THE DOLLFUSS AFFAIR, 1934

When I was your age, the film The Sound of Music was a box office sensation.  My parents LOVED it, with the result that we went to see it five times (no Netflix in those days).  I enjoyed it too.  In the film, Austria is portrayed as a happy place which the nasty Nazis are scheming to take over.  The grumpy-but-noble Baron von Trapp opposes this, and [spoiler alert] the family lead the Salzburg Festival in a rebellious singing of Eidelweiss, before escaping to Switzerland over the mountains. 

The film lied to us – Austria was NOT a happy, free country before the Nazis. 

Background

Austria, shorn of its European empire by the Treaty of Versailles, was one of those weak, nationalist central-European countries set up by the treaty.  The country struggled economically, there was hyperinflation in 1921, and the economy collapsed altogether in the 1930s Depression. 

Politically, Austria’s Nationalrat (parliament) was split between the left-wing Social Democrats, and the right-wing Christian-Social Party of Engelbert Dollfuss.  Fearing that the Social Democrats were growing stronger, Dollfuss in 1933 organised the 'Fatherland Front’ – an ‘austrofascist’ movement, based on Italian fascism.  In 1932 Dollfuss became Austrian Chancellor, with a majority of just one in the Nationalrat. 

In 1933, after a political scandal over voting procedures in the Nationalrat, an Austrian Nazi tried to kill Dollfuss.  Dollfuss used the attempt as an excuse also to repress the Schutzbund, the paramilitary wing of the Social Democrats.  The result was a small rebellion (unsuccessful). 

The July Putsch

Dollfuss then used the Schutzbund Uprising as an excuse to set up – with the support of the Catholic Church – a one-party government: the ‘First Austrian Republic’.  Dollfuss became a right-wing dictator; if it had survived, the First Republic would have been just as fascist and as nasty as the fascist governments in Germany and Italy … it would just have been independent of Germany. 

This angered the Austrian Nazis – there was a strong voice in Austria for Anschluss, and a significant pro-German Nazi Party. 

Consequently, on 25 July 1934, the Austrian Nazis assassinated Dolfuss, staged the July Putsch (an attempted coup), set up a new government led by exiled Nazi Anton Rintelen, and appealed to Germany for help. 

Failure of the Coup

At this point, fearing a German takeover of Austria and Hitler on his northern border, Mussolini announced that he would defend Austrian independence.  He mobilised the Italian army on the border, and helped the Austrian forces fighting the Nazis. 

Fearing war with Italy, Hitler backed down and the coup collapsed.