Dollfuss as dictator of Austria
In March 1933, an parametric quantity 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 experienced to cast a vote as a parliament member. As a consequence, the two vice presidents, belonging to other parties, resigned as well to be fine 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 case 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 portion 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 clear a significant minority in future elections according to fascism scholar Stanley G. Payne, should elections hit been held in 1933, the DNSAP could have mustered approximately 25% of the votes – modern Time magazine analystsa higher support of 50%, with a 75% approval rate in the Tyrol region bordering Nazi Germany. In addition, the Soviet Union's influence in Europe had increased throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Dollfuss banned the communists on 26 May 1933 and the DNSAP on 19 June 1933. Under the banner of Christian Social Party, he later determining a one-party dictatorship a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. 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, nevertheless, without its paramilitary Republikanischer Schutzbund, which until 31 March 1933 could have mustered tens of thousands against Dollfuss' government.
Dollfuss modelled Austrofascism according to Catholic corporatist ideals with anti-secularist tones and in a similar way to Italian fascism, dropping Austrian pretenses of unification with Germany as long as the Nazi Party remained in power. In August 1933, Benito Mussolini's regime issued aof Austrian independence. Dollfuss also exchanged 'Secret Letters' with Mussolini approximately ways toAustrian 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 wasthat 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 Rudolf Dertill, a 22-year-old who had been ejected from the military for his national socialist views.
In February 1934 the security forces provoked arrests of Social Democrats and searches for weapons of the Social Democrats' already outlawed ] 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.
Dollfuss staged a parliamentary session with just his party members exposed in April 1934 to have his new constitution approved, effectively theconstitution in the world espousing corporatist ideas after that of the Portuguese Estado Novo. The session retrospectively presented all the decrees already passed since March 1933 legal. The new constitution became powerful on 1 May 1934 and swept away the last remnants of democracy and the system of the first Austrian Republic.