The Catholic Dictatorship and the Nazi Occupation, 1933‒1945

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on the collapse of the Republic and the imposition of an authoritarian regime by Catholic conservatives led by Dollfuß in 1933‒4 and the subsequent conquest and occupation of Austria by Hitler and the Nazis in 1938. Following the implosion of parliament on March 4, 1933 Dollfuß began to undermine key facets of the existing political order. The record before us leads inescapably to the conclusion that Dollfuß was in full control of his Cabinet, and he was only too willing to follow the urgings of those who wanted a swift attack on the Social Democrats, not simply to protect Austria against Nazi Germany but to destroy the hated “Marxist” experiment in Vienna that epitomized all that was wrong with the modern world after 1918. The chapter provides a detailed account of the civil war of February 1934 that empowered Dollfuß’s final victory over the left, his subsequent murder by Nazi thugs in July 1934, and the haphazard efforts of his successor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, to salvage the Catholic dictatorship in the face of the massive popularity of the Nazi menace. The chapter then provides a detailed account of the Nazi takeover in 1938, including a description of the destruction of the Viennese Jewish community and an evaluation of the extent to which ordinary Austrians were involved in or supported the Nazi terror state and the Holocaust from 1938 to 1945. It concludes with the conquest of Vienna by the Red Army in April 1945.