July coup

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Police armored car on Ballhausplatz, July 25, 1934

The July coup was a failed attempt by the National Socialists to overthrow Austria . It began on July 25, 1934 with the attack on the Federal Chancellery in Vienna by SS men disguised as soldiers of the Federal Army and police . At the same time, another group of rebels penetrated the Vienna transmission spaces of RAVAG and forced the mission of the hoax that Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss government affairs to the former Styrian Governor Anton Rintelen had passed. This message was the agreed signal that the National Socialists should start a “survey” across Austria. In fact, however, this took place only with some delay and only in parts of Austria. Especially in Styria and Carinthia and parts of Upper Austria and Salzburg took place in the following days to sometimes violent clashes between Nazis and the armed forces of the Federal Government, which include the army , the police, the gendarmerie, the Volunteer Defense Corps and independently operating units pro-government paramilitary formations, namely the Heimwehr , counted.

In the other federal states, however, it remained largely calm. The putsch, in which some combat troops from the Austrian Legion stationed in the German Reich took part, was finally suppressed by July 30th. More than 200 people were killed in the course of the fighting, including Chancellor Dollfuss as the most prominent victim. After the crackdown on the July coup , around 4,000 National Socialists were tried by the military courts created specifically for this purpose on July 26th or immediately sent to detention camps, and 13 putschists were executed. Many others avoided arrest and conviction by fleeing to the German Reich or Yugoslavia .

Initial situation: Austria between January 1933 and July 1934

Nazi Propaganda against Austria and Dollfuss (July 1933)

The “ seizure of power ” by Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933 in Germany gave the Austrian National Socialists an enormous boost. When, on March 4, 1933, the then so-called “ self-elimination of parliament ” came about and the Dollfuss government subsequently took an “authoritarian course”, the National Socialists saw themselves deprived of the opportunity, following the German model, through new elections in Austria as well to gain power. After the federal government had restricted the freedom of the press as one of its first measures and, beginning March 8, 1933, issued a ban on assembly and deployment, the Nazi Gauleitungen ordered this ban by exhausting all still legal options for activities, such as association meetings and lectures and subvert film screenings and increased house-to-house propaganda. It was already evident during this period that the Nazi leadership was by no means willing to restrict its activism, which was one of the essential means of maintaining the dynamism of the movement and the morale of its supporters. Rather, it should be demonstrated through intensified activities of all kinds that the party “ Not dead despite the prohibition! “Was as a well-known Nazi slogan from the period of illegality that soon followed.

The political “main thrust” of the federal government, however, was initially aimed at social democracy , which can probably be regarded as the main reason why March and April 1933 were relatively calm domestically. The expulsion of the Bavarian Justice Minister Hans Frank on May 15, which was ordered by the federal government to bring about a significant change in the domestic political climate. The German Reich's "response" was the imposition of the " thousand-mark block " on the boycott of the Austrian tourism followed. The conflict between the two states finally led to a wave of National Socialist terror that began on June 12th throughout Austria, which killed three people in the following days. The federal government reacted with searches of the houses of Nazi functionaries and in the party bars of the NSDAP, as well as a large-scale arrest operation throughout Germany. By June 17, around 2,500 National Socialists, including almost all of the party's important functionaries, had been arrested.

When two National Socialists carried out a hand grenade attack on a group of Christian-German gymnasts in the municipality of Krems on June 19, 1933 , injuring 30 gymnasts, the NSDAP and the Styrian Homeland Security, which made a pact with it, were prohibited from any activity in Austria on the same day. which in fact amounted to a ban on both organizations. The Austrian National Socialists were unprepared for the ban on activities, but it was not entirely unexpected. The Nazi movement succeeded in preserving its internal organizational coherence in that its members joined ostensibly non-political organizations, that is, undermined them; or by converting associations of the German national camp that had already been captured by them (such as the German national gymnastics clubs, the German school club Südmark , the Alpine club and others) into organizational platforms for the "fight" in illegality in a relatively short time. On July 5, 1933, the National Socialist leadership for Austria, who had fled to the Reich, swore its supporters to fight against the federal government with all means and “ ruthless harshness ” until the goal of “ liberating Austria ” was achieved.

