Kurt Schuschnigg | |
---|---|
Schuschnigg in Geneva, 1934
|
|
11th Chancellor of Austria Federal State of Austria |
|
In office 29 July 1934 – 11 March 1938 |
|
President | Wilhelm Miklas |
Deputy |
Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg Eduard Baar-Baarenfels Ludwig Hülgerth Edmund Glaise-Horstenau |
Preceded by | Engelbert Dollfuss |
Succeeded by | Arthur Seyss-Inquart |
Foreign Minister of Austria | |
In office 14 May 1936 – 11 July 1936 |
|
Chancellor | himself |
Preceded by | Egon Berger-Waldenegg |
Succeeded by | Guido Schmidt |
Personal details | |
Born |
Kurt Alois Josef Johann Edler von Schuschnigg 14 December 1897 Riva del Garda, Tyrol, Austria-Hungary |
Died | 18 November 1977 Mutters, Tyrol, Austria |
(aged 79)
Political party |
Christian Social (1927–1933) Fatherland Front (1933–1938) |
Profession | Lawyer, Professor |
Religion | Catholic [1] |
Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schuschnigg (German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊʃnɪk]; 14 December 1897 – 18 November 1977) was Chancellor of the Federal State of Austria from the 1934 assassination of his predecessor Engelbert Dollfuss until the 1938 Anschluss with Nazi Germany. He was opposed to Hitler's ambitions to absorb Austria into the Third Reich.
After Schuschnigg's efforts to keep Austria independent had failed, he resigned his office. After the invasion by Nazi Germany he was arrested, kept in solitary confinement and eventually interned in various concentration camps. He was liberated in 1945 by the advancing United States Army and spent most of the rest of his life in academia in the United States.
He was born in Riva del Garda in the Tyrolean crown land of Austria-Hungary (now in Trentino, Italy), the son of the Austrian General Artur von Schuschnigg, member of a long-established Austrian officers' family of Carinthian Slovene descent. The Slovene spelling of the family name is Šušnik.
The young Schuschnigg received his education at the Stella Matutina Jesuit College in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg. During World War I he was taken prisoner at the Italian Front and held captive until September 1919. Subsequently, he studied law at the universities of Freiburg and Innsbruck, where he became a member of the Catholic fraternity . After graduating in 1922, he practiced as a lawyer in Innsbruck.