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87-519: Reichsführer-SS ( German: [ˈʁaɪçsˌfyːʁɐ ˌʔɛsˈʔɛs] , lit.   ' Reich Leader-SS ' ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the Schutzstaffel (SS). Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS . The longest-serving and most noteworthy office holder

174-509: A Generalleutnant in the Police who was also an SS member would be referred to as SS Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei . In 1942, SS membership became mandatory for police generals, with SS collar insignia (overlaid on police green backing) worn by all police officers ranked Generalmajor and above. The distinction between the police and the SS had virtually disappeared by 1943 with

261-680: 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

348-582: 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

435-537: 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". Ordnungspolizei The Ordnungspolizei ( Orpo , German: [ˈɔʁdnʊŋspoliˌtsaɪ] , meaning "Order Police") were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation

522-622: A military situation, so as not to lose police personnel to the general draft of the Wehrmacht or to the full SS divisions of the regular Waffen-SS . Very late in the war several Orpo SS -Police regiments were transferred to the Waffen-SS to form the 35th SS -Police Grenadier Division . Cossack Orpo units were rolled into the XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps with other units to nominally form 2nd Cossack Division. By

609-595: 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

696-542: A result, even ordinary criminals were consigned to concentration camps to remove them from the German racial community ( Volksgemeinschaft ) and ultimately exterminate them. The Order Police played a central role in carrying out the Holocaust . By "both career professionals and reservists, in both battalion formations and precinct service" ( Einzeldienst ) through providing men for the tasks involved. The German Order Police had grown to 244,500 men by mid-1940. The Orpo

783-434: A separate chain of command directly to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler . The battalions were used for various auxiliary duties, including the so-called anti-partisan operations , support of combat troops, and construction of defence works (i.e. Atlantic Wall ). Some of them were focused on traditional security roles as an occupying force, while others were directly involved in actions designed to inflict terror and in

870-591: 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

957-698: 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

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1044-469: 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

1131-474: 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 is comparable in meaning and development (as well as descending from the same Proto-Indo-European root) to

1218-699: 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

1305-581: The Reichsführer could call them back at any time. Despite the name, it was not employed as a unified HQ unit. Instead, its individual units were sent to occupied areas, subordinated to local Higher SS and Police Leaders (HSSPFs) and used for so-called "pacification actions" alongside the Einsatzgruppen . Often these actions were atrocities and mass murders, targeting Jews, political prisoners and "suspected partisans". In all, five people held

1392-595: The Einsatzgruppen , became an integral part of the Final Solution in the two years following the attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Operation Barbarossa . The first mass-murder of 3,000 Jews by Police Battalion 309 occurred in occupied Białystok on 12 July 1941. Police battalions were part of the first and second wave of murders in 1941–42 in the territories of Poland annexed by

1479-576: The Sicherheitspolizei ( SiPo or security police), which had been established in June 1936. The Orpo assumed duties of regular uniformed law enforcement while the SiPo consisted of the secret state police ( Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo ) and criminal investigation police ( Kriminalpolizei or Kripo). The Kriminalpolizei was a corps of professional detectives involved in fighting crime and

1566-681: The Catholic and the Jewish populations as part of those "resettlement actions". After hostilities had ceased, the battalions – such as Reserve Police Battalion 101  – took up the role of security forces , patrolling the perimeters of the Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland (the internal ghetto security issues were managed by the SS , SD , and the Criminal Police, in conjunction with

1653-694: 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

1740-650: The Holocaust and were responsible for widespread crimes against humanity and genocide targeting the civilian population. Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS , was named Chief of German Police in the Interior Ministry on 17 June 1936 after Hitler announced a decree to "unify the control of police duties in the Reich". Traditionally, law enforcement in Germany had been a state and local matter. In this role, Himmler

1827-664: 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

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1914-609: The Ordnungspolizei . The primary combat arm of the Ordnungspolizei was the SS Polizei Division of the Waffen-SS . The division was formed in October 1939, when thousands of members of the Orpo were drafted and placed together with artillery and signals units transferred from the army. The division consisted of four police regiments composed of Orpo personnel and was typically used to rotate police members into

2001-535: The SS and, for those who did so, a special police insignia known as the SS Membership Runes for Order Police was worn on the breast pocket of the police uniform. In 1940, standard practice in the German Police was to grant equivalent SS rank to all police generals. Police generals who were members of the SS were referred to simultaneously by both rank titles – for instance,

