Engelbert Dollfuss Engelbert Dollfuss ( ; October 4 , 1892 – July 25 , 1934 ) was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman . Serving previously as Minister for Forests and Agriculture , he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government . In early 1933 , he shut down parliament , banned the Austrian Nazi party and assumed dictatorial powers . Suppressing the Socialist movement in February 1934 , he cemented the rule of “ austrofascism ” through the authoritarian " First of May Constitution " . Dollfuss was assassinated as part of a failed coup attempt by Nazi agents in 1934 . His successor Kurt Schuschnigg maintained his regime until Adolf Hitler ' s annexing of Austria in 1938 . Early life . He was born in Texing in Lower Austria to unmarried mother Josepha Dollfuss and her lover Joseph Weninger . The couple of peasant origin was unable to get married due to financial problems . Josepha married landowner Leopold Schmutz a few months after her son ' s birth , who did not adopt Engelbert however as his own child . Dollfuss , who was raised as a devout Roman Catholic , was shortly in seminary before deciding to study law at the University of Vienna and then economics at the University of Berlin . Here he met Alwine Glienke , a German woman from a Protestant family , whom he married in 1921 . The couple had a son and two daughters , one of which died in early childhood . Dollfuss had difficulty gaining admission into the Austro - Hungarian army in World War I because he was only 153 cm ( slightly over five feet ) tall . He was eventually accepted and sent to the Alpine Front . He was a highly decorated soldier and was briefly taken prisoner by the Italians as a prisoner of war in 1918 . After the war he worked for the agriculture ministry as secretary of the Farmers ' Association and became director of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Agriculture in 1927 . In 1930 as a member of the conservative Christian Social Party ( CS ) , he was appointed president of the Federal Railway System . ( One of the founders of the CS was a hero of Dollfuss ' , Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang . ) The following year he was named Minister of Agriculture and Forests . Chancellor of Austria . In late May 1932 , with the resignation of Karl Buresch ' s Christian - Social government , Dollfuss , age 39 and with only one year ' s experience in the Federal government , was offered the office of Chancellor by President Wilhelm Miklas , also a member of the Christian - Social Party . Accordingly , Dollfuss refused to reply , instead spending the night in his favorite church praying , returning in the morning for a bath and a spartan meal before replying to the President he would accept the offer . Dollfuss was sworn in on May 20 , 1932 , as head of a coalition government between the Christian - Social Party , the Landbund — a right - wing agrarian party — and Heimatblock , the parliamentary wing of the " Heimwehr " , a paramilitary ultra - nationalist group . The coalition assumed the pressing task of tackling the problems of the Great Depression . Much of the Austro - Hungarian Empire ' s industry had been situated in the areas that became part of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia after World War I as a result of the Treaty of Saint - Germain . Postwar Austria was therefore economically disadvantaged . Dollfuss ' majority in Parliament was marginal ; his government had only a one - vote majority . Dollfuss as dictator of Austria . In March 1933 , an argument arose over irregularities in the voting procedure . The Social Democratic president of the National Council ( the lower house of parliament ) Karl Renner resigned to be able to cast a vote as a parliament member . As a consequence , the two vice presidents , belonging to other parties , resigned as well to be able to vote . Without a president , the parliament could not conclude the session . Dollfuss took the three resignations as a pretext to declare that the National Council had become unworkable , and advised President Wilhelm Miklas to issue a decree adjourning it indefinitely . When the National Council wanted to reconvene days after the resignation of the three presidents , Dollfuss had police bar entrance to parliament , effectively eliminating democracy in Austria . From that point onwards , he governed as dictator by emergency decree with absolute power . Dollfuss was concerned that with German National Socialist leader Adolf Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933 , the Austrian National Socialists ( DNSAP ) could gain a significant minority in future elections ( according to fascism scholar Stanley G . Payne , should elections have been held in 1933 , the DNSAP could have mustered about 25 % of the votes - contemporary Time magazine analysts suggests a higher support of 50 % , with a 75 % approval rate in the Tyrol region bordering Nazi Germany ) . As well , the Soviet Union ' s influence in Europe had increased throughout the 1920s and early 1930s . Dollfuss banned the DNSAP in June 1933 and the communists later on . Under the banner of Christian Social Party , he later on established a one - party dictatorship rule largely modeled after fascism in Italy , banning all other Austrian parties including the Social Democratic Labour Party ( SDAPÖ ) . Social Democrats however continued to exist as an independent organization , including its paramilitary " Republikanischer Schutzbund " , which could muster tens of thousands against Dollfuss ' government . Austrofascism . Dollfuss modeled Austrofascism after Italian fascism juxtaposed to Catholic corporatism and anti - secularism , dropping Austrian pretences of reunification with Germany as long as the Nazi Party remained in power . In August 1933 , Mussolini ' s government issued a guarantee of Austrian independence . Dollfuss also exchanged ' Secret Letters ' with Benito Mussolini about ways to guarantee Austrian independence . Mussolini was interested in Austria forming a buffer zone against Nazi Germany . Dollfuss always stressed the similarity of the regimes of Hitler in Germany and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union , and was convinced that