1934 July Putsch (Austria)
Part of the Interwar Period
Police car at Ballhausplatz outside Chancellery building, 25 July 1934
Date 25–30 July 1934 Location Vienna, Austria Result Austrofascist victory Nazi coup d'etat failed Fatherland Front remains in power Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss is killed
Belligerents
Schutzstaffel (SS) SS Standarte 89 Austrian Nazi Party supporters Austrian Legion Supported by:  Nazi Germany	Federal State of Austria Fatherland's Front Federal Army Police Gendarmerie Heimwehr Supported by: Kingdom of Italy
Commanders and leaders
Fridolin Glass Otto Wächter Anton Rintelen (WIA)	Engelbert Dollfuss † Wilhelm Miklas Kurt Schuschnigg Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg Emil Fey
Strength
154 SS (Vienna) thousands (elsewhere)	Entire Federal Army, police, gendarmeries, and paramilitary Heimwehr forces
Casualties and losses
98[1]–140[2] killed 13 executed[2] 4,000 detained[2]	101[1]–104[2] killed
11[1]–13[2] civilians killed

The July Putsch was a failed coup attempt against the Austrofascist regime by Austrian Nazis from 25 to 30 July 1934.

Just a few months after the Austrian Civil War, Austrian Nazis and German SS soldiers attacked the Chancellery in Vienna in an attempt to depose the ruling Fatherland Front government under Engelbert Dollfuss in favor of replacing it with a pro-Nazi government under Anton Rintelen of the Christian Social Party. The Nazi putsch ultimately failed as the majority of the Austrian population and army remained loyal to the government. The Nazis managed to kill Dollfuss, but Kurt Schuschnigg succeeded him and the Austrofascist regime remained in power.

A German invasion of Austria in support of the putsch was averted because of the guarantee of independence and diplomatic support that Austria received from Fascist Italy.

Background

The Nazi Machtergreifung in Germany on 30 January 1933, when President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor, gave an enormous boost to Austrian Nazis. When the Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss obstructed further sessions of the National Council parliament on 4 March 1933, the Austrian Nazis responded with demands for a new election, massive propaganda and a wave of bomb terror. Dollfuss responded to the actions with authoritarian measures such as house searches and arrests. The situation was exacerbated by the Bavarian Minister of Justice, the Nazi lawyer Hans Frank, who, in a public speech on 8 March, threatened the Austrian government with an armed intervention by Nazi forces. Nevertheless, the right-wing Austrian government initially concentrated on the ban of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Republikanischer Schutzbund paramilitary organisation. On 15 May 1933, Hans Frank entered the country to speak in Vienna. He openly spoke against the regime and Jews, and addressed Austrian Germans encouraging civic disobedience. In response, Dollfuss ordered Frank and another 100 German Nazis deported. He had nearly 2,400 Austrian Nazis arrested for pelting the Heimwehr with eggs, rocks, and vegetables. In response to a fatal bombing, the Austrian Nazi Party was banned on 19 June 1933.^[3] Many Austrian Nazis fled to Germany and joined the Austrian Legion, and others remained in Austria and continued their actions illegally. Hitler's government reacted with harsh economic sanctions aimed at Austrian tourism.

Events

On 25 July 1934, in the midst of difficult social and political tensions, and with the knowledge of official German positions, 154 SS men disguised as Bundesheer soldiers and policemen pushed into the Austrian chancellery. Dollfuss was killed by two bullets fired by Nazi Otto Planetta. The rest of the government was able to escape. Another group of the putschists occupied the RAVAG radio building and broadcast a false report about the putative transfer of power from Dollfuss to Anton 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 of Carinthia, Styria and Upper Austria as well as smaller uprisings in Salzburg. There was fighting in Upper Styria, both the industrial area between Judenburg and Leoben and in Enns, the Deutschlandsberg District in southwestern Styria and in southeastern Styria by Bad Radkersburg. Bloody clashes took place in and around Schladming and Leoben.

In Carinthia, the centres of the coup were in Lower Carinthia and Sankt Paul im Lavanttal. In Upper Austria, in addition to individual actions in the Salzkammergut, the fighting was concentrated in the Pyhrn Pass and in the Mühlviertel, where on the night of 26 July, in the Kollerschlag area on the Bavarian-Austrian border, a division of the Austrian Legion invaded Austrian territory and attacked the customs guard and a police station.^[4]

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.^[5]

Early on 26 July, a German courier was arrested at the border crossing in Kollerschlag who was carrying precise instructions for the putsch. Called the "Kollerschlag Document", it testified to a clear connection between Bavaria and the July Putsch.

The death of Dollfuss enraged Mussolini, whose wife, Rachele, was entertaining the rest of Dollfuss's family. He moved troops to the 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.

Aftermath

The coup was finally crushed by the 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 historian Kurt 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 and court-martials were convened to prosecute the rebels. Dozens of death sentences were imposed, of which 13 were carried out.^[6] 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. Of those executed, four of them were on-duty police officers who'd collaborated with the rebels during the seizure of the Federal Chancellery. Josef Hackl, Erich Wohlrab, Franz Leeb, and Ludwig Maitzen were defendants in a mass trial of 9 police officers for collaboration. The other police officers were also found guilty. Two received life sentences, another two received 20 years, and another received 10 years. Hackl, Wohlrab, Leeb, and Maitzen were all hanged on 13 August 1934. One other collaborator, on-duty soldier Ernst Feike, was executed on 7 August 1934.^[7][8]

Many rebels fled to Yugoslavia or to Germany. Kurt von Schuschnigg became the new Chancellor and Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg remained as Vice-Chancellor.

After the failed putsch, Hitler closed down the Munich office of the Austrian Nazi Party.^[9]

See also

• Austria in the time of National Socialism
• Austrian Civil War

References

External links

• Austria-Forum: Juliputsch 1934 (in German)
• Juliputsch im Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands (in German)
• Ermordung von Engelbert Dollfuß in der österreichischen Presse Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (in German)
• Juliputsch 1934: Lavanttaler Nazis am "erfolgreichsten" ORF-Science (in German)