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98-477: Reichskommissariat (English: Realm Commissariat ) is a German word for a type of administrative entity headed by a government official known as a Reichskommissar (English: Realm Commissioner ). Although many offices existed, primarily throughout the Imperial German and Nazi periods in a number of fields (ranging from public infrastructure and spatial planning to ethnic cleansing ), it

196-599: A "reinvigorated" third one. Subsequently the Nazi regime was (unofficially) called the " Third Reich "; this usage was sometimes contemporaneous, but mostly retrospective and applied by non-Germans. Following the Anschluss annexation of Austria in 1938, Nazi Germany informally named itself the Greater German Reich ( German : Großdeutsches Reich ). This name was made the official state name only during

294-680: A German "ethnical state", especially after the Napoleonic wars . Ideal for this state was the Holy Roman Empire; the legend arose that Germany were "un-defeated when unified", especially after the Franco-Prussian War ( Deutsch-Französischer Krieg , lit. "German-French war"). Before that, the German question ruptured this "German unity" after the 1848 Revolution before it was achieved, however; Austria-Hungary as

392-582: A historical aberration, contemptuously referring to it as " the System ". In the summer of 1939, the Nazis themselves actually banned the continued use of the term in the press, ordering it to use expressions such as Nationalsozialistisches Deutschland ("National Socialist Germany"), Großdeutsches Reich (" Greater German Reich "), or simply Deutsches Reich ( German Reich ) to refer to the German state instead. It

490-434: A kingdom), but in a modern sense, the term is used in a much more figurative sense (e.g. Die Hemelse Ryk (the heavenly kingdom, China)), as the sphere under one's control or influencas: As in German, the adjective rijk / ryk also means "rich". German Reich German Reich ( lit.   ' German Empire, German Realm ' from German : Deutsches Reich , pronounced [ˌdɔʏtʃəs ˈʁaɪç] )

588-595: A multinational state could not become part of the new "German empire", and nationality conflicts in Prussia with the Prussian Poles arose ("We can never be Germans – Prussians, every time!"). The advent of national feeling and the movement to create an ethnically German Empire did lead directly to nationalism in 1871. Ethnic minorities declined since the beginning of the modern age; the Polabs , Sorbs and even

686-453: A number of purposes. Those established or planned to be established in Western and Northern Europe were in general envisioned as the transitional phases for the incorporation of Germanic countries outside pre-war Germany into an expanded Nazi state. Their eastern counterparts served primarily colonialist and imperialist purposes, as sources of Lebensraum for German settlement and

784-591: A term for this period of German history. The common contemporary Latin legal term used in documents of the Holy Roman Empire was for a long time regnum ("rule, domain, empire", such as in Regnum Francorum for the Frankish Kingdom ) before imperium was in fact adopted, the latter first attested in 1157, whereas the parallel use of regnum never fell out of use during the Middle Ages. At

882-598: A whole." After 1973, however, the claimed identity of the Federal Republic with the German Reich was not recognised by most other countries of the world. The Soviet Union, the three Western allies, and most other Western countries regarded the German Reich as still being one nation—not synonymous with either the West or East German state but rather the two states in collective. Other countries tended to regard

980-698: Is indenrigs / inrikes / innenriks , meaning domestic. The adjective form of the word, rig in Danish and rik in Swedish/Norwegian, means "rich" like in other Germanic languages. Rijk is the Dutch and ryk the Afrikaans and Frisian equivalent of the German word Reich . In a political sense in the Netherlands and Belgium, the word rijk often connotes a connection with

1078-690: Is comparable in meaning and development (as well as descending from the same Proto-Indo-European root) to the English word realm (via French reaume "kingdom" from Latin regalis "royal"). It is used for historical empires in general, such as the Roman Empire ( Römisches Reich ), Persian Empire ( Perserreich ), and both the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire ( Zarenreich , literally " Tsars ' realm"). Österreich ,

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1176-596: Is derived from a Common Germanic * rīkijan . The English noun survives only in the compounds bishopric and archbishopric . The German adjective reich , on the other hand, has an exact cognate in English rich . Both the noun ( * rīkijan ) and the adjective ( * rīkijaz ) are derivations based on the Common Germanic * rīks "ruler, king ", reflected in Gothic as reiks , glossing ἄρχων "leader, ruler, chieftain". It

