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Starhemberg. Of the thousands who have rallied round Chancellor Dollfuss, three men are important. Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, a smooth-cheeked, smiling young man, has the same name, the same temperament as his ancestor who led the defense of Vienna in 1683. An out-&-out Fascist, he has spent most of his great fortune founding, drilling, equipping the Heimwehr that is now the backbone of the Dollfuss Government. Once a friend of Adolf Hitler, he fought beside him in the Munich "Beer Hall Putsch" of 1923, broke away when he suddenly realized that Handsome Adolf was committed not only to the conquest of Germany but the absorption of Austria. He is still titular head of the Heimwehr but the direction of it has been quietly taken out from under him by one of his own lieutenants, the Heimwehr commander of the Vienna district, Major Emil Fey, who is in addition Austria's Minister of Public Safety.
Fey. Major Fey is the sort of character that feature writers love. Hawk-nosed, with a mouth like a wolftrap. Major Fey has a war record even more gallant than that of his Chancellor. There is in the Austrian Army a decoration that could exist in no other country. Marie Antoinette's smart mother the Empress Maria Theresa realized that the Habsburg Archdukes who commanded her divisions were not military geniuses. She established a medal, open to anyone, from general to corporal, who in wartime should carry out a maneuver against the orders of his superiors and should succeed. The number of aspirants is limited by the assurance that should they fail they face a firing squad. On the tunic of Major Fey hangs the Maria Theresa Order. He still believes in direct action. The Heimwehr is officially unarmed, but its officers carry a supple, square-edged bludgeon of raw oxhide known as an ochsenknüttel. During the great Heimwehr parade of last May, when Chancellor Dollfuss wore his wartime uniform for the first time (TIME, May 29) Major Fey, Minister of the Austrian Government, knocked three Nazis unconscious with his own ochsenknüttel. For months wiseacres have spotted him as the country's future dictator, a post that the two-fisted Major does not want. He is still personally loyal to Engelbert Dollfuss, wants him to be the Dictator leaving the Major in the post he holds now, the fist of the dictatorship, freed from its responsibilities. For Prince von Starhemberg, his immediate superior, he has an ideal solution. Like Hungary, he would make Austria a kingless monarchy, with Starhemberg taking a place like Hungary's Horthy as Regent.
Winkler. President of the Agrarian League that put Chancellor Dollfuss in office is Vice Chancellor Franz Winkler, leader of the Dollfuss' peasant adherents. Dr. Winkler and his followers join with the Heimwehr in opposing Naziism and Socialism, but they fear a permanent Fascist dictatorship for a special reason. The Heimwehr is an aristocratic institution, backed by Austria's great landowners. Should Austria's incessant crises ever end the Agrarian League would make the rights of peasant landowners its chief plank.
Corporative State. Twelve days ago in the midst of the Siege of Vienna celebration, Chancellor Dollfuss gave warning that the old Austrian Democracy was completely dead. Orating at Vienna's huge racetrack, he said: