Fürst Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg als Antidemokrat und Kämpfer für die österreichische Unabhängigkeit gegen den Nationalsozialismus

Abstract

The article addresses two basic interpretations of Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, who was the leader of the Austrian Heimwehr movement and member of the cabinets of Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt von Schuschnigg. There is no controversy concerning Starhembergs primary political stance as antidemocratic. His Heimwehr with a radical anti-Marxist position and bearing all the signs of a fascist movement had been steadily pushing for a change of the political system. And the authoritarian course of the Dollfuss’ government that Heimwehr helped establish culminated in a civil war. The second thesis, Starhemberg as a fighter against the Nazis, is more problematic. In spite of a partly common ideological means, mainly the anti-Marxism and anti-Liberalism, Starhemberg clearly advocated the idea of an independent “Austrianism” as a “better” and untarnished Germanic identity. Starhembergs Heimwehr decisively helped the Austrian government to successfully withstand the onslaught from Austrian Nazis and the pressure coming from the Third Reich in the critical time between spring 1933 and summer 1934.