1274-636: Is most commonly used to refer to the quasi-colonial administrative territorial entity established by Nazi Germany in several occupied countries during World War II . While officially located outside the German Reich in a legal sense, these entities were directly controlled by their supreme civil authorities (the Reichskommissars ), who ruled their territories as German governors on behalf of and as representatives of Adolf Hitler . The introduction of these territorial administrations served

1372-553: Is probable that the Germanic word was not inherited from pre-Proto-Germanic, but rather loaned from Celtic (i.e. Gaulish rīx , Welsh rhi , both meaning 'king') at an early time . The word has many cognates outside of Germanic and Celtic, notably Latin : rex and Sanskrit : राज , romanized :  raj , lit.   'rule'. It is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European * reg- , lit. 'to straighten out or rule'. Frankenreich or Fränkisches Reich

1470-469: Is the German name given to the Frankish Kingdom of Charlemagne . Frankenreich came to be used of Western Francia and medieval France after the development of Eastern Francia into the Holy Roman Empire . The German name of France , Frankreich , is a contraction of Frankenreich used in reference to the kingdom of France from the late medieval period. The term Reich was part of

1568-699: Is used to describe a political or governmental entity. Reich has thus not been used in official terminology since 1945, though it is still found in the name of the Reichstag building , which since 1999 has housed the German federal parliament , the Bundestag . The decision not to rename the Reichstag building was taken only after long debate in the Bundestag; even then, it is described officially as Reichstag – Sitz des Bundestages (Reichstag, seat of

1666-516: The Bundestag by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities; effecting on the one hand, the extinction of the GDR, and on the other, the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic. Hence, although the GDR had nominally declared its accession to the Federal Republic under Article 23 of the Basic Law, this did not imply its acceptance of the Basic Law as it then stood; but rather of

1764-643: The East German railway incongruously continued to use the name Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Reich Railways), which had been the name of the national railway during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era. Even after German reunification in October 1990, the Reichsbahn continued to exist for over three years as the operator of the railroad in eastern Germany, ending finally on 1 January 1994 when

1862-681: The Flensburg Government he had formed. On 5 June 1945, the Allies signed the Berlin Declaration concerning the defeat of Germany and the assumption of supreme authority over Germany, by which they established the Allied Control Council and assumed supreme authority over German territory. The Federal Republic of Germany asserted, following its establishment on 23 May 1949, that within its boundaries it

1960-588: The German Confederation , especially by the Prussian aristocracy and the King of Prussia himself, which opposed German nationalism , as then was associated with the idea of popular sovereignty . A 1923 book entitled Das Dritte Reich by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire as the first, and the 1871–1918 monarchy as the second, which was then to be followed by

2058-587: The German question after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, realised with the support of his national liberal allies. On the other hand, the German Reich of 1871 comprised extended Prussian territories with large non-German sections of the population, like Posen , West Prussia or Schleswig , and also territories with predominantly German populations which had never been constitutionally "German" (Holy Roman), such as East Prussia . Bismarck

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2156-527: The Imperial German Navy underwent a rapid expansion concurrently to protect these new colonies. At the same time strong Pan-Germanic political forces emerged, pressing for the borders of the Reich to be extended into a multiethnic German-led Central European empire, emulating and rivalling Imperial Russia to the east. Before and during the events of World War I , the German state

2254-664: The Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium as opposed to the European part of the Netherlands or the provincial or municipal governments. The ministerraad is the executive body of the Netherlands ' government and the rijksministerraad that of the Kingdom of the Netherlands , a similar distinction is found in wetten (laws) versus rijkswetten (kingdom laws) or the now-abolished rijkswacht (lit. "guard of

2352-800: The Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union . In 1973, in a review of the previous year's Basic Treaty between East and West Germany , the German Federal Constitutional Court ( Bundesverfassungsgericht ) ruled that according to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany the German Reich had outlasted the collapse in 1945, and hence had continued to exist as an “overall state”, albeit one not itself capable of action. The court ruled that since 1949