While the illegal Nazi activities initially subsided as a result of the ban, they began to increase again sharply in the summer of 1933. The federal government therefore felt compelled to put into force a series of so-called “ emergency ordinances ” to combat Nazi activities. In order to counter the increasing attacks on infrastructure facilities that are important for the general public, an ordinance came into force in July 1933, which made it possible in future to punish those who carried out these attacks no longer through regular legal proceedings, but in much more rapid administrative proceedings, with only imprisonment a duration of three to six months should be imposed. In September 1933 an ordinance was issued that made it possible to preventively “arrest” those people who were suspected of being engaged in “dangerous” activity. As a result of the briefing in a detention camp , these could now be detained for an indefinite period. From the end of 1933, after attacks and other Nazi actions, the perpetrators of which remained unknown, prominent National Socialists in the place where they had occurred were arrested and transferred to a detention camp. The executive, on the other hand, soon reached the limits of its human resources due to the increasing number of standby duties, patrols, security and surveillance tasks of all kinds, was relieved in September 1933 by the first commissioning of 200 men from the Voluntary Protection Corps .

However, even these measures by the federal government did not significantly impair Nazi activities. Rather, they strengthened the National Socialists in their negative attitude towards Austria's statehood and made them respond with an even stronger wave of terrorism from December 31, 1933, during which no fewer than 140 firecrackers and explosive attacks were carried out up to January 8, 1934 alone . The primary aim of these attacks was to disrupt economic life by impairing tourism and destroying facilities that are important to the general public, as well as causing general alarm among the population. After this first major phase of terror at the beginning of 1934, the situation throughout Germany calmed down until another huge wave of terror began in April, which continued with constantly changing intensity and changing priorities until the July coup.

National Socialist violence and state counterviolence developed in the months leading up to the July coup an ever stronger momentum, which made a return to normality likely neither for the Federal Government nor for the National Socialists in the foreseeable future. However, the National Socialists increasingly had to recognize that the federal government could not be brought down by terrorist means alone. The seemingly distant "seizure of power" in Austria led to growing frustration on their part, which in turn gave way to an increasingly rampant terror. “ Against the background of an increasingly heated civil war climate , the widespread feeling [within the Nazi movement] that» something must happen «undoubtedly promoted the willingness of the relevant Nazi leaders to put everything on one card. By means of a “liberation” in the form of the violent overthrow of the federal government, the… longed-for… “seizure of power” should finally be realized. "Hans Schafranek, however, warns against interpreting the July coup" as a direct result of that [increasingly escalating] development, as the climax of an extremely violent escalation strategy ", since it is wrong" the psychological dispositions and the technical and organizational requirements for an armed uprising ... to put it straight away. "

History and planning

In March 1934, Fridolin Glass , the commander of the Vienna SS Standard 89, placed his unit under the direct control of the SS in Berlin. Up until this point in time, SS Standard 89, which largely consisted of former members of the armed forces, was assigned to SA Upper Section XI in Munich. This action sparked strong rivalries between the SS and SA, SA-Obergruppenführer Hermann Reschny accused Glass of mutiny and even had him briefly arrested in Munich. Like two other leading putschists, Otto Wächter and Rudolf Weydenhammer , Glass was now in a largely isolated position. In order to regain influence internally within the Nazi regime, he got in touch with SS group leader Alfred Rodenbücher and the chief of staff of the Nazi regional leadership for Austria and former Heimatschutz leader , Hanns Albin Rauter . It was in this group of people that the coup plans were developed, while the Austrian SA was largely ignored or deliberately misled in the run-up to the coup. For example, August Edler von Meyszner , like Rauter from the Styrian Homeland Security, commander of SA Standard 27, deliberately did not inform his staff about the plans. Theo Habicht also conspired with former functionaries of the Landbund , u. a. with Vice Chancellor Franz Winkler , who joined the putsch not least for financial reasons. In the uprising in July 1934 in Styria, around 1,500 members of the Green Army also took part. The strategic cornerstones of the coup planning were determined at a conference in Zurich on June 25th. Present were Glass as the military leader of the putsch, Wächter as its political leader, Weydenhammer, who was supposed to keep the connection with the regional management in Munich and Rintelen, and Habicht.

