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 The official residence and executive office of the Chancellor is the Chancellery, which is located at the Ballhausplatz in the center of Vienna. Both, the Chancellor as well as the Government are appointed by the President, who also holds the right to dismiss them. The current officeholder is Sebastian Kurz, who was sworn in on 18 December 2017 by Alexander Van der Bellen. The use of the term Chancellor ("Kanzler", derived from ) as head of the chancery writing office can be traced back as far as the ninth century, when under King Louis the German the office of the