German nationalism in Austria an independent Austria, rejected his merger proposal, Strasser said "Don't talk to me about Austria. There is no Austria ... there was once a living corpse which called itself Austria ... that this Austria collapsed in 1918 was a blessing ... particularly for the German people, who were thereby given the chance to create a Greater Germany." After this, tensions between the Nazis and Austrofascists worsened, culminating in the July Putsch of 1934, when Nazis attempted to overthrow the government. Whilst they managed to assassinate chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, the putsch was quickly crushed by the police, army, and Heimwehren. In
Christian Kern him as a charismatic personality, who is able to unite the more left-aligned and the more right-aligned factions of their party. With his second wife, Eveline Steinberger, he has a daughter. Christian Kern Christian Kern ( ; born 4 January 1966) was Chancellor of Austria from 17 May 2016 to 18 December 2017 and chairman of the Social Democratic Party from 25 June 2016 to 25 September 2018. A business journalist by profession, the member of Austria's Social Democratic Party served as spokesman of the SPÖ's parliamentary group leader in the mid-1990s, before he became a senior manager in Austria's