There was no explicit approval from Hitler for these plans, he had only allowed Habicht to join a possible putsch of the federal army. As a result, however, Hitler obtained the assessment of high military and Nazi functionaries (including von Reschny), who assured him that a putsch by the federal army was extremely unlikely. Accordingly, Hitler was already aware of the actual situation in June, but he did nothing to stop Habicht's plans. According to new research results from Kurt Bauer , however, Hitler ordered the July putsch "in all probability personally". Bauer bases his thesis in particular on the diaries of the German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, which were discovered in 1992 and published in 2005 . From his entry about a “high-level meeting” in Bayreuth on July 22, 1934, two days before the putsch, Bauer concludes that “Hitler took the matter very seriously. At this meeting he must have given his final approval for the coup. The possibility that he could only have been informed about it superficially and incidentally is ruled out. "

Preparations for the units involved began in the last days of June; the Austrian SA leadership and the Gauleiter were only informed of the plans between July 10th and 17th, but not of the exact time of the planned action. The agreements with the Landbund, Heimatschutz, SS and Anton Rintelen were kept secret from the SA leadership; however, the Zurich conference came to the knowledge of the Austrian security authorities. They also knew of a memorandum from a Hungarian diplomat who had been informed of a planned action by the Austrian military attaché in Paris, Nazi sympathizer Lothar Rendulic . The planning progressed furthest in Styria, where Gauleiter Walther Oberhaidacher also called a meeting of district leaders on July 20 and issued detailed instructions. Among other things, a radio listening service was set up in order not to miss the radio reports after the RAVAG occupation - which was supposed to be the signal for the general uprising.

Course of the coup

Since mid-1933, various National Socialist sides had worked out more or less mature plans for a violent “ seizure of power ” in Austria. Related rumors and planning details leaked to the security authorities again and again - either as a result of the educational work carried out or through betrayal on the part of the National Socialists - and repeatedly resulted in an increased alert. The resulting gradual "alarm weariness" on the part of the executive is certainly also a not insignificant reason for the initial success of the National Socialists on July 25, 1934.

On July 25, 1934, because many were members of the Turnerbund , the putschists gathered in the Turnerbundhalle Siebensterngasse in Vienna- Neubau , where they were equipped with weapons and uniforms. From there, 154 SS men disguised as soldiers of the armed forces and police officers penetrated the Federal Chancellery , with Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss being fatally hit by two shots, one of which was fired by the unemployed Otto Planetta , the other by Rudolf Prochaska, an illegal member of the SA . The rest of the government escaped. The putschists were not ready to call a doctor or a priest, for whose assistance Dollfuss had asked.

Grave of a Nazi fighter, near Völkermarkt, fell on July 26, 1934
Memorial for a gendarmerie inspector, near Wilhering, fell on July 27, 1934

Another group of putschists had occupied the RAVAG building (Radioverkehrs AG) and had a false report sent to Anton Rintelen about the alleged transfer of power from Dollfuss . This should be the call for the National Socialists across Austria to begin a revolt against state power. There were several days of fighting in parts of Carinthia , Styria and Upper Austria and minor uprisings in Salzburg . The focal points of the fighting were Upper Styria , namely the industrial area between Judenburg and Leoben as well as the Styrian Ennstal , the Deutschlandsberg district in southwest Styria and southeast Styria around Bad Radkersburg . The bloodiest arguments took place in and around Schladming and in the Leoben- Donawitz area . In Carinthia, the centers of the putsch were Lower Carinthia and the Lavant Valley . In Upper Austria, the fighting concentrated, in addition to individual actions in the Salzkammergut , on the Pyhrn Pass and the upper Mühlviertel , where a division of the Austrian Legion was located in the Kollerschlag area on the night of July 26th to July 27th on the Bavarian-Austrian border invaded Austrian territory and attacked the customs station and a gendarmerie post.

Already in the early morning of July 26th, a courier coming from Germany was arrested behind the Kollerschlag border crossing. He was carrying precise instructions for the putsch, the so-called Kollerschlager Document , which clearly showed that the July coup was linked to Bavaria .

Members of the influential German Club were involved in the putsch : Otto Wächter, he was one of the club's board members, as well as Hanns Blaschke and Otto Persch. The club was then temporarily forcibly closed.

