Yeah, same as what happened in most other european states in the bloody interwar period. The various authoritarian regimes and the many wars they waged between each other in those few years are too often forgotten. A reminder on how important international organisations such as the european union are for maintaining peace and democratic values.
Probably because people are more grabbed by the democratic regimes that were taken over by nazi germany. A fascist regime replaced by a nazi regime doesnt have the same spark I guess?
It's very refreshing to see such a well researched video about an often overlooked topic! I just have to add one detail: Dollfuß was able to dissolve the parliament "legally" because all three presidents resigned. No more parliamentary presidents ("Nationalratspräsidenten") meant no one was able to offically close the last session and then reconviene the other one, which gave the legal justification for Dollfuß to stop members od parliament from entering. The reason why the three presidents resigned is also interesting - there was a political vote about whether the afforementioned head of the railway union should be prosecuted or pardoned. This vote was incredibly close with "pardon" camp being one vote shy of a majority. Realising this, the first president of parliament, a social democrat, resigned from his role, which demoted him back to a regular member of parliament and made him elligible to vote, securing the majority. As a response, however, the second and third president did the same, creating an unforseen legal situation that was then exploited by Dollfuß.
@@schurlbirkenbach1995 You make it sound like the presidents of parliament were at fault... In reality there was no judicial way to stop Dollfuss because his path of destroying the democracy began (as seen in the video) many years before this event. According to Heinz Fischer (former president of Austria in the 2000s and attorney that specialized in constitutional law) the dispute could have been resolved within the legal system but Dollfuß just took the chance to dissolve the republic. But it has to be said that the whole situation was extremely unlucky for the republic. It would have been 81(opposition):80(ruling coalition) but one member of the social democratic party accidentally took a ballot paper with the name of his seat neighbour which led to the situation that two ballot papers had the same name on them leading to the ruling coalition to say that one is invalid. This led to the count to be put to 80:80 and that is why Karl Renner (primary president of the austrian parliament) stepped down to be able to cast a vote himself. Karl Renner himself was staggered by the consequences of his action. While being in his car on the way home he told his granchild: "Well, that's not what I expected". Source: "Karl Seitz" by Alexander Spritzendorfer Pages 25-28 (Very good and recent book btw)
So you should read the Brazilian "Constitution" it literally says "we representatives of the Brazilian people, in the presence of *GOD* " and articles later it says the Brazilian state is secular
@@matheuspinho4987 Although not in the Constitution, America is very similar. It is the same with Ireland although that is more explicit with the Trinitarian references.
@@TheGrenadier97 most countries that westernised are secular these days even if long standing traditions and laws based on those still have some minor effect on the country. For example: The Establishment Clause of the US Bill of Rights says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” and they don't. However, since most US Citizens don't actually care about the fact that the US by law is a country without the recognition of *any* religion, Congress still mandated to change the country motto from "E Pluribus Unum" (From many united to one) to "In God we trust" purely because of the Red Scare of the atheistic Politburo that governed the USSR. The "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance at the same time and they started the force indoctrination of US school children that to this day have to say the pledge like in a weird cult of personality state. This all to say secular by law means nothing if they people making the laws are allowed to act like it means nothing
tbh as a Swede I had no idea about what happened in Austria before the Anschluss so this was hugely informative, what really stood out to me too was just how openly and brazenly the fascists took power and destroyed democracy seemingly even without tons of popular support.
Many austrians after the breakup of the monarchy thought of austria as a failed state, there was a widespread belief that an "Anschluss" was inevitable. The vast majority were still rural farmers that were used to a distant emperor ruling over them, they cared little for a new democracy. Under the monarchy, there was a growing liberal movement in the large cities (most notably krakow, vienna, prague, budapest and lviv), but as you can see all these cities were now in different states, the movements were broken up, and now former allies stood in opposition towards each other. With such a small base these democracies stood on very weak feet, and only Czechoslovakia would stay democratic until the German annexation.
@@telcharthegreatsmithofthef7585 Interesting, that makes a lot of sense, so even when the social democrats were by far the biggest party I imagine that was only in the major cities they had big support
Engelbert Dollfuß and the Fatherland Front were the only hope Austria had of becoming a great state nefore they were eventually seperated from germany again. Dollfuß was a great leader
Interwar Austrian history fascinates me. Especially the Ständestaat, such an interesting state. I even have a book by Schuschnigg on my shelf. Danke dafür Herr Manatee.