2450-568: The Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond the institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to the Roman Empire; the vision of God's Empire here on earth; the universality of its claim to suzerainty ; and in a more prosaic but no less powerful sense, the concept of a German state that would include all German speakers in central Europe—"one People, one Reich, one Leader", as

2548-491: The constitution of the Weimar Republic , where Article 1 identifies the Reich as deriving its authority from the German national people, while Article 2 identifies the state territory under the Reich as the lands which, at the time of the constitution's adoption, were within the authority of the German state. The identity of Reich and people ran both ways—not only did the institutions of the German state derive their legitimacy from

2646-628: The exploitation of natural resources . Another contrast was the level of administrative overhaul implemented in these two types. As in most other territories conquered by the Germans, local administrators and bureaucrats were pressured to continue their regular day-to-day operations (especially at the middle and lower levels) albeit under German oversight. Throughout the war, the Reichskommissariats in Western and Northern Europe retained

2744-591: The political slogan Ein Volk , ein Reich, ein Führer ("One nation, one Reich , one leader"), in order to enforce pan-German sentiment. The term Altes Reich ("old Reich"; cf. French ancien regime for monarchical France) is sometimes used to refer to the Holy Roman Empire . The term Altreich was also used after the Anschluss to denote Germany with its pre-1938 post-World War I borders. Another name that

2842-446: The "German Empire" ( Deutsches Kaiserreich in German historiography), while the term "German Reich" describes Germany from 1871 to 1945. As the literal translation "German Empire" denotes a monarchy, the term is used only in reference to Germany before the fall of the monarchy at the end of World War I in 1918. After the unification of Germany , under the reign of the Prussian king Wilhelm I and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck ,

2940-546: The "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" from 1512. The Holy Roman Empire however was not exclusively German-speaking but constituted a supranational entity extending beyond the frontiers of the German language area ( Sprachraum ). The first attempt to re-establish a "German Empire" during the 1848 March Revolution by the Frankfurt Constitution ultimately failed: it was aborted by the monarchs of

3038-537: The "realm of a king" (a kingdom can also be called kongedømme in Danish and Norwegian and kungadöme or konungadöme in Swedish, direct cognates of the English word). Two regions in Norway that were petty kingdoms before the unification of Norway around 900 AD have retained the word in the names (see Ringerike and Romerike ). The word is also used in " Svea rike ", with the current spelling Sverige ,

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3136-479: The Basic Law to be recognized as a State (albeit not organized and therefore not capable of action), and that accordingly the mutual restriction of sovereign power to the territory of the State and respect for the independence and autonomy of each of the two States in domestic and foreign affairs has its reference to the special situation in which both States find themselves vis-à-vis each other as sub-States of Germany as

3234-413: The Basic Law was repealed, closing off the possibility for any further states to apply for membership of the Federal Republic; while Article 146 was amended to state explicitly that the territory of the newly unified republic comprised the entirety of the German people; "This Basic Law, which since the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany applies to the entire German people, shall cease to apply on

3332-519: The Bundestag). As seen in this example, the term "Bund" (federation) has replaced "Reich" in the names of various state institutions such as the army (" Bundeswehr "). The term "Reichstag" also remains in use in the German language as the term for the parliaments of some foreign monarchies, such as Sweden 's Riksdag and Japan 's pre-war Imperial Diet . The exception is that during the Cold War ,

3430-488: The Empire never comprised all "German" lands; as it excluded Luxembourg , and those Cisleithanian crown lands of Austria-Hungary which had been part of the former German Confederation until 1865. Moreover, it included the whole of the Kingdom of Prussia , the eastern parts of which had never been included in historic German lands. The unification under Prussian leadership manifested Bismarck's "Lesser German" solution of

3528-476: The European east was limited to four. Reich The term Deutsches Reich (sometimes translated to " German Empire ") continued to be used even after the collapse of the German Empire and the abolition of the monarchy in 1918. There was no emperor, but many Germans had imperialistic ambitions. According to Richard J. Evans : The continued use of the term "German Empire", Deutsches Reich , by

3626-597: The Federal Republic (FRG) had been partially identical with the German Reich and not merely its successor . The court further elaborated that the 'partial identity' of the FRG was limited to apply only within its current de facto territory; and hence the Federal Republic could not claim an exclusive mandate for the territory of the Reich then under the de facto government of the German Democratic Republic; "identity does not require exclusivity". This

