In Praise of Murder On July 25th, 1934, Dr. Dollfuss,
who in the effort to restore order in Austria had sternly repressed both the Socialist rebels and the Nazi agitators, was murdered by a gang of Nazis. For this crime, committed with shocking brutality, Otto Planetta and Franz Holzweber were after- wards condemned to death and hanged with eleven other Austrians. The murderers have now become martyrs. Their names are to be officially inscribed on the roll of those who have " laid down their lives for the Greater Germany," and the day of their crime has become an anni- versary in which public honours are paid to their memory. These were the men who, when Dr. Dollfuss lay dying from his wounds, refused him the services of a doctor or a priest. Such is the state of mind which National Socialism engenders and encourages. No act is too loathsome to be praised if it has been committed on their side. One would have imagined that prudence, if nothing else, would hal- deterred rulers who rule by force from extolling the virtue, of assassins.
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