Reasons for the failure of the coup

" The germ for the failure of the uprising lay ... already in the political and personnel structure of the ... NSDAP itself, " judges the military historian Wolfgang Etschmann. The entire company was characterized by the rivalries and power struggles of the individual political and military Nazi organizations involved in the planning and their leaders, as well as their efforts to maintain the greatest possible secrecy, even from their own competitors. This often resulted in interrupted or crossing lines of command, which were one of the reasons for the highly uncoordinated strike of the putschists in the individual federal states and which played a decisive role in the defeat.

The planners had already completely misjudged the starting position of the putsch. When the survey got under way in the federal states, none of the three prerequisites that were regarded as inevitable for its success were met: It was not possible to capture the entire federal government, nor could the Federal President Wilhelm Miklas be caught ; the Austrian executive and the military had neither defected to the putschists nor remained neutral, but had opposed the putschists from the start; and the spontaneous “popular uprising” they had hoped for had not materialized. In view of these facts, in retrospect it was downright suicidal that the uprising in the federal states had just begun. How irrational the expectations and how boundless the certainty of victory were on the Nazi side is illustrated by the example of SA Standard 47, whose command staff was in Leibnitz . After the radio announcement of the resignation of the government, your SA Standartenführer , who from the start appeared to be absolutely certain of victory, had sent out all the detectors available to him to alert the local NS groups and SA formations under him. When it became known that Rintelen had distanced himself from the putschists and thus it was clear that the company did not go as planned, the Standartenführer no longer had any reporters available to revoke the orders issued to the local groups and combat formations. To keep at least one detector in reserve in the event of any difficulties that might arise, the standard management had apparently never thought of at all.

As the course of the “uprising” showed, the military strength and clout of the Nazi movement were also often overestimated. This was partly due to the fact that the NS-Unterführer had given exaggerated information about the strength and armament of the troops under them in order to look good with their military superiors. In this context, the higher military command had therefore often assumed completely wrong assumptions. Since, according to Nazi planners, the armament of the federal states would not have been completed until September 1934, the putschists only had a reasonably sufficient number of weapons at their disposal in Upper Styria and Carinthia. In many places, however, the lack of weapons and ammunition posed considerable problems for the coup plotters from the start, which can only be solved reasonably satisfactorily through extremely time-consuming and personnel-consuming "procurement campaigns" on site, for example by looting weapons depots for the Home Guard and confiscating private individuals could. Another problem was that on the day of the putsch, numerous members of the SA storms and often their leaders did not even appear at the assembly points. In addition, many respected and proven political and military Nazi leaders were not available on the day of the coup because they were detained in a detention center . In some places, for example in Schladming , people who were completely strangers to the area succeeded in seizing the power of command, who then ran away at the first sign of trouble.

Many of the military commanders of the putschists were unable to cope with the demands of the fighting. The often unclear management skills and the inadequate liaison and reporting system meant that they were often neither informed about the overall situation nor about the situation in the immediate vicinity. Most of the time, they were also unable to check whether commands transmitted by detectors had been carried out or not. The uncertainty that prevailed in many places favored the emergence of numerous rumors, which impaired morale and caused additional confusion. In turn, the Nazi teams often lacked the necessary discipline. Although they were up to the "playing soldiers" with the illegal SA, they were not up to the demands of a fighting situation that occurred in many places on the day of the coup. Despite orders from their superiors, security and security duties were often neglected or negligent, and road and telephone connections were often not interrupted, so that the federal government not only carried out unhindered movements of troops, but also detailed reports on the local situation from many of the gendarmerie posts and post offices that were locked up could get.

In view of the myriad of mistakes, mishaps and inadequacies on the part of the insurgents, the assessment of the armed forces that it had to deal with a " well-equipped, well-trained in the use of the weapon " opponent in Styria, for example, seems to be some propaganda in its own right . " For some SA units this assessment might be correct, for the majority of the SA units involved in the" survey ", but especially the numerous other" fighters "who had joined it, it could hardly have been valid. "

consequences

The failed July coup was a catastrophe for the Austrian National Socialists. In view of the fact that the Nazi movement, which many of its supporters had seen as insurmountable, almost completely collapsed in just a few days, there was “ paralyzing horror and confusion ” among the supporters , as stated, for example, in a report by the Styrian security director. Thousands of party functionaries, activists and supporters were either arrested after the coup, or fled to the German Reich or Yugoslavia . From an organizational point of view, the Austrian NSDAP was effectively faced with a fresh start. What remained, however, were the contradictions between the actual political organization of the party, the SA and the SS, which existed even before the July coup. In the simmering internal power struggle, however, the political organization and the SA soon fell behind the increasingly influential SS. It was also important that internally within the Nazi regime there was also a complete disagreement about the strategy to be adopted vis-à-vis the Austrian federal government. While the Political Organization was in principle not averse to a course of reconciliation, the SA continued to pursue a course of confrontation.

