In 1934 Chancellor Dollfuss was assassinated by an Austrian Nazi

Posted in Famous crimes, Historical articles, History, Politics on Tuesday, 25 February 2014

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This edited article about Austria first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 567 published on 25 November 1972.

The Anschluss,  picture, image, illustration

A Nazi propaganda postcard celebrating The Anschluss, 13 March 1938, which would not have been possible in 1934 after the assassination of Dollfuss

It began with a lie and ended in brutal murder.

The lie was first broadcast over Austria’s radio one summer day in 1934, after a lilting waltz by Johann Strauss was interrupted without any warning and an announcer told millions of listening Austrians: “The Government of Dr Dollfuss has resigned. Dr Rintelen has assumed power.”

In fact, Dr Engelbert Dollfuss, Chancellor of Austria, had not resigned but soon after that broadcast he was shot down by an Austrian Nazi, one of a group who longed for the German dictator Hitler to seize their country. After prolonged agony, he died at a quarter to four that day, July 25, 1934.

A shudder of horror and fear ran through Europe when the news broke, and, for a few grim hours it seemed that the Second World War might break out five years before it actually did. As it was, the assassination was a landmark on the road to Europe’s ruin.

Dollfuss was a mere 4ft 11in high, so tiny that legend had it that he sometimes stood on a chair to thump the table when he wanted to make a point! Born a peasant in 1892, after fighting in the 1914-18 War he soon made his mark as head of the Austrian Peasants’ Union. Naturally enough when he entered politics as a member of the Christian Social Party he soon found himself Minister of Agriculture.

It is hard for the average Briton or American, victorious in two world wars, to imagine the nightmare of defeat and the bitter years that follow it. The once mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918 when Germany collapsed, and Austria became a small poor country of some 6 millions, a third of whom lived in the once gay capital of Vienna. Torn with crises the country seemed almost ungovernable and, when Dollfus took over as Chancellor in 1932, he found himself under attack from many quarters.

To begin with, Dollfuss was faced with the menace of the National Socialists, Austria’s Nazi Party, which supported their hero Hitler’s plan to swallow Austria whole, and which thoroughly approved of his anti-Jewish Propaganda. Although the Nazis were not yet in the majority in Austria, to most Austrians Dollfuss seemed like a David challenging the monstrous Goliath that was Hitler.

As well as the Nazis, Dollfuss was faced with the Socialists, whom he misguidedly believed were as big a menace as the Nazis, though this does not excuse his later treatment of them. Meanwhile, he soon established himself as a dictator, though not a wicked one, even though he modelled himself on Mussolini at a time when that Italian dictator had many admirers. It could be argued that with the Nazis perpertrating bomb outrages, murders and beatings up, and poisoning the atmosphere with propaganda leaflets and obscene speeches. Dollfuss was right to assume dictatorial powers.

On October 4, 1933, a Nazi tried to kill him, firing two shots at close range, but Dollfuss was only slightly wounded. His broadcast from his sickbed made him more of a national hero than ever. But early the next year, Socialist demonstrations led him to send in the Army against huge housing estates in the suburbs of Vienna, and hundreds of workers were killed. After his own death, this division between his own party and the Socialists played into Hitler’s hands and made his conquest of Austria in 1938 a mere formality.

It also helped the Nazis at the time. The Austrian Nazis began agitating seriously with Hitler’s encouragement, but the encouragement was negative, for he was not quite powerful enough in 1934 to flout world opinion and upset Mussolini, who regarded Dollfuss as a useful friend. Considering the feeble, unenthusiastic display that Mussolini’s Italy gave in the Second World War, it is hard to realise just how powerful he seemed in the mid-30s.

The Austrian Nazis prepared to strike, their first objective after capturing the radio station being to arrest the entire Government! They shot their way into the radio centre and took it over, but a brave telephone girl gave the alarm, an engineer cut the wires, and the Nazis could not keep up their false broadcasts about the downfall of Dollfuss.

Meanwhile other Nazis, dressed as police and soldiers, broke into the Chancery where the Government were meeting. Squads of cars carrying heavily armed Nazis made enough uproar to alert the Chancery but it was too late. Most of the Cabinet was forced into a small room, while Dollfuss found himself faced by a brutish excorporal Otto Planetta, pointing a gun at him.

“Do what you like with me,” said Dollfuss. “I am leaving the building now. If you want to shoot me, then I shall die for the Fatherland!” Then he grabbed the door-handle.

At once Planetta shot him at close range in the armpit. As Dollfuss reeled in his tracks another bullet tore into him and he fell, cracking his head on the floor. His injuries were terrible, but it took him an hour and a half to die. His captors refused him a doctor or a priest.

Yet the Austrian Nazis had failed. There were too many Dollfuss men and they soon got control of the radio station. Most of the Army remained loyal and, more significant, Hitler remained silent. It was one of the only occasions in the 1930s that he suffered a rebuff. With Mussolini against him there was nothing he could do but wish his ardent supporters had waited.

The leading rebels were hanged and Dollfuss was given the greatest funeral that Vienna had ever seen. The President of Austria spoke of how Dollfuss had saved his country’s soul and the peace of Europe.

But it is wrong to blame Hitler and the Nazis for everything in this case, easy as it would be. Because of Dollfuss’s detestation of socialism, his successor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, found it impossible to unite the country when the threat of Hitler became all too real. Not that in the long run it would make the slightest difference for nothing could have stopped Hitler and nothing did, from swallowing Austria whole. Dollfuss must be regarded as one of his first victims outside Germany and, for all his blind spots about his political enemies, and his reprehensible treatment of them, he remains in the memories of countless Austrians as one of their greatest heroes.

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