2088-534: The Siege of Leningrad in 1941. The first 17 battalion formations (from 1943 renamed SS-Polizei-Bataillone ) were deployed by Orpo in September 1939 along with the Wehrmacht army in the invasion of Poland . The battalions guarded Polish prisoners of war behind the German lines, and carried out expulsion of Poles from Reichsgaue under the banner of Lebensraum . They also committed atrocities against both

2175-478: The Waffen-SS ). In 1942, the majority of the police battalions were re-consolidated into thirty SS and Police Regiments . These formations were intended for garrison security duty, anti-partisan functions, and to support Waffen-SS units on the Eastern Front . Notably, the regular military police of the Wehrmacht ( Feldgendarmerie , Feldjägerkorps , and Geheime Feldpolizei ) were separate from

2262-591: 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

2349-726: The special police authorities not subordinate to the Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei or the Reichssicherheitshauptamt : Between 1939 and 1945, the Ordnungspolizei maintained military formations, trained and outfitted by the main police offices within Germany. Specific duties varied widely from unit to unit and from one year to another. Generally, the Order Police were not directly involved in frontline combat, except for Ardennes in May 1940, and

2436-592: 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 ,

2523-593: The Battalions and local Order Police units helped to transport Jews from the ghettos in both Poland and the USSR (and elsewhere in occupied Europe ) to the concentration and extermination camps, as well as operations to hunt down and murder Jews outside the ghettos. The Order Police were one of the two primary sources from which the Einsatzgruppen drew personnel in accordance with manpower needs (the other being

2610-519: 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 ,

2697-593: The Command Staff, Himmler appointed career army officer Kurt Knoblauch , who acted as chief of staff for the units. Prior to the launch of the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, these formations included two motorized SS-Infantry Brigades, two SS-Cavalry Regiments combined into the SS Cavalry Brigade , a bodyguard battalion, flak units and a number of companies of support troops. Units were temporarily placed under army command for operations, but

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2784-593: 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 – 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

2871-613: 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 , the name used for Austria today is composed of "Öster" and "Reich" which, literally translated, means "Eastern Realm". The name once referred to

2958-494: 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

3045-400: 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

3132-536: 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

3219-586: The Jewish ghetto administration ). Each battalion consisted of approximately 500 men armed with light infantry weapons. In the east, each company also had a heavy machine-gun detachment. Administratively, the Police Battalions remained under the Chief of Police Kurt Daluege , but operationally they were under the authority of regional SS and Police Leaders ( SS- und Polizeiführer ), who reported up

3306-481: The Order Police, cooperated in transforming the police force of the Weimar Republic into militarised formations ready to serve the regime's aims of conquest and racial annihilation. Police troops were first formed into battalion-sized formations for the invasion of Poland , where they were deployed for security and policing purposes, also taking part in executions and mass deportations. During World War II ,

3393-468: 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

3480-526: 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 the Nazi slogan was to put it. The term is derived from the Germanic word which generally means "realm", but in German, it

3567-579: The Soviet Union and also during the killing operations within the 1939 borders of the USSR, whether as part of Order Police regiments, or as separate units reporting directly to the local SS and Police Leaders. They included the Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg, Battalion 133 of the Nürnberg Order Police, Police Battalions 45 , 309 from Koln, and 316 from Bottrop - Oberhausen . Their murder operations bore

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3654-503: The amalgamation of SS and police into a form of "State Protection Corps" ( Staatsschutzkorps ), and used the expanded reach the police powers gave him to persecute ideological opponents and "undesirables" of the Nazi regime such as Jews, freemasons , churches, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses , and other groups defined as " asocial ". The Nazi conception of criminality was racial and biological, holding that criminal traits were hereditary, and had to be exterminated to purify German blood. As

3741-526: The armed SS however, as well as within the special bodyguard unit known as the SS-Leibstandarte . Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Sepp Dietrich was the real commander and handled its day-to-day administration. The Waffen-SS eventually grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions and served alongside the German Army, but was never formally part of it. During World War II,

3828-687: The authority of the Reichsführer-SS over the Waffen-SS was mainly administrative in that certain General-SS offices controlled supply and logistics aspects of it. Himmler also held authority to create new Waffen-SS divisions as well as order the formation of various smaller SS combat units. The daily association with the Waffen-SS , however, encompassed primarily inspecting Waffen-SS troops and presenting high-ranking medals to its members. The Reichsführer-SS further never exercised direct operational authority over Waffen-SS units until

3915-407: 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

4002-505: The brunt of the Holocaust by bullet on the Eastern Front. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, this latter role was obscured both by the lack of court evidence and by deliberate obfuscation, while most of the focus was on the better-known Einsatzgruppen ("Operational groups") who reported to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) under Reinhard Heydrich . Order Police battalions involved in direct killing operations were responsible for at least 1 million murders. Starting in 1941

