The Austrian Civil War (German: Österreichischer Bürgerkrieg) of 12–15 February 1934, also known as the February Uprising (Februaraufstand) or the February Fights (Februarkämpfe), was a series of clashes in the First Austrian Republic between the forces of the authoritarian right-wing government of Engelbert Dollfuss and the Republican Protection League (Republikanischer Schutzbund), the banned paramilitary arm of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria. The fighting started when League members fired on the Austrian police who were attempting to enter the Social Democrats' party headquarters in Linz to search for weapons. It spread from there to Vienna and other industrial centres in eastern and central Austria. The superior numbers and firepower of the Austrian police and Federal Army quickly put an end to the uprising. The overall death toll is estimated at 350.
The socialists' defeat led to arrests, executions, and the banning of the Social Democratic Party. In May 1934, Austria's democratic constitution was replaced by the authoritarian constitution of the Federal State of Austria, with the Fatherland Front as the only legal party.
After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in October 1918, the Republic of Austria formed as a parliamentary democracy. Two major factions dominated politics in the new country: socialists (politically represented by the Social Democratic Workers' Party) and conservatives (represented by the Christian Social Party). The socialists had their strongholds in the working-class districts of the cities, while the conservatives built on support from the rural population and most of the upper class. The conservatives also maintained close ties to the Catholic Church.
In the late 1920s the polarised political situation in Austria was exacerbated by paramilitary units such as the Home Guard (Heimwehr) on the right and the Republican Protection League (Republikanischer Schutzbund) of the Social Democrats (SDAPÖ) on the left. By the start of the civil war the Heimwehr were openly fascist and opposed democracy, while the Republican Protection League saw itself as a protector of the Austrian Republic holding the Austromarxist position on the dictatorship of the proletariat that was pro-democracy as part of the Social Democrats' party program. The still small Austrian Nazi Party had its SA and SS, which were also organized as paramilitary units.
July Revolt and suspension of Parliament
Political antagonisms in Austria escalated in 1927 when members of the right-wing Front Fighters' Union (Frontkämpfervereinigung) in Schattendorf (Burgenland) shot and killed two people, including a child, during a demonstration by the Republic Protection League. In the trial of the Schattendorf case, the jury acquitted the alleged perpetrators. On 15 July 1927, the day after the verdict, the SDAPÖ's leadership was not able to control the demonstrations of an outraged crowd. During the July Revolt, the Vienna Palace of Justice was stormed and set on fire. After police guardrooms were also attacked, the police president, Johannes Schober, gave orders to disperse the demonstrators with armed force. People who were trying to flee as well as some who were not involved in the demonstration were caught in the police fire. The result was 89 dead, including four policemen, and 1,000 wounded.
The problems facing the First Republic worsened in the following years. The Great Depression resulted in high unemployment, and after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Nazi sympathisers who wanted unification of Austria with Germany threatened the Austrian state from within.
On 4 March 1933, Engelbert Dollfuss, the Christian Social chancellor, suspended the Austrian Parliament. In a close vote on railway workers' wages in the National Council, each of the three presidents of parliament tactically resigned from their positions to cast a ballot, which left nobody to preside over the meeting. Even though the bylaws could have resolved the situation, Dollfuss used the opportunity to declare that Parliament had ceased to function and then blocked all attempts to reconvene it. Police forces barricaded the parliament building to prevent members from entering. The SDAPÖ thus lost its primary platform for political action. The Christian Socialists, facing pressure and violence not only from the left but also from Nazis infiltrating from Germany, were able to rule by decree on the basis of a 1917 emergency law. They began to suspend civil liberties and imprison members of the Social Democratic Party.
In the wake of armed conflicts, the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) was banned on 26 May 1933, as was the SDAPÖ's Republican Protection League on the 31st.
Dollfuss, the Fatherland Front and the Heimwehr then set about the destruction of the last remnants of the Social Democratic and Marxist-oriented workers' movement. On 24 January 1934, the order went out to search party buildings and members' homes for weapons belonging to the Protection League. The leaders of the SDAPÖ did not respond to the step-by-step disempowerment and disarming of their movement. Their cornerstone policy allowed them to fight only if the party were banned, the unions dissolved or the government of "Red Vienna" suppressed.
In the early morning hours of 12 February 1934, when police went to search for weapons at the Linz party headquarters of the Social Democrats in the Hotel Schiff, the members of the Protection League, under their local commander Richard Bernaschek, opened fire. A coded telegram to him from the SDAPÖ's leaders that warned him urgently against any action and instructed him to await the decision of party leadership had been intercepted by the authorities and never reached him.
The fighting spread to other cities and towns in Austria. In Vienna, members of the Protection League barricaded themselves in city council housing estates (Gemeindebauten), which served as symbols and strongholds for the socialist movement in Austria. Police and paramilitaries took up positions outside the fortified complexes, and the parties exchanged small arms fire. Fighting also occurred in industrial towns including Steyr, Sankt Pölten, Weiz, Eggenberg (Graz), Kapfenberg, Bruck an der Mur, Graz, Ebensee, and Wörgl.
A decisive moment in the conflict came when the Austrian armed forces, which had remained a comparatively independent institution, entered on the side of the government. Dollfuss ordered Karl-Marx-Hof, a council housing estate, to be shelled with light artillery, endangering the lives of civilians and destroying many flats before the socialist fighters surrendered. The fighting ended in Vienna and Upper Austria by 13 February, but continued in Styrian cities, especially in Bruck an der Mur and Judenburg, until 14 February. By 15 February 1934, the Austrian Civil War had ended.
The police, Army and Heimwehr divisions that supported them had defeated the poorly networked Protection League relatively easily. Between 10,000 and 20,000 workers stood against a superior force of almost 60,000 men from the gendarmerie and police, the Army and home defence forces. Besides the imbalance in numbers and the Austrian Army's use of artillery, the major reason for the uprising's collapse was likely the failure of the call for a general strike to be heeded. The hoped-for solidarity of law enforcement with the insurgents also did not come about. The Army, police and gendarmerie all remained loyal to the state.
In large parts of the country, (Lower Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Burgenland) complete calm prevailed. Leading Social Democrats in Carinthia and Vorarlberg distanced themselves at the outset from the uprising. The mayor of Klagenfurt and the deputy governor of Carinthia announced their resignations from the SDAPÖ.
Austria, or even just Vienna, was far from being in a state of complete turmoil. The daily newspapers of the time had only short reports on the revolts. Stefan Zweig, a contemporary observer who was inclined towards the SDAPÖ, wrote: I was in Vienna during those historic February days and saw nothing of the decisive events that played out in Vienna and knew nothing, not the slightest bit, while they were happening. Cannons were fired, houses occupied, hundreds of corpses carried away – I saw not a single one. ... In the city's central districts, everything went on as quietly and regularly as usual, while in the suburbs the battle raged, and we foolishly believed the official reports that everything was already settled and done with.