The Austrian dictator who called St. Louis home

ST. LOUIS – The former fascist dictator of Austria lived in St. Louis for decades and considered it a second home. Kurt Schuschnigg rose to power through right-wing populism, defied Hitler, and narrowly escaped death several times. He eventually moved into a Kirkwood home and taught history at Saint Louis University. His life story is as dramatic and turbulent as the history of early 20th-century Europe.

Schuschnigg was born on Dec. 14, 1897, in Riva del Garda, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it’s now northern Italy. His father was a famed Austrian general and Schuschnigg attended Stella Matutina, a former Jesuit boarding school located in a town bordering Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

During World War I, he served as an artillery officer along the Italian front, was captured, and remained a POW until 1919. Schuschnigg studied law and went into practice in 1922 after graduating from the University of Innsbruck.

Within a couple of years of graduating, Schuschnigg entered politics. He joined the Christian Social Party, which maintained an ideology of Austrian nationalism, right-wing populism, anti-communism, and antisemitism. In 1927, Schuschnigg was elected to the lower house of the Austrian Parliament. He was appointed the nation’s minister of justice in January 1932 and then became minister of education in May 1933. He’d also been responsible for founding the Catholic Austrian Storm Troops, a cultural organization that took on paramilitary characteristics over time.

Chancellor von Schuschnigg

Following the brief Austrian Civil War (also called the February Uprising) in 1934, Schuschnigg ordered the execution of eight leftist insurgents, with one wounded victim carried to the gallows on a stretcher immediately after his condemnation. That May, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss did away with the country’s constitution and founded the Federal State of Austria, a single-party authoritarian government. That form of government later came to be known as Austrofascism.

In July 1934, an Austrian Nazi assassinated Dollfuss, and Schuschnigg was named as his successor. At 36, Schuschnigg would be the youngest person to hold the chancellorship. The following month, he was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by the Holy See.

Just as he was entering politics, Schuschnigg married Herma Masera in 1924. Together, they had a son, Kurt, in 1926. The family was involved in a car crash in July 1935. Herma died in the crash and Schuschnigg was badly injured. Fortunately, the young boy only suffered scratches.

Over the next few years, Schuschnigg courted Countess Vera Czernin von und zu Chudenitz. The two were married by proxy in 1938, while Schuschnigg was under Gestapo house arrest in Vienna. More on that in a moment.

During his tenure as chancellor, Schuschnigg had to contend with a dour economy, the growth of assorted political paramilitary groups, and the rise of Austrian Nazis, the latter of which supported unification or absorption into Adolf Hitler’s Germany, also called Anschluss.

Mussolini & Hitler

Schuschnigg had already jailed many thousands of Austrian Nazis in the wake of Dollfuss’ assassination and, by 1936, ordered all paramilitary groups to disband. He attempted to foster Austrian nationalism and sought alliances with the right-wing constitutional monarchy of Hungary and the fascist dictatorship of Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini. But due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (think Treaty of Versailles, but for Austria), Austria’s military force was limited to a volunteer force of just 30,000 men, greatly limiting any chance of national defense or civic order.

By the summer of 1936, Mussolini had reached a loose agreement with Hitler that would culminate in the formation of the Berlin-Rome Axis, and many Austrians supported the Anschluss.

In July, Schuschnigg signed what was thought to be a treaty of coexistence with Germany, agreeing to free imprisoned Austrian Nazis in exchange for Hitler’s recognition of Austria’s sovereignty. The deal did not last long.

Hitler summoned Schuschnigg to his Berghof retreat in Berchtesgaden in February 1938 to discuss relations between the two nations. The Nazi strongman cornered Schuschnigg and accused him of breaking their 1936 coexistence agreement. Without support from Mussolini or other European powers, Schuschnigg claimed he was coerced into signing an agreement freeing any remaining Nazi sympathizers in Austria, and appointing Nazis Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Dr. Hans Fischböck as ministers of security and finance, respectively.

Over the course of the following month, Hitler proclaimed that the Austrian government was repressing millions of Germans and Anschluss supporters.

Schuschnigg attempted to rally his country behind the banner of national unity and called for a national referendum on the matter of merging with Germany. The vote was scheduled for March 13, 1938, with Schuschnigg pinning his hopes on receiving at least 60% support from his countrymen with a simple yes-or-no vote.