Adolf Hitler, for whom the failure of the putsch in Austria meant an immense foreign policy burden, went completely at a distance from the Austrian National Socialists after the putsch. As early as July 27, 1934, he forbade all political leaders in the German Reich dealing with Austrian affairs from any further activity or support of the Austrian rebels. Shortly afterwards, on August 3, the Austrian national leadership of the NSDAP was disbanded, which in his opinion bore sole responsibility for the failed coup. Its leader, Theo Habicht , lost all of his party functions. The Austrian Legion was disarmed and withdrawn from its locations near the border with Austria. Investigations with the aim of determining who was responsible for the failure of the coup were initiated, but at Heinrich Himmler's behest they were soon stopped in order not to stir up the internal party quarrels. The instigators of the putsch, who fled to the German Reich, blamed each other for its failure, but tried to personally wash themselves as far as possible.

The National Socialists arrested after the July coup were divorced by the security authorities and - if they were reported - the public prosecutor's office into “ serious ” and “ less involved ”. According to the Federal Constitutional Law on the introduction of a military tribunal , which came into force on July 26, 1934, those heavily involved (leaders, fellow combatants, couriers, etc.) were referred to the military tribunal for their judgment , even if proceedings were already pending before an ordinary court or a court martial Committed offenses related to the coup. A law passed on July 30th came into effect for the minorities, according to which, without prejudice to criminal prosecution, if their property was confiscated, they were to be sent to a detention center. Because of this law, the large majority of the July Putschists were spared a trial. The arrest of numerous family fathers, brothers and sons, however, meant a serious loss of labor in many places, which is why on August 25 the General Directorate for Public Security issued a " circular " , according to which all those arrested under the law of July 30th to procure urgently needed agricultural products Work could be taken on leave.

In the months that followed, the military court trials were also a focal point in the reporting of various Austrian daily newspapers. The tendency towards judicial character of these processes cannot be overlooked. In the negotiations, the judges' bias is repeatedly expressed, right down to the diction. In most cases, only witnesses who conformed to the charges were summoned to the negotiations. The defense attorneys, who had almost never had enough time to deal with the case, were hindered as much as possible and, in general, requests for evidence serving to exonerate the accused were thrown out. Questions that were important for the course of events were only rarely clarified; the priority was to reach a judgment as quickly as possible. Measured against the crimes committed, the pronounced judgments were not infrequently draconian , also because the military trials were intended to act as a deterrent. Not least because of this, numerous death sentences were pronounced, 13 of which were carried out. In any case, the urgent military trials helped to ensure that the deficiencies, mishaps and inconsistencies that emerged on the government side during the coup could be swept under the table and never became known to a wider public.

Investigations were also initiated against numerous other people on grounds of suspicion. Especially those in the public service , from whose ranks quite a few putschists had come, were affected. Numerous public employees, including many teachers, have their salaries blocked, and quite a few were also fired. In principle, the assets of all insurgents who had been convicted by a court of law, who had fled and were arrested abroad could be confiscated, but there was no possibility of appeal. An additional exacerbation was that even the financial resources of the family members of putschists could be limited to the bare minimum. The government endeavored to collect at least part of the costs associated with the crackdown on the coup through such "atonement measures". The so-called “ compensation regulations ” for wealthy National Socialists, Nazi sympathizers and companies rated as National Socialists also served this purpose . The sums of these " compensation payments " prescribed by the safety directors were based on the assets of the person concerned or the business owner and could reach considerable heights.

There are different figures for the number of fatalities. In his study, Gerhard Jagschitz adopted the figures presented by the military historian Erwin Steinböck in 1965, on which Wolfgang Etschmann also relies: a total of 270 people died as a result of the July coup and its immediate consequences. On the Nazi side, 153 died (including 13 executed and 7 people who committed suicide or were victims of Fememorden ), on the government side 117 people, including 13 civilians. In contrast, on the basis of extensive source studies, Kurt Bauer comes to the conclusion that there were "only" 223 deaths: 111 on the Nazi side (including the 13 executed), 101 on the government side, and 11 civilians. The number of injuries is given as 500 to 600 people.

