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Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich until 1943, later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship.

Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where many aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after only 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.

The Nazi Party became the largest in parliament following the July 1932 German federal election, but it did not hold a majority. Hitler refused to participate in a coalition government unless he was its leader. By the constitution of the Weimar Republic, in those circumstances the chancellor of Germany (the head of government) could be appointed by the president, Paul von Hindenburg, who appointed Hitler on 30 January 1933, at the behest of right-wing politicians and industrialists. The Reichstag fire was used to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree, leading to the suppression of civil liberties and mass arrests of political opponents. The Enabling Act of 1933 gave Hitler's government the power to make and enforce laws without the Reichstag (parliament) or president. The Nazis began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. Hindenburg died in August 1934, and Hitler became dictator by merging the powers of the chancellery and presidency. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader). Power was centralised in Hitler's person, his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitler's favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment, using heavy military spending. Financed by deficit spending, the regime undertook extensive public works projects, including the Autobahnen (motorways) and a massive secret rearmament program, forming the Wehrmacht (armed forces). The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity.

Racism, Nazi eugenics, anti-Slavism, and especially antisemitism were central ideological features of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the "master race", the purest branch of the Aryan race. Discrimination and persecution of Jews and Romani people accelerated. The first concentration camps were established in March 1933. Jews, liberals, socialists, communists, other political opponents and undesirables were imprisoned, exiled, or murdered. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed and leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed. The 1936 Summer Olympics showcased Germany on the international stage. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Hitler's hypnotic oratory to influence public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others.

From the latter half of the 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if these were not met. The Saarland voted to rejoin Germany in 1935, and in 1936 Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, which had been demilitarised after World War I. Germany seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, and demanded and received the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in that same year. In March 1939, the Slovak state was proclaimed and became a client state and the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was established on the remainder of occupied Czech lands. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe. By late 1942, Germany and its European allies in the Axis powers controlled much of Europe and North Africa. Germany exploited the raw materials and labour of its occupied territories and allies.

Genocide, mass murder, and large-scale forced labour became hallmarks of the regime. Generalplan Ost was implemented to exterminate the Slavic populations of Eastern Europe and advance the Lebensraum settler-colonial programme. Hundreds of thousands with mental or physical disabilities were murdered in hospitals and asylums. Einsatzgruppen paramilitary death squads accompanied the armed forces inside the occupied territories and conducted genocide of millions of Jews and other Holocaust victims. Millions were imprisoned, worked to death, or murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. This genocide is known as the Holocaust.

While the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was initially successful, the Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant Germany lost the initiative in 1943, and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the 1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. After the Allied invasion of France, Germany was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, and capitulated on 8 May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war. The Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.

Name[]

Common English terms for the German state in the Nazi era are "Nazi Germany" and the "Third Reich", which Hitler and the Nazis also referred to as the "Thousand-Year Reich" (Tausendjähriges Reich). The latter, a translation of the Nazi propaganda term Drittes Reich, was first used in Das Dritte Reich, a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. The book counted the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first Reich and the German Empire (1871–1918) as the second.

The name "Third Reich" was widespread even contemporarily, both within and outside of Germany. However, the term was never official, with the German state's official title remaining Deutsches Reich as per the Weimar Constitution until it became Großdeutsches Reich following the Anschluss of Austria. While the term "Third Reich" was used as a description for Germany during the time of National Socialism, it has today become a term to describe the historical era from 1933 to 1945. Brought into the Nazi jargon by Otto Strasser and Joseph Goebbels in the mid-1920s, the term was used to simultaneously provide an ideological bridge to the past and offer an alternative to the democratic Weimar system. While the term was prominently used by the Nazi Party early in the regime's time in power, by the late 1930s, it fell out of favour. On 13 June 1939, a circular was sent to all party offices stating that Hitler did not wish for the term "Third Reich" to be used. A similar directive was given to the press a few days later. Author Hermann Butzer states that the reasons for this turn appear to have been twofold: on the one hand, the Nazis wanted to underline the unique role Hitler played in bringing the party to power, therefore using Moeller van den Bruck's term seemed inappropriate. On the other hand, the intention was to portray National Socialist Germany as something historically novel; therefore the connection to the past was considered inconvenient.

Background[]

Germany was known as the Weimar Republic during the years 1919 to 1933. It was a parliamentary democracy with a semi-presidential system. The Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism (including violence from left- and right-wing paramilitaries), contentious relationships with the Allied victors of World War I, and a series of failed attempts at coalition government by divided political parties. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended, partly because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices for consumer goods, economic chaos, and food riots. When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along the Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), commonly known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1920. It was the renamed successor of the German Workers' Party (DAP) formed one year earlier, and one of several far-right political parties then active in Germany. The Nazi Party platform included destruction of the Weimar Republic, rejection of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism. They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews, who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. The Nazis proposed national and cultural renewal based upon the Völkisch movement. The party, especially its paramilitary organisation Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting the meetings of rival organisations and attacking their members as well as Jewish people on the streets. Such far-right armed groups were common in Bavaria, and were tolerated by the sympathetic far-right state government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr.

When the stock market in the United States crashed on 24 October 1929, the effect in Germany was dire. Millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazis prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation. After the federal election of 1932, the party was the largest in the Reichstag, holding 230 seats with 37.4 per cent of the popular vote.

See Also:[]

Puppet states[]

German Puppet states.

  • Slovak Republic
  • Vichy France
  • Hellenic State
  • Government of National Salvation
  • Quisling Norwegian National government
  • The Lokot Autonomy
  • The Belarusian Central Rada
  • Kingdom of Albania
  • Independent State of Croatia
  • Monaco
  • Italian Social Republic
  • Independent State of Montenegro
  • Kingdom of Hungary
  • Reichskommissariats
  • Reichskommissariat Norwegen
  • Reichskommissariat Niederlande
  • Reichskommissariat Ostland
  • Reichskommissariat Ukraine
  • Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France

Nazi Related Images[]

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