Austrofascism and Italian fascism could counter totalitarian national socialism and communism in Europe . In September 1933 Dollfuss merged his Christian Social Party with elements of other nationalist and conservative groups , including the Heimwehr , which encompassed many workers who were unhappy with the radical leadership of the socialist party , to form the " Vaterländische Front " , though the Heimwehr continued to exist as an independent organization until 1936 , when Dollfuss ' successor Kurt von Schuschnigg forcibly merged it into the Front , instead creating the unabidingly loyal " Frontmiliz " as paramilitary task force . Dollfuss escaped an assassination attempt in October 1933 by Rudolf Dertill , a 22 - year old who had been ejected from the military for his national socialist views . Austrian civil war and new constitution . In February 1934 , Nazi agents in the security forces provoked arrests of Social Democrats and unjustified searches for weapons of the Social Democrats ' already outlawed Republikanischer Schutzbund . After the Dollfuss dictatorship took steps against known Social Democrats , the Social Democrats called for nationwide resistance against the government . A civil war began , which lasted from February 12 until February 27 . Fierce fighting took place primarily in the East of Austria , especially in the streets of some outer Vienna districts , where large fortress - like municipal workers ' buildings were situated , and in the northern , industrial areas of the province of Styria , where Nazi agents had great interest in a bloodbath between security forces and workers ' militias . The resistance was suppressed by police and military power . The Social Democrats were outlawed , and their leaders were imprisoned or fled abroad . New constitution . Dollfuss staged a parliamentary session with just his party members present in April 1934 to have his new constitution approved , effectively the second constitution in the world espousing corporatist ideas ( after that of the Portuguese " Estado Novo " ) . The session retrospectively made all the decrees already passed since March 1933 legal . The new constitution became effective on May 1 , 1934 , and swept away the last remnants of democracy and the system of the first Austrian Republic . Assassination . Dollfuss was assassinated on July 25 , 1934 , by ten Austrian Nazis ( Paul Hudl , Franz Holzweber , Otto Planetta and others ) of Regiment 89 who entered the Chancellery building and shot him in an attempted coup d ' état , the July Putsch . Mussolini had no hesitation in attributing the attack to the German dictator : the news reached him at Cesena , where he was examining the plans for a psychiatric hospital . The Duce personally gave the announcement to the widow , who was a guest at his villa in Riccione with children . He also put at the disposal of Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg , who spent a holiday in Venice , a plane that allowed the prince to rush back to Vienna and to face the assailants with his militia , with the permission of President Wilhelm Miklas . Mussolini also mobilized a part of the Italian army on the Austrian border and threatened Hitler with war in the event of a German invasion of Austria to thwart the putsch . Then he announced to the world : " The independence of Austria , for which he has fallen , is a principle that has been defended and will be defended by Italy even more strenuously " , and then replaced in the main square of Bolzano the statue of Walther von der Vogelweide , a Germanic troubadour , with that of Drusus , a Roman general who conquered part of Germany . This was the greatest moment of friction between Fascism and National Socialism and Mussolini himself came down several times to reaffirm the differences in the field . The assassination of Dollfuss was accompanied by uprisings in many regions in Austria , resulting in further deaths . In Carinthia , a large contingent of northern German Nazis tried to seize power but were subdued by the Italian units nearby . At first Hitler was jubilant , but the Italian reaction surprised him . Hitler became convinced that he could not face a conflict with the Western European powers , and he officially denied liability , stating his regret for the murder of the Austrian Prime Minister . He replaced the ambassador to Vienna with Franz von Papen and prevented the conspirators entering Germany , also expelling them from the Austrian Nazi Party . The Nazi assassins in Vienna , after declaring the formation of a new government under Austrian Nazi Anton Rintelen , previously exiled by Dollfuss as Austrian Ambassador to Rome , surrendered after threats from Austrian military of blowing up the Chancellery using dynamite , and were subsequently tried and executed through hanging . Kurt Schuschnigg , previously Minister of Education was appointed new chancellor of Austria after a few days , assuming the office from Dollfuss ' deputy Starhemberg . Out of a population of 6 . 5 million , approximately 500 , 000 Austrians were present at Dollfuss ' burial in Vienna . He is interred in the Hietzing cemetery in Vienna beside his wife Alwine Dollfuss ( d . 1973 ) and two of his children , Hannerl and Eva , all of whom were in Italy as guests of Rachele Mussolini at the time of his death , an event which saw Mussolini himself shed some tears over his slain ally . Dollfuss ' son Rudolph died in November 2011 at the age of 85 . Stature . Dollfuss was a very short man and his diminutive stature ( 155 cm = 5 ' 2 " or 150 cm = 4 ' 11 " according to the " New York Times " ) was the object of satire ; among his nicknames were ' Millimetternich ' ( making a portmanteau out of millimeter and Metternich ) , and the " Jockey " . The " New York Times " also reported a series of jokes , including how in the coffee houses of Vienna , one could order a " Dollfuss " cup of coffee instead of a " Short Black " cup of coffee ( black being the color of the Christian Democratic political faction ) . In contrast to his own diminutive stature , his personal assistant and secretary Eduard Hedvicek , who later played a significant role in the unsuccessful attempt to save his life was a very large and tall man ( 200 cm = 6 ' 7 " ) .