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
Chancellor of Austria Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand I succeeded him as Archduke of Austria in 1521, his elder brother Emperor Charles V (1519–1556) appointed Mercurino Gattinara as "Grand Chancellor of all the realms and kingdoms of the king" ("Großkanzler aller Länder und Königreiche"). The separate position of an Austrian Court Chancellor appeared as a "Österreichische Hofkanzlei" around 1526, when the Habsburg Monarchy arose with the Bohemian and Hungarian inheritance; it was however once again merged with the equivalent "Reichshofkanzlei" office of the Holy Roman Empire in 1559. Upon the 1620 Battle of White Mountain and the suppression of the Bohemian revolt, Emperor Ferdinand II