AUSTRIAN RIOTING

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXII, Issue 11346, 16 February 1934, Page 3

AUSTRIAN RIOTING

Details of the Fighting YIKNXA MICH QUIETER. Vienna, Feb. 15. The firing in Vienna ceased last night and life in the centre of the city was almost normal. The Chancellor, Dr. Dollfuss, in a broadcast speech, stated that an amnesty would be given to all who immediately ceased hostilities and presented themselves to the authorities to-day. Earlier yesterday the Government had broadcast appeals to women whose husbands were fighting to urge them to yield their arms to the police, since«a house to house search would be begun, rendering further resistance useless. The Socialists still held positions in Ottakring, Lobau Island Semmering, Meidling, Stadlau and Brisanberg. The hostilitiesat Kagran resulted in the burning down of the Goetheshaus, a magnificent new municipal building. A final attack on all unsurrendered Socialist positions was launched at dawn to-day. Weissel, commandant of the Floridsdorf Fire Brigade, which fiercely resisted the Government troops, was sentenced to death no charges of attacking the District Court and fatally shooting with machine-guns two holdiers and wounding many others. He was hanged at midnight. The Jewish Ex-Soldiers' TTninn

j. jug oewisn n,x-»oiaiers union, numbering 17,000 members, has i aligned itself with the Government forces. A Nazi aeroplane flew over Vienna yesterday, the occupants distributing .anti-Semitic proclamations. Artillery in Action. The Northern railway station in Vienna had to be entirely razed by artillery before the rebels could be over-come. The battle in northeastern Vienna was not ended with the capture of Floridsdorf, from which the garrison was driven out. The rebels, who were helped by women at windows cleaning their rifles and supplying cartridges, took up a new line of defence at Kakran, three miles east of the capital, which the troops assaulted. The conquered area resembled a war zone. Three corpses lay on the roadway, which was strewn with electric tramway wires.

Troops stormed Sachensensof and arrested several hundred members of the Schutzbund and others who were retreating on the Laaerberg Hilla, south of Vienna, where 2000 men dug themselves in. The Government broadcast an offer to pay £35 a head for missing rebel leaders. The resumption of the train services in Vienna, and the removal of many barbed wire barricades indicate that the position is much easier, though it will take two or three days to clean up the isolated places, notably Wienerneustadt. Sporadic firing was still heard yesterday at the Karl Marxhof, also in Steyr, where the subjugation of the Socialists seemed to be imminent. A total of 350 rebels surrendered at Linz. Summary Courts sat in Vienna and Graz to deal with ringleaders. An official statement issued yesterday stated that the general strike had collapsed and that the Government forces had been completely victorious.