Emil Fey

Emil Fey (23 March 1886 – 16 March 1938) was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, leader of the right-wing paramilitary Heimwehr forces and politician of the First Austrian Republic. He served as Vice-Chancellor of Austria (German: Vizekanzler) from 1933 to 1934, leading the country into the period of the Ständestaat under Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß. Fey played a vital role in the violent suppression of the Republikanischer Schutzbund (Republican Protection League) and, during the 1934 Austrian Civil War, of the Social Democratic Workers' Party.

Life

A career officer since 1908, Fey in the rank of a major fought with the Common Army in World War I and was awarded the Military Order of Maria Theresa in 1916. After the war, he joined the Carinthian paramilitary Heimwehr forces against the Yugoslavian troops. In 1927 he founded a local Heimwehr branch in Vienna and became a member of the conservative Christian Social Party. As his political career proceeded, he increasingly rivalled with Heimwehr leader Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg; both commanders backed the rise of Chancellor Dollfuß and his successor Kurt Schuschnigg, only to be largely disempowered after the implementation of the authoritarian Federal State of Austria (Ständestaat).

On 17 October 1932 Fey joined Dollfuß' cabinet in the rank of a state secretary concerned with . He immediately had all conventions of the Social Democrats, the and the banned. After the chancellor had suspended the sessions of the , Fey on 15 March 1933 concentrated Heimwehr forces to occupy the , however, any operation was aborted by the Vienna police. During a parade in May 1933, Major Fey reportedly "knocked three Nazis unconscious with his own ochsenknüttel" (square-edged bludgeon) and promoted Austrian nationalism.