The years of Chancellors Dollfuss and Schuschnigg's authoritarian governments (1933/34-1938) have been denounced as "Austrofascism" from the left, or defended as a Christian corporate state ("Stondestaat") from the right. During this period, Austria was in a desperate struggle to maintain its national independence vis-o-vis Hitler's Germany, a struggle that ultimately failed. In the end, the Nazis invaded and annexed Austria (Anschluss"). Volume 11 of the Contemporary Austrian Studies series stays away from these heated historiographical debates and looks at economic, domestic, and international politics sine ira et studio. Timothy Kirk opens with an assessment of "Austrofascism" in light of recent discourse on interwar European fascism. Three scholars from the Economics University of Vienna analyze the macroeconomic climate of the 1930s: Hansjrg Klausinger the "Vienna School's" theoretical contributions to end the "Great Depression"; Gerhard Senft the economic policies of the Stondestaat; and Peter Berger the financial aid from the League of Nations. Jens Wessels delves into the microeconomic arena and presents case studies of leading Austrian businesses and their performance during the depression. Jim Miller looks at Dollfuss, the agrarian reformer. Alexander Lassner and Erwin Schmidl deal with the context of the international arena and Austria's desperate search for protection against Nazi Anschluss-pressure and military preparedness against foreign aggression. In a comparativist essay Megan Greene compares the policies of Austria's Haider and Italy's Berlusconi and recent EU responses to threats from the Right. The "FORUM" looks at various recent historical commissions in Austria dealing with Holocaust-era assets and their efforts to provide restitution to victims of Nazism. Two review essays, by Evan Burr Bukey and Hermann Freudenberger, survey recent scholarly literature on Austria(ns) during World War II. This addition to the

In February 1934 fighting broke out in Linz between government forces and the Social Democratic Party. Within hours Vienna was up in arms and the fighting soon spread to other parts of Austria. A few days later the party was destroyed and Austria seemed to many observers to have joined the ranks of fascist states. The violence of the fighting, particularly the shelling of the vast workers’ housing complex, the Karl-Marx-Hof, and the summary execution of a number of leading figures in the fighting horrified the civilised world. This book, first published in 1980, looks at the importance of Austrian social democracy as one of the pillars of European Marxism and shows how it became a victim of the spread of fascism. The radical right and the peculiarities of Austrian varieties of fascism are given particular attention, and Dollfuss’s own brand of fascistic state is analysed in terms of classic forms of fascism. Particular emphasis is placed on the economic and social problems of the Austrian Republic which led to a deepening of the political crisis and also to the foreign political ramifications of the problem. Although Dollfuss appeared to be determinedly anti-Nazi it was he who finally gave the order to destroy the Social Democratic Party little realising he was destroying himself. Thus, this study illustrates how socialism was strengthened rather than weakened by the fighting in February, and Austrian fascism far from halting German fascism, paved the way for its final triumph.

Eighty years ago the largest genocide ever occurred in Nazi Europe. This began with the mass extermination of patients with neurologic and psychiatric disorders that Hitler's regime considered "useless eaters". The neuropsychiatric profession was systematically "cleansed" beginning in 1933, but racism and eugenics had infiltrated the specialty long before that. With the installation of Nazi-principled neuroscientists, mass forced sterilization was enacted, which transitioned to patient murder by the start of World War II. But the murder of roughly 275,000 patients was not enough. The patients' brains were stored and used in scientific publications both during and long after the war. Also, patients themselves were used for unethical experiments. Relatively few neuroscientists resisted the Nazis, with some success in the occupied countries. Most neuroscientists involved in unethical actions continued their careers unscathed after the war. Few answered for their actions, and few repented. The legacy of such a depraved era in the history of neuroscience and medical ethics is that codes now exist to protect patients and research subjects. But this protection is possibly subject to political extremes and individual neuroscientists can only protect patients and colleagues if they understand the dangers of a utilitarian, unethical, and uncompassionate mindset. Brain Science under the Swastika is the only comprehensive and scholarly published work regarding the ethical and professional abuses of neuroscientists during the Nazi era. The author has crafted a scathing tour de force exploring the extremes of ethical abuse, but also ways that this can be resisted and hopefully prevented by future generations of neuroscientists and physicians

This set gathers together a collection of out-of-print titles, all classics in their field. Reissued for the first time in some years, they offer an insightful reference resource to a variety of topics. From Professor Colin Holmes’s groundbreaking studies of racism in British society, to Professor Kitchen’s analysis of the rise of fascism in pre-war Austria, these books shed much light on society’s recent dark past.

Almost all written histories of the period leading up to World War II stress political, diplomatic, and ideological conflicts. Arguing that previous historians have confused effect for cause and have considered these conflicts without reference to the systemic problems that provoked them, Paul Hehn focuses on the fierce rivalries among the Great Powers in the relentless search for markets during the world depression of the 1930s. These rivalries were exacerbated particularly in southeastern Europe where Germany dominated the economies and trade arenas of its neighbors in a semi-colonial manner. In A Low Dishonest Decade, Hehn surveys the five Major Powers and all the Eastern European countries from the Baltic to Turkey. But he primarily canvases the economic situations in strategic locations like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

How does a person become Hitler’s number one enemy? Not through espionage or violence, it turns out, but by striking fearlessly at the intellectual and spiritual roots of National Socialism. Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German Catholic thinker and teacher who devoted the full force of his intellect to breaking the deadly spell of Nazism that ensnared so many of his beloved countrymen. His story might well have been lost to us were it not for this memoir he penned in the last decades of his life at the request of his wife, Alice von Hildebrand. In My Battle Against Hitler, covering the years from 1921 to 1938, von Hildebrand tells of the scorn and ridicule he endured for sounding the alarm when many still viewed Hitler as a positive and inevitable force. He expresses the sorrow of having to leave behind his home, friends, and family in Germany to conduct his fight against the Nazis from Austria. He recounts how he defiantly challenged Nazism in the public square, prompting the German ambassador in Vienna to describe him to Hitler as "the architect of the intellectual resistance in Austria." And in the midst of all the danger he faced, he conveys his unwavering trust in God, even during his harrowing escape from Vienna and his desperate flight across Europe, with the Nazis always just one step behind. Dietrich von Hildebrand belongs to the very earliest anti-Nazi resistance. His public statements led the Nazis to blacklist him in 1921, long before the horrors of the Third Reich and more than 23 years before the assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944. His battle would culminate in the countless articles he published in Vienna, a selection of which are featured in this volume. "It is an immense privilege," writes editor John Henry Crosby, founder of the Hildebrand Project, "to present to the world the shining witness of one man who risked everything to follow his conscience and stand in defiance of tyranny."

Presents a short history of Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia from the Renaissance to the present followed by an A to Z dictionary of important people, a chronology, maps, and more.