4089-411: 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 the Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond the institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to

4176-406: 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 is probable that

4263-464: The creation of the SS and Police Regiments, which were consolidated from earlier police security battalions. SS officers now routinely commanded police troops and police generals serving in command of military troops were granted equivalent SS rank in the Waffen-SS . In August 1944, when Himmler was appointed Chef des Ersatzheeres (Chief of the Home Army), all police generals automatically were granted Waffen-SS rank because they had authority over

4350-755: The end of the war. By 1941, the Orpo had been divided into the following offices covering every aspect of German law enforcement. The central command office known as the Ordnungspolizei Hauptamt was located in Berlin . From 1943 it was considered a full SS -Headquarters command. The Orpo main office consisted of Command Department ( Kommandoamt ), responsible for finance, personnel and medical; Administrative ( Verwaltung ) charged with pay, pensions and permits; Economic ( Wirtschaftsverwaltungsamt ); Technical Emergency Service ( Technische Nothilfe ); Fire Brigades Bureau ( Feuerwehren ); Colonial Police ( Kolonialpolizei ); and SS and Police Technical Training Academy ( Technische SS-und Polizeiakademie ). The Sonderpolizei were

4437-585: The ensuing Holocaust . While they were similar to Waffen-SS , they were not part of the thirty-eight Waffen-SS divisions, and should not be confused with them, including the national 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division . The battalions were originally numbered in series from 1 to 325, but in February 1943 were renamed and renumbered from 1 to about 37, to distinguish them from the Schutzmannschaft auxiliary battalions recruited from local population in German-occupied areas. The Order Police battalions , operating both independently and in conjunction with

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4524-401: The force had the task of policing the civilian population of the occupied and colonised countries beginning in spring 1940. Orpo's activities escalated to genocide with the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa . Twenty-three Order Police battalions , formed into independent regiments or attached to Wehrmacht security divisions and Einsatzgruppen , perpetrated mass-murder in

4611-480: 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

4698-411: 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

4785-459: 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

4872-436: The office holder could implement broad policy, such as the Nazi plan for the Genocide or extermination of the Jews , or order criminal acts such as the Stalag Luft III murders , without impediment. It is difficult to separate the office from the duties assigned to the individual. As of 20 April 1934, Himmler in his position of Reichsführer-SS already controlled the SD and the Gestapo . On 17 June 1936 Himmler

4959-464: 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

5046-434: 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

5133-405: The position as his personal title from 1929 (becoming his actual rank in 1934) until April 1945. Under its original inception, the title and rank of Reichsführer-SS was the designation for the head of the Allgemeine SS (General-SS). In this capacity, the SS Reich Leader was the direct commander of the SS Senior District Leaders ( SS-Oberabschnitt Führer ); by 1936, the Reichsführer-SS

5220-449: The precedent for the commander of the SS to be called Reichsführer-SS . Prior to the Night of the Long Knives , the SS was an elite corps of the Sturmabteilung (SA or storm troopers), and the Reichsführer-SS was subordinate to the SA's operating head, the Stabschef . On 20 July 1934, as part of the purge of the SA, the SS was made an independent branch of the Nazi Party , responsible only to Hitler. From that point on,

5307-441: The rank had Himmler in some way been killed or removed from his position earlier in World War II, and indeed Heydrich was often seen as Himmler's heir apparent by senior SS leaders. However, at a diplomatic function in Italy in 1941, Heydrich was reported as stating that he had no desire to succeed Himmler. Reich The term Deutsches Reich (sometimes translated to " German Empire ") continued to be used even after

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5394-462: 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

5481-437: 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

5568-466: 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

5655-463: 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

5742-422: The start of the Second World War in 1939, the SS had effectively gained complete operational control over the German Police, although outwardly the SS and Police still functioned as separate entities. The Ordnungspolizei maintained its own system of insignia and Orpo ranks as well as distinctive police uniforms. Under an SS directive known as the "Rank Parity Decree", policemen were highly encouraged to join

5829-414: The task of the Gestapo was combating espionage and political dissent . On 27 September 1939, the SS security service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and the SiPo were folded into the Reich Security Main Office ( Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA). The RSHA symbolised the close connection between the SS (a party organisation) and the police (a state organisation). In broad terms, Himmler pursued

5916-407: 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 is derived from a Common Germanic * rīkijan . The English noun survives only in

