The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment

Austria Between Red and Brown

The years between 1933 and 1938 represent one of the most compressed and consequential political experiments in modern European history. After Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss suspended parliamentary democracy in March 1933, Austria became a one-party authoritarian state organized along Catholic corporatist lines, the so-called Standestaat (corporate state). Dollfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis in July 1934. His successor, Kurt Schuschnigg, maintained the system until the Anschluss of March 1938, when Hitler absorbed Austria into the Third Reich.

The Reassessment

This book reexamines the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg period against the two dominant narratives that have shaped its historiography. From the left, the regime has been condemned as "Austrofascism," a clerical dictatorship that crushed the Social Democrats in the February 1934 civil war and paved the way for Hitler. From the right, it has been defended as a legitimate Catholic alternative to both Marxism and National Socialism, a state that tried to preserve Austrian independence and Christian civilization against overwhelming odds. The book engages with both interpretations and draws on archival material, memoirs, and the political writings of the period to present a more nuanced account.

Why It Matters

The Dollfuss-Schuschnigg experiment is one of the few historical cases in which a European government attempted to build a functioning state on explicitly Catholic social teaching, drawing on the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. For readers interested in Christian politics, Catholic integralism, or the interwar alternatives to both liberalism and fascism, this period is essential. The book provides the historical detail necessary to assess whether the experiment succeeded or failed, and on what terms.

About This Edition

Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Format: Hardcover/Paperback