Engelbert Dollfuss
It has been speculated that Hitler used the Spanish Civil War issue to distract Benito Mussolini from Hitler's own plans to annex Austria. The authoritarian, Catholic, and anti-Nazi Vaterländische Front government of autonomous Austria had been allied with Mussolini, and in 1934 the assassination of Austria's authoritarian president Engelbert Dollfuss had already successfully invoked Italian military assistance in case of a German invasion.