Well this was completely different from how I learned it in school, where it was presented as 'both sides bad'. Like this way more though since it is an actual acurate summary
When the ÖVP, a party that came from Dollfuss's christian democratic party, writes the curriculum, no doubt they'll whitewash as much of it as possible.
@@hex2637 lmao all textbooks literally portray the reds as total victims when they were in fact the instigators for their own demise. Fuck them, hopefully they continue to tear themselves apart like they are doing right now with their embarrassing internal power struggle
@@johnnotrealname8168 Because nowadays they are a bunch of corrupt greedy twats who use populistic formulas to fool voters and are not opposed to cooperating with the far right. That's why.
As an Austrian I sometimes wonder, what would've had happened if our great great grand fathers would've let Austria be a (symbolic) monarchy but with the legal system of a liberal democracy (like in Great Britain). Would the Ständestaat or the Anschluss happen like in our timeline? Would WWII be different? Or would've had that encouraged the people at the time to grab for even more power?
@@generalfeldmarschall3781 They should not only have beeng abolished but thoroughly purged and executed. At least in Germany that way the Hohenzollern couldn't have meddled in the Weimar Republic. Monarchs and Monarchists sided with Fascists and Nazis.
It vwas interesting that you explained how the Dollfuss government came to power. I guess in the next video you'll explain why Dollfuss was assassinated .
You should give Fascism in the Working Class by Jill Lewis a read. It is about Styria and the actions of the Oesterreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft. I think you’d get a lot out of it.
The electoral poster on the right at 3:08 is actually not from the interwar years but from 1945. The Austrian people’s party wasn’t a thing until that year, as it was founded out of the remnants of the Fatherland Front
I am from Portugal, I have an academic background and my thesis was actually related to fascism and corporatism, and I was made aware of the Dolfuss Austro-Fascist regime due to the fact that it had a lot of similarities with the Salazar regime, due to the influence of Catholic Social Teaching and Catholicism in general in both regimes (they also arose around the same time, 1932-1934). There were also similar in the sense that they tried to impose a veneer of legality and tried to appease the middle-classes by building Constitutions that - in theory - put limits on state power; and that unlike other fascist regimes, such Constitutions were built as to codify a "societal project" to mold society through corporatist organization, based on the teachings of the previous mentioned Catholic Social Teaching. In Portugal there were also many aborted or stopped coup attempts to overthrow it (it lasted longer than the Austrian regime, ofc) because liberals and leftists just didn´t had the means and the popular support - even though we had an older liberal-democratic tradition compared to Austria (that dated back to the 1820´s), large swathes of the population were iliterate masses living in mostly rural areas, and were thus extremely depoliticized and suspectible to manipulation from reactionary forces (Catholic Church and land-owners).
A very interesting history of Austria. Never realised that Austria was a dictatorship before Herr Hitler incorporated Austria into the 3rd Ricth. A great informative presentation.
@@masonharvath-gerrans832 No, it's a phrase from the interwar Austrian workers' song “Die Arbeiter von Wien”. And unfortunately, I can't really read German.
It never ceases to amaze me that Dollfuß, someone who strived to maintain the country's independence, is viewed nowadays as someone as bad as the Austrias Painter himself, meanwhile the socialdemocrats who have been aiming to unite Austria with Germany (again, sth viewed as sth negative nowadays by Austrians) are being praised as defenders of democracy and saviours
Bernaschek, the commander of the Schutzbund in Linz, who pulled the trigger in 1934, escaped from prison with the help of a Nazi prison director and enigrated to Nazi Germany where he was welcomed. And he was not the only social democrat, who fled to the national socialist Germany. That are the little details, which are forgotten by left wing historians.
That's propably because the Sozialists wanted a Democracy and unification with Germany wouldn't have been a bad thing if it would have been under a decent government considering the bad situation Austria found itself after WW1. While Dollfuss killed our fellow Austrian workers and even shelled our own cities with Artillery. In short he was a fascist dickhead.
@@niknitro8751 Your argument would be ok if germany was a democracy. But it wasn't at that point and they still wanted to join germany after the NSDAP came to power.
Mit "Corporate Basis" ist eine "ständische Grundlage" gemeint, nichts mit Konzernen oder dergleichen. Das Ständeprinzip gibt es in Österreich teilweise noch heute, unser Wirtschaftssystem hat neokorporatistische Ansätze
Austrofascism was so weird. There seems to be an inherent dissonance between dissolving the austrian state into germany and creating a powerful austria.
The moment a leftist realises the communists really were in league with the soviet union (The communist party in the U.S. opposed perestroika and glasnost for @#£%'s sake!).
