Austrian Civil War
The Austrian Civil War of 12-16 February 1934 — known in Austrian socialist memory as the Februarkämpfe — was the violent suppression of the Social Democratic movement by the authoritarian government of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. Dollfuss had already suspended parliament in 1933 and governed by emergency decree, and in February 1934 his Heimwehr paramilitaries began searching Social Democratic Party headquarters in Linz for weapons. The Schutzbund — the party's armed wing — resisted in Linz, and the fighting spread to Vienna, Graz, and other industrial centres. The Austrian army and Heimwehr shelled Social Democratic apartment blocks, including the famous Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna, killing between 300 and 1,500 people (estimates vary widely). The Social Democratic Party was banned, its leaders arrested or forced into exile, and its extensive network of workers' housing, cooperatives, and cultural organisations — 'Red Vienna's' most tangible achievement — was dissolved. Austria became an Austro-fascist 'Corporate State' modelled loosely on Mussolini's Italy, with Dollfuss positioning himself as a Catholic-nationalist alternative to both socialism and National Socialism. In July 1934 Austrian Nazis assassinated Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt; his successor Kurt Schuschnigg tried to maintain Austrian independence but was forced to accept the Anschluss in March 1938.
- Year: 1934 CE
- Category: Political