3724-561: The Federal Republic; and hence, like them, could never be accorded by the organs of the Federal Republic full recognition as a state in international law; even though the Federal Constitutional Court recognised that, within international law, the GDR was indeed an independent sovereign state. The constitutional status of the GDR under the Basic Law still differed from that of the Länder of the Federal Republic, in that

3822-586: The GDR had not declared its accession to the Basic Law; but the Constitutional Court maintained that the Basic Treaty was consistent with the GDR declaring its accession at some time in the future in accordance with its own constitution; and hence the Court determined that in recognising the GDR as a de jure German State, the Basic Treaty could be interpreted as facilitating the reunification of

3920-471: The German Reich (as indeed it eventually did). So long as any de jure German state remained separated from the rest, the German Reich could continue to exist only in suspension; but should the GDR be reunited with the Federal Republic, the Reich would once more be fully capable of action as a sovereign state. "In Article 6 the Contracting Parties agree that they shall base themselves on

4018-569: The German Reich as having been divided into two distinct states in international law, and accordingly accorded both states full diplomatic recognition. As of 1974, East Germany's official stance was that the GDR was a new state that is German in nature, a successor of the German Reich, and that there were then two German states that were different nations. When the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany between Germany and

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4116-494: The German names for Germany for much of its history. Reich was used by itself in the common German variant of the Holy Roman Empire , ( Heiliges Römisches Reich (HRR) ). Der rîche was a title for the Emperor. However, Latin, not German, was the formal legal language of the medieval Empire ( Imperium Romanum Sacrum ), so English-speaking historians are more likely to use Latin imperium than German Reich as

4214-400: The German nation rather than directly to the state of Germany. The exact translation of the term "German Empire" would be Deutsches Kaiserreich . This name was sometimes used informally for Germany between 1871 and 1918, but it was disliked by the first German Emperor, Wilhelm I , and never became official. The unified Germany which arose under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1871

4312-559: The German national people according to the principle of jus sanguinis , and drawing on the rhetoric of "the sovereignty of the nation" in the Frankfurt Constitution —albeit that many ethnic " Germans " (as with the German-speaking peoples of Austria) remained outside the national people constituting the German Empire of 1871 and also that the Empire of 1871 included extensive territories (such as Posen ) with predominantly non-German populations. This transition became formalised in

4410-447: The German people, so, too, the German people derived their inherent identity and patriotic duties from their being collectively constituted as an organ and institution of the German Reich. Subsequently the term "German Reich" continued to be applied both as identifying with the national people, and also with the state territory; but increasingly, the application of the term to the German national people came to be seen as primary. Following

4508-578: The Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire, respectively; the Nazis discounted the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic entirely. The terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich" are not used by historians, and the term " Fourth Reich " is mainly used in fiction and political humor, although it is also used by those who subscribe to neo-Nazism . The German noun Reich is derived from Old High German : rīhhi , which together with its cognates in Old English : rīce , Old Norse : ríki , and Gothic : reiki

4606-486: The Nazi slogan was to put it. The term is derived from the Germanic word which generally means "realm", but in German, it is typically used to designate a kingdom or an empire, especially the Roman Empire . The terms Kaisertum ( German: [ˈkaɪzɐˌtuːm] , "Imperium") and Kaiserreich ("Imperial realm") are used in German to more specifically define an empire ruled by an emperor. Reich

4704-456: The Nazis as a historical aberration. The name "Weimar Republic" was first used in 1929 after Hitler referred to the period as the " Republik von Weimar " (Republic of Weimar, after the city ( Weimar ) which held its constitutional assembly) at a rally in Munich with the term later becoming mainstream during the 1930s both within and outside Germany. The Nazis also contemptuously referred to it as "

4802-468: The Reichsbahn and the western Deutsche Bundesbahn were merged to form the privatized Deutsche Bahn AG . The cognate of the word Reich is used in all Scandinavian languages with the identical meaning, i.e. " realm ". It is spelled rige in Danish and older Norwegian (before the 1907 spelling reform ) and rike in Swedish and modern Norwegian. The word is traditionally used for sovereign entities, generally simply means "country" or "nation" (in

