Can One be Austro-Fascist and Bona Fide Catholic?

New blog on the kid: Can One Be a National Socialist and a Bona Fide Catholic? · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Can One be Austro-Fascist and Bona Fide Catholic?

Some things are to modern sympathisers off the table, simply because the situation was different. In both cases.

Like, liking Austro-Fascism now doesn't imply shooting on Social Democrats, because Social Democrats aren't trying to make an insurrection and succeeding in killing innocent bystanders, as the case was in February 1934.

Or, given that Czechs residing in Austria aren't uniformy factory workers (celibate men or men away from wives) taking Austrian jobs and promoting Communism, or that both Czechia and Austria are EU members, one need not support the idea of arresting Czechs, let them wait till a busload is full and then get them to the frontier, for instance to Gmünd (one of the border crossings).

I think most Neo-Nazis with German sympathies (overlapping but not identic categories) would not like to open hostilities with Poland, either.

But let's take what's applicable and see if it's acceptable.

In the NSDAP governed German Reich, you had forced sterilisations, and you had people being shut into disciplinary facilities (not so facile or easy-going on them, but on their captors) for being beggars. In Austria, prior to 1938 and Anschluss, you did not have forced sterilisations, and you did not shut up people in most of Austria (only in Upper Austria) for begging, and when you did, the facility was not meant to force them to change their lifestyle, but to give them an opportunity to work themselves up from the situation. Wages were lower than normal, but that has been the case with some Swedish social measures as well, that I've tasted. Those refusing to work were not punished.

I think a very major difference is the attitude to Jews.

Magnus Hirschfeld was, for the nature of his research, much safer in the Weimar Republic than in Austria under Dollfuss or Schuschnigg. When von Papen made a coup, within Prussia, Berlin became less safe for Hirschfeld. He ended up in Paris and in Nice.

However, 1933, another Jew from Germany (Hamburg this time) who didn't feel safe in Germany, had no problem when moving to Austria, except in 1938, when Austro-Fascism fell, Henry Winterfeld had to move again.

Austro-Fascism didn't make Jews pay for the Magnus Hirschfelds.

Again, Austro-Fascism didn't ban Jews from exercising intellectual work (provided it wasn't of the Hirschfeld school). Heinrich Schenker was piano teacher, possibly composer, certainly music theorician, and died in 1935 under Schuschnigg. He had no legal problems teaching music theory to for instance Felix Salzer (a nephew of the Wittgenstein). His widow was less lucky, she died in Theresienstadt. Since Felix Salzer (through the grandfather Karl Wittgenstein, at least) had Jewish ancestry, he is listed among "Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States" on wikipedia.

Again, Jewish capitalism. National Socialism deprived William Meinhardt (deutscher Artikel) of his ownership in OSRAM because Meinhardt was Jewish. But the National Socialists did not reverse the policy of the Phoebus cartell, the real moral trouble with OSRAM, whether Meinhardt was or wasn't involved in that deal. NS also deprived Julius Fromm of his ownership, but allowed the immoral production to continue (desiring to keep this blog child friendly, I'm not entering into the details, it's possible to look up wiki). Julius Fromm's house, after his exile, became a Judenhaus, meaning a kind of ghetto, to which Jews were forced to move. This, I think, resumes the NSDAP attitude pretty well.

Austria had a different take. The fear was Jewish monopolies or oligopolies, the solution was a) to treat Jews as an ethnic minority (like Slovenes and Croatians) and b) to make a numerus clausus or percentage number on how much of a sector could be owned by an ethnic minority. If a Jew (or Croatian or Slovene) wanted to start a business in Vienna, in a sector which already had more than proportionally Jewish (or Croatian or Slovene) owners, he was not allowed to open it. That's the extent of laws targetting Jews. Ghettos (so to speak) existed, from old habit. Not from state force. Leopoldsstadt, II city district of Vienna, is known for the Prater and for having the top percentage of Jewish inhabitants of any city district (there were 21 such before the Anschluss).

In Leopoldsstadt, you had Israelitische Kulturgemeinde Wien. In 1933, the president of that association was one (quoting their list) not unknown:

Dr. DESIDER FRIEDMANN (in Auschwitz ermordet) 1933 –

On the day of the Anschluss, he was in London as a Minister in Austria and an emissary to British wealth (which had backed Nazi Germany more than Austria). On his return, he was arrested, because his gesture was disloyal to the German Reich.

But the most striking difference may be the mutual relations with the Catholic Church.

In NS ruled Germany, a Catholic bishop of Dresden Meissen lost his driving licence over speeding when trying to bring the sacraments to a dying man. Der Stürmer was, famously, toxic against Jews, but not much less against Catholics. The German bishops had excommunicated any person joining the NSDAP, at the Konkordat, this was limited to high ranking members (so, one reason Pius XII didn't excommunicate Hitler was, he was already excommunicated). In Vienna, a nun made a lampoon in verse against Hitler ... she was offered to be released if she renounced her religious vocation, as she refused, Sister Maria Restituta Kafka was executed (all the career of the White Rose existance from start to execution of the Scholl siblings was while she waited for her own death).

In Austria, the régime supported Catholicism (sometimes over the top, like an interview with a psychiatrist if you wanted to leave the Catholic Church, which was however not totally illegal either). And the régime based their actions, notably about workers' unions, employer's unions and independents' unions or farmers' unions, on the Church Domcument QUADRAGESIMO ANNO and on the writings of the Reverend Ignaz Seipel whose (in the taste of some) probably woke and social justice warrior like work Ethical Teachings on Economics of the Church Fathers (Wirtschaftsethische Lehre der Kirchenväter) from 1907 remains on my list of to-read books. Dito for his obviously Christian Nationalist work Nation und Staat from 1916.

A certain Jew feared Ignaz Seipel and warned for his antisemitism in "Die Stadt ohne Juden" (the city without Jews). But Bettauer (Protestant, formerly Jew) didn't die by an Austrofascist. His killer Otto Rothstock was a National Socialist. Just like Dollfuss' killer Otto Planetta.

Both the NS régime and the Austro-Fascist régime prosecuted abortion. Neither of them allowed the girl of 14 to be in the kind of pickle she would be now. But the NS solution was Lebensborn. In Austria, 14 remained a legal age for a girl to marry, if her parents agreed (and if she was pregnant, why wouldn't they, usually?). When I was a teen, of 13 / 14, I admired the idea of Lebensborn. Today I understand the Catholic critique, it promoted immorality, and promote the Catholic alternative: allowing teens to actually get married. Unlike Lebensborn, Austrian legislation was neither racist nor eugenicist, so Austro-Fascism didn't commit the same crimes, while also keeping abortion illegal (it was illegal in Germany too, but NS strengthened the prosecution and prevention efforts, one bonus point for them, but that it was needed is a minus point for the Weimar Republic).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
II L.D. after Epiphany
18.I.2026