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
Wolfgang Brandstetter serve as the country's Minister of Justice. He later succeeded Reinhold Mitterlehner in becoming the Vice-Chancellor of Austria in May 2017. Wolfgang Brandstetter Wolfgang Brandstetter is an independent Austrian politician, law-professor and constitutional judge. He served as the Minister of Justice of Austria, as well as the country's Vice Chancellor. He left office upon the swearing-in of Heinz-Christian Strache to his position on 18 December 2017. In February 2018 Brandstetter was appointed as a member of the Constitutional Court of Austria. In 2007 he became director of the Institute for Austrian and European Economic Criminal Law at the Vienna University