4900-491: The Second World War, the term "German Reich" fell out of use in constitutional formulations, being replaced by the term "nation as a whole", as applied to denote the state as a totality of the German national people; and the term "Germany as a whole", as applied to denote the state as a totality of German national territory. The 1918–1933 republic , which was also called the German Reich, was ignored and denounced by

4998-403: The System ". On 8 May 1945, with the capitulation of the German armed forces, the supreme command of the Wehrmacht was handed over to the Allies . The Allies refused to recognise Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident or to recognise the legitimacy of his Flensburg Government (so-called because it was based at Flensburg and controlled only a small area around the town) and, on 5 June 1945,

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5096-406: The accession of the Federal Republic to the European Union within the Basic Law; hence with the subsequent accession of Poland to the EU, the constitutional bar on pursuing any claim to territories beyond the Oder–Neisse line was reinforced. Insofar as the German Reich may be claimed to continue in existence as 'Germany as a whole', the former eastern territories of Germany in Poland or Russia, and

5194-407: The beginning of the modern age , some circles redubbed the HRE into the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" ( Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation ), a symptom of the formation of a German nation state as opposed to the multinational state the Empire was throughout its history. Resistance against the French Revolution with its concept of the state brought a new movement to create

5292-613: The boundaries of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin; "The united Germany has no territorial claims whatsoever against other states and shall not assert any in the future." Furthermore the Basic Law of the Federal Republic was required to be amended to state explicitly that full German unification had now been achieved, such that the new German state comprised the entirety of Germany, and that all constitutional mechanisms should be removed by which any territories outside those boundaries could otherwise subsequently be admitted; these amendments being bound by treaty not to be revoked. Article 23 of

5390-402: The break-up of the Soviet Union and Russia as a geographical entity, conquered Soviet territory should be administered in four separate Reichskommissariats: An additional proposed Reichskommissariat that would encompass the Central Asian republics and territories known as Reichskommissariat Turkestan (RKT) was proposed but never established. At Hitler's request, the Turkestan project

5488-427: The connotation of "Realm" or "State", its original (1871) definition. "German Reich" was used in legal documents and English-language international treaties—for example, the Kellogg–Briand Pact and the Geneva Conventions . Apart from official documents, post-World War I Germany was referred to as the "German Reich"—never as the "German Empire"—for example, by British politicians —and in the aftermath of World War II

5586-424: The day on which a constitution freely adopted by the German people takes effect". This was confirmed in the 1990 rewording of the preamble; "Germans..have achieved the unity and freedom of Germany in free self-determination . This Basic Law thus applies to the entire German people." In place of the former Article 23 under which the former GDR had declared its accession to the Federal Republic, a new Article 23 embedded

5684-430: The division of Asia during World War II ), could have become a topic of discussion regarding their own contemporaneous establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere . Additional units that were under discussion at different points in time include Reichskommissariat Don-Wolga and Reichskommissariat Ural but, by the second half of May 1941, the number of administrative units that were to be established in

5782-467: The existing administrative structure, while in the eastern ones, new structures were introduced. All of these entities were intended for eventual integration into a Greater Germanic Reich ( German : Großgermanisches Reich ) encompassing the general area of Europe stretching from the North Sea to the Ural Mountains , for which Germany was to form the basis. Just after the start of Operation Barbarossa , Alfred Rosenberg suggested that to facilitate

5880-483: The expanded Federal Republic describes itself as "United Germany ", emphasizing that it does not now recognize any territories once included in the former German Reich outside its boundaries as having a valid claim to be a part of Germany as a whole. In referring to the entire period between 1871 and 1945, the partially translated English phrase " German Reich " ( /- ˈ r aɪ k / ) is applied by historians in formal contexts; although in common English usage this state

5978-429: The four powers signed the Berlin Declaration and assumed de jure supreme authority with respect to Germany. The declaration confirmed the complete legal extinction of the Third Reich with the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945, but asserted the continued subsequent existence of a German people and a German national territory; although subject to the four signatory powers also asserting their authority to determine

