Nazi Germany was the Third Reich – but what were the other first two?

When Germany was ruled by the Nazis from 1933 until the end of World War II in 1945, the Nazi propaganda machine repeatedly referred to Germany as the Third Reich.

Reich is the German word for “empire” or “realm,” and the use of the term was meant to imply German dominance and/or unity.

The term “Third Reich” was widely used in Nazi propaganda, particularly in the regime’s early years, though it was never the official constitutional name of the state.

But what were the first two Reichs?

The Holy Roman Empire

From roughly 962 to 1806, Germany was not a unified nation as such. Instead, the territory we now call Germany was made up of many principalities and smaller territories. Together, however, this collection of entities is often referred to as the Holy Roman Empire.

Why Roman, you ask? Because it claimed to be the revival of the ancient Roman Empire, asserting a connection to the legal and political traditions of Imperial Rome.

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by Emperor Francis II in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

But roughly 65 years later, the Second Reich came along.

The German Empire

From 1871 to 1918 (the end of World War I), the German nation-state was unified under Prussian leadership—first under Kaiser Wilhelm I, followed by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Note that the Second Reich began with the unification of the German nation-state. While there had been no unified German nation-state before 1871, a German national identity and political movements advocating unification had existed for decades.

Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the Second Reich dissolved with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and became a democratic state known as the Weimar Republic, though its official name remained Deutsches Reich.

Then, 17 years later, when Hitler took power, the Third Reich was born.

In a digitized version of an article from The Times, published on September 5, 1934, the paper reported that: “Chancellor Adolf Hitler today proclaimed the arrival of the Nazi millennium, predicting that the next 1,000 years would not witness another revolution in Germany.”

Well, he was off by 988 years …

Sources: The Times, Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation