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Austria The End of Constitutional Rule
In May 1932, a new cabinet was formed under the leadership of
Engelbert Dollfuss, a CSP member. Dollfuss's coalition, composed
of the CSP, the Landbund, and the Heimatbloc, had a one-vote
majority. Both the SDAP and the Nazi Party pressed for new
elections, but Dollfuss refused, fearing defeat. Instead, he
sought support from fascist Italy and the Heimwehr and
increasingly relied on authoritarian measures to maintain his
government.
In early March 1933, parliamentary maneuvering by the SDAP,
which was trying to block government action against a pro-Nazi
labor union, created a procedural crisis in the Nationalrat.
Urged on by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, Dollfuss
exploited the confusion in the Nationalrat to end parliamentary
government and began governing on the basis of a 1917 emergency
law. Dollfuss outlawed the Nazi Party, the politically
insignificant KPÖ, and the Republikanischer Schutzbund. All,
however, continued to exist underground.
Seeking a firmer political footing than that offered by Italy
and the coercive power of the police, military, and Heimwehr,
Dollfuss formed the Fatherland Front (Vaterländische Front) in
May 1933. The front was intended to displace the existing
political parties and rally broad public support for Dollfuss's
vision of a specifically Austrian nationalism closely tied to the
country's Catholic identity. Dollfuss rejected union with
Germany, preferring instead to see Austria resume its historical
role as the Central European bulwark of Christian German culture
against Nazism and communism. In September 1933, Dollfuss
announced plans to organize Austria constitutionally as a
Catholic, German, corporatist state.
The opportunity to put the corporatist constitution in place
came after a failed socialist uprising in February 1934 triggered
by a police search for Schutzbund weapons in Linz. An
unsuccessful general strike followed, along with artillery
attacks by the army on a Vienna housing project. Within four
days, the socialist rebellion was crushed. Both the SDAP and its
affiliated trade unions were banned, and key leaders were
arrested or fled the country. Dollfuss's constitution was
promulgated in May 1934, and the Fatherland Front became the only
legal political organization. Austrian society, however, remained
divided into three camps: the nationalist bloc that was
associated with the Heimwehr and the bloc represented by the CSP
struggled for control of the Fatherland Front; the socialist bloc
fell back on passive resistance; and the nationalist bloc
dominated by the Nazis boldly conspired against the state with
support from Germany.
Although a variety of political labels have been applied to
the Dollfuss regime, it eludes simple classification. Its
ideology harked back to early religious and romantic political
critiques of liberal democracy and socialism. The regime
incorporated many elements of European fascism, but it lacked two
features widely viewed as essential to fascism: adherence to the
"leadership principle," and a mass political base. In any event,
the complex corporatist structures of the 1934 constitution, in
which citizens participated in society on the basis of occupation
and not as individuals, were never fully implemented. And the
regime's relations with the Roman Catholic Church were never as
straightforward as the regime's ideology suggested. Although the
incorporation of a new concordat with the Vatican in the 1934
constitution bespoke harmony between church and state, in
practice the concordat became the bulwark on which the church
claimed its autonomous rights. Long-standing rivalries between
church and state actually intensified as state-affiliated
organizations intruded on what the church viewed as its interests
in youth, family, and educational policies and organizations.
Data as of December 1993
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