a result, also the Social Democratic Party was banned and the Austrofascist ideology finally realized with the implementation of the Federal State of Austria (Ständestaat). The authoritarian measures had no effect on the office of the President. In his private records, Miklas clearly condemned the violation of the constitution by Dollfuss and his successor Kurt Schuschnigg, but he did not openly criticise the government's policies. Miklas was highly unpopular among Austrian Nazis, as he refused to commute the death sentences imposed on assassins of Dollfuss after the failed July Putsch in 1934. In view of the rising pressure by Nazi Germany, the Austrofascist state approached the Kingdom of Italy under Duce Benito Mussolini and the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1936, Miklas entertained Regent Miklós Horthy at Wörthersee. After Schuschnigg on 12 February 1938 had been summoned to the Berghof by Adolf Hitler to receive German demands, Miklas offered amnesty to the jailed Nazi members but initially refused to turn over the national police force to their leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart. However, when Hitler ordered Wehrmacht operations along the border, the president was forced to give in and installed Seyss-Inquart as Austrian Minister of the Interior. On 9 March 1938, Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite on Austrian independence to be held within four days. In turn, on 11 March Hermann Göring demanded that Seyss-Inquart replace Schuschnigg as chancellor; otherwise, German forces would overrun Austria the following day. While a Nazi mob invaded the chancellery, Schuschnigg declared his resignation ("yielding to force"). Miklas again refused to appoint Seyss-Inquart but was not able to present a non-Nazi candidate. After Hitler received the confirmation from Mussolini that Italy would not interfere, he gave orders that German troops would invade at dawn the following day (Unternehmen Otto). Miklas capitulated at midnight, announcing that he had instated Seyss-Inquart as new chancellor. Seyss-Inquart hectically spoke on the phone with the Nazi authorities in Berlin, but it was too late. When German troops rolled over the border at dawn the next day, they met with no resistance by the Austrian Armed Forces and were largely greeted as heroes. Miklas, for his initial refusal, ended up under house arrest but was protected from mistreatment by the future Waffen-SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny during the days of the Anschluss. With the promulgation of a "law concerning the re-unification of Austria with the German Reich" by Seyss-Inquart on 13 March, the offices of both