]
[[Category:World War I prisoners of war held by Italy]]
[[Category:Attempted assassination survivors]]
[[Category:Assassinated Austrian politicians]]
[[Category:Austrian Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Austria]]
[[Category:Christian Social Party (Austria) politicians]]
[[Category:Austrian prisoners of war]]
[[Category:People murdered in Austria]]
[[Category:Assassinated heads of government]]

{{usedwp|Engelbert Dollfuss}}
{{surname|Dollfuss}}
[[Category:Non-SMW people articles]]
[[Category:Famous people]]