Rintelen, Anton

(1876–1946)

   Trained as a jurist, Rintelen was a professor at several universities before World War I, including the German University of Prague between 1903 and 1911. In the latter year, he took a position at the University of Graz, where he taught civil procedure. Active in Christian Social politics, he was elected deputy governor of the province of Styria in 1918. He served as governor of the region between 1919 and 1926 and 1928 and 1933. In that position, he played an instrumental role in equipping the paramilitary regional Heimwehr with heavy weapons. During part of that period, he was also the education minister of the First Austrian Republic. In 1933, Rintelen was Austrian ambassador to Italy. Rintelen was a crucial figure in the Austrian Nazi July Putsch of 1934, which ended in the murder of the chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss. The Styrian was the choice of his coconspirators to assume the now-vacant office. Though radio broadcasts announced that he had assumed the office, they were false. Rintelen was arrested and jailed. In 1935, he was condemned to life imprisonment for treason. Released in 1938, he withdrew from serious political life.