Figure 1.--These are Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss' two surviving children, Rudolf and Eva. They are pictured in Vienna at about the time their father was assasinated by the NAZIs (1934). I think they are wearing old-fashioned costumes. Their father was strongly anti-NAZI. We have been unable to find any information about them during or after the War. All we know is tht their mother and Eva survived the War. We are not sure yet about Rudolf.

Dollfuss after the War he worked as secretary of the Austrian Farmers' Association (Bauernbund). They sent him to study economics at the University of Berlin. There he met Alwine Glienke (1897–1973), a German woman from a Protestant family. They married (1921). They had one son and two daughters. One daughter died during early childhood. The surviving children were Rudolf and Eva (figure 1). Alwine was informed by Mussolini thatvher husband had been assasinated. She and the children were a guest at Mussolini's villa in Riccione on the Adriatic. He provided his personal plane to fly them back to Vienna. They remained in Austria after Dolfuss was assasinated, but fled to Switzerland when Hitler lanched the Anschluss and invaded Austria (1938). We are not sure why Frau Dollfuss saw it necessary to flee the NAZIs. She does not seem to have been politically active, although we have few details at this time. The NAZIs did sometimes go after the families of their opponents. And the first Einsatzgruppe formed had lists of political opponents and rich Jews when the NAZIs entered Vienna. We do not know if the Dollfuss family was on the list. She apparently felt threatened. We note that while the NAZIs arrested Chancellor Schuschnigg, but did not go after his family. We do not know if the Dollfuss family stayed in Switerland duing the War. Frau Dollfuss apparenly married Ferdinand Glienke. We know nothing about him. She was satirized in Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui -- an anti-Hitler play as the character 'Betty Dullfeet' (1941). We are not sure why Brecht, who fled the NAZIS (1933), chose to portray her in such a manner. She survived the War and passed away (1973). She is buried with her two daughters at Hietzinger Cemetery in Vienna. Eva survived the War and died (1993). Rudolf also survived the War, passing away in Leiden, the Netherlands (2011). .

Created: 1:48 PM 8/1/2018
Last updated: 1:48 PM 8/1/2018