German Reich
German Reich 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, 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", 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" began to be used along with the 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 the Flensburg Government he had formed. On 5 June 1945, the Allies signed the Berlin Declaration concerning the defeat of 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 it was a continuation of the German Reich, not just 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-. Hence, for instance, the office of the Reichskanzler became the Bundeskanzler. Following German reunification on 3 October 1990, 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.
Use
In referring to the entire period between 1871 and 1945, the partially translated English phrase "German Reich" is applied by historians in formal contexts; although in common English usage this state 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, also called 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. 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 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 a "reinvigorated" third one. Subsequently the Nazi regime was 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. This name was made the official state name only during the last two years 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 was reunited in 1990 the term "German Reich" was not revived as a title for the Berlin Republic.
Difference between "Reich" and "Empire"
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 —is known in English as the "German Empire", 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, the historic German states 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" 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, which was published two days later.
However, originating from the North German Confederation, 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 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", such as East Prussia.
Bismarck 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 started to rapidly acquire overseas colonies, including possessions in Africa, Oceania and China; 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 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 the connotation of "Realm" or "State", its original 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 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.