Schuschnigg, Kurt von

Schuschnigg, Kurt von (b. 14 Dec. 1897, d. 18 Sept. 1977). Chancellor of Austria 1934–8 Born in Riva del Garda, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was educated in Innsbruck and became a lawyer. In 1927 he was elected to the Austrian Parliament as a member of the Christian Social Party. He became Minister of Justice 1932 and Minister of Education 1933, in the Dollfuss government. He continued the latter's authoritarian regime at the head of the Popular Front, and thus prevented a return to democratic government. Despite his best efforts to maintain Austrian independence against growing Nazi demands inside and outside Austria for Anschluss, Austria's future had long become a matter beyond his control, subject to Hitler's relations with Mussolini. Once the latter gave up his resistance to German unification with Austria, it became a matter of time. In a desperate last effort to prevent the inevitable, he bowed to Hitler's demands to appoint Seyss-Inquart into his Cabinet in February 1938. He tried to shore up his support through proposing a referendum on Anschluss, which Hitler then used as a pretext to force his resignation on 11 March 1938 – marching into Austria a day later, anyway. He was imprisoned throughout the war and after liberation in May 1945 became a professor of political science in the USA 1948–67.