Hildebrand was a vocal critic of National Socialism, which he saw as anti-Christian and contrary to true philosophical views, as early as 1921. During the Putsch of 1923, Hildebrand was forced to flee Munich briefly for his safety. When Hitler came to power in 1933 Hildebrand fled Germany, going first to Italy, and then to Vienna. There, with the support of the Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, he founded and edited an anti-Nazi weekly paper, "Der Christliche Ständestaat" ("The Christian Corporative State"). For this, he was sentenced to death "in absentia" by the Nazis.