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6076-405: The fundamental amendments to the Basic Law required by the Treaty of Final Settlement) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990; that is through a binding agreement between the former GDR and the Federal Republic now recognising each another as separate sovereign states in international law. This treaty was then voted into effect by both the Volkskammer and

6174-414: The future boundaries of Germany. At the Potsdam Conference , Allied-occupied Germany was defined as comprising "Germany as a whole"; and was divided into British , French , American and Soviet occupation zones; while the Allied Powers exercised the state authority assumed by the Berlin Declaration in transferring the former eastern territories of the German Reich east of the Oder–Neisse line to

6272-417: The he official name "German Reich ". According to the decree of the Chief of the Reich Chancellery Hans Lammers of 26 June 1943, the name "Greater German Reich " became mandatory in official documents. The German Reich collapsed de facto with the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945, when the Allies decided not to recognise Karl Dönitz as the Reich President and to grant no legitimacy to

6370-412: The historic German states ( e.g. Bavaria and Saxony ) were united with Prussia under imperial rule, by the Hohenzollern dynasty . On 18 January 1871, Wilhelm I was proclaimed "German Emperor" at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles , the German Reich was officially declared Deutsches Reich , or "German Empire", explicitly harking back to the extinct Holy Roman Empire . The title "German Emperor"

6468-480: The historically Germanic countries and regions of Europe into the Nazi state ( Flanders , the Netherlands , Denmark , Norway , Sweden etc.). A number of previously neutral words which were used by the Nazis later took on negative connotations in German (e.g. Führer or Heil ); while in many contexts Reich is not one of them ( Frankreich , France; Römisches Reich , Roman Empire ), it can imply German imperialism or strong nationalism if it

6566-492: The last two years (1943–1945) of Nazi rule under Adolf Hitler , although the change was never proclaimed. After World War II , the denotation "German Reich " quickly fell into disuse in Allied-occupied Germany , however, and the state's continued existence remained a matter of debate; the post-war Bonn Republic maintained the continued existence of the German Reich as an 'overall state", but dormant while East and West Germany continued to be divided. Nevertheless, when Germany

6664-411: The name of Sweden in Swedish. Thus in the official name of Sweden, Konunga riket Sve rige , the word rike appears twice. The derived prefix rigs- (Danish and pre-1907 Norwegian) and riks- (Swedish and Norwegian) and implies nationwide or under central jurisdiction. Examples include riksväg and riksvei , names for a national road in Swedish and Norwegian. It is also present in

6762-419: The name used for Austria today is composed of "Öster" and "Reich" which, literally translated, means "Eastern Realm". The name once referred to the Eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire . In the history of Germany specifically, it is used to refer to: The Nazis adopted the term "Third Reich" to legitimize their government as the rightful successor to the retroactively renamed "First" and "Second" Reichs –

6860-459: The names of numerous institutions in all the Scandinavian countries, such as Rigsrevisionen (the agency responsible for oversight of the state finances in Denmark) and Sveriges Riksbank (commonly known as just Riksbanken ), the central bank of Sweden. It is also used in words such as udenrigs (Danish), utrikes (Swedish) and utenriks (Norwegian), relating to foreign countries and other things from abroad. The opposite word

6958-464: The once important Low Germans had to assimilate themselves. This marked the transition between Antijudaism , where converted Jews were accepted as full citizens (in theory), to Antisemitism , where Jews were thought to be from a different ethnicity that could never become German. Apart from all those ethnic minorities being de facto extinct, even today the era of national feeling is taught in history in German schools as an important stepping-stone on

7056-494: The partial translation "the Third Reich "), first used in a 1923 book entitled Das Dritte Reich by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck , that counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire (which nominally survived until the 19th century) as the first and the 1871–1918 monarchy as the second, which was then to be followed by a "reinvigorated" third one. The Nazis ignored the previous 1918–1933 Weimar period , which they denounced as

7154-429: The principle that the sovereign power of each of the two States be confined to its State territory and that they will respect the independence and autonomy of each of the two States in domestic and foreign affairs. This agreement too is compatible with the Basic Law only if interpreted to the effect that for the Federal Republic of Germany the basis of this Treaty is the continued existence of Germany, which has according to

