(German, ‘connection’) Hitler’s annexation of Austria. The German Second empire did not include Austrian Germans, who remained in Austria‐Hungary. In 1934 a coup by Austrian Nazis failed to achieve union with Germany. In February 1938 Hitler summoned Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, to Berchtesgaden and demanded the admission of Nazis into his cabinet. Schuschnigg attempted to call a plebiscite on Austrian independence, failed, and was forced to resign. German troops entered Vienna and on 13 March 1938 the Anschluss was proclaimed. The majority of Austrians welcomed the union. The ban on an Anschluss, laid down in the Versailles Peace Settlement and St Germain (1919), was reiterated when the Allied Powers recognized the second Austrian republic in 1946.