History of Austria to massive protests and a fire at the "Justizpalast" in Vienna. In the July Revolt of 1927, 89 protesters were killed by the Austrian police forces. Political conflict escalated until the early 1930s. The elections of 1930 which returned the Social Democrats as the largest bloc turned out to be the last till after World War II. On 20 May 1932, Engelbert Dollfuß, Christian Social Party Agriculture Minister became Chancellor, with a majority of one. Dollfuss and the Christian Social Party, moved Austria rapidly towards centralized power in the Fascist model. He was concerned that German National Socialist leader Adolf
Christian Kern 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 leading electricity company Verbund AG. In 2010, Kern was appointed CEO of the state-owned Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), chairing the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) from 2014 onwards.