Kurt Schuschnigg became the new Federal Chancellor, Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg became the new Chairman of the Fatherland Front and Vice Chancellor .

reception

Memorial Day (1935)
Memorial Day (1936)
Memorial Day (1937)

Almost immediately after its end, the Austrian government and the " patriotic " part of the population that supported it began a process of mythical exaggeration of the events of the July coup. The focus was on the murdered Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, whose death was interpreted as a "sacrificial death for Austria". Dollfuss was transfigured as a “ heroic chancellor ”, a “ martyr for Austria ”, a “savior of Austria” sent by God and gradually received almost unearthly attributes, similar to those generally attributed to a saint . A visible expression of this grotesque and religiously disguised Dollfuss cult was the Dollfuss streets, squares, churches, chapels, crosses and busts that followed in many cities, markets and villages. At the Grazer Opernring, for example, a Dollfuss memorial created by the sculptor Gustinus Ambrosi was inaugurated in July 1937 , which consisted of the Chancellor's head, which was almost the size of a man, mounted on a plinth several meters high. The erection of such monuments was not only associated with the endeavor to glorify the murdered Chancellor, but also with the intention of launching such “points of orientation for Austrian ... historical and self-consciousness in public space, which at the same time served as models for the corporate ideology. "

Especially in the places where there had been fighting in 1934, countless celebrations were held and in this way the “heroes” of July 25th were commemorated. July 25th was raised to the "Austrian National Day of Mourning". Two commemorative stamps (1935 and 1936) with the portrait of Dollfuss were issued on this occasion. After a short time, the surviving July Putschists were mostly quietly deported.

Essentially the same pattern can also be found in the National Socialist coup myth. This came about soon after the July coup, but could only develop publicly in Austria after the “ Anschluss ”. The focus was on the National Socialists killed in the fighting, but above all executed after the coup was suppressed. Under the motto “ And you did win! ”Her death was stylized as a heroic“ victimization of upright Germans ”who would have done nothing but defend themselves against an injustice regime, which in retrospect turned the failed coup into a meaningful undertaking that helped to bring about the victory of National Socialism in To bring about Austria. Accordingly, immediately after the "Anschluss", almost all of the "Dollfuss consecration sites" were demolished or destroyed and numerous streets and squares were renamed again, this time after the killed and executed National Socialists.

Apart from the public, a " Commission for the historical determination of the 25 July 1934 survey in Austria " set up by the Reichsführer SS began its work. This “ historical commission ” was supposed to “ clarify [t] he events during the survey,… establish the guilty parties on both the National Socialist and the opposing side ” and determine those responsible for the heavy sentences imposed on the SS putschists. One consequence of the work of this commission was that old conflicts soon broke out again within the NSDAP, which had been suppressed with great difficulty in 1934. After even the " Führer " himself threatened to be incriminated because of his ambivalent attitude towards the July coup, he personally ordered in May 1938 that the investigations be stopped and that all those involved be obliged to maintain silence and strict secrecy. However, the commission continued to work in secret and did not complete its work until March 1939 with a detailed report. However, even this report could not contribute significantly to illuminating the background to the July coup.

literature

Official representations and source editions

  • Contributions to the prehistory and history of the July Revolution . Published on the basis of official sources, Vienna 1934.
  • Herbert Steiner (Ed.): The uprising of the Austrian National Socialists in July 1934. Files of the Historical Commission of the Reichsführer SS . Europa Verlag, Vienna-Frankfurt / Main-Zurich 1965 (new edition 1984).
  • The July revolt 1934. The intervention of the Austrian army to overthrow them . For official use only. Printed as a manuscript on behalf of the Federal Ministry for National Defense, Vienna 1936.
  • Ludwig Reichhold: Battle for Austria. The Patriotic Front and its resistance to the Anschluss. A documentation. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna, 1984 ISBN 3-215-05466-3 .

