Federal State of Austria
Federal State of Austria Bundesstaat Österreich (German) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1934–1938 | |||||||||
| Anthem: | |||||||||
| President | |||||||||
• 1934–1938 | Wilhelm Miklas | ||||||||
| Chancellor | |||||||||
• 1934 | Engelbert Dollfuss | ||||||||
• 1934–1938 | Kurt Schuschnigg | ||||||||
• 1938 | Arthur Seyss-Inquart | ||||||||
| Legislature | May Constitution | 1 May 1934 | |||||||
• Assassination of Dollfuss | 25 July 1934 | ||||||||
| 12 February 1938 | |||||||||
| 13 March 1938 | |||||||||
| Currency | Austrian schilling | ||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | AT | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Austria | ||||||||
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| History of Austria |
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 Austria portal |
The Federal State of Austria (
It ended in March 1938 with the Anschluss (the German annexation of Austria). Austria would not become an independent country again until 1955, when the Austrian State Treaty ended the Allied occupation of Austria.
History
In the 1890s, the founding members of the conservative-clerical
Self-coup
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During the
Chancellor Dollfuss then governed by emergency decree, banning the
The path to dictatorship was completed on 1 May 1934, when the Constitution of Austria was recast into a severely authoritarian and corporatist document by a rump National Council. Direct parliamentary elections were abolished. Instead, deputies were nominated by four non-elective, corporatist-styled councils – the State Council (Staatsrat), Federal Culture Council (Bundeskulturrat), Federal Economic Council (Bundeswirtschaftsrat), and the States' Council (Länderrat). In practice, however, all governing power was now in Dollfuss' hands.
Dollfuss continued to rule under what amounted to martial law until his assassination on 25 July 1934 during the Nazi
One of the reasons for the failure of the putsch was Italian intervention: Mussolini assembled an army corps of four divisions on the Austrian border and threatened Hitler with a war with Italy in the event of a German invasion of Austria as originally planned, should the coup have been more successful. Support for the Nazi movement in Austria was surpassed only by that in Germany, allegedly amounting to 75% in some areas.[3]
Ideology
The Federal State of Austria glorified the history of Austria. The Habsburg Monarchy was elevated as a time of greatness in Austrian history. The Catholic Church played a large role in the nation's definition of Austrian history and identity, alienating German culture. Unlike Hitler's comparatively secular regime, the Catholic Church was given a prominent voice in a variety of issues. The state de-secularized schools in education, requiring religious education to complete the Matura graduation exams. According to this ideology, Austrians were "better Germans".[4] In keeping with the regime's Catholicism, the regime elevated the non-communist[clarification needed] and non-capitalist teachings of Papal Encyclicals, most prominently Quadragesimo anno of Pope Pius XI.
Despite its nominal embrace of corporatism and shunning of liberal capitalism, the Federal State pursued a fiscal conservative monetary policy.
The Federal State pursued harsh deflationary policies to balance the currency. It also cut spending drastically, and high interest rates were the norm. The budget deficit was slashed from over 200 million shillings to less than 50 million.[6] By 1936, only 50% of the unemployed were receiving unemployment benefits. These policies coincided with a catastrophic economic contraction. According to Angus Maddison's estimates, unemployment peaked at 26% in 1933, failing to fall under 20% until 1937.[7] This can be contrasted with German unemployment, which peaked at 30% in 1932 and had fallen to less than 5% by 1937. Additionally, real GDP collapsed, not returning to pre-1929 levels until 1937.
Whether the Federal State could be considered genuinely fascist is debatable. Although it was authoritarian and used fascist-like symbols, it never achieved broad support among Austrians. Its most prominent policy was an embrace of Catholicism, and its economic and social policies bear only a passing resemblance to those of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and more of a resemblance to Portugal under Salazar. .[citation needed]
Civil rights
John Gunther wrote in 1940 that the state "assaulted the rights of citizens in a fantastic manner", noting that in 1934 the police raided 106,000 homes in Vienna and made 38,141 arrests of Nazis, social democrats, liberals and communists. He added, however:[8]
But—and it was an important "but"—the terror never reached anything like the repressive force of the Nazi terror. Most of those arrested promptly got out of jail again. Even at its most extreme phase, it was difficult to take the Schuschnigg dictatorship completely seriously, although Schutzbunders tried in 1935 got mercilessly severe sentences. This was because of Austrian gentleness, Austrian genius for compromise, Austrian love for cloudy legal abstractions, and Austrian Schlamperei.
Anschluss
According to the
After the British ambassador to Berlin,
Hitler had originally intended to retain Austria as a puppet state headed by Seyss-Inquart. However, the enthusiastic support for Hitler led him to change his stance and support a full
References
- ISBN 978-0-7658-0970-4.
- ISBN 3319525441
- ^ "AUSTRIA: Eve of Renewal". Time. 25 September 1933. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012 – via www.time.com.
- ISBN 9783631581117 – via Google Books.
- ^ Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (1997). "The Meaning of the Mises Papers". mises.org.
- ^ Berger, Peter (2003). The League of Nations and Interwar Austria: Critical Assessment of a Partnership in Economic Reconstruction. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. p. 90.
- ^ Maddison, Angus (1982). Phases of Capitalist Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 206.
- ^ Gunther, John (1940). Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 416.
Further reading
- Stephan Neuhäuser: “Wir werden ganze Arbeit leisten“- Der austrofaschistische Staatsstreich 1934, ISBN 3-8334-0873-1
- Emmerich Tálos, Wolfgang Neugebauer: Austrofaschismus. Politik, Ökonomie, Kultur. 1933–1938. 5th Edition, Münster, Austria, 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7712-4
- Hans Schafranek: Sommerfest mit Preisschießen. Die unbekannte Geschichte des NS-Putsches im Juli 1934. Czernin Publishers, Vienna 2006.
- Hans Schafranek: Hakenkreuz und rote Fahne. Die verdrängte Kooperation von Nationalsozialisten und Linken im illegalen Kampf gegen die Diktatur des 'Austrofaschismus'. In: Bochumer Archiv für die Geschichte des Widerstandes und der Arbeit, No.9 (1988), pp. 7 – 45.
- Jill Lewis: Austria: Heimwehr, NSDAP and the Christian Social State (in Kalis, Aristotle A.: The Fascism Reader. London/New York)
- Lucian O. Meysels: Der Austrofaschismus – Das Ende der ersten Republik und ihr letzter Kanzler. Amalthea, Vienna and Munich, 1992
- Erika Weinzierl: Der Februar 1934 und die Folgen für Österreich. Picus Publishers, Vienna 1994
- Manfred Scheuch: Der Weg zum Heldenplatz. Eine Geschichte der österreichischen Diktatur 1933–1938. Publishing House Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2005, ISBN 978-3-218-00734-4
- Andreas Novak: Salzburg hört Hitler atmen: Die Salzburger Festspiele 1933–1944. DVA, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-421-05883-0.
- David Schnaiter: Zwischen Russischer Revolution und Erster Republik. Die Tiroler Arbeiterbewegung gegen Ende des "Großen Krieges". Grin Verlag, Ravensburg (2007). ISBN 978-3-638-74233-7