Dollfuss

Also, consider this paragraph in a book by Dorothy Thompson (Let the Record Speak, 1938, p. 135):

"In 1933, to please another despot, Mussolini, Dollfuss himself dissolved the Social Democratic Party and shot workmen in their home. Not to please Austria. To please Mussolini. And the little daughter of Dollfuss said to the child of a friend of mine: "Does your father cry all the time. Mine does."

An excerpt from the book The Mind of Adolf Hitler The Secret Wartime Report by Walter C. Langer

Basic Books Inc. - 1972, hard cover

from pages 111 - 113
The Hitler Family

FATHER

There is a great deal of confusion in studying Hitler's family tree. Much of this is due to the fact that the name has been spelled in various ways: Hitler, Hidler, Hiedler, and Huettler. It seems reasonable to suppose, however, that it is fundamentally the same name spelled in various ways by different members of what was basically an illiterate peasant family. Adolf Hitler himself signed his name Hittler on the first Party membership blanks, and his sister usually spells her name as Hiedler. Another element of confusion is introduced by the fact that Adolf's mother's mother was also named Hitler, which later became the family name of his father. Some of this confusion is dissipated, however, when we realize that Adolf's parents had a common ancestor (father's grandfather and mother's great-grandfather), an inhabitant of the culturally backward Waldviertel district of Austria.

    Adolf's father, Alois Hitler, was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. It is generally supposed that the father of Alois Hitler was a Johann Georg Hiedler, a miller's assistant. Alois, however, was not legitimized, and he bore his mother's name until he was forty years of age when he changed it to Hitler. Just why this was done is not clear, but it is generally said among the villagers that it was necessary in order to obtain a legacy. Where the legacy came from is unknown. One could suppose that Johann Georg Hiedler relented on his deathbed and left an inheritance to his illegitimate son together with his name. It seems strange, however, that he did not legitimize the son when he married Anna Schicklgruber thirty-five years earlier. Why the son chose to take the name Hitler instead of Hiedler, if this is the case, is also a mystery that has remained unsolved. Unfortunately, the date of the death of Hiedler has not been established, and consequently we are unable to relate these two events in time. A peculiar series of events, prior to Hitler's birth, furnishes plenty of food for speculation.

    There are some people who seriously doubt that Johann Georg Hiedler was the father of Alois.

 Thyssen and Koehler, for example, claim that Chancellor Dollfuss had ordered the Austrian police to conduct a thorough investigation into the Hitler family. As a result of this investigation a secret document was prepared that proved that Maria Anna Schicklgruber was living in Vienna at the time she conceived. At that time she was employed as a servant in the home of Baron Rothschild. As soon as the family discovered her pregnancy she was sent back to her home in Spital where Alois was born. If it is true that one of the Rothschilds is the real father of Alois Hitler, it would make Adolf a quarter Jew. 

According to these sources, Adolf Hitler knew of the existence of this document and the incriminating evidence it contained. In order to obtain it he precipitated events in Austria and initiated the assassination of Dollfuss. According to this story, he failed to obtain the document at that time since Dollfuss had secreted it and had told Schuschnigg of its whereabouts so that in the event of his death the independence of Austria would remain assured. 

Several stories of this general character are in circulation.

    Those who lend credence to this story point out several factors that seem to favor its plausibility.

    1. That it is unlikely that the miller's assistant in a small village in this district would have very much to leave in the form of a legacy.

    2. That it is strange that Johann Hiedler should not claim the boy until thirty-five years after he had married the mother and the mother had died.

    3. That if the legacy were left by Hiedler on the condition that Alois take his name, it would not have been possible for him to change it to Hitler.

    4. That the intelligence and behavior of Alois, as well as that of his two sons, is completely out of keeping with that usually found in Austrian peasant families. They point out that their ambitiousness and extraordinary political intuition are much more in harmony with the Rothschild tradition.

     5. That Alois Schicklgruber left his home village at an early age to seek his fortune in Vienna where his mother had worked.

     6. That it would be peculiar for Alois Hitler, while working as a customs official in Braunau, to choose a Jew named Print, of Vienna, to act as Adolf's godfather unless he felt some kinship with the Jews himself.

    This is certainly a very intriguing hypothesis, and much of Adolf's later behavior could be explained in rather easy terms on this basis. However, it is not absolutely necessary to assume that he has Jewish blood in his veins in order to make a comprehensive picture of his character with its manifold traits and sentiments. From a purely scientifc point of view, therefore, it is sounder not to base our reconstruction on such slim evidence but to seek firmer foundations. Nevertheless, we can leave it as a possibility that requires further verification.