Overall representations

  • Kurt Bauer : Hitler's second putsch - Dollfuss, the Nazis and July 25, 1934 , Residenz-Verlag, St. Pölten, 2014, ISBN 978-3-7017-3329-3 .
  • Kurt Bauer: elementary event. The Austrian National Socialists and the July Putsch 1934 , Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7076-0164-1 .
  • Kurt Bauer: Social-historical aspects of the Nazi July coup 1934 , PhD thesis, Vienna 2001. ( PDF; 2.8 MB )
  • Wolfgang Etschmann : The fights in Austria in July 1934 (= military historical series, issue 50) Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1984.
  • Gerhard Jagschitz : The putsch. The National Socialists in Austria in 1934 , Verlag Styria, Graz-Vienna-Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-222-10884-6 .
  • Gottfried-Karl Kindermann : Hitler's defeat in Austria. Armed Nazi putsch, murder of the Chancellor and Austria's defensive victory in 1934 , 1st edition, Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-455-08235-1 .
  • Lucian O. Meysels : The Austrofascism. The end of the first republic and its last chancellor . Amalthea Verlag, Vienna, 1992, ISBN 3-85002-320-6 .
  • Hans Schafranek : Summer party with prize shooting. The unknown history of the Nazi putsch in July 1934. Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7076-0081-5 .

Collected works and representations on individual aspects

  • Kurt Bauer: Hitler and the July coup 1934 in Austria. A case study on National Socialist foreign policy in the early phase of the regime. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , issue 2, April 2011, pp. 193–227, table of contents and abstracts .
  • Ludwig Jedlicka , Rudolf Neck (ed.): The year 1934: July 25th. Protocol of the symposium in Vienna on October 8, 1974 (= publications of the Scientific Commission of the Theodor-Körner-Stiftungsfonds and the Leopold-Kunschak-Prize for the Research of Austrian History from 1927 to 1938, Volume 3) Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7028-0083-2 .
  • Dušan Nećak: The Austrian Legion II. National Socialist Refugees in Yugoslavia after the failed coup of July 25, 1934. Translated from the Slovenian by Franci Zwitter, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 1996, ISBN 3-205-98318-1 .

