Dollfuss: From Civil War to Assassination, 1934

Abstract

For Dollfuss, the balance sheet of the February civil war was unclear. At home the fight against Red Vienna had undoubtedly been popular in the western Lands and among country people. Even in sophisticated Vienna the middle class had been ready to believe Fey’s propaganda about a Red plot for a Bolshevist take-over which he claimed to have uncovered. But the workers — whom Dollfuss would almost certainly have wished to wean from their leaders and win over by gentler means — now hated him as hangman and tyrant, with a more bitter hate than they felt for Hitler. As for the Heimwehr, Dollfuss could still hope to keep the upper hand: fortunately for him, their performance as auxiliaries to the army and the police had been so poor that they had lost rather than gained prestige. The army had done its distasteful job efficiently; Dollfuss could still hope to use it as a power base.