Unfortunately, they have practically all the institutions, and a machine that churns out students who believe in a Marxist ideological dogma. It'll be extremely hard to break out of something like that.
To give you an idea of the attitude of the SPÖ at the time. Hier is a quote "Mit am Haufen Bauernschädel kannst keine Socialistische Revolutions machen." With a bunch of stubborn presents you can't do a socialist revolution.
because the small family farmers in Austria were owners of their land since many generations not dependent tenants of some aristocratic Lord, unlike in Hungary, and they had no motivation to any kind of land reform or redistribution of land. The idea of any form of collective farming sounded even worse to them. Actually the farmers profited very much during the years of hyperinflation. Formerly rich city dwellers came to the country side and traded fur coats or expensive carpets for a bag of potatoes and some cheese or bacon. The farmers simply had no motivation for any form of socialism. And the rural population was also much more catholic and disliked the atheist propaganda of the socialists.
Jesus. You know it’s bad when the imperial parliament during the empire was more effective at protecting its own prerogative then the legislature during the First Republic was
There is no agreement among historians that the regime was fascist. That‘s a political argument. Socialists, who wanted the „Anschluss“, say it was, to demonize their political opposition, while the broader consensus is that it was an authoritarian regime that succeeded in building the foundation for an Austrian identity in a country of citizens who previously thought of themselves as German people. It also tried to uphold Austrian independence, but failed at that in the end under the weak leadership from Schuschnigg.
He was a traitor, a murderer and the and the lowest form of human life. He laid the groundwork for the Nazis to take over and all just because he only was only 1,50m (4'11) tall.
You are talking about a piece of paper or the blood that runs through my viens - hitler, rise of evil ( movie) All Germans are part of same family and anschluss is more legal than england and scotland living together.
I really need to binge your entire channel soon. Every video of yours seems to be an absolute banger. Good job breaking it all down for a foreign audience!
I'm amazed this never came up in school when I studied the lead up to WW2. The fact that the Austrians had their own fascist government and a de facto alliance with Mussolini, and the assassination of Dolfuss and its consequences, for example, would have been good to know when asked to discuss the lead up to to the Anschluss.
Finally a good video about the Ständestaat dictatorship! For me as an austrian it is allways shocking and fear inducing to see how many people, expecially austrians like to forget about this dark part of our past. Thanks for the Video!
@@tritonewt3344 it was a fascist dictatorship with death penalty, a dangerous amount nationalism and workcamps for everyone who disagrees with the ruling party
Same here. Given everything that is going on, the rhetoric used, the economic crisis, the war in Ukraine etc. I am really worried about where we're heading. It's nice to realize I'm not necessarily alone with that.
@@skullslace2426 yeah im xompletely with you bro, but i still got faith, thanks to the eu austria is too integrated in the democratic world to get lost again. In addition the truly democratic parties of the greens, the neos and the spö are a bullwark that protects us from possible threats from the extreme right
@Domsenic I'd like to hope so. However, given the amount of infighting in the SPÖ and the performance of the green party over the last years, together with the significant drop in their popularity (I know to only trust polls so far, however...) I'm still worried. Though if I look at the statistics for younger voters, who are fighting very hard for our future, I won't give up all hope.
I remember playing Austria in Kaiserredux with Dolfuss. You basically "federalise" Austria-Hungary into an one-party state where you are more Catholic than the Pope and where you hate Germany and can create Grossdeutschland. Or how Wikipedia would have put it: "Federal Constitutional Monarchy under an One-Party Totalitarian Regime".
I'm glad someone made a video on one of the more forgotten countries that lost WWI and the fascinating interwar period for these losing nations. I imagine history would have went quite different if the communists were able to take power in Austria in the interwar period.
his dictatorship was also very short: in 1933 he took power, a few months later he fought the Socialists in February 1934 and in July 1934 he was shot by Nazis who attempted a coup d'etat (that failed, albeit killing the Chancelor in his office)
in the early years the Socialst Party (as it was than called) was considered one single party in Austria and Czechoslovakia. They acted as it were only the two local branches of the same supranational party. So the Austrian socialists just fled to their comrades of the same party. Most of them went to Brünn/Brno, which is just a few kilometers north of the border. They even continued to publish the party newspaper from there.
@@ekesandras1481 And yet the Germans living there were still forcibly deported in a death march after the war for supposedly being sympathetic to Nazism. RIP
Weird that our school never taught us about the background of Austria and the politics, even tho we were in Austria. I knew it already but most people in the school generally did not know about it. Politics never get taught which is such a dangerous move, espesically with right wing extremism becoming a risk again. We should never forgot what Ring Wing politics did to us, the world and humans.
