History of Austria wanting to annex the country to the German Third Reich, resulting in the assassination of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. While the coup failed, Adolf Hitler succeeded in annexing Austria on 12 March 1938 as "Ostmark", until 1945. Austria was partitioned after the Second World War and then in 1955 became the independent sovereign state (Second Republic) that has existed to the present day. In 1995, Austria joined the European Union. The modern state of Austria is considered to have three geographic zones. The biggest third consists of the Alps, which covers 62.8% of the country's landmass. In the north, across the
Government of Austria cabinet meetings. The current government of Austria is a coalition government formed by the center-right Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). It was appointed on 18 December 2017 by President Alexander Van der Bellen. After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, on 30 October 1918 the provisional national assembly of German Austria elected a State Council ("Staatsrat") executive, which itself appointed a state government with the Social Democratic politician Karl Renner as head of the State Chancellery. The Renner ministry was composed of representatives of the three main political parties—Social Democrats, the Christian Social