7252-581: The realm") for gendarmerie in Belgium . The word rijk can also be found in institutions like the Rijkswaterstaat , Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen . In colloquial speech, rijk usually means working for the central government rather than the provincial or municipal government, much as Americans refer to the "federal" government. In Afrikaans , ryk refers to rulership and area of governance (mostly

7350-619: The road to a German nation. In the case of the Hohenzollern Empire (1871–1918), the official name of the country was Deutsches Reich ("German Realm"), because under the Constitution of the German Empire , it was legally a confederation of German states under the permanent presidency of the King of Prussia . The constitution granted the King of Prussia the title of "German Emperor" ( Deutscher Kaiser ), but this referred to

7448-644: The same way that the terms Bund (federation) and Bundes- (federal) are used in Germany today, and comparable to The Crown in Commonwealth countries and The Union in the United States . The Nazis sought to legitimize their power historiographically by portraying their ascendancy to rule as the direct continuation of an ancient German past. They adopted the term Drittes Reich ("Third Empire" – usually rendered in English in

7546-524: The sense of a sovereign state) and does not have any special or political connotations. It does not imply any particular form of government, but it implies that the entity is both of a certain size and of a certain standing, like the Scandinavian kingdoms themselves; hence the word might be considered exaggerated for very small states like a city-state. Its use as a stand-alone word is more widespread than in contemporary German, but most often, it refers to

7644-441: The three Scandinavian states themselves and certain historical empires, like the Roman Empire . The standard word for a "country" is usually land , and there are many other words used to refer to countries. The word is part of the official names of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the form of kongerige   ( Danish ) , kongerike   ( Norwegian ) , and konungarike   ( Swedish ) , all meaning kingdom, or literally

7742-416: The unitary nationalism of the 'German Reich' was initially specified (at Article 1 of the 1871 constitution) in territorial terms, as the lands within the former boundaries of this particular subset of German monarchies. This geographical understanding of the Reich became steadily superseded in the period up to the first World War by an understanding of the German Reich as a unitary nation state identified with

7840-459: The wartime Allies was signed on 12 September 1990, there was no mention of the term Deutsches Reich , however the Allies paraphrased the international legal personality of Germany as "Germany as a whole" in the English version of the text. Instead the states of the Federal Republic of Germany ( West Germany , FRG) and the German Democratic Republic ( East Germany , GDR) agreed to be bound by certain conditions which they had to ratify, one of which

7938-537: The western territories, such as the East Cantons or Alsace-Lorraine , are now definitively and permanently excluded from ever again being united within this Reich under the Basic Law. Hence, although the GDR had by the Volkskammer 's declaration of accession to the Federal Republic, initiated the process of reunification; the act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms and conditions; including

8036-519: The word Reich here better translates as "realm" or territorial "reach", in that the term does not in itself have monarchical connotations. The name "German Reich " was officially proclaimed on 18 January 1871 at the Palace of Versailles by Otto von Bismarck and Wilhelm I of Prussia . After the annexation of Austria to Germany on 12–13 March 1938, the name "Greater German Reich " ( German : Großdeutsches Reich ) began to be used alongside with

8134-468: The word "Reich" was used untranslated by Allied prosecutors throughout the Nuremberg Trials , with "German Empire" only used to describe Germany before it became a federal republic in 1918. At the 1871 Unification of Germany (aside from Austria), the Reich was established constitutionally as a federation of monarchies, each having entered the federation with a defined territory; and consequently

8232-410: Was Adolf Hitler's personal desire that Großdeutsches Reich and nationalsozialistischer Staat ("[the] National Socialist State") would be used in place of Drittes Reich . Reichskanzlei Berchtesgaden (" Reich Chancellery Berchtesgaden "), another nickname of the regime (named after the eponymous town located in the vicinity of Hitler's mountain residence where he spent much of his time in office)

8330-508: Was a compromise; Wilhelm I had wanted the title of "Emperor of Germany", but Bismarck refused this, so as to avoid implying a claim to extended monarchical authority over non-Prussian German kingdoms. On 14 April 1871, the Reichstag parliament passed the Constitution of the German Empire ( Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches ), which was published two days later. However, originating from the North German Confederation ,