Hitler mobilized the German army, positioned them along the Austrian border, and demanded Schuschnigg call off the vote. When Schuschnigg balked, Hitler demanded he resign and Seyss-Inquart be named chancellor.

Germany invades Austria

Schuschnigg relented and resigned, but Hitler invaded Austria anyway on the morning of March 12. Schuschnigg was taken into custody that same day. By March 15, the annexation was complete.

A vote on unification did take place on April 10, with the referendum allegedly receiving 99.73% support. However, historians contend that ballot tampering, Nazi propaganda-inspired voter suppression and pressure, and a lack of voter anonymity tainted the vote itself.

Shortly after being placed under house arrest, Schuschnigg was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and later to Dachau, where he’d spend the entirety of World War II. He was kept in a special wing of the camps for housing notable prisoners and, as such, was allowed to receive visits from his wife.

Narrowly avoiding death before Germany’s fall

In April 1945, Hitler ordered Schuschnigg and other political prisoners at Dachau to be transferred to a retreat in northern Italy, where they could potentially be used as bargaining chips against the advancing Allied forces. But during the closing weeks of the war, Hitler had also sent out orders to execute certain celebrity prisoners, leading many to believe that Schuschnigg narrowly avoided death. Schuschnigg and those with him were handed over to American soldiers on May 4, 1945. The war in Europe would end on May 8.

The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union took control of Austria after Nazi capitulation and the end of World War II. Austria was split into four occupied zones and would remain that way during the early years of the Cold War. With the death of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in 1953, the push to restore Austria’s sovereignty gained momentum.

In May 1955, the four occupying powers and the acting state government signed the Austrian State Treaty. By October of that year, the last Allied troops had left the nation, and Austria declared permanent neutrality. In the present day, the country functions as a federal parliamentary republic.

An invitation to America

Meanwhile, Schuschnigg and his family were moved to Italy’s island of Capri in the immediate aftermath of the war. Schuschnigg tried to return to Austria and reenter politics, but his contemporaries wanted nothing to do with the former chancellor and his ties to Austrofascism.

Schuschnigg stayed on Capri for two years before Dr. William Bauer, an old friend from Innsbruck and the director of pathology at Saint Louis University’s dental school, reached out and offered Schuschnigg and his family a chance to come to America.

The Desloge family of St. Louis welcomed the Schuschniggs when they arrived in the United States, and they spent a short time at the illustrious Vouziers estate.

Living in St. Louis

Saint Louis University named Schuschnigg as commencement speaker for its June 1, 1948, graduation ceremony. That summer, he was offered a teaching job in the political science department. From 1948 to 1967, he taught international law and the history of Germany and Central Europe, while the Schuschniggs lived in a modest home in Kirkwood.

Schuschnigg became a United States citizen on his 59th birthday in 1956. Vera, his second wife, became a citizen in 1954. She later died of cancer in September 1959, at the age of 55.

While he spoke of his interactions with Mussolini and Hitler in his lectures and other historical events over which he presided or witnessed, he is said to have kept his politics out of discussion.

In a 1963 letter to a colleague, Schuschnigg quipped that St. Louis had become a genuine second home, writing, “Funny that I have never been in any place without interruption for longer in my life than in St. Louis.”

Retirement in Austria

In December 1966, Schuschnigg announced his plans to retire in January and return to Austria. Saint Louis University presented Schuschnigg with the Fleur-de-Lis Award, its highest honor.

He returned to his native Austria and moved to the village of Mutters, approximately 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) south of lnnsbruck.

Schnuschnigg was never able to reconcile his present and past; he was kept at arms length by the politicians of the day while attempting to defend his actions and leanings as chancellor. He wrote four books detailing his political life, resistance to Nazi Germany, and years as a prisoner: “My Austria” (1937), “Austrian Requiem” (1946), “International Law” (1959), and “The Brutal Takeover” (1969).

Kurt Schuschnigg died on Nov. 18, 1977, in Mutters due to an undisclosed illness.

The next generation

In 1980, Schuschnigg’s children donated material from their father’s archives to Saint Louis University. In the years since, SLU has slowly amassed a collection of newspaper clippings, letters and correspondence, memoirs and notes, as well as other documents, to create the Kurt von Schuschnigg Manuscript Collection.

His daughter, Maria, nicknamed Sissi, graduated from SLU. She died in October 1989, at the age of 48. She is buried at Friedhof Mutters alongside her father and mother.

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