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
Christian Schmidt (politician) caucus (Christian Democrats) at the European Union level. He manages CSU international outreach to Israel, Croatia, Austria, the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. From 2014 until 2018, Schmidt served as Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture in the third cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel. In response to a 2016 collapse in milk prices, Schmidt rolled out an emergency package of at least €100 million for the country’s dairy farmers, including loans and tax relief. Also during his time in office, Germany culled 776,000 farm chickens, turkeys, ducks and other types of