25 Facts About Engelbert Dollfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated as part of a failed coup attempt by Nazi agents in 1934.

Engelbert Dollfuss was born to a poor, peasant family in the hamlet of Great Maierhof in the commune of St Gotthard near Texingtal in Lower Austria.

Young Engelbert Dollfuss spent his childhood in his step-father's house in the nearby commune of Kirnberg, where he went to elementary school.

Engelbert Dollfuss became a member of the Students' Social Movement, a student organisation dedicated to social and charitable work among the workers.

Engelbert Dollfuss was promoted to the rank of corporal.

Engelbert Dollfuss served for 37 months at the Italian Front, south of Tyrol.

Engelbert Dollfuss often met with Carl Sonnenschein, leader of social activities of students and the pioneer of the Catholic movement in Berlin.

Engelbert Dollfuss was instrumental in the founding of the regional Chamber of Agriculture of Lower Austria, becoming its secretary and a director; the Federation of Agriculture and the Agricultural Labourers' Insurance Institute; in organising the new Agrarian policy of Lower Austria and in laying the foundations for the corporative organisation of agriculture.

Engelbert Dollfuss was seen as an unofficial leader of the Austrian peasantry.

On 1 October 1930 Engelbert Dollfuss was appointed the president of the Federal Railways, the largest industrial corporation in Austria.

Engelbert Dollfuss refused to reply, instead spending the night in his favourite church praying, returning in the morning for a bath and a spartan meal before replying to the President he would accept the offer.

Engelbert Dollfuss took the three resignations as a pretext to declare that the National Council had become unworkable, and advised President Wilhelm Miklas to issue a decree adjourning it indefinitely.

Engelbert Dollfuss banned the Communist Party of Austria on 26 May 1933 and the DNSAP on 19 June 1933.

Engelbert Dollfuss modelled Austrofascism according to Catholic corporatist ideals with anti-secularist tones and in a similar way to Italian fascism, dropping Austrian pretenses of unification with Germany as long as the Nazi Party remained in power there.

Engelbert Dollfuss exchanged "Secret Letters" with Mussolini about ways to guarantee Austrian independence.

Engelbert Dollfuss always stressed the similarity of the regimes of Hitler in Germany and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, and was convinced that Austrofascism and Italian fascism could counter totalitarian national-socialism and communism in Europe.

Engelbert Dollfuss survived an assassination attempt in October 1933 by Rudolf Dertill, a 22-year-old who had been ejected from the military for his national-socialist views.

Engelbert Dollfuss staged a parliamentary session with just his party members present in April 1934 to have his new constitution approved, effectively the second constitution in the world espousing corporatist ideas.

Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated on 25 July 1934 by ten Austrian Nazis of Regiment 89 who entered the Chancellery building and shot him in an attempted coup d'etat.

Mussolini personally gave the announcement to Engelbert Dollfuss's widow, who was a guest at his villa in Riccione with her children.

Engelbert Dollfuss put at the disposal of Ernst Rudiger Starhemberg, who spent a holiday in Venice, a plane that allowed the prince to rush back to Vienna and to face the assailants with his militia, with the permission of President Wilhelm Miklas.

The assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss was accompanied by uprisings in many regions in Austria, resulting in further deaths.

Engelbert Dollfuss replaced the ambassador to Vienna with Franz von Papen and prevented the conspirators entering Germany, expelling them from the Austrian Nazi Party.

Engelbert Dollfuss is interred in the Hietzing cemetery in Vienna beside his wife Alwine Dollfuss and two of his children, Hannerl and Eva who were in Italy as guests of Rachele Mussolini at the time of his death, an event which saw Mussolini himself shed tears over his slain ally.

In Bertolt Brecht's 1941 play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Engelbert Dollfuss is represented by the character "Dullfeet".