Austria's first attempt at republican governance after the fall of the monarchy in 1918 was severely hampered by the crippling economic burden of war reparations required by the victorious Allies. Austria's First Republic (1918–1938) made some pioneering reforms in the 1920s, particularly in Vienna, that served as models for the social-welfare states of post-World War I Europe. However, the Republic gradually developed into the Austrofascist dictatorship between 1933 and 1934 under Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, who was assassinated by Nazi party agents in 1934. The First Republic ended with the "Anschluss" (annexation) to Nazi Germany in 1938. Following the defeat of the German Reich in 1945 Austria resumed its republican government, after it fully regained its independence from the occupying Allied Powers. Austria's political system after re-establishment of democracy and self-determination is referred to as the Second Republic.