| July Putsch | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theinterwar period | |||||||
 Police car atBallhausplatz outside theChancellery building inVienna, 25 July 1934 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
Schutzstaffel (SS)  Austrian Nazi Party supportersAustrian LegionSupported by:  Germany | Supported by: Italy | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Fridolin Glass Otto Wächter Anton Rintelen  | Engelbert Dollfuss † Wilhelm Miklas Kurt Schuschnigg Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg Emil Fey | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 154SS (Vienna) thousands (elsewhere) | Entire Federal Army, police, gendarmeries, and paramilitaryHeimwehr forces | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 98[1]–140[2] killed 13 executed[2] 4,000 imprisoned[2] | 101[1]–104[2] killed | ||||||
| 11[1]–13[2] civilians killed | |||||||
TheJuly Putsch (German:Juliputsch) was a failedcoup d'état inAustria against theFatherland Front government ofEngelbert Dollfuss byAustrian Nazis from 25 to 30 July 1934.
TheAustrian Legion and AustrianSchutzstaffel soldiers with support fromNazi Germany attempted to depose Dollfuss'sAustrofascist regime in favor of a pro-Nazi government underAnton Rintelen of theChristian Social Party. The Nazis attacked theFederal Chancellery and assassinated Dollfuss, but the majority of the Austrian population and theAustrian Army remained loyal to the government. The July Putsch ultimately failed whenAdolf Hitler withdrew his support for the coup afterFascist Italy guaranteed to diplomatically support Austria against a German invasion.
The Austrian government eventually suppressed the coup, with over 200 people being killed in six days of fighting. A number of Austrian Nazis and collaborators were charged withtreason and executed or imprisoned.Kurt Schuschnigg succeeded Dollfuss asChancellor of Austria and the Fatherland Front remained in power under theFederal State of Austria until theAnschluss in 1938.
Since the 1920s, theFirst Austrian Republic had been plagued bypolitical violence between variousright-wing andleft-wing factions. The Austrian right-wing was divided betweenPan-Germans who sought Austria's unification with Germany, andAustrian nationalists who opposed it. On 30 January 1933,Adolf Hitler was appointedChancellor of Germany by PresidentPaul von Hindenburg, giving an enormous boost toAustrian Nazis, who strongly supported unification with Germany.
On 4 March 1933, the Austrian chancellorEngelbert Dollfuss was able to exploit a situation in theNational Council to obstruct further sessions, effectively causing theself-elimination of the Austrian Parliament and establishing himself as adictator. Dollfuss was a conservativeCatholic Austrian nationalist who opposed to Hitler andNazism, portraying himself as the defender of an independent Catholic Austria from Nazi infiltration. The Austrian Nazis responded with demands for a new election, massivepropaganda, and a bombing campaign, to which Dollfuss responded withauthoritarian measures such as house searches and arrests.
On 8 March, the situation was exacerbated byHans Frank, the Nazi Minister of Justice ofBavaria, who in a public speech threatened the Austrian government with an armed intervention by Nazi forces. Nevertheless, the Austrian government initially concentrated on the ban of theCommunist Party of Austria and the paramilitaryRepublikanischer Schutzbund of theSocial Democratic Workers' Party of Austria. On 15 May, Frank traveled toVienna, where he spoke out against the Dollfuss regime and Jews, and addressedAustrian Germans to encouragecivil disobedience. In response, Dollfuss ordered the deportation of Frank and another 100 German Nazis from the country. He had nearly 2,400 Austrian Nazis arrested for pelting the paramilitaryHeimwehr with eggs, rocks, and vegetables. On 19 June, in response to a bombing campaign by Austrian Nazis that had left several people dead and dozens wounded, the Austrian Nazi Party was banned.[3] Hitler's government reacted with harsh economic sanctions aimed at Austrian tourism, known as theThousand-mark ban.[4]
After the Nazi Party was banned in Austria, many Austrian Nazis fled to Germany and joined the paramilitaryAustrian Legion under the command ofHermann Reschny, while others remained in Austria and continued their actions illegally.[5][6][7]
In February 1934, Dollfuss and hisFatherland Front emerged victorious in the four-dayAustrian Civil War against the Social Democrats. He established Austria as aone-party state that was staunchly opposed to the Nazis and unification with Germany.