     In any event Maria Anna Schicklgruber died when Alois was five years of age. When he was thirteen he left the Waldviertel and went to Vienna where he learned to be a cobbler. 

The next twenty-three years of his life are largely unaccounted for. It seems probable that during this time he joined the army and had perhaps been advanced to the rank of noncommissioned officer. 

His service in the army may have helped him to enter the Civil Service as Zollamtsoffizial later on."

I Quote Encyclopedia Britannica :

Engelbert Dollfuss,  (born Oct. 4, 1892, Texing, Austro-Hungarian Empire—died July 25, 1934, Vienna, Austria), Austrian statesman and, from 1932 to 1934, chancellor of Austria, who destroyed the Austrian Republic and established an authoritarian regime based on conservative Roman Catholic and Italian Fascist principles.

After studying law and economics in Vienna and Berlin, Dollfuss became secretary to the Lower Austrian Peasant Federation and, in 1927, director of the Lower Austrian chamber of agriculture. He was a member of the conservative and clerically oriented Christian Social Party, the core of whose constituency came from Austria’s conservative peasantry. Dollfuss rose rapidly in Austrian politics, serving as president of the federal railways in 1930 and as minister of agriculture from 1931. 

In May 1932 he became chancellor, heading a conservative coalition led by the Christian Social Party.

Faced with a severe economic crisis caused by the Great Depression, Dollfuss decided against joining Germany in a customs union, a course advocated by many Austrians. 

He was in part dissuaded by a League of Nations loan of $9,000,000 and by the fear of Allied countermeasures. 

Severely criticized by Social Democrats, Pan-German nationalists, and Austrian Nazis, he countered by drifting toward an increasingly authoritarian regime. 

The Italian leader Benito Mussolini became his principal foreign ally. Italy guaranteed Austrian independence at Riccione (August 1933), but in return Austria had to abolish all political parties and reform its constitution on the Fascist model. Dollfuss’ attacks on Parliament, begun in March 1933, culminated that September in the permanent abolition of the legislature and the formation of a corporate state based on his Vaterländische Front (“Fatherland Front”), with which he expected to replace Austria’s political parties. 

In foreign affairs he steered a course that converted Austria virtually into an Italian satellite state. Hoping therewith to prevent Austria’s incorporation into Nazi Germany, he fought his domestic political opponents along fascist-authoritarian lines.

In February 1934 paramilitary formations loyal to the chancellor crushed Austria’s Social Democrats in bloody encounters. With a new constitution of May 1934, his regime became completely dictatorial. 

In June, however, Germany incited the Austrian Nazis to civil war. 

Dollfuss was assassinated by the Nazis in a raid on the chancellery.

London, June 6, 1994

To: The Letters Editor, The Times (by fax)

Assassination Policy

THE ASSASSINATION  of the Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss sixty years ago is not a good example [of Hitler's assassination policies], as the diary of Dr Joseph Goebbels, which I obtained in Moscow two years ago, shows that he was with Hitler all that day and -- while there is no doubt Hitler had approved the coup by the Austrian Nazis -- the shooting of the chancellor in the skirmish was definitely an unwelcome development. Here are some of the relevant entries (which have not been published before). The

Nazi leaders were attending the Richard Wagner festival at Bayreuth:

Sunday [July 22] with the Führer: General [Walther] von Rathenau [of the general staff, then Pfeffer [von Salomon, of the Brownshirts], [Theo] Habicht [Austrian Nazi leader], [Alfred] Rosenberg. The Austrian question. Will it come off? I'm very sceptical.

Wednesday [July 25] with the Führer. Alarm sounds from Austria. Chancellery occupied. Big rumpus. Colossal tension. Awful wait. I'm still sceptical. Pfeffer more optimistic. Habicht too. Wait and see! Constantly on phone to Berlin. Lines to Vienna cut. Over to the festival. 'Rheingold', we listen with only half an ear. More and more alarums: Dollfuss and [Emil] Fey captured. Then, Dollfus dead. Then, honourable withdrawal of the insurgents. Then, government victory. Lost! Habicht was all talk. I just manage to suppress a crazy communiqué by Pfeffer . . . Führer remains quite calm. Casting new plans. Dollfuss is out: that's a serious blow to the Austrian regime.

Thursday [July 26] Habicht and Pfeffer here. Very small. Report on the putsch almost incredible... I get Habicht sacked.

There is no archival evidence that Hitler knew of any intent to kill Dollfuss, or gave such an order.

Yours faithfully,

David Irving