Engelbert Dollfuss

Shot on 25 July 1934 in Vienna by Austrian Nazis attempting a coup; the chancellor died refusing to yield to Hitler pressure for unification.

Overview

Dollfuss, leader of the Christian Social Party, had crushed the socialist Schutzbund in the February fighting of 1934 and governed by decree under an authoritarian constitution, while resisting Nazi Germany demand for Anschluss. SS men in Austrian army uniform stormed the radio station and the federal chancellery, held the tiny chancellor without medical aid for hours as he bled from two bullets, and proclaimed a puppet government; Italian mobilization on the Brenner helped deter German intervention. The coup collapsed within a day, fourteen conspirators were executed, and Kurt Schuschnigg succeeded him. Dollfuss death at forty-one made him a martyr of the Austrian clerical state, whose independence survived only until March 1938. His widow and children were granted pensions by a regime that then destroyed all he defended.