The Fatherland Front (VF) was an Austrian fascist political party that existed from 20 May 1933 to 13 March 1938, founded by Engelbert Dollfuss. The Fatherland Front was the dominant party of the Federal State of Austria, a single-party state that was influenced by Fascist Italy. The VF was opposed to socialism, free-market capitalism, and liberal democracy, and it favored the establishment of a Catholic corporate state that maintained its independence from Protestant Germany. Students were to be educated by the Catholic Church instead of receiving a secular education, free trade was closed in response to the New York City stock market crash of 1929, the fascists restored the national mindset to a pre-French Revolution one (with the "enemy from the east" changing from the Ottoman Empire to the Soviet Union), and the party advocated the unity of the Austrian people in a "nonpartisan" movement. Despite being fascist, the party had minimal anti-Semitism, and the Austrian government accepted several Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and had large Jewish support due to the regime's suppression of a Nazi coup in 1934. There was no official policy of anti-Semitism from 1934 to 1938, and public violence against Jews was rare, although many far-right newspapers and factions continued to verbally attack Jews. However, many Jews were ousted from political office as suspected communists or social democrats.
In 1934, the VF defeated the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria in the Austrian Civil War, but the pro-German Austrian Nazi Party assassinated Dollfuss in July 1934. Kurt Schuschnigg took over the party after Dollfuss' assassination, and political pressure from the Nazi Party forced him to resign on 11 March 1938. The next day, Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht invaded Austria and annexed it in the Anschluss.
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