Studies and essays on individual regions

  • Christian Klösch: The Fiihrer's secret vassals. The putschists of July 1934 in the Carinthian Lavanttal , Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7076-0234-0 .
  • Andreas Maislinger : The Lamprechtshausen putsch. Witnesses from July 1934 report. Self-published, Innsbruck 1992.
  • Eduard G. Staudinger: The July Putsch 1934 in the Weiz district . In: Zeitschrift Gleisdorf 6, Gleisdorf 1984, pp. 239–248.
  • Gerald M. Wolf: "Now we are the masters ..." The NSDAP in the Deutschlandsberg district and the July Putsch 1934 (= Grazer Zeitgeschichtliche Studien, Volume 3) StudienVerlag, Innsbruck-Vienna-Bozen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7065-4006 -3 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Since there were concerns about a formal ban on the NSDAP, only their defense formations (SA, SS) were banned or declared disbanded.
  2. ↑ Rintelen had learned from a confidant that the occupation of the Federal Chancellery had not gone as planned. So he initially acted on hold and eventually distanced himself from the coup plotters when their failure became apparent. In connection with the radio announcement of the resignation of the government, he played the surprise and asked RAVAG to correct the “mystification” of his appointment as Federal Chancellor.
  3. ↑ See Wolf (2008), p. 178f. and Schafranek (2006), p. 129, where in this context there is talk of a “ blindness to reality paired with sheer megalomania ”, which has “ led to a complete disregard for the most elementary conspiratorial shielding ”.
  4. ^ Under the title Der Heldenkanzler. In 1934 , the writer and journalist Renato Attilio Bleibtreu published a book that glorified Dollfuss, which quickly saw several editions.
  5. ↑ This final report was only found a long time after the end of the war and published with other documents relating to this commission by Herbert Steiner under the title “ The uprising of the Austrian National Socialists in July 1934. Files of the Historical Commission of the Reichsführer SS ”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See for example Bauer (2001), p. 21f.
  2. ↑ Bauer (2001), p. 22.
  3. ^ Gerhard Botz : Violence in Politics. Assassinations, clashes, coup attempts, unrest in Austria 1918 to 1938. 2nd edition, Munich 1983, pp. 215f.
  4. ↑ Cf. on this Bruce F. Pauley: Der Weg in den Nationalozialismus. Origins and developments in Austria. Translated from the American by Gertraud and Peter Broucek. Edition revised and supplemented by the author, Vienna 1988, pp. 105–107.
  5. ↑ Botz (1983), p. 217.
  6. ↑ Bauer (2001), p. 24.
  7. ↑ Quoted from Wolf (2008), p. 110.
  8. ↑ See Bauer (2001), p. 24 and Wolf (2008), pp. 122–124.
  9. ^ Gerhard Jagschitz: On the structure of the NSDAP in Austria before the July coup 1934. In: Jedlicka / Neck (1975), pp. 36–45.
  10. ↑ Botz (1983), p. 264.
  11. ↑ See for example Bauer (2001), p. 26f.
  12. ↑ Wolf (2008), p. 141.
  13. ↑ Schafranek (2006), p. 82.
  14. ↑ Schafranek (2006), p. 33ff.
  15. ↑ Schafranek (2006), p. 59ff.
  16. ↑ Reichhold (1984) pp. 140f.
  17. ↑ Meysels (1992), pp. 85f.
  18. ↑ The Standard Report: 1934: Putsch against Dollfuss regime personally ordered by Hitler . In: derstandard.at of October 19, 2011.
  19. ^ ORF report: Historians: Hitler ordered the July putsch in 1934 In: orf.at of October 19, 2011.
  20. ↑ Schafranek (2006), p. 102.
  21. ↑ Meysels (1992), p. 84.
  22. ↑ Schafranek (2008), p. 94ff.
  23. ↑ On the various planned coups cf. especially Jagschitz (1976), pp. 68-93 and Schafranek (2006), pp. 13-39, 52-80 and 90-124.
  24. ^ Gerhard Jagschitz : The putsch. The National Socialists in Austria in 1934. Verlag Styria, Graz 1976, ISBN 3-222-10884-6 , pp. 101ff; and Heinrich Drimmel : From the murder of the Chancellor to the Anschluss. Austria 1934–1938. Amalthea, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-85002-241-2 , p. 159.
  25. ^ Dollfuss murder: The second assassin. In: kurier.at. Retrieved August 8, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Linda Erker, Andreas Huber and Klaus Taschwer : From the "nursing home of the National Socialist opposition" to the "extremely threatening secondary government". The German Club before and after the "Anschluss" in 1938. Retrieved on July 24, 2017 .
  27. ↑ Etschmann (1984), p. 13.
  28. ↑ Jagschitz, Putsch, p. 127.
  29. ↑ Bauer (2003), p. 210.
  30. ↑ July Revolte (1936), p. 127.
  31. ↑ Wolf (2008), p. 181.
  32. ↑ Quoted from Bauer (2003), p. 106.
  33. ↑ Federal Constitutional Law of July 26, 1934 on the introduction of a military tribunal as an exceptional court to judge the criminal acts associated with the attempted coup of July 25, 1934 . In: BGBl . No. 152/1934 . Vienna July 26, 1934 ( online at ALEX ).
  34. ↑ a b cf. Everhard Holtmann : Between “Blood Guilt” and “Satisfaction”: Authoritarian July Justice. In: Jedlicka / Neck (1975), pp. 36-45.
  35. ↑ See Erwin Steinböck: Das Österreichische Bundesheer 1920–1938. In: Feldgrau. Volume 13, Issue 1, 1965, pp. 27-31.
  36. ↑ Bauer (2003), p. 325.
  37. ↑ So the Vorarlberger Volksblatt on the front page of the edition of July 26, 1934. Cf. the press review on the murder of Engelbert Dollfuss listed in the web links , accessed on October 11, 2010.
  38. ↑ a b Etschmann (1984), pp. 51 and 68f.
  39. ↑ Pictures of this monument and its demolition in 1938 can be found at http://peter-diem.at/Monumente/dollfuss.htm , accessed on October 11, 2010.
  40. ^ Fritz Csoklich and Matthias Opis: Karl Maria Stepan. Letters from the Styrian governor from prison and concentration camp. Verlag Styria, Graz-Vienna-Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-222-12902-9 , p. 113.
  41. ↑ Cover letter from Reinhard Heydrich dated December 9, 1938 for the transmission of the files concerning the historical commission to the Reichsführer SS. To be found in the ZIS (= Contemporary History Information System) under July 25, 1934: The National Socialists in Austria , Document 4, accessed on May 18 , 1934 . October 2010.