6003-441: 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

6090-444: The time Himmler became the Interior Minister in 1943. It is difficult to define precisely the full detailed duties and responsibilities of the Reichsführer-SS beyond that of leader and senior member of the SS, since, in the words of historian Martin Windrow , "by the outbreak of the (Second World) war it would have been impossible to define exactly the role within the state" of the entire SS itself. The rank of Reichsführer-SS

6177-402: The title of Reichsführer-SS became an actual rank, and in fact the highest rank of the SS. In this position, Himmler was on paper the equivalent of a Generalfeldmarschall in the German Army . As Himmler's position and authority grew in Nazi Germany , so did his rank in a "de facto" sense. Further, there was never more than one Reichsführer-SS at any one time, with Himmler holding

6264-497: The title of Reichsführer-SS during the twenty years of its existence. Three persons held the position as a title while two held the actual SS rank. Hanke was appointed SS leader in April 1945, but not informed until early May. He was captured by Czech partisans on 6 May and interned. He was killed on 8 June, while attempting to escape a POW camp . Historians have often speculated that Reinhard Heydrich would have eventually held

6351-574: The very end of the war and then only through his capacity as an Army Group commander and not as the head of the SS. Top Waffen-SS commanders, such as Sepp Dietrich, Wilhelm Bittrich , and Matthias Kleinheisterkamp , further held a certain derision for Himmler, describing him as "sly and unmilitary". Attached to the office was the 18,438-strong SS formations managed by the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS ("Command Staff Reichsführer-SS ") reporting directly to Himmler. To head

6438-524: Was Heinrich Himmler . Reichsführer-SS was both a title and a rank. The title of Reichsführer was first created in 1926 by the second commander of the SS, Joseph Berchtold . Julius Schreck , founder of the SS and Berchtold's predecessor, never referred to himself as Reichsführer . Yet, the title was retroactively applied to him in later years. In 1929, Heinrich Himmler became Reichsführer-SS and referred to himself by his title instead of his regular SS rank of Obergruppenführer . This set

6525-410: 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)

6612-526: Was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government (" Reich -ification", Verreichlichung , of the police). The Orpo was controlled nominally by the Interior Ministry , but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the SS until the end of World War II . Owing to their green uniforms, Orpo were also referred to as Grüne Polizei (green police). The force

6699-572: 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

6786-689: Was defined in the SS hierarchy as the highest possible rank of the Allgemeine-SS . The exact position of the rank within the Waffen-SS evolved over many years, ranging from clearly defined to vaguely associated. The Waffen-SS was originally the small armed SS unit known as the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), and in the 1930s was under the command of Himmler who, in his position as Reichsführer-SS , issued directives and orders to SS-VT commanders. Hold-outs existed for some aspects of

6873-435: Was first established as a centralised organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed police that had been organised on a state-by-state basis. The Ordnungspolizei encompassed virtually all of Nazi Germany's law-enforcement and emergency response organisations, including fire brigades , coast guard , and civil defence . In the prewar period, Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS , and Kurt Daluege , chief of

6960-597: Was head of the three main SS branches: the Allgemeine SS , SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT; political action troops), and the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; concentration camp service). During the Second World War , the Reichsführer-SS in effect held several additional roles and wielded enormous personal power. He was responsible for all internal security within Nazi Germany . He

7047-538: Was named chief of all German police , thereby placing all uniformed police ( Orpo ) and criminal police ( Kripo ) in Germany under his control. In the latter role, he was nominally subordinate to the Interior Minister , Wilhelm Frick . It is not clear how much of this power would technically reside in the office of the Reichsführer-SS were those duties to be split up. These questions became moot by

7134-404: Was nominally subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick . However, the decree effectively subordinated the police to the SS . Himmler gained authority as all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei , whose main office became populated by officers of the SS . The police were divided into the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo or order police) and

7221-635: Was overseer of the concentration camps, extermination camps (through the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and SS-TV), and the Einsatzgruppen mobile death squads (through the Reich Security Main Office ; RSHA). Over time, his influence on both civil and foreign policy became marked, as the Reichsführer reported directly to Hitler and his actions were not tempered by checks and balances. This meant

7308-472: 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

7395-598: 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"

7482-540: Was under the overall control of Reichsführer-SS Himmler as Chief of the German Police in the Ministry of the Interior. It was initially commanded by SS- Oberstgruppenführer und Generaloberst der Polizei Kurt Daluege . In May 1943, Daluege had a massive heart attack and was removed from duty. He was replaced by SS- Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS und der Polizei Alfred Wünnenberg , who served until

7569-474: 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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