On 25 July 1934, in the midst of difficult social and political tensions in Austria, and with the knowledge of official German positions, 154Schutzstaffel (SS) men disguised asBundesheer soldiers and policemen pushed into the Austrian chancellery. Dollfuss was killed by two bullets fired by Nazis Rudolf Prochaska andOtto Planetta, though the rest of the Austrian government was able to escape. Another group occupied theRAVAG radio building and broadcast a false report about the putative transfer of power from Dollfuss toAnton Rintelen, which was to have been the call for Nazis all over Austria to begin the uprising against the state. There were several days of fighting in parts ofCarinthia,Styria andUpper Austria as well as smaller uprisings inSalzburg. There was fighting inUpper Styria, both the industrial area betweenJudenburg andLeoben and inEnns, theDeutschlandsberg District in southwestern Styria, and in southeastern Styria byBad Radkersburg. Bloody clashes took place in and aroundSchladming andLeoben.
In Carinthia, the centres of the coup were in Lower Carinthia andSankt Paul im Lavanttal. In Upper Austria, in addition to individual actions in theSalzkammergut, the fighting was concentrated in thePyhrn Pass and in theMühlviertel, where on the night of 26 July, in theKollerschlag area on the German-Austrian border, a division of the Austrian Legion invaded Austrian territory from Bavaria and attacked thecustoms guard and a police station.[8] Many of the Austrian Nazis were not armed since they had believed that the Austrian military and police would join them once the coup began, but most forces stayed loyal to the Fatherland Front government.[9] On 26 July, a German courier was arrested at the border crossing inKollerschlag who was carrying precise instructions for the putsch known as the "Kollerschlag Document", which testified to a clear connection between Bavaria and the July Putsch.[10]
The death of Dollfuss enragedBenito Mussolini, theFascist leader ofItaly, whose wifeRachele was entertaining the rest of Dollfuss's family. Mussolini moved troops to the Italian-Austrian border and told Hitler that he was not to invade Austria. This made Hitler proclaim that he did not support the coup, which ultimately led to its failure.
The July Putsch was finally crushed by the Austrian police, military and paramilitary units loyal to the government. There is varying information regarding the number of fatalities. Gerhard Jagschitz took over the work of military historian Erwin Steinböck. In 1965 his figures claimed that the July coup and its immediate consequences lead to the deaths of 270 people: 153 Nazi supporters died (including 13 executed and seven people who committed suicide), 104 died on the Government side, along with 13 civilians.[2] In contrast, Austrian historianKurt Bauer's extensive studies concluded that there were 223 deaths: 111 Nazi supporters, including the 13 who were executed, 101 on the Government side, and 11 civilians.[1] The number of injured is estimated at 500–600 people.
On 26 July 1934,military tribunals andcourts-martial were convened to prosecute the rebels. Dozens ofdeath sentences were imposed, of which 13 were carried out. Of those executed, four of them were on-duty police officers who had collaborated with the rebels during the seizure of the Federal Chancellery. Vienna police officers Josef Hackl, Erich Wohlrab, Franz Leeb, and Ludwig Maitzen were defendants in a mass trial of nine police officers for collaboration. Hackl, Wohlrab, Leeb, and Maitzen were found guilty ofhigh treason, sentenced to death, and executed byhanging on 13 August 1934. The other officers received sentences ranging from 10 years tolife in prison. One other collaborator, on-duty soldier Ernst Feike, was executed on 7 August 1934.[11] Another 4,000 rebels received prison sentences or were detained. In Vienna alone, at least 260 police officers were arrested after officials found a list of Nazi Party members while searching a police officer's home.[12][13]
Many rebels fled toYugoslavia or to Germany.Kurt von Schuschnigg became the new Chancellor of Austria andErnst Rüdiger Starhemberg remained as Vice-Chancellor. After the failed putsch, Hitler closed down theMunich office of the Austrian Nazi Party.[14]
In September 1934, Mussolini announced a "Pax Romana" alliance withFrance against Germany in response to the July Putsch, and Italy's opposition toAnschluss. Mussolini said that Italy would no longer support Germany's intentions to revise theVersailles Treaty andGerman rearmament.[15]
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