The 12 March 1938 was not only the beginning of Nazi rule in Austria; it was also the end of a six-year struggle by a significant minority of Austrians to maintain Austrian independence against very considerable odds. This study has sought to refocus attention on the role of the Dollfuß Government 1932–34 in attempting to prevent a Nazi takeover, and to reassess the state of current scholarship on the reasons for its collapse. In this regard, this thesis sets out to re-examine the behaviour and motivations of Dollfuß in particular, and the Christian Socials in general, during the period in question, as well as to document and clarify the key strategies of the Austrian leadership in dealing with the twin threats of Austrian and German National Socialism. Its overall conclusion is that there is a pressing need to modulate the historical narrative of the Dollfuß era to reflect more accurately what actually occurred. This thesis seeks to prove that despite the extreme pressure that it was under from Nazi Germany, the Dollfuß government and its mainstay, the Christian Socials, used all realistic means at their disposal to keep the Nazis from the centres of power while maintaining Austrian independence. It investigates why Dollfuß refused to publicly co-operate with the Social Democrats, but was apparently willing to enter into a deal with the National Socialists, and what this tells us about his anti-Nazi stance. It also considers the question of whether the traditional focus on the breakdown of democracy, as a key cause of the collapse of the Austrian state in 1938, is useful in understanding of the period.

Ce travail, consacré au rôle de médiateur culturel de l'écrivain autrichien Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), s'appuie sur la théorie des «transferts culturels». Ses identités multiples l'ont conduit à se mettre au service des personnalités littéraires d'expression française particulièrement Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) et Romain Rolland (1866-1944). Pour mener à bien cette mission il a mis en place une stratégie littéraire constituée de réseaux. Une sorte de dynamique zweiguienne s'est créée qui englobe les correspondances, les traductions, les préfaces, les conférences, favorisant ainsi un dialogue franco-allemand voire un forum culturel européen. Sa conception de la politique et du judaïsme reste toutefois ambivalente et invite à divers questionnements essentiellement sur la montée du nazisme. / This monograph is focused on the role as cultural mediator of the Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) and takes an approach based on the "cultural transfers" theory. His varied identities led him to assume a mediating position among the French literary intellectuals essentially Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) and Romain Rolland (1866-1944). In order to succeed in this mission as mediator, he created a successful literary network strategy. A Zweig's dynamic took place including correspondences, translations, prefaces, conferences and promoting in this way an intensive French-German dialog or rather a European cultural forum. His relationship to politics and Jewish movements is ambivalent and questionable essentially during the Nazism period.