Right-Wing extremism being hyped aside, these so called "fascists" opposed the nazis, the leader was assassinated by them (By the way a democratic victory by the nazis was not impossible, as happened in Germany.) and the communists, who were in league with the soviets. How many left-wing bodies are you not mourning? Of course they are just bodies.
Who's that man on the Christian Socialist party poster? I found one place that just said a man. I don't know the political parties involved or the history, but from the name I assume it's God in a tuxedo being all benevolent as he that's his shtick or whatever.
Maybe, depends on your definition of fascism. I think even from a Marxist perspective these regimes would be qualified reactionary, not fascist. In my opinion, Hitlerism or Italian Fascism distinguish themselves by putting the State or the Party above everything. While in Austria or Portugal or Tiso's Slovakia God was the ultimate authority These regimes also never pretended to represent the working class and the economy was never regulated or planned in the way Germany was. Austrian Nationalsocialists were terribly hostile to the Dollfuss state to the point that they preferred the Socialists over him ("Rather Red than Black"). How do you explain this antagonism?
@@tufikum2633in most academic writing Dollfuß' regime is described as a form of fascism, as are Franco's and Salazar's the reason the nazis were so hostile to the austrofascist regime was due to it being a rival, and the nazis' plans to annex austria furthermore the nazis were generally hostile to the catholics due to their claim to absolute authority, and conflicting opinions (like their racism against eastern europeans)
The shooters from Schattendorf - some local farmers - got acquitted for self defense. They felt threatened by the large crowd of socialist demonstrators who had come to this small village for their protest. The verdict was based on a law that the socialists themselves had passed, when they were shortly in power after 1918. The jury couldn't find a majority for a conviction so the result was a not-proven verdict. Only the socialist newspapers said that there was political influence on the jury, but there was non. P.S.: the shooters of Schattendorf were not really sympathizers of the Christian Social Party, they were more monarchists and since this village is (until today) directly on the border with Hungary, they adhered more to the idea to join Hungary, to where this region belonged until 1921. Yes, there were German speaking village dwellers, who wanted to transfer there village to Hungary. Why? Because they liked the right wing Horthy govenment more than the government in Vienna. Those facts got forgotten and it was presented as a conspiracy from the conservative CSP party, but those had nothing to do with it. It was more a situation like those Orange marches in Northern Ireland, which got out of control.
Interesting how none of what you learn reqlly is the truth, depending on who you ask. One of my biggest turnoffs when it comes to politics and history, no matter how much you read someone can always say that youre wrong.
@@hex2637 Maybe that disabled man should have taken an alternate course to going to a random town to preach his ideology. Reminds me a lot of Redditors, actually
Why do you refer to many of Austria's political parties as "bourgeois"? Are you a Marxist sympathiser or something? The corporatist regime in Austria was anything but "bourgeois" also.
@@Cmokshofra You do not understand what corporatism is, you assume it is companies running the government, through proxies, however in the Austrian case it is preventing any strife through bringing both parties together. It is the fallacy of equivocation.
@@Cmokshofra And to add onto what the other guy said, a corporatist regime is one where the government basically runs the corporations and controls them.
Dollfuss was right in what he did, since the socialists were a Marxist threat that planned to turn Austria into a socialist dictatorship. They planned a coup from day one but were unable to gain the support of the rural population in Austria, with their centers of support being Vienna and some industrial cities such as Steyr and parts of Styria. Due to infighting and lack of cohesion (an infamous and recurring trait of the Austrian socialists to this day). They screwed up their biggest opportunity in 1933 and in February 1934 some rogue members of their paramilitary wing took it upon themselves to instigate their „civil war” by shooting at Austrian gendarmerie at the Hotel Schiff. The socialist leadership was so petty that some prominent members even collaborated with the Nazis in order to snub the Ständestaat, with their leader Karl Renner openly endorsing the Anschluss and never speaking ill of the Nazi regime and even denying holocaust survivors their possessions immediately after ww2 (he was a rampant antisemite). Meanwhile Leopold Figl, prominent fatherland front leader and later chancellor, was tormented in a concentration camp alongside most of his fellow party members. It isn’t all black and white as many historians like you to believe.
people loved dollfuss he was a small guy but nice and friendly which was good. Hes also chilling with Mussolini in heaven right now which is good and yeah