8428-517: Was also banned at the same time, despite the fact that a sub-section of the Chancellery was in fact installed there to serve Hitler's needs. Although the term "Third Reich" is still commonly used in reference to the Nazi dictatorship, historians avoid using the terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich", which are seldom found outside Nazi propaganda . During and following the Anschluss ( annexation ) of Austria in 1938, Nazi propaganda also used

8526-411: Was and is known simply as Germany , the English term "German Empire" is reserved to denote the German state between 1871 and 1918. The history of the nation state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods: However the term Deutsches Reich dates back earlier than all of this. It was occasionally applied in contemporary maps to the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806), also called

8624-585: Was called an "empire" in English and Wilhelm II was titled "His Imperial and Royal Majesty the German Emperor." After the War and the abolition of the monarchy during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 , however, when Wilhelm was forced to abdicate, the official English name for Germany was the "German Reich": Reich was left untranslated and no longer referred to an "empire" but, instead, took on

8722-490: Was explained as being because the German Democratic Republic was beyond FRG authority and because the Allied powers still had jurisdiction where "Germany as a whole" was concerned. Nevertheless, the Court insisted that within the territory of the Federal Republic, the GDR could only be considered as one de jure German state amongst others, on the analogy of the pre-existing de jure German states that in 1949 had come together as

8820-604: Was otherwise unable, however, to avoid the term German Reich acquiring connotations from the English term "empire" or the Dutch term "rijk" in the context of German colonial expansion during the New Imperialism period. Following in the example of other European colonial empires , Imperial Germany (against Bismarck's intentions) started to rapidly acquire overseas colonies, including possessions in Africa, Oceania and China;

8918-409: Was popular during this period was the term Tausendjähriges Reich ("Thousand-Year Reich"), the millennial connotations of which suggested that Nazi Germany would last a thousand years. The Nazis also spoke of enlarging the then-established Greater German Reich into a " Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation " ( Großgermanisches Reich Deutscher Nation ) by gradually and directly annexing all of

9016-505: Was reunited in 1990 the term "German Reich " was not revived as a title for the Berlin Republic . The German word Reich translates to the English word "empire"; it also translates to such words as "realm" or "domain." However, this translation was not used throughout the full existence of the German Reich. Historically, only Germany from 1871 to 1918—when Germany was under the rule of an emperor ( Kaiser )—is known in English as

9114-546: Was shelved by Rosenberg for the immediate future, who was instead ordered to focus on Europe for the time being. Central Asia was determined to be a future target for German expansion , as soon as its armies would be ready to move further east after the consolidation of present victories in Soviet Russia. The interest in part of the area of Germany's major Axis partner, the Empire of Japan (see Axis power negotiations on

9212-429: Was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The Reich became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty entirely from a continuing unitary German Volk ("national people"), with that authority and sovereignty being exercised at any one time over a unitary German "state territory" with variable boundaries and extent. Although commonly translated as "German Empire",

9310-598: Was the first entity that was officially called in German Deutsches Reich . Deutsches Reich remained the official name of Germany until 1945, although these years saw three very different political systems more commonly referred to in English as: "the German Empire " (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933; this term is a post- World War II coinage not used at the time), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). After 1918 "Reich"

9408-477: Was the recognising the reunification of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin as constituting the full achievement of a united Germany. On meeting these conditions under Article 7.2 "The United Germany [has] accordingly full sovereignty over its internal and external affairs." Under Article 1 of the Treaty on Final Settlement, the new united Germany committed itself to renouncing any further territorial claims beyond

9506-558: Was the sole legal continuation of the German Reich, and consequently not a successor state. Nevertheless, the Federal Republic did not maintain the specific title German Reich , and so consistently replaced the prefix Reichs- in all official titles and designations with Bundes- ("Federal"). Hence, for instance, the office of the Reichskanzler became the Bundeskanzler . Following German reunification on 3 October 1990,

9604-474: Was usually not translated as "Empire" in English-speaking countries, and the title was instead simply used in its original German. During the Weimar Republic the term Reich and the prefix Reichs- referred not to the idea of empire but rather to the institutions, officials, affairs etc. of the whole country as opposed to those of one of its constituent federal states ( Länder ), in

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